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Tinkergarten Raises $5.4M to Get Kids to Go Outside, Play and Learn

Edsurge

For Brian Fitzgerald, what began as a newborn side project in 2012—when he was working at edtech startup Knewton—has become a fully-grown venture of its own. These activities may seem silly, perhaps even a tad frivolous, but the company claims they help build cognitive, physical, social and emotional skills. Yes, even the gnomes.)

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How ‘Learning Engineering’ Hopes to Speed Up Education

Edsurge

As this article was being written, the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world, forcing a global experiment in online education as schools and colleges closed their doors and moved teaching to online formats. Newkirk calls his company Acuitus , in hopes of encouraging sharpness of thought.

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'The Ed-Tech Mafia'

Hack Education

I have published 8 of these end-of-year articles. Back row from the left: Jawed Karim, the co-founder of YouTube; Jeremy Stoppelman, the CEO of Yelp; Andrew McCormack, co-founder of the venture capital firm Valar Ventures; Premal Shah, President of Kiva, the microfinancing company. What are the stories and why are they being told?

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The Business of 'Ed-Tech Trends'

Hack Education

When I first started working as a tech reporter, I assumed – naively – that venture capitalists were smart people who did thorough research before funding a company. I assumed that they looked to see if the company could do what it promised – financially, technologically. One should be conscientious, as such.

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The Stories We Were Told about Education Technology (2019)

Hack Education

Far too many articles — and this is surely what its venture capitalist and philanthropist backers hope — have not reflected the landscape but have tried instead to shape it. Cengage and McGraw-Hill announced a merger that would make the new company the second largest textbook publisher in the US. Good work, Adam and Rebekah.

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The Business of Ed-Tech: 2017 So Far

Hack Education

There have been several articles in the industry and investor press recently that describe the ed-tech market as “ on the rebound ,” with venture capitalists getting their “ second wind ” and finding ed-tech once again to be something worth throwing money at. And yes, I do include student loan companies here.

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Hack Education Weekly News

Hack Education

Wayne Johnson, the head of the department’s financial aid division and a former executive at a student loan company , says that those “non-traditional” servicers could include companies like Visa , Amazon , or Goldman Sachs. Articles about laptop bans – for or against – are not quite the worst.