It’s without a doubt an achievement for the site itself as you, the audience, see the value in our work. I will admit that I am also a little proud of myself that I have had the endurance to continue doing the interview series when it’s definitely a challenge to figure out how to make it viable for the team but to keep it ad free and free of charge for our users.

You will have noticed by now that EDUKWEST gets some (philanthropic) support from Macmillan Digital Education and if you know someone who would like to do the same, please put them in touch with me. If someone would like to buy one of us an occasional cup of coffee whilst editing video and audio we are happy to receive your donations as well.

Long story short, for my special episode I invited my esteemed colleague Audrey Watters who has been writing for Hack Education almost as long as I have been doing EDUKWEST.

Although we certainly come from different backgrounds, Audrey looks at the stories from the writer’s perspective whereas I like to evaluate the market and business perspective of things, we often talk about the same stories and movements just from different angles.
I have seen so many people start a blog or podcast in EdTech and for one or the other reason abandoning these projects relatively quickly, that it’s a pleasure when you talk with someone like Audrey who is a constant in the online education space besides the obvious quality of her writing which is almost needless to mention.

As you can imagine we had a bunch of stories and concepts to discuss. To mention just a few: we take you on a (fun) ride through the inevitable but huge MOOCs. We feel that the big three, namely Coursera, udacity and edX concentrate more on their business models or how to make money off of their MOOC platforms (a contradiction in itself?), rather than intensifying their efforts in how to make the learning and teaching experience better or to lower dropout rates for instance.

We also discuss the issues with e-textbooks. DRM, why do prices still won’t come down and whether students really want to use digital textbooks anyway.

Then of course we need to give to thought to question if there is real innovation happening in the EdTech vertical or whether there are lots of startups working on small ideas with the idea in mind to get acquired by one of the big traditional companies in education like Pearson, Blackboard, Rosetta Stone etc.

This would eventually lead to the same old players prevail, the exact ones they had taken on to disrupt which geared them a lot of attention from the media.

I think another important topic during our talk was what I call insular thinking, e.g. building closed systems rather than open one, but also the lack of collaboration of academia with startups. Something I have noticed and regret since 2010. I think both sides would benefit from more collaboration. The startups learn how good academic research is done and can also learn how to evaluate data and academia could liberate herself from being labeled as elitist, living in the ivory tower and unwilling to connect with the other stakeholders in education.

All in all, an episode for connoisseurs.

How did you like this interview? Leave us a comment on Facebook and tell us what you think. You should also send Audrey a Tweet and thank her for this great interview.

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If you were teaching someone to score a penalty tomorrow, would you have them memorise the top 100 goal scorers of the last 100 years tonight? If you were hiring, would you go with the one holding the piece of paper proclaiming they were qualified, or the one with the experience who’d done it?

A few years ago, if you wanted to be in the film industry, you went to film school. In particular, if you wanted to direct major movies, you went to NYU or USC. Same goes for business, design, marketing, writing, photography, making Italian-style kazoos, whatever. There were establishments that you were expected to go to. And then the internet arrived, bringing with it an abundance of places where you can learn your craft, publish your work, and have it seen by a niche audience who are interested and offer feedback.

There’s no need to drop megabucks to get into an exclusive institution and proceed to ass-kiss the faculty (who are often far-removed from the industry they’re teaching) in the hope that you’ll land a good summer internship. You don’t have to send your portfolio or showreel to an individual in an agency. You can now create work, whether you’re doing that out of a damp garage or in the halls of a “well-respected” school, that is interesting enough for those people to want to come to you. The world has opened up, grades are an illusion, and getting a degree does not equal getting a good job. How you get an education is a non-issue. Now you can connect with the best craftspeople in the world, barge your way in and have them as personal mentors. You can create the work that you want to make and should be making, and build a demand around it. The old model is flawed, and that’s great news for all of us, even institutions if they’re willing to adapt.

