Edtech Insiders

Send us a textGuest Charles Schilling, President, Enterprise Business - US, Europe & Canada @ EmeritusTopics this week:Teacher Shortages at the End of the School YearOverworked and underappreciated, teachers are burning outCardona: Americans Shouldn't be Surprised by Teacher ShortageWork-Based LearningGoogle partners with Figma to bring design tools to student ChromebooksThe Uncertain Pathway from Youth to a Good JobMetaverse/VR?What Will Learning in the Metaverse Look Like?Meet the Metaverse: A New Frontier in Virtual LearningPrescient/Sentient AIGoogle Sidelines Engineer Who Claims Its A.I. Is SentientNo, Google's AI is not sentientStudent Loans and The Value of CollegeU.S. Closer to Canceling All Federal Student Loan Debt? Biden Officials Hint At Another Extension, Potentially Tied To Student Loan ForgivenessStudent-Loan Forgiveness Will Help Narrow America’s Racial Wealth Gap, But Others Call It ‘Costly And Ineffective’As Student Engagement Falls, Colleges Wonder: ‘Are We Part of the Problem?’Funding + M&ACareAcademy, Papercup, Kinside, Cloverleaf, Gomycode, Exprto, Metacrafters.io

Send us a textKavitta Ghai is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nectir, a communication platform for higher ed that uses instant chat to build a community in every class. Kavitta founded Nectir in 2018 during her time as a student at UC Santa Barbara, and has since raised over $2.25M to bring communication infrastructure to every campus and classroom out there. Her goal is to make quality education accessible to every student around the globe.Nectir is a communication platform for higher education that connects the campus by building a virtual community in every classroom. It was built hand in hand with instructors and students to ensure that everyone has exactly what they need to make learning more accessible. With over 100 campuses adopting Nectir in just the last few months, it’s clear that this tool is the future of social education.Recommended Resources"Talk to 10 people every week. Find 10 people who you want to be your customers or your users and just talk to them.  I guarantee you, give it three months, and you will learn so much that you could start 10 companies out of those conversations. That is the best way to break into edtech or any industry that you want."

Send us a textGuest: Philip Cutler, CEO @ PaperTopics This Week:MetaversitiesWith Money From Facebook, 10 Colleges Turn Their Campuses into ‘Metaversities’Guild & OprahGuild Education Reaches $4.4B Valuation As Labor Market Demands Continue – And A Downturn Threat RisesApprenticeshipsMultiverse nabs $220M at a $1.7B valuationSanoma in ItalySanoma acquires Pearson’s local K-12 learning contentBeyond Byju’sPhysicsWallah becomes unicorn with $100M Series ACuemath Doubles its Valuation with $57M fundingScaler readies $50M M&A arsenalMore Funding + M&A! Go1, Edrolo, Ethena, Odilo, Bibliu, Prisms VR, Talently, Kira Learning, Learnoverse, UniApp, & SimplifyServiceNow – Hitch, Riverside Insights – Aperture Education 

Send us a textSarah Toms is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Wharton Interactive. She is a serious games expert and demonstrated thought leader in the educational technology field, fueled by a passion to find and develop innovative ways to make every learning environment active, engaging, more meaningful, and learner-centered.Sarah has built transformative gaming platforms for education from the ground up, like Wharton Interactive’s award winning Alternate Reality Courseware platform. And she and her team are building the most innovative catalog of ARC games-based courses on the planet. Sarah has spent more than twenty years as a leader in the technology sphere, and was an entrepreneur for over a decade, founding companies that built global CRM, product development, productivity management, and financial systems. In addition, Sarah is coauthor of The Customer Centricity Playbook, the Digital Book Awards 2019 Best Business Book. And she is dedicated to supporting women and girls in the technology field, cofounding WIT@Penn, and through her work with the Women in Tech Summit and techgirlz.org. Recommended ResourcesLearn Better: Mastering the Skills for Success in Life, Business, and School, or How to Become an Expert in Just About Anything by Ulrich BoserBeing Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn SchulzPeak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Poole

