8 ms·

Silicon Valley and the Edtech Revolution

78 points by sama 12y ago

jonhmchan 12y ago
I'm curious what proportion of edtech is geared towards teaching how to code. It seems that a lot of companies in the space (or at least the ones I hear about) are geared towards this one topic, and only a notable few are tackling other areas of academia or infrastructure issues around education. On surface it makes sense - tech companies geared towards education are probably going to focus on technology as the subject. It's also relatively cheap to source material, employees have first-hand experience in the field, and there's high demand with straightforward business models available. I certainly noticed all these things when I launched Bento (http://bentobox.io/ http://bentobox.io/), and I still think about it today. I do try and maintain a healthy skepticism though: is the edtech being referenced in this article still largely in the narrow band of technology, or are we seeing it expand?
- vdaniuk 12y ago
  Everything will be in the "narrow" band of technology, give it time :)
- gravity13 12y ago
  I think you just have higher exposure to 'learn to code' - there are a tremendous number of other companies, see https://www.edsurge.com/products/ https://www.edsurge.com/products/ for a great index.
  - jonhmchan 12y ago
    Excellent - yes, I was hoping I was simply getting a higher exposure to 'learn to code' companies.
- akurilin 12y ago
  The last batch of Imagine K12 saw at most one or two companies that were dealing with teaching code / CS, the rest were tackling areas such as MDM, teacher productivity, communication with parents, polling students and teaching individual subjects like Common Core Math. The variety is there (see: https://www.edsurge.com/n/2014-01-14-imagine-k12-launches-13-startups https://www.edsurge.com/n/2014-01-14-imagine-k12-launches-13...), it just doesn't make the headlines as much.
- ameister14 12y ago
  It seems that, even through examining the site you were linked to, most of the professional education oriented companies are geared towards technical skill-sets. There are webinar platforms for a bunch of the other things but those are, for the most part, one-offs. It's rare to find an effective staged learning system with excellent content. I haven't seen it much outside of academic platforms.
- krrishd 12y ago
  I think 'ed tech' != 'tech ed'. Educational technology pertains to the usage of technology to enhance all types of education, whereas technology education has the goal of teaching students how to code, etc.
quarterconfig 12y ago
"The idea that great education was never for the few and should always be available to all led to the creation of MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses, led by Silicon Valley companies like Coursera and Udacity" This is presented as a novel idea, but governments have been subsidizing education for a long time because of this long held value (see: student loans). "You know a revolution is happening in Silicon Valley when the money shows up." Correlation does not equal causation? Money does not a revolution make.
- vertex-four 12y ago
  > This is presented as a novel idea, but governments have been subsidizing education for a long time because of this long held value (see: student loans). Not only that, but the UK has had the Open University since 1969 which provides mass long-distance learning, with grants and loans being easy to find for those taking less than 120 credits a year. They've been using computers and the Internet since they were first accessible to people (using TV and radio for broadcasting lectures before that), and have been releasing some free course material since 2006. The OU also provide a degree track, giving out degrees that are (theoretically) on par with brick-and-mortar unis. Of course, MOOCs are interesting in that the course material tends to be free, but they're also far behind the Open Uni in most other aspects.
- saraid216 12y ago
  > Money does not a revolution make. When has it ever? Unless we're talking about Cold War sponsorships, which I don't think would count for these purposes.
bfwi 12y ago
How effective are MOOCs really? I'm not saying that they're not effective, I'm simple asking the question. Are people getting hired based on a resume of a MOOC education? Do you know anyone who really learned a subject by taking a MOOC? If so, that's fantastic.
- ojbyrne 12y ago
  Having taken 7 or 8 MOOCs, my unscientific opinion is: 1. Employers completely ignore them. 2. The vast majority of courses are not very good - poor preparation, bad lecturing, not well thought out course design. A small number of courses (mostly those based on existing courses at top universities) are very good. I think that this actually reflects the university experience in general.
- jonhmchan 12y ago
  From my own experience, MOOCs are useful to get a base understanding of a particular topic. However, learning the topic at hand is necessary but not sufficient: I don't think many people are getting jobs by listing completion of a course. As it stands, I think the people that (1) understand the topic well, and (2) are getting jobs are also people that take that understanding and have something to show for it. It's not enough to say that you learned code through Codecademy, you do need to build something of your own to show in order to be employable. I think that's the case even with traditional education: it's not enough to simply have a CS degree, but something to show for it as well.
