269 - Hardeep Gulati and Marcy Daniel on PowerSchool’s Unified Classroom Experience

Today the Getting Smart team is speaking with Hardeep Gulati, the CEO of PowerSchool.

PowerSchool is a leading ed-tech platform, serving more than 32 million students, 65 million parents, and nearly 100 million users in 70 countries. The company empowers teachers and drives student growth through innovative digital classroom capabilities and real-time communication across any device.

Hardeep grew up in Central India, earned a Master’s in Computer Science at IT, moved to the United States, and started a process automation business that was quickly acquired. He spent almost a decade leading product development at Oracle and is now leading the team at PowerSchool.

Joining Hardeep in today’s episode is Marcy Daniel, the Chief Product Officer at PowerSchool. In their conversation, Marcy shares more about the platform’s functionalities, what it means to be a unified classroom, and how schools are finding the platform most useful.

Listen in to hear how Hardeep and Marcy are helping to unify technology to help schools unlock a classroom's true potential and supporting school districts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Key Takeaways: [1:16] Tom Welcomes Hardeep and Marcy to the podcast! [1:31] Hardeep speaks about his education and career background. [2:31] Hardeep reflects on the startup he created shortly after college; how he came up with the idea and the problems that it solved. [4:05] Key takeaways from Hardeep’s 12-year career in product development at Oracle. [7:26] Hardeep shares the challenges of taking on the CEO role at Powerschool and how his corporate background aided in taking on these challenges. [12:13] The history of Powerschool. [12:39] When and why Marcy joined Powerschool. [13:02] Marcy’s role at Powerschool and the acquiring of Schoology. [13:32] The functionality of the Unified Classroom — the industry’s first solution to empowering teachers with personalized learning tools to improve education outcomes for every student. [14:51] Is Schoology the learning platform in Unified Classroom? [15:03] Marcy explains why the integration of HR with Unified Classroom is important. [17:10] The functionalities of micro-credentialing in Unified Classroom. [18:52] Is there a budget management module in the Unified system? [19:23] The five Es of effectiveness in driving better education outcomes. [21:42] Why all schools should adopt a learning management system in the next 60 days. [24:24] Marcy highlights some trends, key takeaways, and behavior changes from teachers and school leaders in their school districts. [26:27] Marcy and Hardeep’s take on what will be different next school year. [29:48] How the last two months have changed Powerschool’s product roadmap. [30:46] Does the insights platform include some formative assessments or is it a data integration platform?

Mentioned in This Episode:PowerSchool Hardeep Gulati Marcy DanielSchoology PowerSchool Unified Classroom GettingSmart.com/GettingThrough

Get Involved:

Check out the blog at GettingSmart.com.

Find the Getting Smart Podcast on iTunes, leave a review and subscribe.

 

Is There Somebody You’ve Been Wanting to Learn From or a Topic You’d Like Covered?

To get in contact: Email Editor@GettingSmart.com and include ‘Podcast’ in the subject line.

The Getting Smart team will be sure to add them to their list!