If an edtech startup disappears and nobody notices, did it ever exist? Luvo, formerly Flashnotes, seems to have gone into hibernation, or possibly full shutdown. When you are  visiting the website these days, all you see is a wooden texture and a “Thank you from Luvo” note in the browser tab.

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Boston-based Luvo was (or still is) a well-funded edtech startup in the class notes marketplace vertical. The startup made early headlines as Flashnotes.com when it gobbled up smaller competitors and eventually raised over $14 million in venture capital, including investment from Cengage Learning and Barnes & Noble College.

We have covered Flashnotes / Luvo over the years, and it appeared to be a decent business model - that is when you ignore the general controversy around selling class notes on online marketplaces like Flashnotes and others.

The best explanation for the apparent shutdown I got at the moment is that competitors like Course Hero or Chegg are taking the lion share in the market. Both companies are probably more attractive to students as they have a variety of services to offer under one roof and the potential audience for selling class notes would also be larger.

Last year, Luvo entered the hot on-demand tutoring vertical, catching up with competitor Chegg. Chegg integrated an on-demand tutoring service after its acquisition of InstaEDU in June 2014.

To learn more about why this vertical is expanding rapidly, check out our EdTech Trends coverage of On-Demand Tutoring.

Related: The future role of the teacher in an increasingly on-demand tutoring landscape.

What surprises me the most is the fact that besides myself and some other outlets covering the edtech space, no one, Luvo users included, seems to have noticed or cared. There are about two or three tweets about the shutdown on Twitter and two comments on Luvo’s LinkedIn profile. No rage, no rants, nothing - which is really weird. One would assume that both sides, students who make a living selling their notes and those who purchase them to ace exams went ballistic if their source of income / knowledge is cut off from one day to the next.

@luvolearn does your website not work anymore?? Stressin & need study guides for finals😖

— Danielle Fleet (@fleeez) April 23, 2016

@luvolearn is shutdown... How will I pass my exams 😅😅😓

— Ariane Custic (@arianecustic) April 19, 2016

I reached out to for comment to several of my contacts but at the time of publication no one could shed some light on the happenings.

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Since 2009 EDUKWEST has been covering education technology startups from across the globe. On the consumer side the main driver for innovation in the field of online learning in the past few years has clearly been the rise of smartphones, tablets and high speed internet connections.And on the business end it has been the rise of cloud based applications and the sinking cost of web hosting.

Yet, aside from smartphones, we haven’t seen innovation driven by cutting edge technology. But that will change in the near future. The next wave of consumer-ready technology is poised for the mainstream, delivering exciting new platforms and possibilities to education developers and learners alike.

To give you an overview about these game-changing new technologies, what they are, their significance, as well as their potential impact on different areas in education, we will be publishing a five part series every Tuesday over the coming weeks.

Part 1 - Augmented Reality Part 2 - Virtual Reality Part 3 - Internet of Things Part 4 - Wearables Part 5 - 3D Printing

Each of these captivating technologies is in its infancy but has already made first appearances in the mainstream. With production cost eventually coming down, those gadgets will become part of our daily lives, from our living rooms to our workplaces and classrooms.

This series will be exclusive to our EDUKWEST members and only be accessible with an EDUKWEST Membership. Choose between a monthly or annual subscription.

Picture by Matt Novak via Flickr

One week ago I started to learn a new language. My last attempt to broaden my knowledge of the romance languages was some fifteen years ago when I studied Spanish at an adult education center taking evening classes. So, it’s been a while.

This time I cut my teeth on Italian. As I stated in a recent interview, it’s not what I define as a “useful” language for myself; I don’t work in fashion or the arts. But I find it a beautiful language and I always wanted to speak Italian.To start off my journey, the current weapons of choice are a MOOC by the Università per Stranieri di Siena (Foreigners University Siena) on FutureLearn and the free self-paced Italian course on Duolingo. I will talk about my experiences in more detail at the end of the first month, but so far I’ve made good progress.

Having been involved in the online language learning vertical in many different roles throughout the past decade, from tutor to blogger to consultant to student, I know a thing or two about effective language teaching and learning online. I have a lot on my mind that I want to share with you in the months ahead.

Today let’s talk about technology and its promise to save us all the work and trouble of learning a new language.

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Being in the student seat once again, I quickly noticed that self-paced, asynchronous language learning is still work and will be a lengthy process - not that this wasn’t as expected. Even with all the improvements and features like gamification that learning platforms offer today.

Hit the Ground Running...

As I wrote in the past, platforms like Livemocha, busuu, babbel and Duolingo have essentially killed the market for entry-level tutoring. I stand by my assertion. They work great in terms of learning vocabulary quickly and efficiently, get better at teaching grammar and even pronunciation. I would say that a learner can achieve an A1/A2 level just by using one of these platforms, though unfortunately the courses still miss out on conversational practice or offer it as premium feature. We will see what chatbots can deliver in this area of language acquisition, but more on that in another post.