- acbart 12y ago
  My takeaway from Learning@Scale, the first big CS Education conference to focus on Learning Sciences and Computer Science "at scale", is that the people who succeed at them are the people who already have some higher education and are driven and motivated. I don't think most of the serious researchers are convinced they'll be THAT useful in the long run. I'd dig up the research papers, but I'm supposed to be working :) I recommend a quick glance over their latest issues.
  - _delirium 12y ago
    > people who succeed at them are the people who already have some higher education At a conference I was at, one of the speakers claimed that a disproportionate number of the successful students in the group they were studying not only had some college, but had actually finished college and had a degree (though not always in the same area). It'd be nice to see some more solid stats on that. Their interpretation was that where MOOCs are most successful, so far, is as "continuing education" for people who already finished conventional higher education. Those people can use MOOCs to keep up to speed in their field, or broaden by taking a few courses in other fields that they didn't get a chance to study at school.
jnbiche 12y ago
If someone wants to create a start-up that will really help teachers to teach tech, they'll find a way to help teachers bypass their local IT departments in an acceptable manner. I know of multiple school districts that are absolutely plagued by overzealous IT admins, including the director, who lock down teacher and student computers to the point where they're unable to install or use the software they need to learn or login to all these cool educational services that use Google or Facebook login. Watching educational YouTube videos? That's not even open for discussion. They're totally blocked from learning. Funny thing is: the kids all know how to get around these blocks, but the teachers don't dare do it for fear of losing their job. This on top of the fact that these schools' LANs fail on a regular basis, including when students are taking computer-based standardized tests. So teachers spend hours each week filing bug reports and calling IT to get these sites unblocked, software installed, or LAN/wifi back up. Most people here wouldn't believe what is going on in many school districts because of overzealous and incompetent IT admins. It's a structural problem in at least 3 states I'm familiar with (all of them low-performing states on standard tests). Maybe build a "screened" portal to educational sites (including ones with YouTube videos) and software? But it would have to be accompanied by some serious lobbying towards the IT folks to whitelist it.
- MarcScott 12y ago
  I have an excellent technician at my school who manages to be as flexible as possible, while keeping within the bounds of school policies. We've now setup OpenStack on a server, and are in position to give every student in the school their own Linux VPS next year. They'll ssh in using putty, have full admin rights to their instance, be able to apt-get whatever they like and all of a sudden the IT policies of the school no longer apply. I'm suddenly really looking forward to teaching Computing next year.
  - jnbiche 12y ago
    >I have an excellent technician at my school who manages to be as flexible as possible, while keeping within the bounds of school policies. You're very fortunate. I'm guessing you're probably in a high-performing, relatively well-to-do school district (please correct me if I'm wrong). >and are in position to give every student in the school their own Linux VPS next year. The IT depts at the schools I'm familiar with (through friends, I'm not a teacher myself) wouldn't even know what OpenStack is. They're 100% Microsoft shops. And the idea of giving a student root access to his/her own virtual instance would simultaneously blow the IT staffs' mind, terrify, and enrage them.
MarcScott 12y ago
I get extremely frustrated by the plethora of Edtech initiatives, all purporting to solve some problem but in reality simply making more work for teachers. In my school we have an MIS that seems to have evolved from an Access Database created in the 90s, that manages all student data, but has no API. We also have a VLE that was designed to look pretty, but offers almost no functionality and has a UI that is tortuous to use and actually lengthens the time it takes to mark work and record results. Every teacher I work with has a different way of operating. Some write assignments on the board and take in hard copies. Other's use the official VLE. Some use email or shared network drives, and others Edmodo or whatever platform is flavour of the month. Work is marked and fed back to students, and then inevitable placed in an Excel spreadsheet, exported as a CSV or transcribed into a paper mark book, only then to be then double entered into our MIS at a later date. The system is a mess, and every new Edtech tool I see just adds to the confusion - another URL to remember, another username, password, interface. I wonder how many Edtech startups have founders that were actual teachers, or bring teachers on board at an early stage. Judging by the tools on offer, I would guess that it's not many. There are a couple of exceptions. EdX, I think, is an amazing platform, but even though it is OpenSource, it is well beyond the capabilities of most schools to set up an in-house platform. Codecademy seem to genuinely want to engage with teachers (in the UK at least) but where are the Codecademy startups for Geography or French or Science. In my own teaching I find myself increasingly shunning new Edtech tools, and now barely bother clicking on the links I receive in my inbox every day. Until Edtech startups really engage with teachers, rather than just treating them as beta testers, I really don't see anything in the future other than increasing fragmentation and frustration.