Going to a traditional university to study something that’s subjective is a rapidly sinking ship and the web’s to thank (not blame). There’s a place for classic institutions – like if you want to be a doctor, or a lawyer. And there’s undeniable and powerful social benefits and life skills to be had being part of a community of new people, in a new area. But for subjects that can’t (shouldn’t) be measured by the results you get on an exam paper, it’s antiquated structure is dwindling at lightspeed. There’s a couple of options; get yourself in debt anyway and “qualify” with some paper, a gown and a hat, or go and make the stuff that drives you and get the experience, knowledge, and learning that comes with it.

When the internet provides (potentially in person & offline) access to the best craftspeople, teachers & mentors on the planet, a place to share your work that reaches far more eyes than the walls of an institution will ever do, and an abundance of trusted choice in whatever field you are interested in, you know it’s time to question the past and look to the future. You don’t need to drop dollars or pounds and sign up for 3 years, hoping you’ll enjoy whatever it is you’ve signed up for. You can experiment, for free. You can do it whenever you want, for as long as you want. Importantly, you can quit as many times as you like, until you learn what excites you. That’s one of the most exciting parts of the connected world. That and Ultimate Dog Tease.

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If you happen to be in Paris and involved in the English learning and teaching space, you should not miss this breakfast / conference organized by Agence Clé on May 23rd.

The theme Anglais: Que peut encore l’école? (English: What’s school still capable of?) should lead to some pretty interesting discussions, especially in France.

Opening at 8:45am at Pépinière 27 – 27, rue du Chemin Vert 75011 Paris, the program starts with an international overview presented by Divya Brochier, English teacher at Ecole Central Paris.

The second part of the conference is going to be a pitch session animated by yours truly. The French startups that are going to pitch the audience are 4n Media, Brain Pop ESL, English Attack! (interview), Lingueo (interview) and Speaking Agency.

The third part is going to be a panel discussion, also animated by me. The panelists are Rémi Danquin, DGESCO A3, Ministère de l’éducation nationale (to be confirmed), Marie-Hélène Fasquel, English teacher at lycée Giraux Sannier, Gaël le Dreau, chargé de mission langues et TICE au CNDP, Isabelle Mazarguil from Nos Juniors.com, a representative of CNED, English by Yourself and others.

You get get your free ticket at the website of Agence Clé.

Some of you might have noticed the Macmillan Digital Education logo at the upper right corner for a couple of weeks, already. Due to a series of Internet connection problems, a nasty flu and lots of travelling I had to push the official announcement until now. So here we go.

Macmillan Digital Education is supporting EDUKWEST in its mission to cover interesting startups and stories in the online education and edtech space. Matthias Ick, Managing Director of Macmillan Digital Education, and I have talked a lot over the past months and found that the mission and vision of our two ventures align.

What will change, you might ask. Well, other than you are going to get more EDUKWEST episodes and some new formats we will of course keep our editorial independence and do what we do best, giving you analysis, report, opinion and great interviews.

I am very happy about the support of Macmillan Digital Education, especially as this partnership / support was not a hard sell. Matthias and the team were very familiar with what we do at EDUKWEST already and did not need to be convinced that our work is worth being supported.

Digital Education and EDUKWEST are also going to work together on some edtech startup events, online and offline. We already have some ideas in mind that we are currently working on. Needless to say that we will keep you updated on the progress.
It may be a good moment to subscribe to our newsletter, if you haven’t already.

Once again, thank you to Matthias Ick and the team at Macmillan Digital Education for supporting EDUKWEST and its mission to showcase innovation in education. To learn more about what Macmillan Digital Education does, check out my interview with Matthias over here.

No sooner said than done I invited Matthias Ick, Managing Director of Macmillan Digital Education whom I’ve had some rather interesting talks with at different occasions over the past couple of months.

Macmillan might still be best known to many of us working in education as one of the big traditional publishing houses with products like onestopenglish for instance. But as we all know, it’s probably wise to look for other opportunities and extend the spectrum of activities and spread into other verticals.