...Hit the Wall

As I said, language learning still takes time, effort and eventually financial investment in the form of hiring a language tutor to get to the next level. As we know, for most people learning a new language remains a pipe dream, a promise you make on New Year’s eve etc but the sheer thought of grammar tables, weird pronunciations and the terror of having to order a baguette at the French boulangerie seem to be too much.

I would even go as far to say that aside from us language enthusiasts (and yes, we are a minority) people will only learn a language when it is socially or economically unavoidable. But technology is here for the rescue.

Read any Language

A couple of years ago we covered Word Lens, an app that translates written text instantly through augmented reality on your smartphone. The startup ended up being acquired by Google and we now find its technology integrated into the Google Translate app.

The idea is of course tempting. Being able to read any written text, from street names to menus in restaurants is exciting. The promo videos looked amazing but the reality was of course more clunky. The last time I played around with the app, Word Lens got about 50% right. Not bad but not good enough to be really helpful.

Understand and Speak any Language

Of course, being able to read a foreign language is great but what about conversations? Enter Google Conversation Mode.

First presented by Eric Schmidt in 2011, conversation mode translates spoken language and gives an audio output. All you need is the Google Translate app, choose the two languages of the people participating in the conversation and then let the software do the magic.

In late 2014 Microsoft threw its hat into the ring and introduced the Skype Translator Preview. While the feature does not offer audio output it translates the spoken language into text in real time and displays the translation in the chat window. To showcase the potential of the feature in a classroom setting, Microsoft published a video in which two classes in the US and Mexico interacted with each other.

The Crowd wants the Universal Translator

But Google and Microsoft are not the only tech companies working on this technology. In 2013 SIGMO set out to create a universal translator with the help of crowdfunding platform Indiegogo. They received nearly $250.000 from over 3300 backers. Unfortunately, they never delivered the product and the website is for sale. Well, not an uncommon end to crowdfunding dreams.

Three years later a new startup is promising us the universal translator, and again it is making waves on Indiegogo. Pilot puts the translation device right into your ear while a smartphone app is doing the heavy lifting of translating the conversation. Again, the promo video looks promising and to date Pilot raised nearly $2 million from over 8500 backers.

It is of course too early to tell if the Pilot will ever reach the ears of its backers but the interest in the device shows the hope of technology freeing us from the need of actually learning a foreign language. It is what we hope and eventually expect from all of our gadgets, to make our lives easier. The problem is that we lose out on related experiences and skills and we also get into a potentially ill-fated dependence on our tech gadgets and services.

Call me outdated but even with integrated spaced repetition I will print out grammar sheets and write down key vocabulary in lists to make sure it sticks.

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Picture by Julian Bucknall via Flickr

Name: Lessonface Website: www.lessonface.com Headquarters: New York City, USA Vertical: K-12, Lifelong Learning Tech: Web App

Introduce your startup and give a short description of what you are doing.

Lessonface is a marketplace for online music lessons that brings dedicated students to vetted and reviewed teachers.

Who are the founders, how did you meet, what are your different roles in the startup.

Lessonface founders Claire Cunningham and Ashford Tucker met while Ashford was in a band in the early oughts. Claire was at that time running her first post-college company, the NotSo Hostel. Claire handles product and user success, and Ashford oversees legal and branding matters.

What is the main problem in education that you aim to solve.

Helping teachers find the right students for their teaching style and ability, and for students to find teachers who will inspire, challenge, and motivate them. And to take away the headache of booking.

How was the idea for your startup born?

Out of recognizing a growing trend of online lessons and a need for their organization

In which markets / regions are you active. What markets / regions are next.

We have served students and teachers worldwide, but are primarily active in North America

Who is your target audience.

Great music teachers and students ready to learn. Ages 5-105. (We have actually served students between the ages of 5-80+)

How do you engage with your target audience. How do you convert them into users of your product.

Primarily organically - via teacher and student referral.

How many users / downloads does your service have?

A bit over 4,000 users.

What is your business model. How much does your product / service cost.

Teachers set their own lesson rates. Our fee is 15% of lessons sold.

Who are your main competitors? What sets you apart from them?

Teachers using Skype + Paypal is our primary competition. We bring a layer of trust and convenience, in form of a set of tools for finding teachers, arranging lesson dates and scheduling, for both teacher and student.

If you raised funding, how much did you raise. Who are your investors. If not, are you planning to raise funding.

We have raised about half a million USD from angel investors.

Are there milestones you are especially proud of and would like to share.

Students active in the past 12 months on Lessonface took an average of 8 lessons apiece. This number has increased by 30% annually since our launch in 2013, a strong indicator that we're continuing to deliver a better and better experience - and that students are finding teachers that they really like and are sticking with it!

What are the next steps in growing your startup.

We've honed our system and made sure it was delivering well for our users, and are thrilled at the strong response from our early adopters. We're looking forward to growing by students and teachers together.

How can people get in touch with you.

Lessonface.com / cc@lessonface.com / 800-211-7058

In this first part of our five part series on the impact of technology trends in education, we will take a look at augmented reality. While some are calling it the little brother of virtual reality, augmented reality has the advantage that its use cases are linked to the real world and our surroundings while virtual reality takes the user into entirely digitally created worlds.