- fraserharris 12y ago
  Check out Chalk.com - a "Google Apps for teachers". Has tens of thousands of teachers using it. Its free for a teacher to use. Schools can pay to enable collaboration features. Superficially it looks like a LMS, but usually exists alongside them. (i'm not affiliated, but have been impressed by the founder. They are bootstrapped)
- mathattack 12y ago
  Thank you for sharing this very important perspective. A lot of EdTech initiatives seem to neglect the variation in individual teaching. It seems like if you build a school around these tools, it could work a lot better than bolting on to existing schools. In that sense, charter schools may be good for experimenting with technology. The other observation - teachers are very busy. Each technology initiative takes time and attention. Reminds me of this Onion article. http://www.theonion.com/articles/magical-office-worker-able-to-turn-everything-he-t,36343/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/magical-office-worker-able-...
jonbischke 12y ago
I'm super psyched about this but, as a former ed tech entrepreneur, also a bit concerned. The concern lies here. The blog post references a record $509 million in ed tech financing in 2014. However, in the last 10 years I believe we have only seen two companies go public (2U and Chegg). Both trade at modest multiples to invested capital and neither is focused on the K-12 space. And those are the success stories. Other than those two, I can't think of a nine figure acquisition other Wireless Generation. My concern is that, unless we start seeing large exits soon, we'll have a lot of investors fleeing the space similar to what happened to the "e-learning" companies in the wake of the dot com crash. I sincerely hope that I'm wrong though. I'm a big fan of ImagineK12 and many of the companies referenced in the blog post. I'd love to see a number of IPOs and big exits which will drive more capital towards innovation in this sector.
- c4mden 12y ago
  There've been a few nine-figure acquisitions of companies that help traditional colleges expand online, with John Wiley buying deltak.edu for $220mm, and Pearson buying EmbanetCompass for $650mm, both in 2012.
  - jonbischke 12y ago
    Sorry, should have clarified. Of the new wave of ed tech companies, there haven't been any big acquisitions. Both Embanet and deltak were founded in the 90s.
- nl 12y ago
  Blackboard (hmmm!) has been a fairly active acquirer of companies.
codingdave 12y ago
I don't think we are at "revolution" yet. We are dabbling. We are giving teachers new tools. We are creating content for kids who can already read fairly well, and content for pore-K kids, but failing fairly miserably at the 1st-3rd grade level. We are tooling up the industry, but not revolutionizing it. We are the same old industry, with shiny toys, and online classes that supplement schooling, but only replace it for a very small minority of very clever children. The investors don;' signal a revolution. They signal a market opportunity, which is not the same thing. When parents start pulling their kids out of the public schools, because the online options surpass the local school district at a functional level for lower income working families, THEN we have a revolution on our hands.
brianstorms 12y ago
Why is this getting coverage in HN? It's an infomercial, full of Silicon Valley patting itself on its own back, by a former YC partner. Recursive much? Sometimes you guys have to stop chugging from the SV Kool-Aid fire hose. Especially when it comes to educational technology.
- taber 12y ago
  I'm learning useful things from these comments. A lot of times I don't even click on the OP for obviously link-bait TC type stuff but I nevertheless find HN comments interesting.
WalterBright 12y ago
The thing is, there is no way to automate learning. Learning is a lot like exercise - it takes work and effort to get stronger. Nobody has succeeded in making effortless exercise, and nobody has or will succeed in making learning effortless. The Khan Academy and Coursera do not automate education, they simply are the modern version of correspondence courses.
- jshute 12y ago
  It's a bit more nuanced than the no-pain-no-gain attitude toward exercise, too. We are fond of the saying, "worksheets don't build dendrites" around here. I think many institutions are set up as human proof-of-work verification machines, when they should be set up as human brain debuggers. Debuggers show you counter-examples to your mental model. You set the goals and drive the process.

