Edtech Insiders

Sophie 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 Resources
The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction by  Megan Cox Gurdon

1.  Brutal Year for EdTech

• It’s Been A ‘Brutal’ Year for Public Education Companies

2.  Major Breaking News:  Byju’s in Talks to Buy Chegg or 2U

• India’s Byju’s Eyes Chegg or 2U as It Weighs US Acquisition
• Scott Galloway’s edtech startup, Section4, lays off a quarter of staff

3.  Advertising and Marketing over Education in College Spend

• GAO Report on Online Program Managers Was Only a Start

4. K-12 Beat: California Community Schools

• California set to launch hundreds of community schools with $635 million in grants

5.  Funding + M&A

• Amplify 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 Programs
• National EdTech Plan Getting First Refresh Since 2017
• ACT Study Finds Grade Inflation in High School GPAs over the Past Decade
• Student Loan Borrowers Don’t Deserve ‘Forgiveness.’ They Deserve an Apology

Louisa 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 Resources

• Resonant 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 Reports
• Learning, Education & Games: 100 Games to Use in the Classroom & Beyond by Karen Schrier
• We the Gamers: How Games Teach Ethics and Civics by Karen Schrier
• Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need by Sasha Costanza-Chock
• Lifelong Kindergarten by Mitch Resnick

Topics This Week:

1. Higher Ed’s Commodification and Decentralization
   • Upskilling Trend Brings Coupons, ‘Flash Sales’ and Other Marketing Gimmicks
   • edX’s Role After 2U Acquisition
   • The Future Of Learning Is Radically Decentralized
2. K-12
   • LAUSD makes 'historic' $50M investment to address digital divide
   • Union pushback on Meta
   • Twitter sale shows us why edtech companies should be accountable to schools
   • TikTok May Be More Dangerous Than It Looks
3. Workforce Development
   • Unpaid Internships vs. Work-Based Courses.
   • Why MIT was right to reinstate the SAT
4. Layoffs amid a Looming Recession
   • Brutal week of layoffs - OnDeck along with Vedantu, Unacademy, Whitehat Jr & Lido Learning
   • 800 WhiteHat Jr Employees Resign
5. Funding + M&A
   • Educapital, Manara, Skillmatics, iNurture, Rise Up, Magnify Venture, ForeignAdmits, Pando, Byju’s

Jordan Adair is the Vice President of Product at Honorlock, an online proctoring platform dedicated to maintaining academic integrity. Jordan began his career in education as an elementary and middle school teacher. After transitioning into educational technology, he became focused on delivering products designed to empower instructors and improve the student experience.

Honorlock is an assessment integrity service that combines AI & live test proctors to make online proctoring simple, easy, and human.

Resources:

Creating an Anxiety-Free Proctoring Experience

Guest: Ashley Andersen Zantop, CEO & Chairman of Cambium Learning Group

Topics This Week:

1. Google Grow Good?
   • Training now free for 500 workers at every U.S. business
2. Student Debt Cancellation
   • Broad cancellation could backfire
   • We should cancel student debt, but only for some
   • Income caps + Online certificate programs
3. Kinder-Crisis?
   • Reading recovery's long-term effects
   • ECD going downhill
   • The pandemic erased a decade of public preschool gains
4. Returning to Offline
   • Vedantu slashes course costs
   • Online learning going away in Virginia and Maryland schools
   • Online exam cheating is up
5. Funding + M&A
   • Allen Career Institute, Glorang, Inspired Education Group, Galena
   • Pearson, Snap! Mobile, upGrad

Eli Bildner is a Senior Director at Guild Education, where he helps to provide opportunity for America’s workforce through education and upskilling, all funded by employers.

Eli was also the co-Executive Director and co-founder of Rivet School, a non-profit which simplifies college by pairing an accredited online degree with real-world supports, such as a personal coach, financial aid, a community of peers, career planning, emergency funds, tech support and coworking spaces.

Eli also led international growth and was a product manager at Coursera, and earned his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Recommended Resource

Noahpinion- Noah Smith's Substack

Guest: Stratsi Kulinski, President of NewU University

1. International Bubble?
   • New Oriental Education, Unacademy, BYJU's
2. Metaverse
   • Meta, Fidelity, Athenaverse, Immerse, Moonhub
3. Adult Learning
   • Udemy's Global Workplace Learning Index
4. Mental Health Data
   • CDC report, Securly, LeanLab, SMART Technologies + Kooth
5. Funding + M&A
   • Zenda, Newton School, Blue Sky, Vivfy, 9jacodekids, Aztec Software
   • Akadasia, Veranda, WGU Labs, Genius Group

Mario Vasilescu is co-founder of Readocracy, an online learning platform that makes all the content you consume count. Readocracy includes a knowledge profile that quantifies and showcases your passions, private insights like a “Fitbit for your information diet”, and social features that reward people for being well-informed. With his team, they are on a mission to create a future where how we feed our minds matters just as much as how we feed our bodies.

Mario is a robotics engineer turned designer, digital strategist, and now founder obsessed with media ecology. Prior to entering the world of startups, he led digital innovation projects and digital literacy campaigns for national organizations in Canada and France. He is based in Toronto.

Resources:

Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman

Guest:

Amar Kumar - Founder & CEO @ KaiPod Learning

Topics:

1. Online Tutoring
   • Data + Efficacy
   • Schools Pay Millions for Tutoring
2. a16z START
   •  American Dynamism
3. Three Year Degrees + Loans
   • Black women are uniquely burdened by student debt
4. Funding + M&A
   • Galena, WeeCare, NeighborSchools, Handshake, SkillStorm, iNeuron, Jenzabar, Entourage