Last night General Assembly had a great meet up called “Talk Data to Me” and brought together very impressive data experts from Coursera, Google and Clever, in addition to GA’s very impressive moderator Vrushank Vora, an expert in deep and machine learning.

Data science is an exploding field and has recently been impacting most industries globally and making a significant dent in education too. A recent article from edsurge (https://www.edsurge.com/research/guides/the-data-workout-how-it-s-impacting-teaching-and-learning) said “ If you think data—in education, or any field—is cut and dry, think again. Working with data in the classroom, especially, can be either exhausting or exhilarating—depending on your fitness level. Data can be big, but also quite small. It’s often quantitative, but is increasingly qualitative. It’s predictive, but not always inclusive. It’s private, but not always protected. But one thing’s for certain: data has enormous power to impact teaching and learning. “

According to this panel of data scientists, there’s no question that data, when used the right way can effect the course of education in numerous and positive ways. However, educators and administrators have historically been leery of too much data. Initially data was used to prove negative aspects of education such as ineffective teaching and led to loss of jobs and funding. Another deterrent to widespread use is expertise. Marc Harper, data scientist at Google said “ knowledge of how to understand and use data in schools is limited and is a road block for integrating powerful data systems”.  Edtech companies must continue to innovate and demonstrate how useful and essential the right data can be and pave the way for educators.

Another point that stood out during the evening was that data was the key to improving personalized learning. Katherine Wong of Coursera said “ The more data we have- the more we can meet students where they are and increase personalized learning”. Fields like “Deep Learning” have made great strides in modeling sequential decision making for creating playlists; i.e. student specific plans for personalized learning. Though there’s been much progress in this area, there’s more work to be done to include social and emotional learning into PL curricula.

Everyone agreed that better, shorter, more frequent formative assessments (and digital tools for gathering and analyzing assessments) were needed – but that students should have less standardized testing which takes up at least three weeks per year!! Tests also need to be more nuanced and designed to determine how a student came up with a particular answer. Multiple-choice tests, though easier to grade are more difficult to glean any substantive data as to learning processes.

So much interesting stuff here! I can really see the possibilities.

I’m presently helping a company execute a pilot program and progress from being unpaid to actually getting paid for their efforts in the next school year.

The product is great and kids love it. Teachers love it. It has a few bugs but its really engaging; real-world math in a fun, playful format. We are solving the problem of students having to learn math “the old way” – which every teacher and district in the U.S, I’m told, wants. The playing field, though, is packed with great companies and competitors.

I’m finding that once you’ve given something away for free- its hard raising the price.  I’m just wondering if we should have asked for a fee to begin with? Though logically, I would think it’s nearly impossible to get paid for someone to test your “not quite ready” product.

For investors apparently, it’s not enough that an unpaid pilot was successful; meaning the students were super engaged and their lessons reinforced. According to a talk that I recently heard, not only do your pilots need to be PAID, but you also need to be testing in at least ten percent of the schools in the district! Otherwise, this is just considered an “experiment”. Of course, everyone needs to have these experiments and tests but does that mean you can’t raise money with positive data from unpaid pilots? Pilots require handholding, workshops and other support to be successful, in addition to a healthy amount of funds. It takes a village.

These next few months are critical to getting your product into schools and districts. You need a solid beta in April/May and a perfect product by August 1^st. Meanwhile, between April and June, customer follow-up is the order of the day; one needs to be knocking down doors and leaving no stone unturned until you get those Purchase Order’s and you’re in the school budgets.

Pricing that first product is also tricky. Schools and districts want to see per student pricing and investors like yearly subscriptions. I’m told that however you layout your initial pricing model; it will change once you have more than one hundred customers. I’m really looking forward to that milestone!

I’ll be continuing this theme in the future. Any comments, questions or answers are welcome!

Last week I went to an edSurge meetup in San Francisco titled “Do You Have What It Takes To Do An Edtech Startup?”

The illustrious panel consisted of Tyler Bosmeny, CEO of Clever; Ben Levy, CEO of PlayPosit; and Rupa Gupta, CEO of Sown to grow.