Send us a textTopics This Week:Edtech Funding LandscapeWhy Some Investors Say Edtech ‘Doom and Gloom’ OverhypedUnacademy tells employees to focus on profitability at all costs to ‘survive the winter’College EnrollmentCollege Enrollment Drops, Even as the Pandemic’s Effects EbbCredential Train Is Leaving the Station—Get on BoardIf Students Had Their Way, Hybrid Learning Would Be Here To StayTech as ContentTeaching AI to All StudentsITE and Microsoft Collaborate to Equip over 4,000 Students with Responsible AI SkillsWhy children around the world need crypto educationCode.org to Offer Equity-Minded AP Computer Science Curriculum NationwideIndian Edtech ShrinksByju Raveendran Set to Focus on US Market as India’s EdTech Dries UpByju's to divert focus on global businesses as Indian market is shrinkingThe Curious Case of BYJU's and WhiteHat Jr's Sudden DownfallFunding + M&ASkillePointe secures $2.25M in Series BLearnfully raises $2MSafe School raises $2MZovio sells TutorMe to GoGuardian for $55MRoblox to partner with medically-prescribed video game

Send us a textErin Mote is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of InnovateEDU, a non-profit that brings together leaders in education and technology to design and develop breakthrough models and tools to help ensure that all students graduate from high school ready to succeed in college and careers of their choosing. Erin is also the co-founder of Brooklyn Laboratory Charter School and has served in an advisory capacity to the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Obama Administration’s Global Development Innovation Policy, and the State Department’s TechCamp program.Recommended ResourcesMade to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan HeathThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas KuhnMan's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Send us a textGuest: Jeffrey Cohen, CEO of FullBloomTopics This Week:Class Technologies Acquires Blackboard Collaborate$210M DealPhilOnEdTech Take MetaverseMercedes Bent on why Metaverse isn’t Over-hypedWorld Economic Forum: the future of education is in experiential learning & VRVirtual Is the New Reality for M.B.A. StudentsInvact Metaversity cancels first cohortBig Tech in EdFacebook Working on a Udemy Competitor?Declining Enrollment at Public SchoolsNYT ‘Seismic Hit’ TakeFunding + M&AFundraising in a Downturn? + Emerge Summit 22Masterschool raises $100MTorch raises $40MParallel Learning raises $20MFoondaMate raises $2M6 Bit Education raises £800KKnowunity raises €10MAmplify Acquires Desmos

Send us a textSophie Brickman is the author of the new book “Baby, Unplugged: One Mother’s Search for Balance, Reason and Sanity in the Digital Age”, all about how parents can try to navigate the world of technology. Sophie Brickman is a writer, reporter and editor based in New York City. Her journalistic work has appeared in The Guardian, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, the Best Food Writing compilation, and the Best American Science Writing compilation, among other places.Recommended ResourcesThe Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction by  Megan Cox Gurdon

Send us a text1.  Brutal Year for EdTechIt’s Been A ‘Brutal’ Year for Public Education Companies2.  Major Breaking News:  Byju’s in Talks to Buy Chegg or 2UIndia’s Byju’s Eyes Chegg or 2U as It Weighs US AcquisitionScott Galloway’s edtech startup, Section4, lays off a quarter of staff3.  Advertising and Marketing over Education in College SpendGAO Report on Online Program Managers Was Only a Start4. K-12 Beat: California Community SchoolsCalifornia set to launch hundreds of community schools with $635 million in grants5.  Funding + M&AAmplify buys Desmos Curriculum (link)Animoca moves into Education (link)Cornerstone Acquires Edcast (link)GAME: Sign of the Apocalypse or Put Down Your Betting Chips?Online M.B.A.s Overtake Residential ProgramsNational EdTech Plan Getting First Refresh Since 2017ACT Study Finds Grade Inflation in High School GPAs over the Past DecadeStudent Loan Borrowers Don’t Deserve ‘Forgiveness.’ They Deserve an Apology

Send us a textLouisa Rosenheck is the Director of Pedagogy at Kahoot!, one of the largest and most influential gamified edtech companies in the world. Louisa is also an ed tech designer with a passion for game-based learning and playful pedagogies, and teaches educational technology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she earned her Master’s degree in the Harvard TIE program. Previously, she was the co-founder of MIT’s Playful Journeys lab, and a researcher at the MIT Education Arcade. She was also a classroom teacher, having taught preschool and teaching English in China.Recommended ResourcesResonant Games: Design Principles for Learning Games that Connect Hearts, Minds, and the Everyday by Eric Klopfer, Jason Haas, Scot Osterweil and Louisa Rosenheck  Lego Foundation ReportsLearning, Education & Games: 100 Games to Use in the Classroom & Beyond by Karen SchrierWe the Gamers: How Games Teach Ethics and Civics by Karen SchrierDesign Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need by Sasha Costanza-ChockLifelong Kindergarten by Mitch Resnick