Edtech Insiders

Send us Fan Mail Shawn Young is a co-founder and CEO of Classcraft Studios Inc . He taught 11th grade physics for 9 years, holds a bachelor’s degree in physics and master’s in education from Université de Sherbrooke and is also a seasoned web developer. Shawn is the vice-president of the Edteq Association and is an Ambassador for the Education faculty of University of Sherbrooke.  Classcraft is an...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we speak with Joe Connor of Odyssey , which raised a $4.75M dollar seed round this week to help districts and families use flexible education funding sources, like Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) and microgrants. Ben and Alex also discuss: 1) Elections & Education: The Rise of Education Polarization  Is College Worth It? Voters Are Split. ( Five Thirty Eight...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we speak to Claire Chen of Stanford GSB and Brighteye Ventures, who just put out the brand new report, Understanding the Edtech Content Landscape . We also discuss: 1) Video & Tiktok in Education  Revyze is building the TikTok of educational videos ( Techcrunch ) Kids content to remain ad-free on Netflix ( Kidscreen ) Consumers turning from SVOD to AVOD and FA...

Send us Fan Mail Monica Arés is the Head of Immersive Learning at Meta, where she is focused on building an ecosystem that will allow anyone, anywhere to learn and grow in the metaverse. As a Harvard Graduate School of Education alumna, former math educator, curriculum developer, and planetarium director, Monica is at the forefront of skilling the next generation of AR/VR creators and developing p...

Send us Fan Mail Guest Julia Stiglitz, CEO of CoRise and former GSV partner The Massive Lego/Brainpop acquisition Lego Acquires Brainpop - WSJ  Questioning the ROI for Higher Ed Ranking 4,500 Colleges by ROI (2022) How liberal arts colleges are adding work-focused courses students want   Byju's Layoffs/Edtech in India Byju’s cuts 2,500 jobs  Post-Pandemic World Poses Existential Challenge to...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we speak to Greg Toppo and Jim Tracy, co-authors of Running with Robots: The American High School’s Third Century from MIT Press, available at Amazon , Bookshop or wherever you get your books! Greg Toppo is a journalist with more than 25 years of experience, most of it covering education. He spent 15 years as the national education reporter for USA Today and was m...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, guest host Matt Tower of Edtech Thoughts and Alex discuss: 1. The Possible "Second Boom" of the Edtech Investing Market as per Brighteye The evolution of Edtech: Activity in private and public markets | Dealroom.co Edtech’s honeymoon might be over, but expect a second boom | TechCrunch 2) Addictive Game Mechanics Used For Good Opinion | I Make Video Game...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we talk to some of the standout stars of the StartEd New York Edtech Week conference. Sari, Kide Science (story-based early years learning with platform for educators from Finland!) Nikita Gupta, Symba (internship and apprenticeship management) Matthew Evans, Julius (job training for green economy jobs)  Rachel Jordan, TeachFX (measuring pedagogical 'talk&apo...

Send us Fan Mail In this short episode, we talk to Jamie Poskin, CEO and founder of TeachFX , about TeachFX's new $10mm funding round and how the company is finding a completely new source of classroom data in the 'talk' that happens in both online and in-person classes. 

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we speak to Shawna Young and Mitchel Resnick of the Scratch Foundation , which runs the largest creative computing community in the world around the Scratch programming language. Recommended Resources: Mitch Resnick and Ken Robinson, Lifelong Kindergarten 2021 Scratch Foundation Annual Report Shawna Young is the Executive Director of the Scratch Foundation.  Befor...

Send us Fan Mail Acky Kamdar is the CEO of Magic EdTech and Magic Finserv. He is a technology entrepreneur and an investor in the fields of digital technologies, blockchain, machine learning, AI and NLP. Acky has over 25 years of experience in Process Management, Technology Solutions, and Outsourcing services at companies like Genpact, Headstrong, Compaq Computers and the HCL group. Currently, he...

Send us Fan Mail Francie Alexander is Chief Research Officer at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) and an industry leader in the fields of Early Childhood Education, Literacy, and Intensive Intervention for striving reading and math students. Francie provides inspirational and informative leadership on topics from early and adolescent learning to brain development and its influence on childhood and t...

Send us Fan Mail Greg Bybee is the Co-Founder and CEO of Avela Education and the Co-Founder of PoliScribe .  Greg was an early employee at NovoEd where he ultimately ran every business function from marketing to business development and customer success, and ultimately helped sell the company to Fidelity. Previously, he was a Fellow at NewSchools Venture Fund, the first product manager at Coursera...

