In this episode of review:ed Chris and Kirsten talk about the big stories in 2012 and give their predictions on how the edtech space might evolve in 2013.

Of course they talk about MOOCs and anti-MOOCs, Pearson, funding, the edtech bubble, textbooks, the flipped classroom, Khan, crowdfunding and much more.

Key features here are assessing what people know at what point in time and how well they know it.
We then take a deeper look into the needs of teachers to make it attractive and easy for them to deploy these tools. McGraw Hill sees professional development tailored to the specific school as key element here along with strong tech support.

Next we talk a bit about the tablet space unfolding quickly and what might be the opportunities of integrating this technology in the classroom.

Lastly, we encapsulate some of the points we touched on during the interview to try make a prediction of what education might look like in the future: supporting teachers in this transition period, not one single company can solve this problem as Madan puts it, there needs to be a coalition of the willing to offer an industry solution for an industry problem along with federal and state government as well as some of the associations.

ENT is brought to you by Mingoville Fun Clock. - Mingoville Fun Clock is an educational game that will teach you kid to tell time. Fun Clock is created by the award winning educational company Mingoville and available for Android and iOS devices. Visit mingovillefunclock.com and follow them on Twitter @Mingoville.

On Monday Microsoft and Barnes&Noble announced that Microsoft will invest $300 million in a new venture that will spin off the digital and campus business into a new subsidiary called NewCo. Microsoft will own 17%.

This is an interesting turn of events as both companies sued each other over Android patents about a year ago. Chris and I talked about this new partnership, what it might entail for other players in the field and if it is actually about an interest in digital media and education or only about the Android patents.

You can also read a summary of my thoughts over at edcetera.

This Interview is sponsored by udemy - Udemy enables anyone to take and build courses online. Their goal is to disrupt and democratize education by enabling anyone to learn from the world’s experts. Visit udemy.com and follow them on Twitter @udemy.

Links

• Microsoft and Barnes & Noble settle patent dispute; create new subsidiary
  Source: ZDNet
• A Windows 8 e-reader: If someone builds it, will they come?
  Source: ZDNet
• Should Barnes and Noble Break Up? Float Off the Nook To Compete With Amazon and Apple?
  Source: Forbes
• Kindle Fire accounts for more than half of U.S. Android tablets
  Source: Computer World
• Microsoft, Pegatron Ink Patent Deal for Android, Chrome Devices
  Source: PCMag
• Microsoft’s $300 million Nook investment: An Android power grab?
  Source: Digital Trends
• For Google Chairman Schmidt, Maybe Monopoly Was The Goal
  Source: Forbes

On Friday, Christopher Dawson and myself had the pleasure for a short talk with the two co-founders of Coursera, Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng.

As the startup is backed with $16 million dollars in venture funding and thus also got some coverage outside of the education vertical, we were of course very interested in hearing a bit more online education centered and beyond the usual articles on some of the big tech-blogs.

This Interview is sponsored by imagine K12 imagine K12, the silicon valley incubator for ed tech companies, will start its summer 2012 program in July. The online application is currently open and is due on May 4. Visit imaginek12.com/apply for more information.

The interview starts with the founders’ motivation to launch their startup right now, I was particularly interested in hearing whether this was financially motivated as it seems to be a great moment for Silicon Valley based education startups or rather based on the technology.

Coursera is currently already working together with three universities, Princeton, the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania besides Stanford, their alma mater. As a side-note, unlike other initiatives in Higher Education that are led by professors, for instance Sebastian Thun’s Udacity, Koller and Ng are staying at Stanford and will continue teaching there.

All courses available on the platform are offered completely for free and the Coursera team are building relationships with other top institutions to offer a wider variety of courses in the near future.

With such a big vision of changing Higher Education they must, of course, have an idea on the potential impact Coursera might have on the landscape.

We wrap up the talk by discussing the (currently non-existing) business-model of Coursera. Following right in the tradition of recent movements in Silicon Valley, there will certainly be a business at some point in the future, but Coursera currently focuses on building the platform, adding more courses and getting more students.

Additional Links:

In this week’s edition of review:ed Kirsten and Chris focus on one big topic: funding startups in education. They discuss the big funding month as more than $110 million went into education startups in April alone.

But what does this mean for education in general. Do those startups all need an exit like the Business Insider suggests and if so, who is going to buy them? What role do crowdfunding and entrepreneurial teachers play in this, what are the differences between them and startup founders that come from outside of education?

