EdTech

Edtech startups succeed when they respect teachers’ expertise, avoid talking down to educators, and build solutions that truly support classroom needs.

The sweeping bipartisan education bill signed into law on Thursday contained a nugget of good news for the tech industry: Computer science has been recognized as important an academic subject as math and English, potentially introducing it into more classrooms across the U.S.

Peripheral characters have a funny way of changing our perspective. Once bit players, they invert our understanding of the plot, turn heroes into villains and reframe the issues. Looking at challenge — or stories — from the outside-in brings minor events to the forefront of the narrative to help us figure out what really happened — and why.

By Dian Schaffhauser In a shift away from policies enacted with NCLB, Congress’ latest rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act puts some distance between the federal government and …

The massive disruption of the education industry is well underway, but the biggest tremors are yet to come—disruptions so dramatic that many universities will cease to exist in the next few years.

“I realised the burden of what teachers go through here when I was living in this rural village,” says Toni Maraviglia, co-founder of Eneza Education, a mobile phone based education tool in Kenya.

As always, our NPR Ed inboxes are clogged with press releases about the latest amazeballs app or product. Like the following, edited to protect the guilty:…an unprecedented new DOODLEHICKY app optimized for iPhone® and Android™ smartphones that includes real-time monitoring of a child’s learning progress. DOODLEHICKY is the tutoring program that fuses the most effective elements of personalized teaching with a fun and engaging iPad® and Android tablet-based experience for measurably improving student DOODLE performance.

When we think of education technology, we often imagine large-scale impact and reach. But it’s not that straightforward.Stacked amidst temporary shelters, tents and thatched huts in Burundi’s Kavumu refugee camp are a pile of bright blue, green and yellow boxes. Stowed away in these 800 kg metal palette-size boxes are countless ideas to educate, entertain and foster creativity among refugees. The self-contained watertight boxes are packed with e-readers, tablets, cameras, e-books, paperbacks, board games and e-learning tools to offer educational and training opportunities to refugee children and adults and prepare them to reintegrate the world. In less than 20 minutes, the boxes are unfolded into interactive media centres with tables and chairs.

The touch-and-swipe interface of the digital marketplace makes it feel so easy. Looking for an app to teach your 5-year-old how to read? Flick your finger over to the education aisles of the App Store (or Google Play, or the Amazon Appstore), and press “buy.”