The most common uses of augmented reality today are linked to smart phones and tablets as wearables, including Google Glass or Microsoft HoloLens, are just coming out of the concept stage and into the hands of developers, but are still far from going mainstream.

Nonetheless, we will be focusing on both of these devices, Google Glass and Microsoft HoloLens, as they are capable of demonstrating some quite impressive use cases already today. Therefore, let us take a look at some use cases for augmented reality in education across different fields and what it will take to get this technology in the hands, or better in front of the eyes of the mainstream user.

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Museums and Historical Sights

Museums and other cultural sights can use augmented reality to add more in-depth and interactive layers of information to their exhibits. An app could explain details of a painting or greek vase directly on the object itself, or it could add an overlay with the names of the gods and titans to a roman frieze.

Augmented reality apps can also open a virtual window to the past, showing the Colosseum or the Pyramids the way they looked like when they were build, or imagine witnessing the battle of Waterloo as it happened.

Skin and Bones - Mobile Augmented Reality App for the National Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Bones

Engineering and Technology

Augmented reality has exciting use cases in the fields of engineering and technology. Through apps students could for instance learn how engines work, what the different parts are, how they interact and so on. Apps could also assist the learner when building a computer or robot by explaining the different parts, how they connect etc.

World’s first beacon based Augmented Reality Museum App

Microsoft HoloLens: Partner Spotlight with Volvo Cars

Medicine and Healthcare

A nice example of augmented reality in K-12 is Curiscope which created a t-shirt that lets students look into their bodies using a smartphone or tablet. Similar apps with additional content could be used for medical students.

Curiscope's VirtualiTee: Wearable tech you learn with

Microsoft HoloLens: Partner Spotlight with Case Western Reserve University

Language Learning

I already mentioned Word Lens in the introductory post as an early example of augmented reality impacting the need of learning foreign languages. With the app that is now part of Google Translate you can translate any written text. The translation is being displayed on the smartphone’s screen instead of the original text, even mimicking the font type and color - at times more or less accurate.

Introducing Word Lens

Google Glass application, named Outro, is for learning language

Real time speech translation for Google Glass

Immersive Online Learning

Online learning is still lacking the personal contact of a group of people sitting together in a classroom or lecture hall. With augmented reality video calls could take place in a room with each participant seeing the others sitting around a table as holograms.

Microsoft HoloLens: Skype

What it takes to go Mainstream

Using a phone or tablet is surely not the best way to experience augmented reality which is also the reason that we haven’t seen much of it so far. The experience makes most sense when it blends seamlessly into our field of sight which means that we need devices that are either close to or right on our eyeballs.

Google Glass put the screen on the top right of the user’s field of sight, resulting in lots of cross-eyed first adopters. Microsoft HoloLens puts its augmented reality, or mixed reality as they call it, in front of both eyes through a device that looks like ski goggles. While the device is certainly not as clunky as early VR headsets or even the Oculus Rift, it is hard to imagine someone wearing this on the street, outside of a work setting or at home.

This leaves us with the classic form factor of glasses or contact lenses with the first being easier to get into production as Google Glass has shown. Cramming the needed technology into a contact lens and making it affordable for the mass consumer market will take some more years, eventually resulting in the replacement of our natural eyeballs with bionic ones marking the end of this journey.

Next week we will be going to immerse ourselves into the completely digitally created worlds of virtual reality.

Further Reading

• Where History Comes Alive: Augmented Reality in Museums
• Tell me a story: augmented reality technology in museums
• Post-web technology: what comes next for museums?

Name: Edukasyon.ph Website: www.edukasyon.ph Headquarters: Makati City, Philippines Vertical: K-12, Higher Education, Career Tech: Web App

Introduce your startup and give a short description of what you are doing.

Edukasyon.ph is an EdTech Social Enterprise which believes that every student has the right to a quality, affordable education that leads to employment. Through a two-sided online platform that brings students and universities together, it helps students create their Education to Career pathway - providing them with choice, advice and convenience in making their decisions. Meanwhile, it provides universities with access, efficiency and convenience in acquiring students.

Who are the founders, how did you meet, what are your different roles in the startup.

Henry Motte-Muñoz, Founder. Prior to founding Edukasyon, Henry also co-founded an anti-corruption NGO (Bantay.ph) and worked in finance with Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital in London. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School and the London School of Economics. At Edukasyon, his focus is on developing a sustainable, scalable business model and managing private sector relations.

Lites Viloria, CEO. Prior to Edukasyon, Lites worked for 7 years in the Department of Labor and Employment in the Philippines, where she focused on solving youth unemployment. She is a graduate of De La Salle University and Ateneo. At Edukasyon, her focus is on day-to-day team management and managing government relations.

How was the idea for your startup born?

