#I’m really excited to see the interactions between tori and michael

[rladpeps]

I’m finishing the second season of heartstopper to watch the 3rd! :))))))

[orbemnews]

Learning Apps Have Boomed in the Pandemic. Now Comes the Real Test. After a tough year of toggling between remote and in-person schooling, many students, teachers and their families feel burned out from pandemic learning. But companies that market digital learning tools to schools are enjoying a coronavirus windfall. Venture and equity financing for education technology start-ups has more than doubled, surging to $12.58 billion worldwide last year from $4.81 billion in 2019, according to a report from CB Insights, a firm that tracks start-ups and venture capital. During the same period, the number of laptops and tablets shipped to primary and secondary schools in the United States nearly doubled to 26.7 million, from 14 million, according to data from Futuresource Consulting, a market research company in Britain. “We’ve seen a real explosion in demand,” said Michael Boreham, a senior market analyst at Futuresource. “It’s been a massive, massive sea change out of necessity.” But as more districts reopen for in-person instruction, the billions of dollars that schools and venture capitalists have sunk into education technology are about to get tested. Some remote learning services, like videoconferencing, may see their student audiences plummet. “There’s definitely going to be a shakeout over the next year,” said Matthew Gross, the chief executive of Newsela, a popular reading lesson app for schools. “I’ve been calling it ‘The Great Ed Tech Crunch.’” Yet even if the ed-tech market contracts, industry executives say there is no turning back. The pandemic has accelerated the spread of laptops and learning apps in schools, they say, normalizing digital education tools for millions of teachers, students and their families. “This has sped the adoption of technology in education by easily five to 10 years,” said Michael Chasen, a veteran ed-tech entrepreneur who in 1997 co-founded Blackboard, now one of the largest learning management systems for schools and colleges. “You can’t train hundreds of thousands of teachers and millions of students in online education and not expect there to be profound effects.” Tech evangelists have long predicted that computers would transform education. The future of learning, many promised, involved apps powered by artificial intelligence that would adjust lessons to children’s abilities faster and more precisely than their human teachers ever could. That robotic teaching revolution has been slow in coming, in part because very few learning apps have shown they significantly improve students’ outcomes. Instead, during the pandemic, many schools simply turned to digital tools like videoconferencing to transfer traditional practices and schedules online. Critics say that push to replicate the school day for remote students has only exacerbated disparities for many children facing pandemic challenges at home. “We will never again in our lifetime see a more powerful demonstration of the conservatism of educational systems,” said Justin Reich, an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies online learning and recently wrote the book “Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education.” Apps that enable online interactions between teachers and students are reporting extraordinary growth, and investors have followed. Among the biggest deals, CB Insights said: Zuoyebang, a Chinese ed-tech giant that offers live online lessons and homework help for students in kindergarten through 12th grade, raised a total of $2.35 billion last year from investors including Alibaba and Sequoia Capital China. Yuanfudao, another Chinese tutoring start-up, raised a total of $3.5 billion from investors like Tencent. And Kahoot, a quiz app from Norway used by millions of teachers, recently raised about $215 million from SoftBank. In the United States, some of the largest recent ed-tech deals involved start-ups that help educators give and grade assignments, lead lessons or hold class discussions online. Among them are Newsela and Nearpod, an app that many teachers use to create live interactive video lessons or take students on virtual field trips. “Especially in K-12, so much of learning is sparked through dialogue between teachers and students,” said Jennifer Carolan, a partner at Reach Capital, a venture capital firm focused on education that has invested in Nearpod and Newsela. “We are excited about these products that are really extending the capabilities of the classroom teachers.” Updated  March 17, 2021, 3:25 p.m. ET A number