Education

I've noticed children are often the inspiration behind learning technology start ups. My son is what inspired my vision for an innovative learning technology. A problem is just a problem until it affects your personal life, then it becomes a problem that needs fixed. It can be a strong motivator. I also think it is significant that he piloted his app to demonstrate its potential value and scalability before asking for a larger investment. In other words, a Minimal Viable Product is a quick and effective way to find out just how promising your vision is.

Such a clever way to incorporate gamification, Heeweon! As an EVA or if I were an educational institution rep, I would absolutely consider investing in your venture. You incorporate student engagement, collaboration, and new technology (VR) into a product that could realistically benefit learners. As a follow-on venture, you might even want to think about developing a software package that users could develop their own escape rooms (Although in doing so you might be creating your own market competition...haha)! Just a thought! I also enjoyed the website design; you and Kate both really have a knack for well designed, organized and professional web sites! The simplicity of the product made it really easy for me, a prospective EVA investor, to understand its value in addressing your noted pain points. You very clearly indicated what the venture investment would be used for, and have a clear plan for both product and market growth. From the student perspective, your active learning and collaborative pedagogies used in your rooms combined with fun problem-solving puzzles will undoubtedly engage and improve student achievement. I'm excited to see VReakout disrupt the educational markets! Very well done! -Reg

Thanks for your insights Philip! You make a great point regarding how 'intelligent things' will help personalize learning. I hope you're right in saying this, as it'll help so many, including students with special needs who may require additional engagement or personalized learning activities beyond what a single teacher may be able to provide within their class. This will not only better support the student, but will in theory also alleviate some stress from the educator who now knows that their students who may require additional attention are being equally supported. It's scalability, another big potential of 'intelligent things' could also help provide personalized feedback to large student groups based on aggregate data sets. While researching for my OP, I came across http://www.cognii.com/, a scalable and personalized mentoring tool for students in any school/training environment. It allows open-ended responses between student and AI, provides personalized feedback, and adapts to each student's responses and information provided. I don't know much about this product, but I'll certainly be looking into it further, as the potential is incredible! Like any developing technology, the more resources that become available for users (such as https://ai.google/education/), the more developed it will become. Really enjoyed your reply - thanks again! -Reg

Social Media in the classroom can take so many forms that don't necessarily come to mind first. Simply websites like Google Classroom, Socrates, and Weebly have the ability to foster a social platform for students to engage, collaborate and share ideas and work with each other. The use of social media in the classroom can highlight and enhance learning in so many ways - it provides an outlet for those students to share in the conversation "online" when they would not otherwise feel comfortable sharing ideas, it provides enhanced accessibility, allowing students to use it from home and elsewhere, and it is simply an additional platform engaging students with different learning styles; all of these factors greatly increase participation and thus learning from each other.  All the while, educators can promote responsible use of social media, as its use outside of the classroom will certainly be part of students' every day life.

I am looking at Microlearning from the unique perspective of a teacher whose student population struggles with learning disabilities and/or behavioural difficulties, and as such, think that Microlearning is, and will continue to become an even more effective way of teaching our students. In my experience, these students have so many things to focus on in a given lesson - the anxiety stemming from the text in front of them, the fact that they have to remember 2- or 3-step (or more!) instructions from a teacher before beginning a task, the fact that they have ADHD and are easily distracted by various external stimuli as it is, etc... Microlearning can help alleviate some of these anxieties and help students retain more information, particularly those who struggle with attention. More and more classrooms are seeing the effects of overstimulated and highly distractible students, thus I do believe that this topic is important not only in the special education classroom, but in the mainstream ones as well. From my experience teaching grades 2 and 3 in a class full of students struggling with dyslexia, ASD, and ADHD, lessons that go over a 10 minute mark of strictly instructional time results in a quick decline in student attention, interest, and thus retention. I would be very interested to learn more about the field and find ways to weave it into my teaching practice on a more consistent practice. I know Microlearning seems to have the goal of providing lessons/learning experiences for those who are busy and always on the go, but I think it can have a two-fold goal by also targeting distracted learners.

Hi Robert, with the "invention" of hypertext that has been incorporated into these media rich, interactive textbook, it allows the user to take control over how they manipulate the text. Some learners, learn linearly and need the chunks of text presented to them as they are in traditional text books, but others need the opportunity to explore and expand on specific content before they are able to truly understand the concept. Could you provide some Visual-Intensive learning websites that you utilize? I am always on the search to provide my teachers with media rich resources. Thanks for your post, shan

I think I posted my review in the wrong area. Still getting used to the site! :P I thought this report did a good job of identifying trends from the last year. Five of the items were things that I had heard being discussed as they were emerging in the last year, and the sixth was a topic that has been gathering momentum. I found this report to be very interesting and I think that it would help educators to be creative and aware of new trends. The publication is intended for museums, and as such the suggestions and examples would need to be adapted for other uses, but many could be a source of inspiration. For example, the Tate Modern hosted an event where participants stayed overnight in the museum and created digital artworks. This would be an interesting idea for educators and could be linked to a local museum or even a topic being taught in class. I’m not sure how useful it would be to learning technologies specialists and ventures, other than the fact that it is an effective summary and would bring awareness of what museums are doing with these technologies on which perhaps they could capitalize. However, there are probably more useful publications available. I really liked this report for my own interest, and I would read it again next year because it is a great (and easy!) summary of the top technology trend which have emerged in the last year. I would recommend it to an educator that is looking for some creative ways to use new technology and is interested in thinking beyond the traditional classroom. However, because the ideas are for museums it would take some technological interest and understanding to apply them to a school setting. Overall, I would say this publication is moderately useful, unless you are specifically in the museum industry.

EduCanon is a free online service designed to help educators apply flipped/blended learning in their classrooms. EduCanon helps educators customize existing online content to create and share interactive video lessons. For example, teachers begin with any video content such as YouTube, Vimeo, TeacherTube, Khan Academy, TED, NOVA, etc. and transform them into an active learning experience. The interactive process of EduCanon increases student engagement, which is an essential component to learning as each student has unique learning backgrounds. This is not only relevant to teaching and learning, it is offered in the spirit of true learning and socio-consciousness: EduCanon is a free service. Sign–up at https://www.educanon.com/ EduCanon founder, Ben, has teaching background with Teach for America and brings real-world, hands-on experience into his platform. EduCanon accolades already include: Won the McGraw-Hill Open Education Resource Prize as a finalist in 2014. Won the 1776 Global Challenge Cup Competition as the best education company globally. Honored as a member of the inaugural class of LearnLaunchX. EduCanon touts its venture as interactive video unleashed and has developed brand recognition with a hat wearing dog silhouette. This EVA recognizes the utility and potential of EduCanon and highly recommends this exciting new platform in learning technology. *Pitch review notes/experience: EduCanon CEO, Ben, delivered a compelling pitch beginning with a lively soundtrack intro to “Who let the dogs out!?” He was wearing a colorful tee-shirt with his brand logo—a dog and immediately explained his product as “Interactive video unleashed.” I tried to remain skeptica but I was hooked… I wanted to hear more.