Send us Fan Mail Guest: Fadl Al Tarzi , Founder & CEO @ Nexford University Online University Nexford will use $8M to plug affordability and relevance gaps in education Topics This Week: Ads in Education The next chapter for Learning on YouTube Roblox jumping into ads in effort to diversify beyond virtual goods SPACS & Aging Unicorns London Looks to Un-Meme the SPAC Market  A Sober Look at...

Send us Fan Mail Shravan Goli has been the Chief Product Officer and Head of Consumer Revenue at Coursera since 2018. Shravan came to Coursera with over 20 years of experience of building products and leading companies. He has built products at Microsoft and Yahoo, been the CEO of Dictionary.com , and was most recently President of tech job marketplace Dice (part of public company DHI Group Inc)....

Send us Fan Mail Guest: Anjuli Gupta , Head of Academic Partnerships @ Outlier.org MasterClass's Co-Founder Takes on the Community College Degree Outlier.org & Golden Gate University Reinvent Affordable College with Degrees+ Topics This Week: LAUSD Cyberattack Los Angeles Schools Hit with Ransomware Attack FBI joins probe into LAUSD cyberattack Learning Loss & Pandemic Recovery Plungi...

Send us Fan Mail Lisa Jiang has a long career at the heights of edtech; she was most recently the head of Remote Learning at Facebook, after 4 years as a senior director of product at New York’s Flatiron School , a leading bootcamp provider and 6 years at Google, where she was a product manager and lead for education for Google Hangouts. Joe Burgess was the first hire at Flatiron School and worked...

Send us Fan Mail Guest: Ish Baid , Founder & CEO @ Virtually Check out Ish’s podcast: Reshaping Education Topics This Week: Duolingo Math Join the waitlist to test their new math app! Takes by Forbes , The Verge , & Fast Company College Enrollment Shifts 2020-21 IPEDS Data: Profile of Mid-Pandemic 12-Month Enrollments As More Stressed-Out Students Consider Dropping Out, Surgeon General Pus...

Send us Fan Mail T. Nicole Tucker-Smith, founder and CEO of Lessoncast, helps schools implement professional learning initiatives focused on inclusive leadership and teaching practices, culturally responsive pedagogy, and equity best practice. Tucker-Smith was an assistant principal charged with planning professional development (PD) for a turnaround middle school in the Baltimore County Public Sc...

Send us Fan Mail Topics This Week: Student Loan Forgiveness NYT + Inside Higher Ed   Valuations ”Stars Through Thunderstorms” Accelerator News Y Combinator cuts startup batch size by 40% amid economic downturn Crunchbase: 2,000 Tech Layoffs in 2022 Higher Ed & K12 Enrollment These Colleges and Universities Are Reporting Record Size Freshmen Classes + UC program seeks to re-enroll adults who st...

Send us Fan Mail Sunil Gunderia is the Chief Innovation Officer at Age of Learning, a leading education technology innovator with a mission to help children everywhere build a strong foundation for academic success and a lifelong love of learning. He oversees the company’s innovation strategy and has led the development, distribution, and implementation of its research-proven educational programs...

Send us Fan Mail Guests : David Harris , OpenStax at Rice University & Justin Weinberg , Aktiv Learning Topics This Week: Back to School, But Media Narratives Say Education Is in Trouble Teacher Shortage Local School Grades Plummeting HMH report: education is not an appealing field Value of Higher Ed in Question Why Americans are increasingly dubious about going to college Higher Ed Must Chang...

Send us Fan Mail Gauthier Van Malderen is the co-founder and CEO of the University Digital Library Perlego. Gauthier decided to start Perlego as a Cambridge student after realizing how many people were having problems financing their textbooks. In 2017, he decided to found a subscription service to provide all the textbooks a student would need, in eBook form, at an affordable price. Perlego raise...

Send us Fan Mail Topics This Week: Fall Election Cycle Va. Gov. Youngkin faces second suit over teacher tip line Democrats Cede ‘Party of Education’ Label to GOP 2022 CHLOE 7 Report Announcement + PDF Online learning leaders think fully in-person will be a rarity Big Tech vs. Udemy Amazon Launches Udemy Competitor Facebook Working on a Udemy Competitor? Metaverse Harvard Metaverse in Education Rep...

Send us Fan Mail Josh Chernikoff is an educational entrepreneur and small business advisor. For the last 14 years, he has founded and grown two successful educational enrichment programs serving hundreds of thousands of students in 85 schools across six states. He now runs Cascade Communications, an edtech advisory. Josh and his team at Cascade are, above all, content and relationship experts in t...