Notably interesting for my work with EDUKWEST are their investment arms, Digital Education as a startup incubator and Macmillan New Ventures for later stage and bigger investments as the name suggests.

In respect of what I just described as centers of interest, I think this interview will be particularly insightful for the education entrepreneurs and teacherpreneurs who want to gain knowledge about promising new markets, we speak about Brazil in particular, and also how to pitch your products best to an investor like Macmillan Digital Education.

Besides talking about some of their recent investments and why they made these, Matthias shares some knowledge and practical tips to pay attention to when building your MVP (minimum viable product) and then how to reach out and seek investment for your startup.

And as always I hope you enjoy the interview and that it adds value to your knowledge about the space. Please, help share the EDUKWEST experience with other like-minded people in the online education industry and recommend the website or share this interview on social media.

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According to the German tech publication Gründerszene, the Berlin-based community for scientists ResearchGate raised $20 million. Gründerszene contacted the team at ResearchGate for more details on the funding but has not received an answer yet.

Their source is the online database WhoGotFunded.com which links to the SEC filing. ResearchGate’s founder Ijad Madisch is known for being tight-lipped about how much the startup raises and the two previous rounds which involved Benchmark Capital, Accel Partners, Funders Fund, Michael Birch and Yammer CEO David Sacks are estimated at around $3-$5 million and $6-$8 million according to TechCrunch.

Though often described as the Facebook for Scientists Madisch and the team seem to have a far bigger vision than simply connecting the global science community. ResearchGate also aims to be a place where scientists can share raw data as well as published results and in general make all the information available for anyone free of charge.

This sounds pretty familiar and up the same alley another startup in the science space was working on. Mendeley, also founded by a team of German scientists and backed by ex-PayPal executives, was one of the hottest startups in Europe. Based in London it quickly grew and attracted scientists from across the globe.

About a month ago Mendeley got acquired by Science-Journal publisher Elsevier (or acquihired as the founders remain on board and transition into new roles inside the company). This acquisition led to some pretty strong reactions in the science and academic community, especially what this means for open access research. Mendeley has been championing open access research through a variety of events and other support. Now that the startup is part of a traditional science-journal publisher many ask what will be left from that mission. And though Mendeley co-founder and CEO Victor Henning assured the community that nothing will change other than Mendeley having more resources to grow, the user base does not seem to trust Elsevier.

So maybe ResearchGate and its investors saw an opportunity to offer academics who either already left Mendeley or are at least playing with the thought a new home. Mendeley raised significantly less investment than ResearchGate, so the price that someone had to pay to acquire the platform would also be much higher than what Elsevier payed for Mendeley.

Therefore the chances are good that ResearchGate is going to remain independent for a longer time, maybe even eyeing an IPO in the future in order to pay out its investors instead of being acquired by a publisher.

Zynga’s non-profit arm Zynga.org announced that it will commit $1 million for the first year in a new edtech accelerator in partnership with NewSchools Venture Fund. The accelerator is going to be

“… focused on enhancing the quality and reach of learning games and apps designed to improve education outcomes.”

Aside from the monetary aspect Zynga is also going to provide access to the Zynga team, sharing their expertise in game design, testing, analytics, product marketing and distribution.

“We want to help entrepreneurs create high quality, scalable learning games that will enhance learning experiences for all 21stcentury students.”

said Ken Weber, Executive Director, Zynga.org.

The first cohort, taking place in summer 2013, consists of three edtech startups, namely Kidaptive, LocoMotiveLabs and Motion Math. Also, Edmodo is going to join the first cohort as charter partner.

There are a couple of interesting angles in this partnership to talk about. First of all, the parent company Zynga has been in a downward spiral over the past months, losing key executives, market share and value at the stock exchange. The startup that used to be a serious threat to established game giants like EA seems to be in search of new lucrative markets aside the shrinking revenue from Facebook and mobile games.