of ed-tech start-ups reporting record growth had sizable school audiences before the pandemic. Then last spring, as school districts switched to remote learning, many education apps hit on a common pandemic growth strategy: They temporarily made their premium services free to teachers for the rest of the school year. “What unfolded from there was massive adoption,” said Tory Patterson, a managing director at Owl Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in education start-ups like Newsela. Once the school year ended, he said, ed-tech start-ups began trying to convert school districts into paying customers, and “we saw pretty broad-based uptake of those offers.” By the end of December, schools were paying for 11 million student accounts on Newsela, an increase of about 87 percent from 2019. Last month, the start-up announced that it had raised $100 million. Now Newsela is valued at $1 billion, a milestone that may be common among consumer apps like Instacart and Deliveroo but is still relatively rare for education apps aimed at American public schools. Nearpod also reported exponential growth. After making the video lesson app free, the start-up saw its user base surge to 1.2 million teachers at the end of last year — a fivefold jump over 2019. Last month, Nearpod announced that it had agreed to be acquired by Renaissance, a company that sells academic assessment software to schools, for $650 million. Class Disrupted Updated March 15, 2021 The latest on how the pandemic is reshaping education. Some consumer tech giants that provided free services to schools also reaped benefits, gaining audience share and getting millions of students accustomed to using their product. For instance, the worldwide audience for Google Classroom, Google’s free class assignment and grading app, has skyrocketed to more than 150 million students and educators, up from 40 million early last year. And Zoom Video Communications says it has provided free services during the pandemic to more than 125,000 schools in 25 countries. But whether tools that teachers have come to rely on for remote learning can maintain their popularity will hinge on how useful the apps are in the classroom. Newsela, for one, has gained a devoted following among educators for its flexibility. The app lets them choose topical news articles or short stories for class discussion, with different versions of the text depending on a student’s reading level. Mr. Gross, Newsela’s chief executive, said the app also provided quick feedback to teachers on each child’s progress, alerting them to students who might need attention whether they are online or in the classroom. “Teachers are starting to realize which tools are really built for both a physical and a remote classroom,” Mr. Gross said, “that work equally well in both settings.” Nearpod, the video lesson app, also expects to maintain traction in schools, said Pep Carrera, the start-up’s chief executive. During the pandemic, educators like Nesi Harold, an eighth-grade science teacher in the Houston area, have used features on the app to poll students, create quizzes or ask students to use a drawing tool to sketch the solar system — digital tools that work for both live classroom and remote instruction. “It allows me to broadcast the lesson to all of my learners, no matter where they are,” said Ms. Harold, who simultaneously teaches in-person and remote students. Her one complaint: She can’t store more than a few lessons at a time on Nearpod because her school hasn’t bought a license. “It’s still pricey,” she said. The future in education is less clear for enterprise services, like Zoom, that were designed for business use and adopted by schools out of pandemic necessity. In an email, Kelly Steckelberg, Zoom’s chief financial officer, said she expected educational institutions would invest in “new ways to virtually communicate” beyond remote teaching — such as using Zoom for Parent Teacher Association meetings, school board meetings and parent-teacher conferences. Mr. Chasen, the ed-tech entrepreneur, is counting on it. He recently founded Class Technologies, a start-up that offers online course management tools — like attendance-taking and grading features — for educators and corporate trainers holding live classes on Zoom. The company has raised $46 million from investors including Bill Tai, one of the earliest backers of Zoom. “I’m not coming up with some new advanced A.I. methodology,” Mr. Chasen said of his new app for video classrooms. “You know what teachers needed? They needed the ability to hand out work in class, give a quiz and grade it.” Source link Orbem News #Apps #Boomed #learning #Pandemic #Real #Test