They all had great advice and insights from their own experiences starting a company.

One surprising thing each one noted was that they spent an inordinate amount of time building out their teams and didn’t expect to have to do that. Finding the right candidates is difficult and time consuming. Some keys pieces of advice were, it’s a must to have an educator in the founding or other levels. Also, most felt that the personality trait of always learning and searching for the right answer was as important or more important than experience.

Finding a great mentor that’s aligned with your way of thinking was also a recommended key to success. Their best mentors were CEOs, who were a few years ahead in starting their companies and investors who thought along the same lines as they did.

Talking to mentors and anyone else that would listen was also recommended.   Don’t worry about who might steal your idea. Ideas are a dime a dozen; its how you implement them that counts. Get your MVP out there and validate your ideas ASAP!

CEO of Clever, Tyler Bosmeny said that by far the hardest thing was sales. Understanding school and district sales cycles, and how to sell to schools was very difficult. They suggested founders should always be involved in this area.

The best and last tips were ones that everyone has heard many times but sometimes it is necessary to hear over and over again, especially in edtech. “Build something people  want” and “Empower teachers, don’t replace them”.

Last week I went to the EdSurge “Tech for Schools Summit” in Oakland, California. The purpose of this event was to connect edtech entrepreneurs with educators and facilitate deep dive discussions between the two. The word “rubric” came up often.

Several teachers, at the event, told me “Tech solutions should provide a rubric! ”.

The Glossary of Education Reform defines “rubric” as “a evaluation tool or set of guidelines used to promote the consistent application of learning expectations, learning objectives, or learning standards in the classroom, or to measure their attainment against a consistent set of criteria. In instructional settings, rubrics clearly define academic expectations for students and help to ensure consistency in the evaluation of academic work from student to student, assignment to assignment, or course to course. Rubrics are also used as scoring instruments to determine grades or the degree to which learning standards have been demonstrated or attained by students.

When teaching a unit or facilitating project-based learning, teachers must create their own spreadsheets outlining, goals and learning objectives and assessments for those objectives. Edtech applications often do not include built-in rubrics and the ability for the student and teacher to assess and capture this data online. This information also needs to be within the app, and easy to find, so teachers don’t have to spend lots of time digging.

One big purpose of technology in the classroom is to help free teachers up for what they can do best; provide individual attention to those that need it and attend to the needs of all students.

Providing a rubric for teachers can also help them achieve the goal of “personalized learning” – another important area in education today. According to Susan D. Patrick, the executive director of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, or iNACOL, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Vienna, Va. “Personalized learning in today’s schools essentially amounts to the “differentiation” of lessons for students of different skill levels, or efforts to help students move at their own pace”.

Other questions related to rubrics that teachers had at the EdSurge Summit were:

• “What grading system does your tool support?”
• “Who can create assessments? Is the tool able to connect with 3^rd party question banks?”
• ”How much control can teachers have over assessment delivery and/or creation?”

I’m sure you get the idea.

Presently, teachers spend an inordinate amount of time finding appropriate and engaging tools to support their curriculum and typically use many different tools in the course of a semester. Most edtech apps or tools do not have all the things they need. Another teacher told me “Tech is not as responsive as it should be”.   It’s a slow learning process, but I’m sure edtech companies can catch up!

I had the pleasure of going to the Silicon Valley Education Foundation and the Learning Innovation (iHub) Pitch Games at Google last night. The Learning Innovation Hub at SVEF connects EdTech entrepreneurs with educators to facilitate teacher and student feedback for creating better technology tools for the classroom.

There were about sixteen or seventeen Bay Area schools present that were being matched up to EdTech companies. Each of them expressed their wants and needs for the present 2016/2017 year. I thought their needs were worth sharing, so I’ve listed them below.

• Integrated, platforms using flexible tools and multimedia  –   Teachers presently use a “mish mash” of tools, which can be difficult to manage.

• Project-Based Learning tools that increase engagement and collaboration with great real-world content.

• Data capture of student intelligence, and more adaptive apps that respond to student responses.