Henry was inspired to found Edukasyon.ph after providing university advice in 2012 to his cousin, who was about to graduate from high school. When asked about his plans if he was not admitted to the top 3 universities, Henry's cousin gave only a blank stare - helpless at finding the proper resources to guide his education and career decision. Henry realized that his cousin was not alone: 1.4 million students graduate from high school annually - the vast majority of whom lack the power of choice and guidance to make their education and career decision. Moreover, only 900,000 of these students successfully get into university. Passionate about solving these problems, Henry developed a business plan for Edukasyon.ph at Harvard Business School, with a vision for creating a one-stop shop online resource to help create students' Education to Career pathway - whether they have university or technical-vocational aspirations.

What is the main problem in education that you aim to solve.

We are solving high youth unemployment and student dropout rates in the Philippines. Of 1.4 million high school graduates every year, 500,000 will never go to university because they cannot afford it. Of the 900,000 who attend university, 300,000 will drop out because they picked the wrong course or can’t afford to continue. Of the 600,000 who graduate, 40% or more are considered unemployable by employers because they lack technical and soft skills, or because they graduated into industries with massive labor oversupply. We believe every Filipino student deserves a quality, affordable education that leads to employment.

In which markets / regions are you active. What markets / regions are next.

Our first market is the Philippines, where these problems in education are at a critical level. Over time, we plan to expand to ASEAN, EMEA and other markets globally facing the same problem.

Who is your target audience.

We target students and parents from socio-economic classes A,B, and C. Among students, our focus is on those in Grade 10 to 12, as well as in tertiary education (Undergrad, Masters, PhD).

How many users / downloads does your service have?

We currently have 11,900 registered users and over 10,000 unique visitors per month, with traffic growing rapidly month-on-month.

Who are your main competitors? What sets you apart from them?

We have created the first complete database of senior high schools, colleges, tech-voc schools, and scholarships in the history of the country. We have achieved this by working with the different government agencies (Department of Education, Commission on Higher Education, and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority. Our goal is to make this relevant information easy to navigate and use by any student.

Our main competitors (Klaseko, Applica, Finduniversity) are primarily sites that have built a database of schools. Unlike Edukasyon, these sites only offer limited services (e.g., database search and online payment functions). They do not offer a full host of advice and career counseling services. Furthermore, their databases are significantly smaller - our next-largest competitor has a database that is 1/4 the size of Edukasyon's.

How do you engage with your target audience. How do you convert them into users of your product.

We use digital marketing, especially social media, to promote our site and engage our target audience. We also establish partnerships with various critical education stakeholders - schools, government agencies, employers, etc. to promote our platform and the services we offer (for example, online application and payment processing for schools). Through these digital and physical channels, we sign up students and schools to our platform, requiring them to become registered users of the site to avail of our services.

What is your business model. How much does your product / service cost.

We are a B2B2C company. Our platform primarily provides three things: choice, advice, and convenience.

We provide choice to students by having built the most complete higher education database in Philippine history, with 50,000 college courses ranging from low-cost, short courses in provincial technical colleges to 4-year private education in Manila. Students can filter courses based on location, duration, cost and entry requirements. We also offer the most comprehensive database of scholarships (over 3,000), to reduce affordability constraints for both incoming and existing college students.

We provide advice to students through our proprietary content on universities and careers. This content, prepared with the help of stakeholders in industry, academia, and government, includes valuable information, such as starting salaries by industry and current and projected demand for graduates.

If you raised funding, how much did you raise. Who are your investors. If not, are you planning to raise funding.

We have begun fundraising in Q2/Q3 2016 for a funding round of $700,000.

Are there milestones you are especially proud of and would like to share.

In June, we formalized a partnership with the Commission on Higher Education, as their sole partner to manage online applications for 140 institutions. In July, we expect to hit ~100 paying universities - representing growth of over 3x in the span of 5 months since our site re-launch.

What are the next steps in growing your startup.

In 2016, we plan to release a mobile app for our platform, as well as continue improving our current products and building premium functionalities. In 2017, we plan to develop university rankings, pursue the online and executive education sectors, and begin expansion into ASEAN.

How can people get in touch with you.

Email: support@edukasyon.ph, Social Media: FB (Edukasyon.ph), Twitter (edukasyonphl), Instagram (edukasyonphl)

Last week we talked about augmented and mixed reality, a technology that adds virtual and interactive layers to our real world surroundings. This week we go further down the rabbit hole and take a closer look at virtual reality, which transports the user into a completely digitally created world.

Similar to smartphones and tablets in recent years, VR headsets will surely work their way into schools through adoption in the consumer market. As soon as children and parents have VR devices in their living room VR will eventually arrive in classrooms and the workplace.

The use cases of virtual reality in education are essentially the same as with augmented reality, the major difference being that the scenarios take place in an entirely digitally created environment.

Before we focus on today’s VR landscape, let us take a stroll down memory lane to one of the forefathers of this field, Second Life. While this tool and platform for virtual worlds is not part of virtual reality, technically speaking, it gave us a first impression of the possibilities of learning in virtual settings.

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Fantasy Islands

At the height of Second Life in 2007 / 08 higher education institutions were especially interested in the possibilities of taking their classroom teaching into the cyberspace and therefore growing their reach beyond the limitations of a physical campus.

