Edtech Insiders

Send us a textEvan Hill-Ries is Deputy General Counsel at Amplify, a next-generation curriculum and assessment company serving 10 million students in all 50 states. Responsible for supporting Amplify's K–8 digital curriculum product teams on content issues, development best practices, data privacy, and sales and marketing compliance, as well as company-wide work on corporate and strategic transactions, equity incentive plans, information security, accessibility, and HR policies. Evan has taught Copyright, Commerce, and Culture in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communications at NYU, and has counselled corporate clients on intellectual property, software development, equity financing at several corporate law firms.Trevor Skene is the co-founder and CEO of Patent Hacks. Patent Hacks is a patent education company developed by 3 former USPTO patent examiners, who have designed an online educational platform (Learning Center) dedicated to making the patent process affordable for everyone. Trevor has also served as an entrepreneur and mentor at innovation labs in Pennsylvania, where Patent Hacks is located.Recommended Resources:Evan Hill-Ries: Copyrights Highway by Paul GoldsteinTrevor Skene:@patent_hacks on TwitterIPWatchdog.comUS Intellectual Property Alliance (USIPA)

Send us a textOn this Week in Edtech:1) A16z on EdtechAndreessen Horowitz is 'betting heavily' on edtech 2) Layoffs in Tech...Latest layoffs: Companies making cutsThousands of tech workers were laid off last week3) ...and EdtechEd Tech - LayoffsTrackerCoursera announces layoffs Unacademy cuts 10% of jobsBrainly Fires Employees 4) Indian Edtech is MessiBYJU'S unveils Lionel Messi as Global Brand AmbassadorWill Offline Push Help Unacademy, BYJU’S & Co Beat Edtech Blues? upGrad Earmarks $30 Million For Offline Expansion5) Return on Investment for Traditional Education vs. "Upskilling" Emeritus Shows Upskilling Results in Pay Raises and Career AdvancementsGen Zers don’t see the point in getting a degree: how to fix the ROI of college (Aaron Rasmussen)Three steps to assess ROI for higher education

Send us a textOn this Week In Edtech, we talk to:Mohammed Almadani, CEO of Classera, a gamified and personalized LMS for emerging markets that raised $40M this weekMatthew Rascoff, Vice Provost for Digital Education at Stanford University, and the Stanford Digital Education Team about their Pandemic-Era Online Learning Strategy reportWe also cover:Election Season in the USWhy National Advocates Are Getting More Involved in School Board ElectionsAt Center of MI Election, a School Choice Measure Few Residents Have Heard AboutWhy All Eyes are Now on the Often Ignored Texas Board of Education RacesCohort-Based Courses and Course CreatorsProfessional Mode for Meta Creators Goes Global Maven’s a16z-backed live learning platform pivots from creators to expertsThe recent 14% gain must have brightened CEO Greg Smith's week, Thinkific Labs Inc.'s (TSE:THNC) most bullish insiderInternational EdtechIndiaIn a shakeup: What is the future of edtech in India?Indian math EdTech firm Bhanzu eyes expansion to Southeast Asia, Middle EastEdTech sector sees spate of M&A deals (Hindu Business Line)Latin America2022 Latin America EdTech 100Defining the Educational Landscape: Trends and a Look to the Future (HolonIQ in Mexico)JD Duarte highlights the rising position of Latin America for startups and new businessFunding:Edtech firm Classera raises $40 million in round led by PIF's SanabilPixaera raises €5.7 million (Immersive Play Based Learning) Eight Times Eight raises $5 million in pre-seed funding (Chess Education)AlmaBetter Secures Funding To Offer More Upskilling Courses To Students

Send us a textIn this first-of-its-kind episode, Edtech Insiders hosts a debate about the value of Practical vs. Classical Education. What is the true goal of education? In an age when the talk of the "ROI" of education is everywhere, what is the role of the classical liberal arts ideal of an enlightened and informed citizenry? Dr. Christian Marty studied history, philosophy and media studies at the University of Zurich and received his doctorate there in 2019 with a thesis on Max Weber. Parallel to his doctorate, he built and led a very successful tutoring school that still exists today. In 2020 he founded Evulpo, a learning platform with helpful learning material aligned to curricula for students throughout Europe, and eventually, the world.Bailey Parnell is the Founder & CEO of SkillsCamp and was named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women in 2016, and her TEDx talk about social media and mental health has over 3 million views.  SkillsCamp is a soft skills training company that works with businesses and educational institutions to help their staff and students develop the essential skills needed for personal and professional success.Molly Blankenship is an Associate Director at Jobs For the Future. She was a Forbes 30 Under 30 in education for her role as the director of Chattanooga 2.0. Her focus: helping students succeed and enter the workforce. She has helped the county's highest-need high schools add advanced placement courses and classes on preparing for the ACT college entrance exam. 

Send us a textShawn Young is a co-founder and CEO of Classcraft Studios Inc. He taught 11th grade physics for 9 years, holds a bachelor’s degree in physics and master’s in education from Université de Sherbrooke and is also a seasoned web developer. Shawn is the vice-president of the Edteq Association and is an Ambassador for the Education faculty of University of Sherbrooke. Classcraft is an Engagement Management System for schools, making it easy for schools to inject gamification into many aspects of learning. Classcraft is based on research in Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS). PBIS is an evidence-based three-tiered framework to improve and integrate all the data, systems, and practices affecting student outcomes every day.