78 points by sama 12y ago

I'm curious what proportion of edtech is geared towards teaching how to code. It seems that a lot of companies in the space (or at least the ones I hear about) are geared towards this one topic, and only a notable few are tackling other areas of academia or infrastructure issues around education. On surface it makes sense - tech companies geared towards education are probably going to focus on technology as the subject. It's also relatively cheap to source material, employees have first-hand experience in the field, and there's high demand with straightforward business models available. I certainly noticed all these things when I launched Bento (http://bentobox.io/ http://bentobox.io/), and I still think about it today. I do try and maintain a healthy skepticism though: is the edtech being referenced in this article still largely in the narrow band of technology, or are we seeing it expand?

vdaniuk 12y ago
Everything will be in the "narrow" band of technology, give it time :)
gravity13 12y ago
I think you just have higher exposure to 'learn to code' - there are a tremendous number of other companies, see https://www.edsurge.com/products/ https://www.edsurge.com/products/ for a great index.
- jonhmchan 12y ago
  Excellent - yes, I was hoping I was simply getting a higher exposure to 'learn to code' companies.
akurilin 12y ago
The last batch of Imagine K12 saw at most one or two companies that were dealing with teaching code / CS, the rest were tackling areas such as MDM, teacher productivity, communication with parents, polling students and teaching individual subjects like Common Core Math. The variety is there (see: https://www.edsurge.com/n/2014-01-14-imagine-k12-launches-13-startups https://www.edsurge.com/n/2014-01-14-imagine-k12-launches-13...), it just doesn't make the headlines as much.
ameister14 12y ago
It seems that, even through examining the site you were linked to, most of the professional education oriented companies are geared towards technical skill-sets. There are webinar platforms for a bunch of the other things but those are, for the most part, one-offs. It's rare to find an effective staged learning system with excellent content. I haven't seen it much outside of academic platforms.
krrishd 12y ago
I think 'ed tech' != 'tech ed'. Educational technology pertains to the usage of technology to enhance all types of education, whereas technology education has the goal of teaching students how to code, etc.

quarterconfig 12y ago

"The idea that great education was never for the few and should always be available to all led to the creation of MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses, led by Silicon Valley companies like Coursera and Udacity" This is presented as a novel idea, but governments have been subsidizing education for a long time because of this long held value (see: student loans). "You know a revolution is happening in Silicon Valley when the money shows up." Correlation does not equal causation? Money does not a revolution make.

vertex-four 12y ago
> This is presented as a novel idea, but governments have been subsidizing education for a long time because of this long held value (see: student loans). Not only that, but the UK has had the Open University since 1969 which provides mass long-distance learning, with grants and loans being easy to find for those taking less than 120 credits a year. They've been using computers and the Internet since they were first accessible to people (using TV and radio for broadcasting lectures before that), and have been releasing some free course material since 2006. The OU also provide a degree track, giving out degrees that are (theoretically) on par with brick-and-mortar unis. Of course, MOOCs are interesting in that the course material tends to be free, but they're also far behind the Open Uni in most other aspects.
saraid216 12y ago
> Money does not a revolution make. When has it ever? Unless we're talking about Cold War sponsorships, which I don't think would count for these purposes.

bfwi 12y ago

How effective are MOOCs really? I'm not saying that they're not effective, I'm simple asking the question. Are people getting hired based on a resume of a MOOC education? Do you know anyone who really learned a subject by taking a MOOC? If so, that's fantastic.

