Edtech Insiders

Maia Glikman is a Los Angeles based producer whose body of work spans numerous areas of the entertainment industry. Highlights as an executive include several years at ABC Network, Lucasfilm and Sony Pictures Television. Maia is the CEO of GoKidGo, Inc. and Never Ever Productions, female led ventures developing exceptional IP for children and adults respectively. As a creative producer, Maia’s mandate is the production of high-quality content that resonates with today’s audience, most especially those that champion female and underrepresented voices. Most recently, R.L. Stine’s Story Club, produced by GoKidGo, has been selected as a Best of the Best finalist for "Best Podcast” at the 2022 Cynopsis Awards.

Matt Hammersley is the Co-Founder and CEO at Novel Effect, Inc. Novel Effect is an award-winning mobile app that follows along during story time with interactive music, sound effects, and character voices creating magical moments when you read aloud with your child. They are on a mission to empower educators, parents, and kids to connect and engage with each other and books. Their unique form of storytelling brings the story to life, engaging and capturing the imaginations of children and their grown-ups. They believe every child is full of potential and that more well-read children in the world will create a better future for us all!

Recommended Resources:
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Rebecca Kantar serves as Vice President of Education and Director of the Roblox Community Fund at Roblox Corporation (NYSE: RBLX), a technology platform bringing the world together through play. Rebecca is responsible for growing Roblox’s education vertical into a self-sustaining ecosystem of outstanding educational content creators, bringing deeper learning curricular materials to educators and students. Roblox Education connects educational organizations with extraordinary Roblox developer studios through Roblox Community Fund grants.

Rebecca came to Roblox in 2020 when Roblox acquired Imbellus Inc., a simulation-based assessment technology company Rebecca founded and led. Rebecca founded Imbellus with conviction that better educational assessments would drive deeper teaching and learning and in turn, more students graduating ready for adulthood. In delivering operational, fair, valid, and reliable assessments at scale, Imbellus demonstrated the potential for simulation-based assessments to measure deep thinking skills in high-stakes workforce and educational contexts. Rebecca led Imbellus in raising over $23M, signing multimillion-dollar development contracts with Fortune 500 corporations and in completing successful M&A transactions with Roblox Corporation and McKinsey & Company. Prior to launching Imbellus, Rebecca founded an expert network that Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG) acquired in 2012.

Rebecca serves as a Vice Chair of the Museum of Science Board of Trustees, where she serves on the Campaign Cabinet and as Vice Chair of the Trustee Nominating Committee. Rebecca has served as an advisor to the Common Application and to the MA Common Start Coalition. Rebecca grew up in Newton, MA and currently lives in Massachusetts.

Links:
Roblox's educational partner site, for organizations or developers interested in building experiences in various subjects - including well-being, social/emotional learning on Roblox: https://education.roblox.com/partners/

Recommended Resources:
Whiteboard Advisors newsletter
COVID-19 Policy Update by John Bailey
Emily in Your Phone newsletter to stay up to date on state of public school happenings
Nice White Parents podcast

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Dustin Ramsdell is an EdTech content creator and influencer who aims to drive meaningful conversations with top leaders in the Higher Ed field. His show, The Higher Ed Geek Podcast, explores all the nuances of higher education, with a focus on innovative technology and practices from his fellow professionals. Dustin also currently works as the Community Engagement Lead at Pathify. He loves craft beer, good pizza, and sustainability. Dustin lives happily in Delaware with his wife, Jenn, and their daughter, Ellie.

Recommended Resources:
Student Success Event by Times Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed
November 7–9, 2023
University of California, Los Angeles

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Ben Strouse oversees Gen-Z Media, the studio behind the biggest middle-grade and family podcast mysteries and adventures. Its slate of more than 20 shows includes “Six Minutes,” the most downloaded family drama in history and a big classroom favorite, the Peabody Award winning classic “The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel,” and its current hit, “Nightingale”, in which three teens with cancer find a portal in the hospital basement leading to another world. GZM Shows focuses exclusively on producing smart and purposeful digital programming created specifically to impact and engage tweens, teens and family audiences.

Recommended Resources:
gzmclassroom.com
weareteachers.com list of podcasts

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David Shacklette is the Product Manager for the Harvard Skills Lab, a Schmidt Futures funded research initiative and startup that designs performance-based assessment tools that can be used by universities, businesses, and individuals to provide a clearer picture of the foundational skills (sometimes called “soft skills”) required for individuals and teams to succeed in the labor market. 