Send us a textIn this episode, we speak to Claire Chen of Stanford GSB and Brighteye Ventures, who just put out the brand new report, Understanding the Edtech Content Landscape.We also discuss:1) Video & Tiktok in Education Revyze is building the TikTok of educational videos (Techcrunch)Kids content to remain ad-free on Netflix (Kidscreen)Consumers turning from SVOD to AVOD and FAST (Digital TV Europe)2) College Environment Shifts, In Part Due to Decreased Enrollment  As Enrollments Decline, Colleges Respond With Technology, New Curricula And Business Partnerships (Forbes)Why College is like House of Dragons (Inside Higher Ed)A Surge in Young Undergrads, Fully Online (Inside Higher Ed)3) Learning Loss in K12Study: $190B in ESSER funds ‘insufficient’ to curb learning loss (K12 Dive)Cambium Study on Learning Loss (Cambium)4) Indian EdtechByju's Raises $250M in Fresh Funding (TechCrunch)

Send us a textIn this episode, we speak with Joe Connor of Odyssey, which raised a $4.75M dollar seed round this week to help districts and families use flexible education funding sources, like Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) and microgrants. Ben and Alex also discuss:1) Elections & Education: The Rise of Education Polarization Is College Worth It? Voters Are Split. (Five Thirty Eight)How the Diploma Divide Is Remaking American Politics (New York)‘There Are Two Americas Now: One With a B.A. and One Without’ (NYTimes)Award-Winning Teachers Are Pushing Back Against Attacks on ‘Honest Education’ (Edweek)2) Stanford's Pandemic-Fueled Pivot to Online EducationReview of Stanford’s ‘emergency remote teaching’ and learning explores lessons learned from the pandemic (Stanford)3) Edtech Mega-VC Michael Moe on the MetaverseVirtual Reality and the History and Future of Education in the Metaverse (EIEIO: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Education, Impact and Opportunity)4) Gates foundation pivots to Math as NAEP scores underscore crisis Student math scores are down from pre-COVID levels, the National Report Card finds (NPR)Why the Gates Foundation Is Investing $1.1 Billion in Math Education (Edweek) NAEP ‘Nation’s Report Card’ Shows Steep Fall in Math Scores (Edsurge)How Do Schools Come Back From ‘Catastrophic’ Drops in Math, Reading on NAEP? (Edweek)5) Digital Surveillance and Monitoring in Schools and Children's Right to PrivacyKids Are Back in Classrooms and Laptops Are Still Spying on Them (Wired)Surveillance Education Cycle: Finding Ways to Protect Privacy in Schools (Random Lengths News)New Polling Finds Parents and Educators Overwhelmingly Support Technology Designed to Keep Students Safe Online (GoGuardian PR)

Send us a textMonica Arés is the Head of Immersive Learning at Meta, where she is focused on building an ecosystem that will allow anyone, anywhere to learn and grow in the metaverse. As a Harvard Graduate School of Education alumna, former math educator, curriculum developer, and planetarium director, Monica is at the forefront of skilling the next generation of AR/VR creators and developing products, programs and content to make learning more powerful and accessible. In this podcast, we discuss both the great opportunities and great challenges of the Educational metaverse.

Send us a textGuest Julia Stiglitz, CEO of CoRise and former GSV partnerThe Massive Lego/Brainpop acquisitionLego Acquires Brainpop - WSJ Questioning the ROI for Higher EdRanking 4,500 Colleges by ROI (2022)How liberal arts colleges are adding work-focused courses students want Byju's Layoffs/Edtech in IndiaByju’s cuts 2,500 jobs Post-Pandemic World Poses Existential Challenge to India’s Edtech SectorOnline Ed ResearchWhat researchers learned about online higher education during the pandemicFunding:Adda247 ($35M)CLASSUM ($11M)Fizz ($4.5M)Halp ($4M)Ludenso ($1M)Marathon (Undisclosed Seed)Mergers and Acquisitions:KIRKBI A/S (Lego) Acquires BrainPOP (BusinessWire)Google Acquires BrightBytes (

Send us a textIn this episode, we speak to Greg Toppo and Jim Tracy, co-authors of Running with Robots: The American High School’s Third Century from MIT Press, available at Amazon, Bookshop or wherever you get your books! Greg Toppo is a journalist with more than 25 years of experience, most of it covering education. He spent 15 years as the national education reporter for USA Today and was most recently a senior editor for Inside Higher Ed. From 2017 to 2021, he was president of the Education Writers Association.  Jim Tracy is Senior Advisor at Jobs for the Future (JFF) and Senior Scholar of the Center for Character and Social Responsibility at Boston University's Wheelock School of Education. He has been head of several independent schools, as well as a college president.Recommended Resources:Teaching Machines by Audrey Watters The Game Believes in You: How Digital Play Makes Kids Smarter by Greg Toppo