[tonyduncanbb73]

Milk Bar Arrives in Harvard Square in a Blaze of Sugary Glory

And it’s sharing space with a popular DC-based pizzeria, &pizza

It’s a bit of a tumultuous time in Harvard Square; the neighborhood has seen the closures of a number of longtime spots lately (see: Crema, Sweet, Tealuxe), and the fear of big out-of-state chains coming into the Square looms. But two out-of-towners with a lot of love for the Boston area are sweeping into Cambridge on February 2, debuting the highly anticipated Milk Bar and &Pizza combo at 1-3 Brattle St., and they’re committed to becoming a welcomed part of the local fabric, not just plunking down a cookie-cutter chain outpost.

The project has been a long time coming, although initially it was just going to be the pizzeria alone. DC-based &pizza was eyeing Boston-area expansion as far back as four or five years ago, according to cofounder and CEO Michael Lastoria; he saw a lot of similarities between DC and Boston, and a number of &pizza shareholders and investors are from the Boston area.

Milk Bar and &pizza share a space that combines the aesthetic of both brands. Order on the left side of the space for &pizza or the right side for Milk Bar, and sit anywhere.

The company initially announced specific Harvard Square plans at the beginning of 2017, taking over the adjacent Tory Row and Crimson Corner spaces in the heart of the neighborhood. The community pushed back on various aspects of the plans, including exterior design, and expansion didn’t look so certain for a bit. But then Lastoria turned the proposed restaurant into a collaboration with friend Christina Tosi, the mastermind behind New York-based dessert empire Milk Bar, which did not yet have a Boston-area footprint.

The two met in DC some time ago, after Tosi opened her first DC location of Milk Bar in City Center, and became fast friends. “This guy is so great,” says Tosi. “He’s very savvy; he’s a totally different kind of visionary, and I just love his perspective and his outlook on how he’s built his business, how he drives it, how he brands, and how he thinks about bringing it to life.”

&pizza’s Michael Lastoria and Milk Bar’s Christina Tosi

As for Lastoria’s feelings about Tosi: “I just absolutely fell in love with her personality, her style, the brand,” he says, “and as someone who really loves interesting, wonky, authentic brands, there’s nothing more fitting than Milk Bar. It’s very much this reflection of who she is as a human being, her personality, her sense of style, and you can see that come through.”

At one point they collaborated on a cereal milk cream soda and a cereal milk cream soda cookie (“cereal milk” is a trademarked Milk Bar signature that makes appearances in a variety of ways, such as cereal milk soft serve.) This collaboration laid the groundwork for the shared venue that is days away from opening in Cambridge.

Milk Bar

For the Milk Bar uninitiated: Expect sugary treats of all kinds, from cookies to soft serve to cake truffles. Looking for something a little less sweet? Try a “bagel bomb,” everything bagel dough stuffed with bacon scallion cream cheese.

Milk Bar cakes

This location feels almost like a homecoming for Tosi: Her husband’s family lives in the area, so she finds herself in and around Boston frequently. (Inquire about her favorite local restaurants, and she readily raves about plenty of Boston-area gems, especially Sofra. “I’m maybe an unhealthy fan girl of [Sofra executive pastry chef and co-owner] Maura Kilpatrick, really and truly,” she says.)

“I’ve loved Boston for a long time,” she says, “and it’s very much my home away from home. I’m really excited to be a part of the community. I’m a big fan of everything the food community here stands for. I’m here for the loyalists that are Boston. I’m here for the accent. I’m here for everything.”

Milk Bar cookies

This opening is a bit different from other Milk Bar openings, as this is the first location that is “in the middle of it,” as Tosi puts it. “Our stores are usually tucked away somewhere hidden; we’ve never been so front and center. We’ve never been in a community that was this close to a college and a community that’s so deeply rooted. Bostonians are legit loyal, and I feel like the residents of Cambridge protect their community. They take that responsibility very seriously. It’s going to be really fun to play off of &pizza’s energy, and it’s going to be really fun to play off of the community’s energy.”

The Cambridge Milk Bar store will have a local exclusive item, a Boston cream pie “milkquake,” one of Milk Bar’s dessert types that blends treats into soft serve.

