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Startups
Portland education tech startup expands broadly with D.C. office, new president (Portland Business Journals)
Education technology startup Alma is beefing up its executive team and opening a second office, all in response to growth since launching in February. Jack Macleod was named president of the company and will be based in the newly opened Washington, D.C., office. The company opted to open a DC office to tap the talent pool in the region as well as better serve clients on the East Coast. Macleod will be responsible for leading Alma�s sales, marketing and operations, the company said in a statement. Since launching earlier this year the company, which makes K-12 school and classroom management software, has signed up schools in 31 states and 10 different countries.
Function Space Brings Its Learning, Discussing And Problem Solving Science Platform To iOS (Tech Crunch)
Most educational platforms feature a core trait such as learning, discussing or problem solving. Function Space, a social learning science network, wants to bring the three together for free in a cross-platform learning portal aimed at corporate research and students at any level. With 18 different categories ranging from quantum physics and cosmology to calculus and artificial intelligence, users can browse custom activity feeds to find scientific articles, problems to solve and discussions. Today, the company is launching its iOS app, where users can browse article feeds and participate in discussions, but cannot access problem solving sets. The key focus for the web app is blending the three steps together, says Adit Gupta, CEO and co-founder of Function Space. �It�s not just about learning but about interacting with people and solving problems,� he said. �We don�t have any direct competition.�
Industry
Place Your Bets (Inside Higher Ed)
Can the billion-dollar ed-tech industry, flush with funds from venture capital firms, keep up its record-setting investment pace, or is it setting itself up for a massive crash? It was a question floated at this year�s Education Innovation Summit, the marquee event for ed-tech companies -- startups and established players alike -- to woo investors eyeing the industry. Self-titled �Davos in the Desert,� the event, hosted by Arizona State University and the investment firm GSV Advisors, brings potential business partners together for three days at the Phoenician, a luxury resort in Scottsdale, Ariz. The summit has swelled from 300 to more than 2,000 attendants in five years, and the ed-tech sector has followed suit. In both 2012 and 2013, ed-tech investments topped $1 billion, and in the first quarter of 2014 alone, companies reaped more than half a billion dollars in venture capital, according to CB Insights.
How Chicago is Bringing Together Edtech Entrepreneurs and Educators (edSurge)
When exploring the current landscape in edtech, it�s hard not to be excited. There is a proliferation of smart, scrappy entrepreneurs creating solutions to long-standing challenges in schools and classrooms. Edtech incubators and accelerators are popping up across the country to cultivate new companies, and venture capital to support them is increasing. But for technology to have a real impact on K-12 education, the ultimate change has to take place in the classroom. While there are pockets of innovation and adoption of new technologies in school districts throughout the country, both the level of awareness among educators and the pace of access and adoption in schools are still at a very early stage.
In The Classroom
The Modern Classroom: Students, Teachers and Data-Driven Education (Mashable)
The days of paper textbooks seem destined to become as distant a memory as cursive handwriting. In 2014, big data is reshaping the way students receive curriculum and learn, and the tools of the new and digital classroom are changing the dynamics for educators. "Data is changing the way people think," says Eileen Murphy Buckley, founder and CEO of ThinkCERCA, a company in the data-driven education space. "From critical accountability to teacher accountability to the way we arrange time, our learning spaces, technologies � data is disrupting everything." The inclusion of the computer in K�12 classes is nothing new; they've been on desks since the days of Texas Instruments. In more recent times, however, pupils aren't turning to their screens to learn a little BASIC or play a round of Oregon Trail � they're increasingly experiencing data-driven teaching as a fully integrated part of a post-textbook, personalized academic process.