Leading universities and colleges purchased virtual real estate, so-called islands, on Second Life and created virtual campus experiences that often included virtual copies of their real world buildings. Early adopters included renowned institutions like Stanford University, SUNY, University of Delaware or the Mayo Clinic.

Unfortunately, the hype did not live up to the dream and today most of these virtual worlds are abandoned. Fusion revisited some of these virtual campuses in 2015 and there is a whole list available on Second Life’s directory.

Viable Niches

While the use of virtual worlds in higher education never took off, there have been outliers in vocational and language training. One of the first edtech startups in this niche was London-based Languagelab, now Immerse Learning. Languagelab created a virtual city to teach ESL in different real life situations.

Moreover Second Life and similar platforms, also naturally give themselves as basis for VR experiences. After rebranding to Immerse Learning and switching the development platform, the company added VR to its set of features as shown in the promotional video below.

One of the major advantages of using virtual reality in education is the freedom it gives the instructor in terms of settings and locations. As VR, other than augmented reality, is not tied to real world locations, learning scenarios can essentially take place anywhere, saving cost and adding security as the training does not need to take place on a real oil rig or inside a real helicopter cockpit.

This again is especially interesting in vocational training scenarios, from combat simulations for soldiers and flight simulators for pilots to disaster simulations for rescue personnel.

For example, the logistics behind a disaster drill in the real world are immense, from closing down entire parts of a city to making the scene look realistic. Those drills are also limited to a day or less. In VR such a disaster drill could take place on demand and adapted to different scenarios and a fraction of the cost.

Big Bets

According to Fortune, VCs have put more than $4 billion in VR startups over the past five years, and the overall market is estimated at nearly $16 billion by 2019. Besides the funding there is of course the acquisition of VR headset maker Oculus Rift by Facebook for $2 billion two years ago.

The best bet to get VR into the hands of consumers is of course entertainment, not education. At this year’s E3 we saw a lot of new entrants into the VR arena, both from device makers and game creators.

Lowering the VR entrance barrier

VR has been tied to high cost for the better part of its existence as the needed hardware always came with a hefty price tag. Smart phones and Google Cardboard have changed that dramatically. With a price of only $20 anyone who owns an Android powered smartphone can turn it into a VR headset. Even more elaborate devices like the Samsung Gear VR are now affordable at a retail price of $99.

In September of last year Google made its move into the K-12 classroom with its Pioneer Expeditions program based on Google Cardboard and the New York Times sent out Google Cardboard viewers to millions of its subscribers.

Based on the success of Cardboard, Google also has plans to dig deeper into the vertical by launching its own virtual reality headset later this year.

Truly immersive VR

In order to make VR a truly immersive experience we will need complementary devices that let the user manipulate objects and move more naturally in digital worlds. Leap Motion is already doing a decent job when it comes to “touching” and moving objects yet sensations like haptic feedback are missing entirely for now.

The other problem is that walking in a virtual world is limited to sitting in a chair and moving our virtual avatars through game controllers. There are of course solutions available like the Virtuix Omni or an interesting low cost alternative called RIPmotion.

What it takes to go Mainstream

As mentioned above, pricing and usability are still the main issues for VR to break into the mainstream consumer market but there are now enough big companies working on new devices and technologies that will make VR more user friendly in the near term.

Further Reading

• When Virtual Reality Meets Education
• The Virtual Classroom: Virtual Reality in Training and Education
• This is the Beginning of VR Education, and It Will Only Get Better
• A Beginner’s Journey Into Virtual Reality

For an even deeper dive into VR in education I suggest our Reading List: Virtual Reality in Education from earlier this year which features over 30 articles and use cases of virtual reality in K-12, Higher Ed and Corporate Training.

Use the promo code member to get 25% off at checkout.

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 Picture by Maurizio Pesce via Flickr

With Facebook being the world’s largest social network it is quite evident that a large portion of its users, the author included, consists of non native English speakers. According to the social network itself 50% of its user base speaks a language other than English.

To help users and businesses to overcome the language barrier Facebook introduced the so called multilingual composer earlier this year to select page owners which included EDUKWEST and is now opening it up to individual users, as well.

With the help of the multilingual composer users can write and post an update in different languages. The system then displays the most relevant language to the visitor based on her language preferences and other factors.

The writer can either type or copy each of the different messages by hand or use the pre-filled text offered by Facebook’s language algorithm.

What’s EdTech about it?

1. Features like the multilingual composer and other instant translation tools are slowly but surely diminishing people’s immediate need for learning other languages. Once the feature works as intended users won’t even notice if an update, or entire piece of content, was originally written in a different language.
2. The use of the multilingual composer will make Facebook’s translation algorithm smarter which can then be used in other projects and features. Chat bots, which we will talk more about in an upcoming post, are especially interesting in an educational setting. Facebook could also offer instant translations in its messenger which would be a useful feature for online learners and tutors.