The Boston cream pie milkquake and a tower of cookies at Milk Bar

“When we were working on this, we thought, ‘How do we want to write our love letter to the Boston cream pie?’” she says. “I had a single bite of this milkquake, and someone literally screeched the record, dropped the mic — this is it.” It’s the popular cereal milk soft serve blended with what Tosi calls “liquid cheesecake,” plus chocolate chips and fudge sauce. It’s “a very serious love letter to a hot fudge sundae,” she says.

Asked if there’s a specific menu item she’s most excited to share with Cambridge, Tosi says that she’s more excited about “how everyone else interacts with the menu.”

Soft serve at Milk Bar

“The menu is there, and on some level when I look at the menu, it feels like rules, but rules are meant to be broken. Maybe you want a cereal soft serve with some BFC [“best freaking cookie”] and some fudge sauce blended in. Maybe you order a compost cookie with some cereal milk soft serve swirled on top. I’m always excited to feed someone a cornflake chocolate chip marshmallow cookie, always, but I’m equally excited to see what other people come in and imagine. I think our biggest job is to empower people to be like, ‘Cool, I want my confetti cookie, I’m good,’ or ‘I want my b’day latte, bye,’ but also to challenge us a little.”

&pizza

At &pizza (pronounced “and pizza”), the focus is on oblong, personal-sized pizzas with a thin crust. Lastoria is especially proud of the company’s “incredibly responsible and thoughtful” supply chain and the fact that the menu readily caters to diners looking for gluten-free, vegetarian, or vegan pizzas.

About 60% of customers opt for the “craft your own” customizable pizza, says Lastoria; diners choose dough, sauce, cheese, toppings, and finishes. The other 40% order from &pizza’s “hits,” including top sellers “American honey” (spicy tomato, mozzarella, pepperoni, arugula, goat cheese, hot honey, red pepper flakes) and “maverick” (tomato, mozzarella, salami, pepperoni, Italian sausage, basil pesto, parmesan).

The “American honey” pizza at &pizza

“What makes the partnership with Milk Bar so special is that first and foremost, it stemmed from a friendship that Christina and I formed — a mutual respect and admiration. She has turned the dessert/bakery world on its head with a lot of really interesting combinations I think people haven’t tasted before, and we’ve done something very similar in pizza: These are pies that are our version of a more classic pizza but with our spin, that special sauce, on it. We’ve always been known for doing things outside the box as it relates to ingredients but also flavor combinations on pies. Nothing is traditional; it’s always traditional with a twist.”

Lastoria is also aware of the changing nature of Harvard Square — after all, he’s witnessed a good deal of it through the long process of opening the restaurant. “There’s only so much we can say” to convince Cambridge that they’re here to be a good neighbor, he says. “When we open up a pizza shop in a new market, our job really starts the day that we open up our doors in terms of what it means to be a responsible or good neighbor, not just to local businesses but to the community in general.”

In collaborating with Milk Bar on the space, Lastoria thinks the team is bringing something unique but appropriate to the neighborhood. “I think it’s very Harvard Square-esque,” he says. “It’s artistic, it’s creative, it’s wonky, it’s colorful, it’s playful, it’s vibrant. We tried to make sure that this was not the feeling of a chain or a typical pizza shop or a typical bakery or a typical coffee shop. We wanted it to feel very special, very unique, and to have a lot of inspiration drawn from what I’ve seen here in Harvard Square.”

The “big Caesar” pizza at &pizza

“We look forward to doing our part, and hopefully everyone who sets foot inside will appreciate what we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to fit into the community,” Lastoria says. “We’ve worked really hard to get to where we are today, and we look forward to working even harder to do the right thing by the community, do the right thing for the city, and the hope is that if we do that well, we’ll have the opportunity to open up more pizza shops in the greater Boston area. I’m really looking forward to that.”

When &pizza and Milk Bar debut in their shared space on Saturday, February 2, &pizza will be selling $5 pizzas all day, while Milk Bar will be selling $1 cereal milk soft serve with cornflake crunch. Both portions of the shop will be open seven days a week, with &pizza operating from 11 a.m. to midnight Sunday through Wednesday and 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. Milk Bar will stay open as late as &pizza but will open at 7 a.m. daily.