Prior to joining the Skills Lab, David has held product roles at Fortune Magazine, where most notably he launched and scaled Fortune’s first education vertical (fortune.com/education) in partnership with 2U, and has previously held a variety of operational and leadership roles in venture capital and early-stage startups in the Bay Area. 

David holds a Master’s degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, where he focused on topics in the fields of Educational Neuroscience and AI.

Recommended Resources:
https://www.skillslab.dev/game-library
Forked Lightning by David Deming

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Amanda Bickerstaff is the Founder and CEO of AI for Education. A former high school biology teacher and EdTech executive with over 20 years of experience in the education sector, she has a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities that AI can offer. She is a frequent consultant, speaker, and writer on the topic of AI in education, leading workshops and professional learning across both K12 and Higher Ed. Amanda is committed to helping schools and teachers maximize their potential through the ethical and equitable adoption of AI.

Recommended Resources:
One Useful Thing by Prof. Ethan Mollick

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Andrew Cohen is the founder & CEO of Brainscape, a web & mobile education platform that helps millions of people study more efficiently.  Brainscape allows students of all ages to create, share, and find great “smart flashcards” for any subject, and to study them using a fun, social experience that is scientifically proven to boost learning results.

Before starting Brainscape, Andrew worked as an international economist (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics), eLearning curriculum developer (Satori Consulting and United Nations), and government corruption fighter (World Bank).  He holds a Masters degree in Instructional Technology from Columbia University and is obsessed with optimizing human development using cognitive science.


Recommended Resources:
Brainscape website
Brainscape mobile app
Brainscape Academy
Brainscape YouTube

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Jessica Tenuta is the Chief Product Officer and Cofounder of Packback, where she works with engineering, design, and support teams to design a product experience that fuels student curiosity and builds more confident writers. Outside of her time at Packback Jessica is the cofounder and creative director of Play Together, a Chicago-based non-profit art-and-music label that produces limited edition collaborations between a visual artist and a musical artist, with proceeds benefiting a selected Chicago arts education program. Jess has been featured in Forbes, the Chicago Sun Times, Fast Company, the Techweek 100, TEDx, and Chicago Inno.

Packback is an award-winning learning platform for improving writing, critical thinking, and motivation skills. Unlike generative AI models, which power tools like ChatGPT and can be used to generate complete passages of text on behalf of a user, Packback uses AI to coach students to build their critical thinking and writing skills.

Recommended Resources
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink

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In this special episode of Week in Edtech, we speak to two leaders in the K12 space using AI to support teachers and learners:

Deepanshu Arora, Founder and CEO of Toddle Learning

Toddle's  mission is to help teaching teams around the world do their best work. More specifically, Toddle is an end-to-end solution for all your teaching and learning needs. Teaching teams use Toddle for curriculum planning, assessments, student portfolios, projects, progress reports, classroom management, family communication and much more.

Vivek Ramakrishnan, Co-Founder of Project Read

Built by teachers and AI experts from Stanford, Project Read is an ambitious effort to make personalized reading support accessible for all kids, regardless of income. Accessible in browsers on mobile, tablet or desktop.

Get ready to explore the future of education! Join Edtech Insiders for a virtual conference featuring 30+ of the top voices shaping the future of Al + Education. A full day of keynote speakers, panel discussions, and networking!

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In this episode, we discuss:

AI

• Pipeline Perspectives: Trends From 280+ Generative AI Edtech Tools
• EdTech Companies Are Racing to Build a GitHub Copilot for Teachers
• Teachers Are Going All In on Generative AI

K12

• 2023 SETDA State of Edtech Report 
• Curriculum Associates Report: State of Student Learning
• Common Sense: 2023 State of Kids Privacy
• Clever's Classroom of the Future Report

Higher Ed

• Admissions Officers Reflect on a Transformative Year

Byju's

• Byju’s hid $533 million in hedge fund once run from a Miami pancake shop, lenders allege

Funding:

- Learn.xyz secured $3M in seed round, now posted on Product Hunt 

- Curipod raised $4.6 million in seed funding. 

- Correcto secured €6.5 million to elevate Spanish writing skills with AI

- ELSA raises $23M 

- Mathpresso raises $8M 

- Swap Language raises $2.15M 

Get ready to explore the future of education! Join Edtech Insiders for a virtual conference featuring 30+ of the top voices shaping the future of Al + Education. A full day of keynote speakers, panel discussions, and networking!

Register now here: AI+EDU Virtual Conference