Source: Building a better way to write posts in multiple languages

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The edtech market in India saw continued growth in the second quarter of 2016. Interest from investors, especially in early stage rounds, was on par with the first quarter.

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Noteworthy developments in the second quarter include the growing interest from venture capital funds to invest in Indian edtech, a growing debate around the cost of education and student loans, and parallels to the Chinese edtech market boom.

This EdTech Market Brief is designed with readers in mind that want to stay at the top of their game, who have a special interest in the latest happenings in the Indian education technology sector with a focus on EdTech startups and investments.

It features a total of 72 curated articles from leading sources covering the latest trends and numbers that are shaking up the education scene on the subcontinent. It includes 10 Op-Eds and interviews with Indian edtech founders, 16 articles covering K-12 and Higher Education, 29 articles about Indian edtech startups and 10 articles about angels and VCs investing in the Indian edtech market.

EDUKWEST tracked 21 founding rounds in Indian edtech startups for the second quarter of 2016 with close to $12 million in disclosed funding spread across 9 rounds. The biggest rounds this quarter went to CueMath  ($4m), CollegeDekho ($2m) and KrazyBee ($2m).

While the number of funding rounds is identical to the first quarter there is a big difference in the disclosed amounts. In Q1 we saw two large investments taking $135m out of the $150m disclosed funding spread across 11 rounds.

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Promo: Use the code INDIAH12016 at checkout and get 15% off when purchasing the EdTech Market Brief India Q1 and Q2 together.

Picture Nicolas Raymond via freestocks.ca

In 2015 China lead the edtech headlines with huge funding announcements. After a healthy first quarter we saw things cooling down during the second quarter. Are these the first signs of a Chinese edtech bubble?

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On twelve pages the EDUKWEST EdTech Market Brief China Q2 2016 contains 42 articles covering the Chinese education and technology landscape in the second quarter of 2016 as well as 29 funding rounds totaling over $146 million in disclosed investments.

In our EdTech Market Brief China Q2 2016 we share with you insights from well-respected sources covering the K12 and higher education verticals, share news on edtech startups and companies, fundraising, hot verticals, and more.

Main Themes in Q2

After a record breaking year of investments in Chinese edtech companies things have started to cool down. There is also a growing number of voices who are calling out the impending burst of the local edtech bubble as edtech startups in China struggle to get profitable or raise follow-on rounds.

Chinese edtech companies enter the US stock exchange with varying success while US based heavyweights like Udacity and Evernote are trying to grab market-share in China. Meanwhile NetDragon is getting deeper into testing use cases of virtual reality and holograms in education.

A growing group of China’s underpaid teachers get entrepreneurial and start online tutoring businesses, some of them earning up to $3,000 per hour. This trend has already lead to rising inequalities in admissions to universities which is now being tackled by the government.

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Promo: Use the code CHINAH12016 at checkout and get 15% off when purchasing the EdTech Market Brief China Q1 and Q2 together.

Picture Nicolas Raymond via freestocks.ca

Educational app maker Duolingo launched a stand-alone flashcard learning app this week making it the company’s first step to move beyond language learning. Is Tinycards going to be a success of similar size like Duolingo’s massively popular language learning apps, or is it more of a trojan horse that aims at taking over the brain training vertical?

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Earlier this year Duolingo’s co-founder Luis van Ahn already hinted on Quora that the goal for the company was to branch out beyond the language learning vertical.

“We think we can help by developing intelligent apps that teach the most important subjects: reading and writing, math, physics, etc.”

Flashcards naturally lend themselves to a plethora of subject matters and are still the weapon of choice for many learners across the globe. According to Duolingo some of its users asked for a “Duolingo-like” experience when it comes to learning with flashcards, and therefore the company released Tinycards on Tuesday.

Interestingly, the new app launched on iOS exclusively and there is also no web app available like there is for Duolingo. This not only leaves out a huge chunk of Duolingo’s global audience that uses computers and Android powered devices. If we take Duolingo’s own numbers as basis, around 60 % of users learn English with the service making it the most popular language by far. These stats also strongly hints at a large non-native English speaking user base, and as all the products are free I assume that millions of users are based out of developing countries which of course favor Android devices.

But the iOS exclusive launch comes as an even bigger surprise with regards to Duolingo’s ambitions in the K-12 space and their Duolingo for Schools project.

Gina Gotthilf, Duolingo’s VP of Growth, told us in an email that iOS still has a lot of the market but confirmed that an Android version will come some time later.

The (not so) secret sauce of every flashcard app is its algorithm that decides when flashcards need to be shown / learned again in order to get information into our long-term memory. Usually based on the principle of spaced repetition flashcard apps tend to do a good job at this front, and Duolingo also uses an algorithm to get learners to review vocabulary on a regular basis in its flagship product.

While there are examples of companies that are stand-alone flashcard apps (Quizlet, StudyBlue, Anki to name a few), flashcards are in most cases just a feature of a larger learning platform.

In fact the flashcard feature on Duolingo has been pretty neglected it seems.

That said, the distinction between the new product and the Duolingo language learning apps does not become evident at first glance.