• Coverage of &Pizza and Milk Bar on Eater [EBOS]

[umichenginabroad]

The Basics of Berlin

Schedule time! After having several days without a set schedule or anything specific that we had to do, it was nice to fall into a routine with scheduled events. We did a LOT of stuff this week, and I know I promised a shorter post but I will try to include most of what we did while keeping it short (Don’t worry, there’s a lot of pictures).

Monday 5/8 (I’m on a boat)

Today was the official start day of the program so we had a few scheduled events for the day. We had orientation where we got to meet all of the program directors and get a feel for the next 6 weeks. After that, we got to go on a boat tour of Berlin. As someone who has never been on a boat tour, I have to say, it was very nice. There was a free buffet (which is always a plus, but even more so because it was VERY good food) with all sorts of different foods.

The interior of the boat featuring a nice buffet and hungry college students stuffing their faces

After eating, we got to go to the roof of the boat and enjoy the sights. It was a bit on the colder side but it was very cool to get to see the city from the viewpoint of a boat. We got to see a lot of the major sights of the city including museum island, the Reichstag, Fernsehturm, several churches, and too many other things to name.

The first of us to go on top of the boat (left to right; Back row: Marcus, Noah, Max; Front row: me, Lianna, Tori)

A view of Museum Island from the boat

Our boat in a lock, it’s where they raise/lower the water level to match the next channel of water

Michigan students getting to know each other (left to right; Back row: Tim, Michael, Graham, Sean, Caroline, Faith, Grayson; Front row: Heli, Anvya, Tanvi, Zach)

It was awesome to get to see all of the different parts of Berlin and it gave everyone a good idea of where they wanted to explore next. It was also really fun to have everyone in the program in one place at the same time and we all got to meet each other and just hang out, especially since our German classes started the next day. Afterwards we all headed back to the apartments and ended the day with a couple rounds of Euchre.

Tuesday 5/9 (Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Translation (Do you speak German?))

Ich habe keine Ahnung (Translation: I have no idea). German class has started and I will say, it has been a while since I have taken a foreign language class. Learning to speak in German is definitely difficult for me but it is well worth the investment since it helps with navigating Germany and just everyday things. We stuck with the basics of conversations today, learning phrases such as hello, how are you, what is your name, where do you come from, and basic numbers. Class is long, 3 ½ hours, but we learn a lot in that time. Additionally, the classes are smaller so it is a lot easier to learn the material. I’m in a beginner class since I’ve never taken German before and it is fun to struggle through the language together with other people. After class was over, we immediately tried to use what we had learned to order food in German, which wasn’t too successful but hey, we are still learning.

After class, we had a scheduled excursion to visit the Reichstag, Germany’s Parliament building. I will say, this is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. Its interior is as intricate as its exterior and we had the fortune of being able to go on a tour to see what this building had in store.

The Reichstag, the Parliament building of Germany

Parts of the interior contain walls with graffiti from the Russian soldiers who occupied Germany during May of 1945, the soldiers signed their names, the city they came from, and the year

One part of the tour involved a memorial that was dedicated to German democracy. I thought it was interesting because at first it was just a bunch of rows of boxes which looked out of place compared to the rest of the building. But the boxes formed a corridor and our tour guide explained that each box represented Germany democracy and that in the middle there was a black box that represented the interruption of this, referencing the Nazi regime that took control over the country. I thought it was interesting that they had something like this and that they were very open with the entire subject.

(top) French designed memorial, each box represents Germany democracy (photo creds to Faith Zagore), (bottom) the black box represents the interruption of it with the Nazi regime 

The interior of the Bundestag (the Parliament room)

The inside of the dome of the Reichstag, the center piece consists entirely of mirrors and the sheer size of it cannot be shown by a picture

Group picture featuring the majority of the students on this trip. (Photo creds to Justin Shetty)

Between starting classes and touring the Reichstag, everyone was fairly exhausted so we all headed back to the apartments for our nightly round of cards. It was nice to have some downtime especially since we all had to wake up early the next morning for class, but we all have a high motivation to learn the language so we can use it in the city.