Links

• Ed News Ticker #2 April 14th 2012
  Source: EDUKWEST
• There Are A Million Education Startups And No One To Acquire Them
  Source: Business Insider
• We need a Dividends instead of Exits Mindset in Education
  Source: Disrupt Education
• Teaching 2030: What We Must Do for Our Students and Our Public Schools–Now and in the Future
  Source: Amazon
• Are Teacherpreneurs the future of education?
  Source: Good
• EdTech Link
  Source: TeachPaperless | Prezi
• Top Tier vs Low Cost in Education
  Source: Disrupt Education

Fundings in April 2012 so far

• $25 million Minerva
• $26 million + $10 million 2tor
• $16 million Coursera
• $10 million StraighterLine
• $8 million Boundless Learning
• $6 million Schoology
• $4.75 million Treehouse
• $2.4 million LearnZillion
• $2.3 million Voxy
• + several smaller fundings

In this review:ed special Chris and I talked about the Intel Studybook that has been announced last Tuesday. Chris had the chance to go to Boston for a presentation of the new education tablet by Intel and you can read his complete review on ZDNet Education.

Chris is pretty impressed by not only the device but the entire eco-system Intel is building around it. As he wrote in the summary of his post:

I can almost smell the holy grail…the right hardware, the right ecosystem, the right price. Intel has hit a home run with its Studybook.

To learn more about the first tablet that is truly made for the classroom, watch our talk below.

This Interview is sponsored by StudyBlue – Learn from others. Teach yourself.StudyBlue enables students to quickly share and compare their explanations with more than one million of their peers who are sharing over 40 million ideas. Anyone can test-drive the database of explanations by visiting StudyBlue’s home page.Visit StudyBlue.com and follow @StudyBlue on Twitter.

Of course there are also news around tablets. Chris hints some big news in this space from Intel, the Aakash gets into schools in Philadelphia and All ThingsD thinks that tablets might save $3 billion a year.

All that and more in this episode of review:ed.

This Interview is sponsored by AcademicPub – Your Book Your Way AcademicPub allows you to take content from their copyright cleared library of over 125 publishers, your files or anything on the web, and create custom course packs that are perfect, for you. Visit them today at academicpub.com and follow @AcademicPub on Twitter.

Show Notes

[02:20] Recap Interview Charlie Osborne
Source: EDUKWEST

[07:54] Apple, Publishers & DOJ near settlement
Source: The Verge

[12:40] Why tablets can save $3 billion a year
Source: All ThingsD

[14:23] Hachette to drop DRM?
Source: Paid Content

[19:27] Thank you to our sponsor AcademicPub

[23:30] Boundless Learning raises $8 million, gets sued by publishers
Source: TechCrunch

[33:05] Digital Public Library of America
Source: TechCrunch

[35:29] Google Glasses & check-ins

[37:50] Aakash tablet in Philadelphia schools
Source: TechCrunch

[42:45] Chris Intel

[47:25] The Future of Peer Reviewed scientific journals
Source: The Scientist

[54:38] LRMI – Learning Resource Metadata Initiative
Source: LRMI

[57:36] Minerva Project
Source: All ThingsD

[1:03:55] Rosemary boosts math skills
Source:  The Atlantic

As Charlie points out in her post on iGeneration

Privacy may be a casualty of today’s data and digital connection explosion, but it does not mean that businesses have the divine right to exploit such concerns.

This Interview is sponsored by AcademicPub – Your Book Your Way AcademicPub allows you to take content from their copyright cleared library of over 125 publishers, your files or anything on the web, and create custom course packs that are perfect, for you. Visit them today at academicpub.com and follow @AcademicPub on Twitter.

Chris and I invited Richard Byrne of FreeTech4Teachers.com to talk about the probably biggest story in education last week: the acquisition of Moodlerooms by Blackboard and the according press release that Bb is now embracing open source.

The announcement has received some mixed feedback amongst the education community to say the least, some being confused if everything will remain the same with Moodle, the open sourced LMS. On his flight back from Switzerland, Richard had enough time to reflect on the consequences which he then shared with us in this interview.

This Interview is sponsored by AcademicPub – Your Book Your Way AcademicPub allows you to take content from their copyright cleared library of over 125 publishers, your files or anything on the web, and create custom course packs that are perfect, for you. Visit them today at academicpub.com and follow @AcademicPub on Twitter.

This Interview is sponsored by AcademicPub – Your Book Your Way AcademicPub allows you to take content from their copyright cleared library of over 125 publishers, your files or anything on the web, and create custom course packs that are perfect, for you. Visit them today at academicpub.com and follow @AcademicPub on Twitter.

Show Notes

[01:55] Interview with Richard Byrne of FreeTech4Teachers.com about Moodleroom acquisition by Blackboard
Source: EDUKWEST | Blackboard | TechCrunch | ZDNet

[02:40] Startup incubator for Highschool students launched
Source: GeekWire

[05:37] Student developers build Microsoft Phone ecosystem
Source: The Verge

[13:45] Chris talks about his iPad experience so far

[16:54] How does the Khan Academy iPad app perform

[19:03] 2tor and UNC Chapel Hill launch online graduate program
Source: 2tor

[23:40] Announcement: Christopher Dawson now Senior Editor of EDUKWEST

[25:07] Thank you to our sponsor AcademicPub

[28:00] SparkLab: the educational build-mobile
Source: Kickstarter

[33:43] The French Homework Boykott
Source: The Guardian

[40:46] CK-12 beta program launched
Source: CK-12