• Tools that effectively collaborate.

• Content creation tools

• Project management tools for students and teachers

• Engaging tools in any subject for getting reluctant students to participate- this was big!

• Need tools that incorporate critical thinking and engineering to help incorporate tech into NGSS/their science program.

• Tools that help push 21^st century learning, especially the design and software development processes.

• Address individual learning and a choice for all learners.

• Rich, technological applications that help kids that don’t have internet access at home to understand how to access, understand and use everything out there. Although most/many kids have smart phones, they still lack in general internet savvy.

• Address the needs for both under achievers AND over performers.

• Tools/Apps that cover math and science together.

• Help students go from a fixed to a growth mindset.  Help students want to achieve more.

Based on  other research/reading I’ve done- this seems to be a good list for what teachers want nationally, so I hope you find it useful!

Teachers perform assessments with paper and pencil or more modern forms such as software designed for this purpose.

Existing apps have led to greater strides in performing assessments, but many educators feel that continued better design and additional features could help create more depth in assessments and improve learning.

A Short Definition of the Different Types of Assessments:

The general definition of assessment in education is an ongoing process of measuring what students are learning to help the teacher plan subsequent lessons and determine where extra effort is necessary. Assessments provide educators with both objective and subjective data in order to understand student progress and whether a subject has been mastered. There are numerous types of assessments, which include summative, formative, diagnostic, performance, adaptive and alternate. The goal of all these types of assessments is not only to assign grades, but also to keep on top of student knowledge and ultimately improve student performance. In this paper we will just be discussing digital (online or app based) formative assessments though many of the suggested improvements may also have a role in other types of assessments.

What is Formative Assessment? :

Specifically, “a formative assessment or assignment (as defined by David Wees, Formative Assessment Specialist for New Visions for Public Schools) is a tool teachers use to give feedback to students and/or guide their instruction. It is not included in a student grade, nor should it be used to judge a teacher’s performance”. Examples of formative assessments can be quizzes, discussions, projects, Q&A, journals, using graphs or drawings to represent a concept or using movement to express a concept. Peer and self-assessments are also important ways to produce these types of assessments and help motivate students. Common core standards emphasize the need for assessments in the form of constructive feedback to improve student performance and teaching alike.

In addition to the many methods there are of performing formative assessments, there are numerous tools, which teachers can use to implement these assessments. As we all know, paper & pencil, are often being replaced by multi-media and educational apps designed specifically for this purpose. I think educators and non-educators alike agree that frequent and timely assessments are essential to increased learning, but the quality of a tool is an essential ingredient to success.

What Types of Digital Assessment Tools Are Available Today:

A plethora of digital and online tools exist to help teachers perform and glean knowledge from assessments. For example, Quizlet, a very popular collaborative platform, allows teachers and students to create quizzes and study guides such as flashcards with the added ability to upload audio and images. Another popular platform for formative assessments is Socrative where a teacher can create quizzes and quick polls and get responses instantly. Socrative also aggregates the data and provides analysis of results so that the teacher can discover immediately if the lesson is being understood.  i-Ready of Curriculum Associates goes a step further and provides adaptive tests for K-12 reading and mathematics. These tests diagnose the level of the student per common core standards, provide individualized next steps for instruction and aggregate this data over their school years.  Most teachers use a combination of paper and pencil along with several different applications that suit their needs.

Assessment tools should work across all platforms:

Many schools do not yet have 1:1 tablets or computers so planning time in the computer lab or rolling in the ipad cart is necessary to facilitate some digital assessment or learning. Schools also vary in the types of computers and tablets they buy- chrome, ipad etc. Successful apps should work across all platforms and/or devices. Being web based is advantageous because it does not depend on the device being used and mobile apps are increasingly useful because most school kids have a smartphone, even if they don’t have an ipad or computer to use everyday in class.