Wednesday 5/10 (Berlin Wall Memorial)

Today wasn’t quite like the last few days and it took on a more somber tone. After morning class, we headed to the Berlin Wall Memorial. We have learned about the Berlin Wall and everything that it means in history classes but seeing it up close has such a powerful effect that can’t be conveyed in a textbook. Remnants of the wall are there as well as a wall of pictures dedicated to the lives lost as a result of the wall.

Part of the wall left standing as a memorial (Photo creds Alex Carroll)

The pictures of all the people killed because of the wall, 139 people

Our tour guide told us the stories behind some of the people who had died and it really puts into perspective how much of an impact the wall had and how it caused so much havoc. I thought it was also inspiring that approximately 3000 people were able to escape to the other side of the wall through various means and that they weren’t deterred by it. In the end, it was the people of Berlin who demanded that the gates be reopened (After an interview was released saying that the gates would be opened which was never confirmed), reuniting a city.

A small slit in the wall that imitates what the wall and the region between the wall looked like

Once the tour was over, we decided to stay on the topic of the Berlin wall and go check out the East Side Gallery which features graffiti art on parts of the Berlin wall. This was a cool experience and it is something I would recommend doing. There was art featured by artists from around the world and each one is unique with a different message being portrayed, but still paying homage to the wall.

(Top and bottom) Artwork from the east side gallery

Thursday 5/11 (Subway and Spielen Fußball (playing soccer))

Today after class, we had the choice between two tours, one focused on the World War II and one on the Cold War. I went on the Cold War tour which took us into the depths of the subways where air raid and fall-out shelters were located. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to take pictures so the following two are the only I have of this venture.

The entrance to the Underground featuring (from left to right) Rob, Kyle, Hank, Alex, and Zach

The last point at which I could take pictures (would highly recommend this tour)

The tour took us through the winding corridors of an actual shelter that was made for use during the Cold War.  Much of it was original, including the air lock at the entrance, the filtration system for the air, the beds, kitchen, equipment used to power the entire building. It was very interesting to see all of this and the guide put into perspective what it would have been like to have to come to a shelter. Each person would only have one square meter of space though it was likely that this space would be reduced to fit more people. Furthermore, there was only enough space in all of the shelters built for 0.8% of the population so we could imagine the amount of chaos that would have ensued with people rushing to get inside. We were also taken to a subway station that is currently in use but was built such that it could be converted into a shelter if needed. It was crazy to think that all of this stuff was hidden underneath our feet the entire time and me, being the adventurous person that I am, had a lot of fun walking through the dark, winding passageways.

After the tour, there was a couple hours left of daylight so a couple friends and I decided to go play soccer in the park near our apartments for a bit.

Action shot of us playing soccer. (left to right: Marcus, Alex, Rob, Tori, Kirsten, Max; Not pictured: Carlee)

While we were playing, a German man, who was presumably a coach, walked over to us and started talking in German. None of us understood what he was saying and he didn’t speak English so we sort of had to pantomime to understand each other. Turns out he needed help moving one of the goals on the field which we all gladly helped with. Even though it was a small interaction, we were all so excited to have been able to communicate with him and help him out. Eventually it got dark out and we decided to head back, but on the way back, we ran into him again. Rob, since he knew the most German out of everyone in the group, managed to ask him if he had a ball pump (we had been playing with a fairly flat ball), and he was kind enough to let us borrow one.