Hence partnering with NewSchools through the non-profit Zynga.org might be a sign that educational games are considered to be a potentially interesting market.

For edtech startups in the space the access to the Zynga team could help them to overcome one of the major obstacles: finding a viable business model. I am not sure if Zynga can add much to the marketing and distribution aspect, especially towards educators but that part should be provided by NewSchools, similar to what imagine K12 offers their incubated startups.

Farbood Nivi, founder of Grockit / Learnist stated in our interview that

The problem in the space right now is that there has been such an effort to turn the teacher into an entrepreneur. I think the effort should have been put in getting these teacher entrepreneurs to partner with business entrepreneurs.

And not because they are incapable of any aspect of the business, but there is too much work to do and that an educator entrepreneur should probably be focused on the product and learning aspect of the organization and the partner should be focused on the business aspect of it, and the whole organization is more likely to succeed I think in this way. Kind of this founder dating style. I’d like to see a lot more of that.

I think, this new accelerator is going in that direction.

However, one thing we also have to keep in mind, Zynga has a certain reputation of copying games when they cannot acquire the competing startup. Some of those allegations even went to court.

Playing the devil’s advocate here, being an investor in promising edtech startups in the gaming space might also give Zynga access to intelligence like user numbers and other interesting data points. Given the somewhat dubious reputation Zynga has earned for itself over the years in the game development community it is something I would think twice about before entering the accelerator program.

Another aspect to the educational game market which is largely driven by parents buying apps for early childhood learning is that there are first voices calling for a more moderate approach of using technology in early childhood education as toddlers seem to get addicted to their devices pretty heavily. Alicia Chang wrote about her concerns here on EDUKWEST almost two years ago, already.

Add pseudo-scientific claims to the mix and you have the ingredients for a parent backlash on educational games and devices. I guess, we’ll see how it all plays out eventually.

Source: Globe News Wire

We are thrilled to announce that EDUKWEST has been voted as one of the 50 Must-Read Higher Ed IT Blogs in 2013 by the readers of EdTech Magazine.

Looking at the list we are in great company with other quality sites and blogs covering the higher education space and we congratulate them all.

2013 has been a great year for us so far, being one of the finalists at the prestigious Weblog Awards and winning an Edtech Leadership Award. And we are up to more, adding new shows and contributors like Jenny Grant Rankin who is going to cover the exciting space of data in edtech for EDUKWEST.

Finally we want to thank all of our readers and guests. Approaching the magic 100th episode of our marquee show EDUKWEST, we are going to announce more exciting news around our blog and webcasts, soon. So stay tuned.

Educators have widely accepted the importance of using data to inform their treatment of students’ needs. This is a good thing, as research touts the benefits of effective data use. Thus many educators worldwide have embraced data use with gusto. Unfortunately, educators’ widespread data use is not quite a good thing.

A significant portion – and some research claims most – of educators analyzing and using data are doing so incorrectly. For example, a study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education (2009) at districts with reputations for strong data use found only 48% of teachers correctly interpreted given data. Much research supports this trend: educators are using data to inform decisions, but they do not always understand the data they are using. Since their data-misinformed decisions impact students, this is a significant problem. Fortunately, edtech can do much to help if it improves in key areas.

Consider an Analogy

Which offers you better medical care: 1) treatment or medicine administered via a personal visit with a doctor, or 2) over-the-counter medicine administered by yourself? The answer is easy: a personal visit with a doctor, as he or she can ensure the treatment or medicine is used appropriately. However, this does not supplant the need for over-the-counter medicine, as it is not always possible to visit a doctor for every cough or sniffle. While a doctor is not present to explain the over-the-counter medication’s purpose, ingredients, dosage instructions, and dangers, any remedy you buy in a store comes with a detailed label and other supports outlining these matters. Just as it would be wrong to board up pharmaceutical aisles in stores and withhold basic medicine from people who are not receiving it directly from doctors’ hands, it would be equally ludicrous to rip the labels off over-the-counter medications, leaving people with no way to use them wisely.