Formative assessment apps should do more than create quizzes:

In summary, most available formative assessment apps allow a teacher to generate a quiz and/or conduct a poll and the better ones provide some analysis of the data over a length of time. However, as you read in the third paragraph of this paper, there are numerous ways to conduct a formative assessment. No single quiz can provide all the information necessary to create a complete picture. Multiple approaches are necessary to deepen learning and meet different needs. Software can be designed to also perform many other types of formative assessments such as creating a graph or a visual representation of a concept to demonstrate understanding. Some of these varied methods also help students get more meaning from the lesson, create more engagement and increase understanding. Having other methods available for teachers would decrease their planning time and improve organization by keeping formative assessments in one place.  To its credit, Socrative also has “space ride”, “polling” and “exit ticket” in its assessment tool portfolio. There are many sites on-line to get ideas for other types of formative assessments, many of which can be fashioned into apps. I found this list “sampling of types of formative assessment” a good place to start-

http://www.isbe.net/common_core/pdf/da-form-asmt-chart.pdf .

Analysis can become deeper:

As technology advances increase, analysis could become deeper.   At the moment, most apps provide the teacher instantaneous student scores for quizzes and/or a % of questions answered correctly in a poll.  They could also use more learning analytics and identify the specific areas of knowledge that students might need help; or the questions that the majority got wrong if it’s a multiple question quiz and other useful statistics.

This type of reporting and deeper analysis is being done in adaptive assessments, but they do not exist for every subject or application. More importantly, there is no ability to modify or customize these applications and one must completely rely on the software to provide everything you need. Adaptive learning platforms are not foolproof; students have been known to “game” the system. Often, if students just keep clicking, they eventually figure out the right answer by process of elimination and don’t really learn much in completing the exercise.

Formative assessment apps for arts, music and other non-core subjects:

Most formative assessment apps are not applicable for all types of classrooms. I have only found one app specifically designed for arts, music, health and physical education; Learning Point OnCore, by American Institute for Research. A design teacher I know has students using the presentation software Keynote so they can imbed text and graphics to illustrate a design or concept.  This software was, however, designed for business purposes and not educational assessment. Some teachers use Padlet, which is a virtual bulletin board. Students can collaborate and/or create a graphic to represent what they are learning but this might not be very helpful in music or other non-core subjects. Subject specific templates could help teachers form quizzes; for example common topics in art include color, composition, function and others. In addition, some formative assessment apps allow for graphics however, the quality can be low. According to some design and art teachers I spoke to, classes would love a photoshop link to these other collaborative programs.

Consolidation and Link to gradebook, LMS or SIS:

Most teachers use blended assessments; i.e. a combination of paper and pencil along with several different types of apps. It would be helpful if all apps could easily link to a schools data system, so that all student assessments could reside in one place. In addition, if formative assessment apps were subject specific, it would be easier to consolidate all the many different create ways to assess in one particular subject. Steve Hendricks, a computer science teacher at the Morris County School of Technology in New Jersey recently told me, “The fewer places you have to go, the better. One stop shopping is always preferable”.

Send results to parents:

Assessment apps can also be a way of communicating more with parents. It is difficult to help your child if you can’t really tell how they are doing before the end of a term or semester. Parents play an important role in their child’s education and can help a great deal if informed. Teachers often send home tests to sign or exit slips etc. but that little piece of paper can get lost or chewed up by the dog 😉 It’s nice for a parent and a teacher to have a trail of comments and assessments to refer back to.

Connect to test engines and open source teacher content:

Many or most teachers generate test questions from exam generators like ExamView by Turning technologies which allows teachers to create tests online with publisher and user content. ExamView can also create multiple versions of the same test. These created tests are presently just for paper and pencil. I believe that ExamView is planning to have multiple assessment delivery methods but they were not available to review at the time of this writing. Other companies like Socrative share premade quizzes created by educators. Every formative assessment app would benefit from a partnership with a publisher or test engine generator and/or an open source of teacher created quizzes and content.

Tests can become deeper:

Teachers inherently know to present information or ask questions in several different ways or suggest a different task to illicit more information but don’t often have the time or resources. The right software could suggest different questions or even better questions. Some aspects of this would require non-trivial artificial intelligence programming but I’m sure there are easier ways of improving present methods.