All-in-all, it was quite the week and we progressively got more comfortable with speaking the little German we knew. It was exciting to see a lot of the city but I am looking forward to some down time this weekend. I will say that I am finally mostly comfortable navigating the public transportation but I still use Google Maps a lot (@Sarah Piper, when you come here next term, and anyone who decides to do this program, learn how to navigate using the maps and not just Google Maps. It’s a valuable skill). Maybe by the next post, I will be able to navigate without needing Google Maps. I definitely didn’t take the subway going the wrong direction… Anyways, it’s still early and there’s plenty of time to learn. Lots of fun things in store for this weekend!

 Tchüs! (Bye!)

Sarah Fuhrman

Mechanical Engineering

International Engineering Summer School (Engr 350 Internal Combustion Engine) at Berlin University of Technology in Berlin, Germany

[orbemnews]

Learning Apps Have Boomed in the Pandemic. Now Comes the Real Test. After a tough year of toggling between remote and in-person schooling, many students, teachers and their families feel burned out from pandemic learning. But companies that market digital learning tools to schools are enjoying a coronavirus windfall. Venture and equity financing for education technology start-ups has more than doubled, surging to $12.58 billion worldwide last year from $4.81 billion in 2019, according to a report from CB Insights, a firm that tracks start-ups and venture capital. During the same period, the number of laptops and tablets shipped to primary and secondary schools in the United States nearly doubled to 26.7 million, from 14 million, according to data from Futuresource Consulting, a market research company in Britain. “We’ve seen a real explosion in demand,” said Michael Boreham, a senior market analyst at Futuresource. “It’s been a massive, massive sea change out of necessity.” But as more districts reopen for in-person instruction, the billions of dollars that schools and venture capitalists have sunk into education technology are about to get tested. Some remote learning services, like videoconferencing, may see their student audiences plummet. “There’s definitely going to be a shakeout over the next year,” said Matthew Gross, the chief executive of Newsela, a popular reading lesson app for schools. “I’ve been calling it ‘The Great Ed Tech Crunch.’” Yet even if the ed-tech market contracts, industry executives say there is no turning back. The pandemic has accelerated the spread of laptops and learning apps in schools, they say, normalizing digital education tools for millions of teachers, students and their families. “This has sped the adoption of technology in education by easily five to 10 years,” said Michael Chasen, a veteran ed-tech entrepreneur who in 1997 co-founded Blackboard, now one of the largest learning management systems for schools and colleges. “You can’t train hundreds of thousands of teachers and millions of students in online education and not expect there to be profound effects.” Tech evangelists have long predicted that computers would transform education. The future of learning, many promised, involved apps powered by artificial intelligence that would adjust lessons to children’s abilities faster and more precisely than their human teachers ever could. That robotic teaching revolution has been slow in coming, in part because very few learning apps have shown they significantly improve students’ outcomes. Instead, during the pandemic, many schools simply turned to digital tools like videoconferencing to transfer traditional practices and schedules online. Critics say that push to replicate the school day for remote students has only exacerbated disparities for many children facing pandemic challenges at home. “We will never again in our lifetime see a more powerful demonstration of the conservatism of educational systems,” said Justin Reich, an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies online learning and recently wrote the book “Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education.” Apps that enable online interactions between teachers and students are reporting extraordinary growth, and investors have followed. Among the biggest deals, CB Insights said: Zuoyebang, a Chinese ed-tech giant that offers live online lessons and homework help for students in kindergarten through 12th grade, raised a total of $2.35 billion last year from investors including Alibaba and Sequoia Capital China. Yuanfudao, another Chinese tutoring start-up, raised a total of $3.5 billion from investors like Tencent. And Kahoot, a quiz app from Norway used by millions of teachers, recently raised about $215 million from SoftBank. In the United States, some of the largest recent ed-tech deals involved start-ups that help educators give and grade assignments, lead lessons or hold class discussions online. Among them are Newsela and Nearpod, an app that many teachers use to create live interactive video lessons or take students on virtual field