ojbyrne 12y ago
Having taken 7 or 8 MOOCs, my unscientific opinion is: 1. Employers completely ignore them. 2. The vast majority of courses are not very good - poor preparation, bad lecturing, not well thought out course design. A small number of courses (mostly those based on existing courses at top universities) are very good. I think that this actually reflects the university experience in general.
jonhmchan 12y ago
From my own experience, MOOCs are useful to get a base understanding of a particular topic. However, learning the topic at hand is necessary but not sufficient: I don't think many people are getting jobs by listing completion of a course. As it stands, I think the people that (1) understand the topic well, and (2) are getting jobs are also people that take that understanding and have something to show for it. It's not enough to say that you learned code through Codecademy, you do need to build something of your own to show in order to be employable. I think that's the case even with traditional education: it's not enough to simply have a CS degree, but something to show for it as well.
acbart 12y ago
My takeaway from Learning@Scale, the first big CS Education conference to focus on Learning Sciences and Computer Science "at scale", is that the people who succeed at them are the people who already have some higher education and are driven and motivated. I don't think most of the serious researchers are convinced they'll be THAT useful in the long run. I'd dig up the research papers, but I'm supposed to be working :) I recommend a quick glance over their latest issues.
- _delirium 12y ago
  > people who succeed at them are the people who already have some higher education At a conference I was at, one of the speakers claimed that a disproportionate number of the successful students in the group they were studying not only had some college, but had actually finished college and had a degree (though not always in the same area). It'd be nice to see some more solid stats on that. Their interpretation was that where MOOCs are most successful, so far, is as "continuing education" for people who already finished conventional higher education. Those people can use MOOCs to keep up to speed in their field, or broaden by taking a few courses in other fields that they didn't get a chance to study at school.

jnbiche 12y ago

If someone wants to create a start-up that will really help teachers to teach tech, they'll find a way to help teachers bypass their local IT departments in an acceptable manner. I know of multiple school districts that are absolutely plagued by overzealous IT admins, including the director, who lock down teacher and student computers to the point where they're unable to install or use the software they need to learn or login to all these cool educational services that use Google or Facebook login. Watching educational YouTube videos? That's not even open for discussion. They're totally blocked from learning. Funny thing is: the kids all know how to get around these blocks, but the teachers don't dare do it for fear of losing their job. This on top of the fact that these schools' LANs fail on a regular basis, including when students are taking computer-based standardized tests. So teachers spend hours each week filing bug reports and calling IT to get these sites unblocked, software installed, or LAN/wifi back up. Most people here wouldn't believe what is going on in many school districts because of overzealous and incompetent IT admins. It's a structural problem in at least 3 states I'm familiar with (all of them low-performing states on standard tests). Maybe build a "screened" portal to educational sites (including ones with YouTube videos) and software? But it would have to be accompanied by some serious lobbying towards the IT folks to whitelist it.

MarcScott 12y ago
I have an excellent technician at my school who manages to be as flexible as possible, while keeping within the bounds of school policies. We've now setup OpenStack on a server, and are in position to give every student in the school their own Linux VPS next year. They'll ssh in using putty, have full admin rights to their instance, be able to apt-get whatever they like and all of a sudden the IT policies of the school no longer apply. I'm suddenly really looking forward to teaching Computing next year.
- jnbiche 12y ago
  >I have an excellent technician at my school who manages to be as flexible as possible, while keeping within the bounds of school policies. You're very fortunate. I'm guessing you're probably in a high-performing, relatively well-to-do school district (please correct me if I'm wrong). >and are in position to give every student in the school their own Linux VPS next year. The IT depts at the schools I'm familiar with (through friends, I'm not a teacher myself) wouldn't even know what OpenStack is. They're 100% Microsoft shops. And the idea of giving a student root access to his/her own virtual instance would simultaneously blow the IT staffs' mind, terrify, and enrage them.

MarcScott 12y ago

I get extremely frustrated by the plethora of Edtech initiatives, all purporting to solve some problem but in reality simply making more work for teachers. In my school we have an MIS that seems to have evolved from an Access Database created in the 90s, that manages all student data, but has no API. We also have a VLE that was designed to look pretty, but offers almost no functionality and has a UI that is tortuous to use and actually lengthens the time it takes to mark work and record results. Every teacher I work with has a different way of operating. Some write assignments on the board and take in hard copies. Other's use the official VLE. Some use email or shared network drives, and others Edmodo or whatever platform is flavour of the month. Work is marked and fed back to students, and then inevitable placed in an Excel spreadsheet, exported as a CSV or transcribed into a paper mark book, only then to be then double entered into our MIS at a later date. The system is a mess, and every new Edtech tool I see just adds to the confusion - another URL to remember, another username, password, interface. I wonder how many Edtech startups have founders that were actual teachers, or bring teachers on board at an early stage. Judging by the tools on offer, I would guess that it's not many. There are a couple of exceptions. EdX, I think, is an amazing platform, but even though it is OpenSource, it is well beyond the capabilities of most schools to set up an in-house platform. Codecademy seem to genuinely want to engage with teachers (in the UK at least) but where are the Codecademy startups for Geography or French or Science. In my own teaching I find myself increasingly shunning new Edtech tools, and now barely bother clicking on the links I receive in my inbox every day. Until Edtech startups really engage with teachers, rather than just treating them as beta testers, I really don't see anything in the future other than increasing fragmentation and frustration.

