Edtech Insiders

Send us a textIn this episode of Week in Edtech, Ben and Alex discuss:1. Big Tech:Meta launches “Seamless” LLM for speech-to-speech translation.  Multi-modal innovationMeta’s Instagram also made news in all the wrong ways2. Higher Ed:StraighterLine Partners with Acadeum to Offer College Course Sharing3. In Other News...U.S. Department of Education Holds Off On New Rules for Third-Party Servicers… For NowCurriculum Associates Acquires SoapBox LabsParentSquare Acquires Remind2U finances unveiled by Phil Hill, doesn't look goodPortland Teachers Strike Ends after a month and nobody is happyCongress (Tom Cotton) pushing a ban on cell phones in schoolSpecial Guests:Sara Mauskopf from Winnie discuss Early Childhood EducationCandice Faktor from Disco discuss Community Powered Learning

Send us a textMaria Barrera, is a Stanford-educated engineer and founder & CEO of Clayful. She is committed to addressing the youth mental health crisis. Born in Colombia and understanding the pressures of adversity, she leverages her experience from her pioneering role on Nearpod's founding team to create impactful solutions in education.Through her tireless research and collaboration with a diverse team of experts, Maria developed Clayful, offering accessible, preventative mental health resources to families of all socio-economic statuses. Her dedication to training a diverse mental health workforce and establishing partnerships with schools has already impacted thousands of students across the country.Recommended Resource:Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Dan and Chip Heath

Send us a textPer Borgen is the CEO and co-founder of Scrimba (YC S20), an interactive code-learning platform with over a million users worldwide. He’s also a web developer and coding instructor. Per's passion is to help people change their careers and lives through learning how to build software, just as he did at age 29.These days, he leads Scrimba's AI Engineering initiative. The company has partnered up with Hugging Face and LangChain to create tutorials and courses that help web developers learn how to build AI-powered apps. Through these partnerships, Per get a front-row seat at how these AI infrastructure companies lay the groundwork that the rest of the industry builds on top of. Recommended Resource:Latent Space: Rise of the AI Engineer

Send us a textAnurupa Ganguly is the founder & CEO of Prisms. She founded Prisms to scale a new world teaching model where students learn core math and science concepts spatially, physically and steeped in important real world contexts. Prisms targets bottleneck topics that are often memorized in lieu of deeply understood -- leading to huge gaps and drops offs over time in STEM. Anurupa and her team are transforming math education in the US by rapidly deploying the next generation of spatial computing devices across US K-12 districts, training teachers to integrate problem-driven learning with VR into core curriculum, and working with district leadership to rapidly improve joy, confidence and proficiencies in the modern math and science classrooms. She began her career as a math & physics teacher and later served in leadership roles across the Boston Public Schools, NYC DOE, and Success Academies. She holds degrees in EECS from MIT, and an EdM from BU. Her life's mission is to empower an equitable workforce in STEM.Recommended Resource:Experience on Demand by Jeremy Bailenson

Send us a textThis is a special episode focusing on two major leader ship changes in technology and their ramifications for Edtech: Sam Altman being released from OpenAI and hired by Microsoft, and Chip Paucek being replaced as CEO of 2U.

Send us a textIn this episode of Week in Edtech, Ben and Alex discuss:Artificial Intelligence:Executive Order on AI includes mandate that Education Department roll out guidance on the way schools should use AI technologiesOpenAI launches Agents (“GPTs”)OpenAI introduces custom AI assistants called “GPTs” that play different rolesMy North Star for the Future of AIForget ChatGPT — Extractive AI Is the Real Game-Changer for Teachers, StudentsRosalyn Launches StableSight, an Exam Proctoring AI That Counters Generative AI Use and Cheating RingsK-12:Home Schooling’s rise from fringe to fastest growing form of educationInstructure acquires Parchment for ~$800MByju’s in Talks to Sell US Unit Epic for $400 Million to JoffreTeachers and K-12 EducationHigher Ed:The False Binary in Higher EdChanges to university research Carnegie ratingsUniversities can’t accommodate all the computer science majorsFacing Pressure on Enrollment, Will Colleges Support More Transfer StudentsThis Obscure College Major Commands $100K Within Four YearsWorkforce:Udemy 2024 workforce trends reportSpecial Guest:Johann Zimmern, Education Strategy Lead at Zoom featuring Zoom One for Education

Shiren Vijiasingam, Chief Product Officer at Instructure, discusses AI, partner programs, and education evolution. Topics include enhancing education through AI, integrating technologies in the learning experience, purpose-driven niche models in education, demonstrating skills and using verifiable credentials in EdTech, and deconstructing proxies for learning and credentialing.

Send us a textIn this special episode of Edtech Insiders, Sarah Morin interviews seven founders of AI education companies at the AI Founders Forum held earlier last month in San Francisco.John Danner, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Project ReadCatalin Voss, Co-Founder and CTO at ElloChristian Byza, CEO and Co-Founder of Learn.xyzCourtney Monk, Co-Founder and COO at SchoolyticsGautam Thapar, Co-Founder and CEO of Enlighten AIShweta Gandhi, Co-Founder and CEO of Strived.ioBrandon Grusd, Co-Founder of Ethiqly AI

Send us a textIn this episode of Week in Edtech, Ben and Alex discuss:1. AI + EDU Conference Replays held last October 26, 2023 are now live on the Edtech Insiders Youtube Channel.2. Stanford Accelerate Edtech Impact Summit3. Biden's AI Executive OrderFor AI in generalData PrivacyEducation4. Edtech Noon closes $41 million Series B - Wamda5. Interview with guest Christian Byza of Learn.xyz6. Funding Rounds/M&AsSlooh raises $5M Instructure acquires Parchment for $800MBibliu acquires Texas Book CompanyVector Solutions acquires PATHWAYos Rise In acquires Blockbeam

Send us a textToday we’re speaking with Yvonne Soh and Jim Wagstaff, the co-founders of Noodle Factory, an AI-powered teaching and learning platform based in Singapore. Before co-founding Noodle Factory, Yvonne Soh spent many years in adult education, working closely with different companies to incorporate technology to improve learning outcomes. Previously, Yvonne worked in product, product marketing, and solution development roles at Dell Technologies and F5 Networks. Dr. Jim Wagstaff co-founded Noodle Factory, is also the co-founder of Jam Factory and a founding board member of Up 2 Speed–companies that focus on corporate training. Jim began his career at Dell Technologies, Brocade Communications, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise in various sales, pre-sales, sales management, channel management, general management, and executive roles. Most recently, Jim was Vice- President and General Manager of Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s data storage business in the APJ region.Jim earned both his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Liverpool (UK). His ongoing research focuses on how organizations harness the power of digital capabilities to better serve customers, students, and users. Jim has also earned his post-doctoral diploma in academic practice from the University of Liverpool in coordination with the Fellowship for Higher Education in the UK, where his ongoing work includes action research concerning the use of generative AI in teaching and learning.Recommended Resources:Techcrunchlearnprompting.org