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Lane Merrifield – CEO and Co-Founder of FreshGrade

By Reg Surette on September 26, 2018


FreshGrade is a K-12 driven digital learning portfolio for students, founded in 2011. FreshGrade seed funding ventures raised 4.3 million in 2014, and an additional 11.6 million in 2016.

Within FreshGrade’s company description, they describe the pain point it attempts to address as a “lack of awareness” between students, parents, and teachers with respect to daily activities, projects, and accomplishments. FreshGrade focuses on formative assessment and collaborative digital student portfolios, which can be accessed by students, teacher, and parents, allowing more efficient assessment and reporting, promoting student ownership through engagement with their digital portfolio, and engages parents through a dedicated app that provides ongoing feedback and support toward their online learning plan. This is definitely a very marketable feature of FreshGrade that a lot of parents will surely be interested in using.

If FreshGrade sounds familiar to you or you have used it before, it may be because its Co-Founder, Lane Merrifield, is from our very own backyard in Kelowna, BC!

LANE MERRIFIELD – FRESHGRADE CO-FOUNDER & CEO

Image Source: https://www.kelownanow.com/files/files/images/lane.jpg

Merrifield co-founded FreshGrade in 2011 and has since served in multiple roles within the company, including his current position as CEO. He was previously the co-founder and CEO of Club Penguin, a Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) environment, that from 2005 onward quickly became the largest virtual world for kids with over 200 million users. This rapid growth led the company to an eventual acquisition by Disney in 2007 for $350 million. After the acquisition, he spent five years as Executive Vice President of Disney Online Studios, and founded Wheelhouse in 2013, a Canadian entrepreneur mentoring and networking program. He also sat on the board of Governors for…you guessed it…the University of British Columbia!

Merrifield attended a Christian college in Edmonton before moving to California to pursue a career in marketing, which indicates his Club Penguin direction to donate 10% of Club Penguin’s profits to charity are based out of strong values. In this Globe and Mail interview from 2009, Merrifield says the $350 million Club Penguin deal hasn’t changed him much:

“Our values have remained the same…We had 10 kids [to support in Ethiopia or Kenya] at one point…And now each of us can adopt villages. So it’s the same values. It’s just on another scale.”

Merrifield has been acknowledged with multiple awards and recognitions for his entrepreneurial efforts, including being awarded the 2017 Business Leader by the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce, and was a 2012 Okanagan College’s Honorary Fellow, and was one of The Hollywood Reporter’s Top 35 Executives under 35. Finally, and most recently, as a sign of his ‘making it’ Lane Merrifield will now be the newest Dragon on CBC’s Dragon’s Den!


Image Source: https://www.cbc.ca/mediacentre/content/images/Dragons-Den-Media-Center-Program-Header-750×360.jpg

Company Leadership

In addition to Merrifield’s experience, the leadership team at FreshGrade comprises of decades of management and leadership experience with companies such as Apple and a number of media and technology-based firms. Their team also has teaching and instructional design experience, and a ton of prior experience at other tech ventures in various roles including engineering, accounting, data analytics, and marketing at such notable companies such as D2L, Thinkwell, Boeing, and Disney. Of note, the majority of the leadership is also Canadian!  

Reflection

Merrifield demonstrates drive and passion toward improving the grouping of technology and education, as demonstrated in his 2015 TedX talk where he shares a number of childhood anecdotes being the son of a teacher, all the way up to conceptualizing FreshGrade – I highly recommend you take a look:

YouTube Preview Image

The company’s continuous improvement and solicitation of feedback from users and groups speaks to the openness to evolve their product to better tailor it to the needs of the evolving classroom. FreshGrade hits the noted pain point head on. The FreshGrade website includes testimonials from Superintendents, School Administrators, and Teachers alike, and touts multiple uses for the platform, from content creation, to assessment tracking, to recording and following up on field trips, to enabling more efficient parent-teacher conferences. FreshGrade was acknowledged with a Deloitte Fast 50 award as being one of the top companies to watch in 2016.