trips. “Especially in K-12, so much of learning is sparked through dialogue between teachers and students,” said Jennifer Carolan, a partner at Reach Capital, a venture capital firm focused on education that has invested in Nearpod and Newsela. “We are excited about these products that are really extending the capabilities of the classroom teachers.” Updated  March 16, 2021, 8:42 p.m. ET A number of ed-tech start-ups reporting record growth had sizable school audiences before the pandemic. Then last spring, as school districts switched to remote learning, many education apps hit on a common pandemic growth strategy: They temporarily made their premium services free to teachers for the rest of the school year. “What unfolded from there was massive adoption,” said Tory Patterson, a managing director at Owl Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in education start-ups like Newsela. Once the school year ended, he said, ed-tech start-ups began trying to convert school districts into paying customers, and “we saw pretty broad-based uptake of those offers.” By the end of December, schools were paying for 11 million student accounts on Newsela, an increase of about 87 percent from 2019. Last month, the start-up announced that it had raised $100 million. Now Newsela is valued at $1 billion, a milestone that may be common among consumer apps like Instacart and Deliveroo but is still relatively rare for education apps aimed at American public schools. Nearpod also reported exponential growth. After making the video lesson app free, the start-up saw its user base surge to 1.2 million teachers at the end of last year — a fivefold jump over 2019. Last month, Nearpod announced that it had agreed to be acquired by Renaissance, a company that sells academic assessment software to schools, for $650 million. Class Disrupted Updated March 15, 2021 The latest on how the pandemic is reshaping education. Some consumer tech giants that provided free services to schools also reaped benefits, gaining audience share and getting millions of students accustomed to using their product. For instance, the worldwide audience for Google Classroom, Google’s free class assignment and grading app, has skyrocketed to more than 150 million students and educators, up from 40 million early last year. And Zoom Video Communications says it has provided free services during the pandemic to more than 125,000 schools in 25 countries. But whether tools that teachers have come to rely on for remote learning can maintain their popularity will hinge on how useful the apps are in the classroom. Newsela, for one, has gained a devoted following among educators for its flexibility. The app lets them choose topical news articles or short stories for class discussion, with different versions of the text depending on a student’s reading level. Mr. Gross, Newsela’s chief executive, said the app also provided quick feedback to teachers on each child’s progress, alerting them to students who might need attention whether they are online or in the classroom. “Teachers are starting to realize which tools are really built for both a physical and a remote classroom,” Mr. Gross said, “that work equally well in both settings.” Nearpod, the video lesson app, also expects to maintain traction in schools, said Pep Carrera, the start-up’s chief executive. During the pandemic, educators like Nesi Harold, an eighth-grade science teacher in the Houston area, have used features on the app to poll students, create quizzes or ask students to use a drawing tool to sketch the solar system — digital tools that work for both live classroom and remote instruction. “It allows me to broadcast the lesson to all of my learners, no matter where they are,” said Ms. Harold, who simultaneously teaches in-person and remote students. Her one complaint: She can’t store more than a few lessons at a time on Nearpod because her school hasn’t bought a license. “It’s still pricey,” she said. The future in education is less clear for enterprise services, like Zoom, that were designed for business use and adopted by schools out of pandemic necessity. In an email, Kelly Steckelberg, Zoom’s chief financial officer, said she expected educational institutions would invest in “new ways to virtually communicate” beyond remote teaching — such as using Zoom for Parent Teacher Association meetings, school board meetings and parent-teacher conferences. Mr. Chasen, the ed-tech entrepreneur, is counting on it. He recently founded Class Technologies, a start-up that offers online course management tools — like attendance-taking and grading features — for educators and corporate trainers holding live classes on Zoom. The company has raised $46 million from investors including Bill Tai, one of the earliest backers of Zoom. “I’m not coming up with some new advanced A.I. methodology,” Mr. Chasen said of his new app for video classrooms. “You know what teachers needed? They needed the ability to hand out work in class, give a quiz and grade it.” Source link Orbem News #Apps #Boomed #learning #Pandemic #Real #Test