Taking Advantage of Startups

Are You Taking Advantage of EdTech Startups? You Should Be. 

What is an "EdTech Startup" you ask? Well, it's basically a group of people who start a company that makes a product or service built for education. They're all the rage right now and that means good things for teachers and their students. Not only does it mean that everyday new products and services are hitting the digital market that will make learning faster, easier, and more enjoyable for students, it also means that if we're smart we can take advantage of them. (And believe it or not, they want us to.)

Freemium

Most EdTech startups right now develop a service or product (i.e. an app) that is really cool, really easy to use and would be a hit. The problem is that they're swimming in a sea of similar products. It is really, really difficult to get your cool thing out there to enough people to buy. If people don't see it, there won't be anyone buying it. If no one buys it, your company goes belly up. So what do startups do? They attempt to go viral. 

They want their product to be seen as the "in" thing and thus customers and schools will come running. To do this, most offer their product using the "Freemium" model. 

In this model, you offer most everything for free for awhile offering an option of charging users for the only the most advanced features. Then as you gain traction in the market (i.e. everyone starts using your cool free product), you start charging for more and more increasing what is offered under the paid subscription and reducing what's available under the free version. Eventually, many charge for everything. 

Gaming the System

This is where teachers and schools come in. You see, these startups are desperate to not only get people using their products and services, they're also desperate to get the stories and testimonials associated with them. They want to be able to put stories on their website of their software being successful in schools. So, they want you to use their product for free and they'll even listen to your suggestions because they need feedback and testimonials. I've found most will bend over backward to accommodate your needs and it's all free, free, free. Who doesn't like free? 

Plus, teachers that start using the product early pay nothing for the service and get access to tons of things that will eventually become expensive add-ons or only available via subscription. Plus, a majority of companies "play nice" by not requiring theses initial customers to move to a paid-plan later. It's like a "thank-you" for trying out their product.

Let's get to some recent examples. 

Examples

Mosa Mack - Science Detective

A fun inquiry-based tool for elementary and middle level science lessons. Mosa focuses on catchy songs to explain complex science topics. Each song ends with a question for discussion or reflection. Each topic includes a complete lesson with activities but you could also just use the animated videos to support or enrich what you're already doing.

www.mosamack.com

MathChat

Be warned, the audio on this video is terrible, but once you get beyond that you hear an insightful explanation of the "Why" behind MathChat, an app for iOS that allows students to message and collaboratively solve math equations. Kids having problem with math and texting for answers? Get MathChat. 

A good example of someone seeing a problem in the classroom and building a solution. 

getmathchat.com

Educents 

We all need cheap supplies for our classrooms right? Enter Educents a startup focused on providing "flash deals" or short-term markdowns on products used in schools. They've been around for a couple of years but still a relatively new business doing cool things.

www.educents.com

Pear Deck

Pear Deck is an easy formative assessment tool that is less game-based than Kahoot and more flexible. It connects to your Drive account and you can access your Drive Powerpoints or worksheets to integrate them into a digital lesson which includes a formative assessment. Pear Deck is somewhat unique in that it was developed in Iowa while most EdTech companies are on the coasts.

www.peardeck.com

Friday Odds & Ends

How Many Lines You Want? 

OK, it seems counterintuitive to write about a website that has printable paper templates on a technology blog, but I think they're actually quite useful. I mean, sometimes you just need to have some graph paper available or maybe you need some staff paper (me at home) or even a good template for teaching kids about budgets. However many lines you need on your paper, this website probably has it. Check it out at printablepaper.net.

10 Formative Assessment Tools

We all need to do regular formative assessments to give us a good idea of where our students are and how our instruction needs to be adjusted to meet their needs. There are many time-tested approaches including the 1-5, sticky-notes, pick a corner, paper exit tickets and so on. However there are digital tools available that make this process easier and faster. Patricia Brown from edsurge.com has put together a list of 10 Formative Assessment Tools that can offer some efficiency and some variety to formative assessments.

Scholastic Lists Their 50 Fav Apps

From the Scholastic website:
"Encode a secret message on a World War II Enigma machine. Journey into outer space to explore the surface of the sun. Or see what your town looked like in the 1800s. No, these aren’t Ms. Frizzle’s lesson plans. All are real activities taking place in classrooms across the nation. These days, all you need to take your class on the adventure of a lifetime is a fabulous app—or two, or three, or 50."

Check out their list here

Language Learning

New technologies are hitting the market to make language learning more interesting and engaging for students and adults alike. Many of these apps take a digital immersion approach by working within authentic language sites. For example, a student visits the El Pais newspaper website, the apps are designed to work in the background helping the student translate words they do not know while keeping the vocab words for later practice. The apps track progress and send reminders along the way to keep you going. Two great options to check out are Lingua.ly and Duolingo.

Lingua.ly is a Chrome app that can be used on anything that uses the Chrome browser. Use Lingua.ly to track and learn vocabulary on foreign language websites. It has a beautiful, pinboard style interface and works to provide the right level of content for your language skills. Duolingo is more traditional in its approach but has now added a free option for education.

The one question that remains is whether language programs are still relevant in today's technological world (I'm biased and say "Of course!). Google recently announced that their translate feature will now translate in real time. Meaning your phone can act as your personal interpreter (giving audio, not just text) and ask someone where the bathroom is. They've also added camera integration that works for signs. So, will language instruction in schools and universities survive by adapting and integrating these new technologies or will they go the way of the dinosaurs?