The more interesting question, however, is if Duolingo can recreate its success in the language learning space and become as popular in the flashcards vertical. We must not forget that Duolingo was not the first to offer language learning apps but actually entered a pretty crowded and competitive market.

The trick was to offer a good product for free and to find new ways to generate revenue other than charging for upgrades or premium content. Duolingo managed this through selling crowdsourced translations before entering the language testing space with Duolingo Test Center.

It will now have to prove the same for the flashcards market, though I doubt that this is truly the vertical Duolingo is after. To me, this looks like a first step towards entering the infamous brain training vertical which has proven to be quite lucrative for some startups. The recent legal troubles around false advertising from market leader Lumosity could help Duolingo to grab market share while staying below the radar disguised as a flashcards app.

Gina Gotthilf hinted a couple of use cases for Tinycards that have a lot in common with lessons from brain training apps.

“We also hope it'll be interesting for life-long learners looking to learn wine-pairings, people's names, important stats to use in conversation, quotes, etc.”

Remains the question if and how Tinycards will generate revenue as the app is free and will most likely stay free. Similar to Duolingo, paid certifications could be an option as soon as there is enough content available to tie lessons together into courses.

At launch Tinycards comes with a selection of decks from Duolingo, Chineasy and community generated content.

[/member]

Name: SkillSoniq Website: www.skillsoniq.com Headquarters: New York City, USA Vertical: Professional Development, Skills Assessment, Lifelong Learning Tech: Web App

Introduce your startup and give a short description of what you are doing.

SkillSoniq provides an easy way for users to discover, improve and showcase their professional skills through quick adaptive tests, sophisticated analytics, and personalized course recommendations. It provides a unique way for users to get connected with online courses and is the world's first platform that enables users to track and share their online learning activities, making them more employable and market ready.  

Who are the founders, how did you meet, what are your different roles in the startup.

SkillSoniq's Core Team consists of Abhinav Verma, Krishna Bala and Yulia Nikonova. Abhinav Verma founded SkillSoniq in late 2015, and has over 5 years of experience in the Education and Training Industry. Before that, Abhinav was an Investment Banker on Wall Street. While Abhinav helps with all aspects of business, he is primarily focused on front end and back end Sales and Marketing activities for SkillSoniq.

Abhinav met Krishna through the New York EdTech network, and they instantly connected on their vision to make sense of the thousands of online courses currently available to users, in a simple, intuitive way.

Krishna is a data scientist and software engineer with a proven ability to build high performance analytics systems. He has over 20 years of Tech experience developing optimization algorithms and analyzing big data, and manages Tech Development at SkillSoniq.

Abhinav and Yulia met at a Startup event in New York, and Yulia was impressed with Abhinav's vision for SkillSoniq - Yulia is helping develop the Finance Organization at SkillSoniq, and is a Certified Management Accountant by profession.

How was the idea for your startup born?

Abhinav hails from India, and taught students and corporate professionals Microsoft Office skills in the classroom for 2 years, before he realized that all of the teaching was a waste unless he had a way to assess students' knowledge gaps before training, so he could personalize his training in the classroom. Furthermore, he sensed that there had got to be a way for students to track the amount of learning shared in the classroom, other than having them go through one off assessments at the end of training. That was the genesis of SkillSoniq.

SkillSoniq allows users to quantify all their learning in the form of a “Skill Score”, which changes based on how much a user and his/her network of peers learn. Personalized course recommendations are provided to users based on their knowledge graph. Users can now compare their skills with peers in real-time, and follow their peers’ learning activities. With the idea of personalized learning, SkillSoniq believes they can solve broader problems in the Education & Training Industry, such as declining corporate training budgets, fragmentation of the online training industry, and lack of effective tools to understand existing knowledge gaps of users. SkillSoniq tries to solve all of these problems through quick, adaptive tests, sophisticated big data analytics and personalized course recommendations.

What is the main problem in education that you aim to solve.

Users currently do not have a way to discover, effectively improve and showcase their skills acquired through online courses. SkillSoniq connects these users with course providers in a unique way where they can discover, improve and showcase their skills to peers and employers, making them more market ready.

For example, if you were to take a course from Udemy.com or Lynda.com, how could you showcase to potential employers how much you learned from the course? You will not have a lot of options other than listing courses on your resume. SkillSoniq provides an easy way for users to create their own knowledge graphs and skill trends, which they can share with potential employers, as a part of their professional resume.   

Who are your main competitors? What sets you apart from them?

We compete with self-paced online course providers and online assessment companies. Some of our competitors are listed below:

Open Sesame: Online marketplace for corporate training Udemy.com: Online marketplace for training Lynda.com: Online course provider Isograd.com: B2B MS Office Test provider We are different from competitors as we are purely a B2C player, while most of the online training and assessment providers focus on a B2B model where they aim to sell courses and tests in bulk. Currently, no firm provides adaptive tests, analytics and personalized courses for millennials the way we do. With so many courses being published every day, we chose not to create our own courses, but partner with existing content providers to curate their content, and build analytics and assessments around their training.