fraserharris 12y ago
Check out Chalk.com - a "Google Apps for teachers". Has tens of thousands of teachers using it. Its free for a teacher to use. Schools can pay to enable collaboration features. Superficially it looks like a LMS, but usually exists alongside them. (i'm not affiliated, but have been impressed by the founder. They are bootstrapped)
mathattack 12y ago
Thank you for sharing this very important perspective. A lot of EdTech initiatives seem to neglect the variation in individual teaching. It seems like if you build a school around these tools, it could work a lot better than bolting on to existing schools. In that sense, charter schools may be good for experimenting with technology. The other observation - teachers are very busy. Each technology initiative takes time and attention. Reminds me of this Onion article. http://www.theonion.com/articles/magical-office-worker-able-to-turn-everything-he-t,36343/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/magical-office-worker-able-...

jonbischke 12y ago

I'm super psyched about this but, as a former ed tech entrepreneur, also a bit concerned. The concern lies here. The blog post references a record $509 million in ed tech financing in 2014. However, in the last 10 years I believe we have only seen two companies go public (2U and Chegg). Both trade at modest multiples to invested capital and neither is focused on the K-12 space. And those are the success stories. Other than those two, I can't think of a nine figure acquisition other Wireless Generation. My concern is that, unless we start seeing large exits soon, we'll have a lot of investors fleeing the space similar to what happened to the "e-learning" companies in the wake of the dot com crash. I sincerely hope that I'm wrong though. I'm a big fan of ImagineK12 and many of the companies referenced in the blog post. I'd love to see a number of IPOs and big exits which will drive more capital towards innovation in this sector.

c4mden 12y ago
There've been a few nine-figure acquisitions of companies that help traditional colleges expand online, with John Wiley buying deltak.edu for $220mm, and Pearson buying EmbanetCompass for $650mm, both in 2012.
- jonbischke 12y ago
  Sorry, should have clarified. Of the new wave of ed tech companies, there haven't been any big acquisitions. Both Embanet and deltak were founded in the 90s.
nl 12y ago
Blackboard (hmmm!) has been a fairly active acquirer of companies.

codingdave 12y ago

I don't think we are at "revolution" yet. We are dabbling. We are giving teachers new tools. We are creating content for kids who can already read fairly well, and content for pore-K kids, but failing fairly miserably at the 1st-3rd grade level. We are tooling up the industry, but not revolutionizing it. We are the same old industry, with shiny toys, and online classes that supplement schooling, but only replace it for a very small minority of very clever children. The investors don;' signal a revolution. They signal a market opportunity, which is not the same thing. When parents start pulling their kids out of the public schools, because the online options surpass the local school district at a functional level for lower income working families, THEN we have a revolution on our hands.

brianstorms 12y ago

Why is this getting coverage in HN? It's an infomercial, full of Silicon Valley patting itself on its own back, by a former YC partner. Recursive much? Sometimes you guys have to stop chugging from the SV Kool-Aid fire hose. Especially when it comes to educational technology.

taber 12y ago
I'm learning useful things from these comments. A lot of times I don't even click on the OP for obviously link-bait TC type stuff but I nevertheless find HN comments interesting.

WalterBright 12y ago

The thing is, there is no way to automate learning. Learning is a lot like exercise - it takes work and effort to get stronger. Nobody has succeeded in making effortless exercise, and nobody has or will succeed in making learning effortless. The Khan Academy and Coursera do not automate education, they simply are the modern version of correspondence courses.

jshute 12y ago
It's a bit more nuanced than the no-pain-no-gain attitude toward exercise, too. We are fond of the saying, "worksheets don't build dendrites" around here. I think many institutions are set up as human proof-of-work verification machines, when they should be set up as human brain debuggers. Debuggers show you counter-examples to your mental model. You set the goals and drive the process.