So, how does this relate to schools and edtech? Educators use data to treat students, and they use edtech data systems (or reports generated from those systems) to analyze this data. However, these educators are usually operating without the data-equivalent to over-the-counter medicine. They are essentially opening data bottles with no labels, and swallowing the contents nonetheless. This is because supports that commonly accompany over-the-counter medicine to ensure it is used properly (thorough labeling, supplemental documentation, online access to a help system, effective package/design, and appropriate contents) are not utilized in most of the edtech data systems or reports educators use to analyze data. Thus this highly utilized sector of edtech typically denies educators the analysis supports that could significantly improve educators’ use of the data.

How Has Edtech’s Data Role Progressed?

Before the rise of technology and user-friendly data systems, school staff did not have site-wide access to data like they typically do today. Staff and students could not benefit from extensive, timely data such as classroom assessment data that could be used to closely monitor student progress and customize instruction accordingly. Perhaps staff received blocks of data by the government, a consultant, or a district-based trainer once or twice per year, but this could not help their students on an ongoing formative basis, and it only offered educators isolated points in time during which students’ needs could be assessed and remedies determined. With this arrangement, educators were like patients with limited access to doctors and no access to over-the-counter medication.

Now most schools are using a data system with an intelligible interface that puts data at the fingertips of most staff members. However, the data reports contained therein are generally not accompanied by guidance on their purpose, how to properly read them, how to properly interpret the data, and analysis misconceptions to avoid. Essentially, educators are like patients using medication in unmarked – or marginally marked –containers. A data system might label a report (“Growth Report,” “Year-to-Year Comparison,” etc.), but relying on mere titles is akin to taking pills in a bottle marked only as “Cold” or “Flu.” Anyone using such data to inform decisions is assuming as much risk as someone opening a pill bottle that reads “Flu” and chancing ingestion of the wrong number of pills, at the wrong time, for the wrong type of flu, and in direct opposition to dangers. Imagine the ramifications for students and staff affected by the decisions made in such a way.

With educators making so many data analysis errors even at districts known for their data prowess, current data analysis supports are clearly not enough. Professional development (PD) is needed and effective, as are good leadership and staff to assist with data use, but we further these supports’ impact when we prescribe an Over-the-Counter Data (OTCD) format for the data we are using.

What Is Over-the-Counter Data?

There is no price tag tied to OTCD. Rather, it is a design approach any edtech data system or report is free to utilize to help educators make more accurate analyses of data. While most data systems are simply “showing the data,” OTCD addresses key ways in which they can better help educators use that data correctly. Inspired by the varied ways in which over-the-counter medication supports the successful use of its contents, OTCD involves embedding data analysis supports directly within reporting environments and adhering to best practices within 5 component categories:

Label – The label functions as an appropriate report title (clear, concise, consistent with logic of report suite titling) and appears as a footer and/or annotation on each report to provide the most important information needed for analysis.

Supplemental Documentation – Since you should not cram all information needed for analysis onto the report itself, explanatory information accompanies each report via links to an abstract and/or interpretation guide providing more analysis guidance specific to the report and its data.

Help System – An online help system built within the product and accessible via an easy-to-spot link offers lessons on using the system (tech lessons), which is common, but also on data analysis (specific to the data and assessments used in the users’ region), which is uncommon.

Package/Display – Report format (how the data is displayed) assists proper analysis by maintaining credibility, offering key features, and adhering to principles of good design that assist analysis ease and accuracy. Reports are accessible (e.g., it’s easy to find a particular report) in a manner that offers easy navigation.

Contents – Reports operate with input controls that specifically facilitate recommended data investigation practices, feature expiration- and audience-sensitive contents, and comprise a suite of reports covering all key needs without overwhelming users.