Admittedly, as an instructional designer I don’t have much insight into the K-12 Educational technology trends other than through the MET program, however if any of you use/have used/have feedback on FreshGrade, it would be great to get some MET testimonials of its use and effectiveness! As for my own entrepreneurial insights, it seems that many of these ventures are based on a solution to a very common problem in the classroom, or an improvement over an existing process. As my workplace has a number of pain points, going forward I’m definitely going to be paying closer attention to these in order to bridge the aforementioned gaps.

Thanks,

Reg

 

Additional Sources: https://www.kelownanow.com/watercooler/news/news/Video/VIDEO_Lane_Merrifield_on_his_Penguin_past_and_Dragon_destiny

Article of BC’s piloting of FreshGrade in the Surrey School District: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/freshgrade-offers-digital-report-card-for-surrey-b-c-students-1.3022363

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29 Sep Posted on Lane Merrifield – CEO and Co-Founder of FreshGrade

Thanks Reg for this informational post. That's interesting the connection between Club Penguin and Fresh Grade. I have been using Fresh Grade for about 4 years. The first few years I used it in a private school setting where each teacher had to have either fresh grade or an online website to communicate with parents. I found setting up Fresh Grade easy. An added feature that I love about Fresh Grade is that when I post announcements or to a portfolio I can see which parents have viewed it. For example, I had a parent always demanding I send home extra work for her child to do, however, I could see she was not involved or engaged at all within her child's education as she never viewed any of the announcements and rarely viewed or commented on anything posted in her profile. She was essentially wanting work to keep her child busy and out of her hair, that was an interesting conversation to have. My current school district has Fresh Grade set up district wide. So there is no work on the teachers end to create accounts as its all provided for us and has our class uploaded. This relationship between our district and Fresh Grade has made it even more popular in our area and almost every class in my school uses it. I'm teaching Kindergarten this year and find it as an essential tool to help parents have conversations with their children about what is happening in our classroom. In the past, I had done a monthly newsletter and have replaced that with weekly announcements and I try to post to each child's portfolio once a week if not more.

29 Sep
0 Thumbs Up!
Aggie @aggie13

Thanks Reg for this informational post. That's interesting the connection between Club Penguin and Fresh Grade. I have been using Fresh Grade for about 4 years. The first few years I used it in a private school setting where each teacher had to have either fresh grade or an online website to communicate with parents. I found setting up Fresh Grade easy. An added feature that I love about Fresh Grade is that when I post announcements or to a portfolio I can see which parents have viewed it. For example, I had a parent always demanding I send home extra work for her child to do, however, I could see she was not involved or engaged at all within her child's education as she never viewed any of the announcements and rarely viewed or commented on anything posted in her profile. She was essentially wanting work to keep her child busy and out of her hair, that was an interesting conversation to have. My current school district has Fresh Grade set up district wide. So there is no work on the teachers end to create accounts as its all provided for us and has our class uploaded. This relationship between our district and Fresh Grade has made it even more popular in our area and almost every class in my school uses it. I'm teaching Kindergarten this year and find it as an essential tool to help parents have conversations with their children about what is happening in our classroom. In the past, I had done a monthly newsletter and have replaced that with weekly announcements and I try to post to each child's portfolio once a week if not more.

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29 Sep Posted on Lane Merrifield – CEO and Co-Founder of FreshGrade

Thanks for the posting Reg. I found a quick interview with Lane on the cbc website (https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1217360963757). It appears as though Lane has extensive experience in startup ventures as well as a strong network of expertise to ensure that ventures can be supported through the early start up process. I think that Lane has hit upon a very big trend in schools - particularly in elementary schools - many of which are moving away from Grade based reporting to a more formative reporting system. A formative system will allow teachers to better describe student strengths and weaknesses to aid in overall mastery of a subject. The elementary wing of my independent school uses Freshgrade and from what I've heard, parents are happy with the access to regular online updates. I think Lane has a strong vision for his companies and would make a strong role model for entrepreneurs.