Schools Eye Mobile Content Management (EdTech Magazine)
Financially challenged school districts do the best they can with mobile device management, often using core wireless networking system tools to manage tablets and smartphones. That�s the tactic Washington County Public Schools in Hagerstown, Md., takes. Jim Corns, chief operations officer for instructional technology for the district, relies on the MDM tools within the Cisco Meraki network to remotely wipe lost or stolen devices and reset passwords. The district uses Google Drive for secure content management. �A lot of learning takes place outside the school, so we want to set it up so students and teachers can securely exchange documents and schoolwork remotely,� Corns says. Chris Silva, research director for mobile and client computing for Gartner, says districts will increasingly integrate content management into their MDM environments.
Viewpoints
The Future of College? (The Atlantic)
On a Friday morning in April, I strapped on a headset, leaned into a microphone, and experienced what had been described to me as a type of time travel to the future of higher education. I was on the ninth floor of a building in downtown San Francisco, in a neighborhood whose streets are heavily populated with winos and vagrants, and whose buildings host hip new businesses, many of them tech start-ups. In a small room, I was flanked by a publicist and a tech manager from an educational venture called the Minerva Project, whose founder and CEO, the 39-year-old entrepreneur Ben Nelson, aims to replace (or, when he is feeling less aggressive, �reform�) the modern liberal-arts college. Minerva is an accredited university with administrative offices and a dorm in San Francisco, and it plans to open locations in at least six other major world cities. But the key to Minerva, what sets it apart most jarringly from traditional universities, is a proprietary online platform developed to apply pedagogical practices that have been studied and vetted by one of the world�s foremost psychologists, a former Harvard dean named Stephen M. Kosslyn, who joined Minerva in 2012.
Coding
New Minecraft Mod Teaches You Code as You Play (Wired)
Like many nine-year-olds, Stanley Strum spends a lot of time building things in Minecraft, the immersive game that lets your create your own mini-universe. The game has many tools. But Stanley is one of many players taking the game a step further by building entirely new features into the game. And, more than that, he�s also learning how to code. He�s doing this with a tweak to the Minecraft game, called LearnToMod. Modifications like this, called �mods,� are a big part of the game�s runaway success. But this particular mod helps kids learn to create their own mods. For example, Strum built a teleporter that whisks him to a random location within the game world. Another lesson teaches kids to write the code to create a special bow that shoots arrows that become �portals� between different locations in the game, allowing them to reach spaces that would otherwise be quite difficult to access. It�s like being able to create your own cheat codes.
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AT&T Makes Million Dollar Contribution To Girls Who Code To Support Next Generation Of Female Tech Leaders
 AT&T today announced a $1 million contribution to Girls Who Code, a national nonprofit working to close the gender gap in the technology and engineering sectors. The announcement was made at the graduation ceremony for AT&T's Girls Who Code Summer Immersion Program, a rigorous computer science course aimed at educating, inspiring and equipping high school girls with the skills, resources and confidence necessary to pursue opportunities in the technology field. AT&T additional contribution will help Girls Who Code expand its Summer Immersion Program and Girls Who Code clubs to additional cities across the country, offering more young women access to computer science courses and technology. Beginning on July 11th, AT&T welcomed twenty high school girls from across the five boroughs and metro suburbs, as well as one who travelled all the way from Houston, TX, to its New York City executive office in Rockefeller Center.
N2N Launches Student Success Platform for Higher Education
 N2N Services, a leading company focused on technology innovation in the education sector, recently launched its Student Success Platform for Higher Education. N2N�s innovative new application includes comprehensive tools to support enrollment management, student retention and learning remediation. The Student Success Platform includes comprehensive tools to support enrollment management, student retention and learning remediation. N2N uses Tableau as an integrated reporting and data visualization tool for the company�s cloud-based Learning Media Platform, Integrated Student Information System and Student CRM products. �While N2N was comfortable with the flexible and comprehensive data model we have designed for higher education, we realized that developing reports and dashboards using conventional BI tools on the market was a very difficult task for a company of our size,� said Kiran Kodithala, CEO at N2N. �After conducting thorough research, we have decided to use Tableau for all our data visualization and reporting needs. Integrating Tableau into our product stack is a perfect fit for the higher education and N2N in particular.�
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