Educreations is a app that turns an iPad into an interactive, recordable whiteboard. The for-profit venture was released in 2011 and counted with a number of investors including Accel and NewSchools Venture Fund. One interesting aspect that I found out was that Accel felt inclined to invest in the venture proposal because of the founders’ ability with the mechanics of making a viral social app.
Little is said about Wade Roberts on the internet. All I could find was his profile on Linkedin. In terms of his educational background, he has a BS in Mathematics and Computer Science from Vanderbilt University (Nashville,Tennessee/US). Professionally, Roberts developed a viral app for Facebook back in 2007, which was sold to a company named RockYou and he joined the company as part of the sale. There he met Chris Streeter, who later partnered with him to create Educreations. Today, around 5 million videos have been created and shared on Educreation’s platform, which is being used in over 50K schools and in 140 different countries. I believe they were visionary at the point in time, when the education market was still lacking relevant apps and they took advantage of their expertise and the exponential sales of iPads to educational institutions.
As a teacher in the ELT field, I have used and also taught other teachers how to use this app which I consider highly collaborative and dynamic. Educreations enables teachers to engage students inside and outside the classroom, but it can also be used as a tool that allows students to become content creators. The features of this app are highly intuitive, and teachers also have the option to share their lessons publicly or privately within the app, or embed them on a blog, for instance. In 2014 they launched version 2.0 of the app. A paid version was introduced with additional features, but the free version remained and even counted with a few improvements.
Below you’ll find Wade Roberts presenting Educreations at Launch Conference in 2012.
