Today’s guest on The EdTech Startup Show is Dan Carroll, Chief Product Officer at Clever.  

As a teacher and tech director, Dan saw first-hand how data obstacles were quickly becoming the biggest barriers to innovation in education. Before co-founding Clever, Dan joined Teach for America and taught science at STRIVE Preparatory Schools in Denver before becoming their director of data and technology.

Clever brings all K12 applications into one secure portal and provides single sign-on for everyone in the district.

During this episode, Dan and I discuss

• How Clever can help transform minutes of logging into minutes of learning by taking something complicated and tricky and making it dead simple, in addition to that, also making it safer, and more secure.
• The early stages of Clever, and how Dan and his co-founders made building relationships and improving security their top priorities
• How they made the observation early on that when people are adopting something new, it's not just about the technology,  but also about the people behind it.
• Dan’s approach to being a leader as a person, and as a company in the ed-tech industry.
• Clevers’ open-sourcing privacy policies and terms of service, and encouraging other applications within Clever to adopt using their policies as a starting point.
• Why EdTech can be competitive because of limited resources, but it can also be an incredibly collaborative space because ultimately everyone wants to learn and help students have an amazing education
• How Clever is partnering with companies like Zoom to help provide teachers support right now.
• Why Ed Tech purchases need to have data to measure if the tool is helping to meet classroom  goals
• Clever’s tool for EdTech analytics, and how it's helping classrooms discover what is most effective for their students.

Time-Stamped Questions Discussed During This Episode

>>>(1:00)  How would you describe Clever and what do you do there?

>>>(4:40) As a Chief Product Officer, it seems you get to always be looking to the future of the already forward-thinking culture of Ed Tech, is that accurate?

>>>(7:45) As somebody who is right in the middle of new advancements, what have you learned about facilitating and creating successful partnerships with other companies?

>>>(13:00) What is your approach to being a leader both as a person and as a company?

>>>(19:42) Can you tell me about the impact of partnering with companies like Zoom, as well as the Clever Library?

>>>(30:08) If you were to go back to teaching, what are your top three EdTech tools you would use in your classroom?

>>>(35:13) What is your perspective on how Clever could continue to shape things positively in EdTech?

>>>(41:01) What is the EdTech Startup scene like in Silicon Valley?

>>>( 44:33) Anything else you would like to share?

Links Mentioned In This Episode

• Clever App Gallery
• Clever Resources
• Clever Library
• PhET Simulations
• NewsELA
• Student Privacy Pledge
• SDPC ( Student Data Privacy Consortium)
• FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act)
• CAPA (Corrective Action Preventative Action)

Dan Carroll’s Social Media

Twitter - @bytingtheapple

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