29 Sep
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christopher wong @gnowsirh

Thanks for the posting Reg. I found a quick interview with Lane on the cbc website (https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1217360963757). It appears as though Lane has extensive experience in startup ventures as well as a strong network of expertise to ensure that ventures can be supported through the early start up process. I think that Lane has hit upon a very big trend in schools - particularly in elementary schools - many of which are moving away from Grade based reporting to a more formative reporting system. A formative system will allow teachers to better describe student strengths and weaknesses to aid in overall mastery of a subject. The elementary wing of my independent school uses Freshgrade and from what I've heard, parents are happy with the access to regular online updates. I think Lane has a strong vision for his companies and would make a strong role model for entrepreneurs.

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28 Sep Posted on Lane Merrifield – CEO and Co-Founder of FreshGrade

Hello Reg, I enjoyed reading your post on Lane Marrifield and his company, Fresh Grade. Doing my teacher training in BC, I have noticed a lot of teachers using Fresh Grade. Everything I heard about it was positive, which is a good news for Fresh Grade. Not only that, as BC (elementary) is slowly moving away from giving letter grades, the talk about Fresh Grade amongst teachers are increasing as the portfolio of student's work will become the proof of learning. Reading about Lane, he seems to fit the image of a successful entrepreneur perfectly. He has the passion, knowledge, education, and experience for leadership and success.

28 Sep
0 Thumbs Up!
Heeweon Joo @heeweonj

Hello Reg, I enjoyed reading your post on Lane Marrifield and his company, Fresh Grade. Doing my teacher training in BC, I have noticed a lot of teachers using Fresh Grade. Everything I heard about it was positive, which is a good news for Fresh Grade. Not only that, as BC (elementary) is slowly moving away from giving letter grades, the talk about Fresh Grade amongst teachers are increasing as the portfolio of student's work will become the proof of learning. Reading about Lane, he seems to fit the image of a successful entrepreneur perfectly. He has the passion, knowledge, education, and experience for leadership and success.

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28 Sep Posted on Lane Merrifield – CEO and Co-Founder of FreshGrade

Hey Reg, Thanks for sharing the bio and information on Fresh Grade's, Lane Marrifield. Living in BC, I had heard lots about Fresh Grade's digital portfolio program, but have never explored the program in detail nor really taken the time to learn about its CEO. After reading through your analysis, exploring the Freshgrade website, watching many of the testimonial videos, and reading / learning about Lane Marrifeld its hard not to fall in love with the guy! He has it all! Solid values, home town pride, vast experiences in the field of marketing, business, education, and technology and certainly a well spoken, engaging presenter with a vision of transforming world of educational reporting and assessment with digital portfolio technology that connects students, parents, and teachers. Not to mention his success and experience in previous work with online learning worlds, or his recently created entrepreneurial mentorship program, or his vast amount of charity work. Like I said, Lane has it all, and in my opinion is absolutely a shining star, role model for any aspiring entrepreneur.

28 Sep
0 Thumbs Up!
dustin hyde @dmanhyde

Hey Reg, Thanks for sharing the bio and information on Fresh Grade's, Lane Marrifield. Living in BC, I had heard lots about Fresh Grade's digital portfolio program, but have never explored the program in detail nor really taken the time to learn about its CEO. After reading through your analysis, exploring the Freshgrade website, watching many of the testimonial videos, and reading / learning about Lane Marrifeld its hard not to fall in love with the guy! He has it all! Solid values, home town pride, vast experiences in the field of marketing, business, education, and technology and certainly a well spoken, engaging presenter with a vision of transforming world of educational reporting and assessment with digital portfolio technology that connects students, parents, and teachers. Not to mention his success and experience in previous work with online learning worlds, or his recently created entrepreneurial mentorship program, or his vast amount of charity work. Like I said, Lane has it all, and in my opinion is absolutely a shining star, role model for any aspiring entrepreneur.

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