Specific attributes contained within these OTCD components are detailed at www.overthecounterdata.com/otcd. These recommendations summarized by OTCD are based on research in education and edtech, as well as research in a variety of other fields (e.g., behavioral economics, design, business analytics, technology, etc.). OTCD assumes an edtech data system or data component already meets basic requirements widely accepted and discussed for at least a decade (students tied to unique identifiers, online access for all staff, longitudinal reporting capabilities, etc.), which so many data systems already include, and summarizes what their next milestones should be.

What Can We Do?

OTCD holds great potential to help educators and – most importantly – students, but only if it is implemented in areas of edtech and reporting that communicate data to education stakeholders. Everyone involved in education and edtech can play a role in this endeavor:

Educators – You are the edtech customer and thus edtechs respond to your requests and want to meet your needs. Communicate your need for OTCD to your edtech vendor and work to see your OTCD requests implemented in any area where data is being communicated. Knowing most educators are misusing data in its absence, OTCD is an urgent request.

Edtech Staff – If your system includes a component that communicates data, adjust your system to adhere to OTCD. This has a significant impact on students and thus is a matter of moral responsibility. Fortunately, OTCD also creates more cost-effective efficiency in your product and improves your product’s success and marketability.

Edtech Investors – When determining which edtech startups or projects in which to invest, check edtech candidates for OTCD. Many edtech products contain a feedback component where they are communicating data, and poor communication is not cutting edge. Rather, a firm understanding and implementation of OTCD allows edtechs to perform better and thus compete better in the market, all while being more efficient with design and resources. Products adhering to OTCD are more worthy of your investment than those failing to implement research-based practice.

OTCD is the next frontier for data in edtech. It is time for conversations about edtechs that display data to hold higher standards and reflect OTCD best practices ascertained by the research community. When Over-the-Counter Data is realized in products educators use to view, understand, and use data, it will be a great victory for students and all roles seeking to help them.

I had the chance to talk with Anant Agarwal, President of edX about the first lessons learnt and how edX contributes to changing higher education in general and its economics in particular.

Similar to other MOOC platforms edX was started under the premise of democratizing higher education and to bring lectures from top professors to students all over the world as well as to allow them to learn at anytime and anywhere. What makes edX distinct however is its nature as a not-for-profit and the pursuit to open-source its platform.

Although we are still early on in seeing MOOCs actually in action and to draw conclusions of whether they are an answer to what the future of higher education online might look like, edX has of course gathered data about how many students take their MOOCs and maybe more interestingly, how many complete the courses.

During our talk Agarwal tells me that some of their most popular courses have been taken by more than 50,000 students from all over the world, and I share his excitement here as it proves that technology is not a hurdle anymore but that one can take a MOOC and thus have access to world-class tuition even if they live in a developing country or remote area. I also agree that lowering the barrier of access to free knowledge and education lets the high-potentials shine, the ones with the brain but not necessarily with the money to afford and MIT or Harvard education. If these or some of these then get accepted by one of the best universities in the world simply based on their successful completion of a MOOC is undoubtedly democratic. However, I’m almost sure that these high-potentials would have also made their way if the circumstances were different. The way would have looked differently but I believe many of them would have found success without MOOCs.

This brings me to what do completion rates look like when we look at MOOCs more in general? The numbers of MOOCs taken solely online are very modest. Agarwal says for edX they are around five percent. Study groups, whether formed online or in the offline world, can help increase completion rates but can’t be seen as the end to the story. edX and the other players have to find ways to make the experience stickier and to help prevent such high dropout rates.

Already today Agarwal sees a significantly higher completion rates when the individual MOOC is part of a blended experience, so part online and part on-campus. The professor of the respective course at San Jose State University saw pass rates increase from 55% to 91%.

The last part of our talk focusses on the impact of many more highly educated people on the job market in the future and related to that the discussion of how much a paid four-year college education will still be worth compared with a MOOC certificate of completion and the ability to prove your skills to an employer.

Quotes to share on Twitter

I can’t imagine a better thing brought to public knowledge than education.

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We had ten years worth of innovation happening in education in the space of one year.

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