Book Smarts vs Street Smarts: aka Edtech Founders as Action Researchers
Last week I was in Boston visiting two of our portfolio companies, BetterLesson and Socrative. Spending time with entrepreneurs is, by far, the best part of my job.
I’m always moved by the passion of our entrepreneurs. As always, Ben Berte (Socrative) and Alex Grodd (BetterLesson) left me inspired by their commitment to supporting teachers. However, in this visit, I took away a new appreciation for how technology products are moving beyond just teacher productivity and into deeper issues of instruction and teacher learning.
Announcing Readworks.org: The Best Kept Secret in Reading Comprehension
We are thrilled to welcome Readworks.org to the Seed Fund portfolio. It’s a humble and hardworking nonprofit, with a maniacal focus on quality. They’ve mostly flown under the radar since their founding in 2010, spending zero dollars on marketing. Even so, they’ve grown organically through teacher word of mouth resulting in 3 million reading lessons downloaded and 270 websites linked to their materials.
Learning in 2028
We are happy to make recordings of all the Summit 2013 sessions available to you. You can also check Our Vimeo Page where these and other sessions live.
Innovators in Education
After 15 years of working to improve education by supporting and enabling the ideas and efforts of passionate innovators, instead of looking back, NewSchools Venture Fund is looking 15 years further down the road. We believe that looking toward the future is key to preparing for it. We also believe that the best way to understand the future is to listen to those creating it. Hear from NewSchools entrepreneurs about the challenges facing education, the solutions they are creating and the visions of the future informing and driving their work forward.
Lessons from Mark Pincus
A great sales and marketing executive I once worked with was fond of saying: “If you don’t know you’re winning, you’re probably not.” I was reminded of this quote during John Doerr’s fascinating conversation with Mark Pincus of Zynga and Andrew Ng of Coursera during Summit 2013’s closing plenary.
Live from Summit 2013: Closing Plenary
These announcements brought a great close to a busy day filled with numerous engaging speakers and presenters. Thank you for following our live blogging from Summit 2013!
Elevating the Educator Voice: Reflections on SXSWedu 2013
Now that I have recovered from the flurry of activity that took place at this year’s SXSWedu conference, I have started to reflect on what I hope to see at next year’s conference as well as what I personally would have done differently. I enjoyed hearing the latest on personalization, data analytics, game-based learning, and the Maker movement and was impressed with the passionate entrepreneurs who went through great lengths to pitch to me. However, I left the conference wishing I had built more connections with educators and school leaders.
Welcoming Ellevation to the NewSchools Portfolio
NewSchools Venture Fund is pleased to welcome Ellevation Education to our portfolio!
Ellevation provides a set of tools for teachers and administrators who work with English language learners (ELLs). It saves time and simplifies compliance requirements, so that educators can focus on their most important task—helping ELL students to succeed.
A closer look at K12 edtech venture funding part II
Learners from ages zero to eighteen have a lot to be excited about. In the last 365 days, 74 companies focused on the K12 demographic (both in and
‘Tis the season
“If we want America to lead in the 21st century, nothing is more important than giving everyone the best education possible — from the day they start preschool to the day they start their career.” —President Barack Obama We all know that our school system needs help. That our kids are not prepared well in […]