Technology can make assessment more powerful:

A recently published report by the OECD (organization for economic cooperation and development) entitled “Students, Computers and Learning- Making the Connection” (Sept, 2015), found that students who only used computers moderately scored higher in mathematics and ELA than students who used technology much more frequently. However, they also found that technology made assessment much more powerful. “. Teachers who use inquiry-based, project-based, problem-based or co-operative pedagogies often find a valuable partner in new technologies; and industry is developing several technologies (learning analytics and serious games, for example) that promise to exploit the rapid feedback loops afforded by computers to support real-time, formative assessments, thus contributing to more personalised learning (Johnson et al., 2014).   “ http://www.oecd.org/publications/students-computers-and-learning-9789264239555-en.htm ”

Educators and administrators alike would agree that formative assessments are one of the most important and effective strategies to increase learning and the efficacy of teaching. “According to an OECD (2005) study on the implementation of formative assessment in international classrooms found that while the concept of formative assessment may resonate with teachers, many protest that it is too difficult to put into regular practice”. (“Making it Happen: Formative Assessment and Educational Technologies” by Janet Looney)

Lets make it easier for them.

Better digital formative assessment tools PDF

At a recent EdSurge meet-up last month, the discussion was focused on mobile learning trends and the opportunities and challenges associated with these endeavors.

The nugget gleaned from that evening was that education needs more mobile applications that help with the 4’cs; Creativity & Innovation, Critical Thinking & Problem Solving, Communication and Collaboration.   These four C’s make up the “Learning and Innovation Skills” outlined by the Partnership of 21^st Century Skills, a national organization comprised of both business (Apple, Intel, Adobe, HP) and education (National Education Association, Pearson, Scholastic) leaders.

The meet-up panel was made up of a silicon valley VC, an Oakland school district administrator, a google engineering manager and an AT&T director of innovation policy and investment. All of these noteworthy individuals were crying for educational mobile apps. One of the reasons for this demand is that mobile apps would help close the great divide of haves and have-nots. Many schools still don’t provide a computer or ipad for each student but almost every student has a smart phone.

They weren’t sure what types of apps were needed but these apps need to address the 4C’s outlined above. “Freshgrade” was noted as being particularly disruptive in the edutech space. Freshgrade is a “Learning Collaboration” tool for teachers, parents and students.

Since this meet-up, I have read numerous articles about improving communication with mobile and web tools and the use of mobile tools in higher education. See links below.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2015/03/03/parent-communication-542/

http://blog.proretention.com/why-are-mobile-apps-the-need-of-the-hour-in-the-highereducationsector/?lfx_source=linkedin&lfx_medium=social&lfx_campaign=mobile

I have no doubt that using mobile apps will allow for better collaboration between teachers, students and parents and will lead to better outcomes but my heart still bleeds for teachers that have to keep a class on task, and prevent students from texting or gaming. Somehow there needs to be an app for immediate teacher notification if Johnny is playing “Slime Zone” instead of doing his math!

http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2014/12/10-online-learning-trends-watch-2015-infographic

High tech business development practices are entering the classroom!   Using Steve Blank’s lean methodology, the National Science Foundation announced the I-corp L program, (where the L stands for Learning) that will help educators learn how to get innovative ideas adopted by a wider audience.  This program is for  STEM educators that teach science, technology, engineering and math from Kindergarten through graduate school.  The NSF will provide 1.2 million, to 24 teams to learn how to bring innovative teaching strategy, technology and/or curriculum to a wider audience.  Per Steve Blank “While the federal government and corporations have dumped a ton of money into STEM education research, a disappointing few of these brave new ideas have made it into practice. These classroom innovations often remain effectively a secret – unknown to most STEM educators or the research community at large.”

See the whole article “Getting Lean in Eduacationhttp://steveblank.com/2014/07/23/getting-lean-in-education-by-getting-out-of-the-classroom/

On May 15th, 2014  I am proud to report that my client Cashtivity won the Founder’s Institute award for “Best Australian Startup”. They are a K-12 educational software company that teaches kids how to start a business. http://www.cashtivity.com