In which markets / regions are you active. What markets / regions are next.

We are active in the United States since it represents 50% of the global self-paced online training market; We plan to launch in India, China and Parts of Africa after the US. These are regions where online training is growing at rates as high as 55% CAGR.  

Who is your target audience.

Millennials looking for a job and/or aspiring to become more effective workers through lifelong learning

How do you engage with your target audience. How do you convert them into users of your product.

We currently offer testing and analytics services in MS Office products for free to all our users to encourage them to create profiles on our platform and discover their skills. We also run promotions where users get their first course for free. Once users start building their knowledge graph on our platform, we begin to cross-sell other personalized courses to them through which we earn a commission. Users are able to see how they perform versus their peers, and are encouraged to purchase courses from our site to improve their knowledge graph and marketability to potential employers.

How many users / downloads does your service have?

2,000 unique visitors

What is your business model. How much does your product / service cost.

We currently offer testing and analytics services in MS Office products for free to all our users to encourage them to create profiles on our platform. Once users start building their knowledge graph on our platform, we begin to cross-sell personalized courses to them through which we earn a commission. We charge a 20% - 40% commission to all our content providers on courses sold by us, and have launched our 1st product category of MS Office products. We currently offer ~1,000 High Quality MS Office courses and have secured partnerships with 7 of the largest MS Office content providers across the world.

If you raised funding, how much did you raise. Who are your investors. If not, are you planning to raise funding.

We are currently in the Family and Friends Round, and are seeking $300,000 - $500,000 in seed funding to expand into other product categories (outside of MS Office), expand our team, and improve customer experience on our website

Are there milestones you are especially proud of and would like to share.

What are the next steps in growing your startup.

How can people get in touch with you.

sales@skillsoniq.com abhinav_verma@skillsoniq.com Twitter: @skillsoniq Customer Service: +1.929.77S.KILL

The Internet of Things, or smart technology, covers everyday physical objects that are able to connect to the Internet or other network structures in order to exchange data.

According to Gartner over 6 billion connected “things” will be in use this year and over 20 billion by 2020. Therefore in today's part of our ongoing series we will take a look at the impact of the Internet of Things in Education.

Smart “everything”

To get a grasp of the possibilities of IoT in education we need to start with the premise that essentially every physical object has the potential to become a member of the Internet of Things. The question if every object should be smart is on another page.

Over the past years we have seen lots of novelties in the IoT space with more or less educational functions, especially in the health and quantified self sector. There are connected toothbrushes that teach us oral hygiene, devices that teach us to sit correctly and connected spoons that teach us how to eat correctly and inform us on our calorie intake.

Smart Pens

A German startup was among the first to enter the smart pen market in 2013. Lernstift worked on a pen that would correct spelling and writing. Unfortunately, the startup burned through its crowdsourced funding before any prototype was sent out to its backers. Yet, the concept was and still is promising.

Another smart pen targeting the education sector is Scanmarker. Like the product name suggests, the pen works like a digital highlighter, scanning text and making it available for use in all sorts of digital documents.

As a third example for smart pens we have Livescribe. Their device is built around a voice recording function that ties written notes to the recording of a lecture. The app also helps learners to organize, tag and search the texts.

Smart Whiteboards

Smart or interactive whiteboards made their first entrance into classrooms about 15 years ago, yet their impact on educational outcomes has been reviewed with mixed results. While some companies like Time To Know have created entire ecosystems around those devices, most teachers are left with a more or less clever device that tends to end up as nothing more than an expensive blackboard. Besides missing infrastructure a lack in teacher training options and funding is to blame here.

A newer, leaner version of the concept could, however, prove to be an essential part in the classroom. With prices starting at $169, interactive whiteboards are poised to make a comeback, powered by other connected devices in the classroom and more adapted educational content and data from the Internet.

Last year, Chinese gaming giant turned edtech company NetDragon acquired Promethean for $130 million, adding another technological platform to its growing portfolio which also includes augmented reality and holograms.

Smart Schools

The Internet of Things can also be applied to school buildings. Here the main fields of interest are cost savings and security.

IoT can be used to save energy, automatically regulating light, heat or air conditioning to create a better learning environment. Those use cases are similar to what we already know from smart home appliances like the Nest thermostat. There are also possibilities in controlling food waste, saving schools up to 4% of their annual food purchases.

Driven by the tragic school shootings, IoT can also play a role in making schools and universities a more secure place. From checking students at the entrance through NFC chips to cameras and sensors, schools will for sure ramp up their devices on that front.

Those devices can then also be used to monitor and prevent cheating. In China a school used drones to prevent students from cheating at the infamous college entrance exam Gaokao last year.

In our next article about the impact of technology in education we will take a closer look at a specific vertical in IoT, wearables.

Name: Custom Logo Cases Website: www.customlogocases.com Headquarters: Malvern, Australia Vertical: K-12, Higher Education

Introduce your startup and give a short description of what you are doing.

Custom Logo Cases provides custom cases and covers for tablets, notebook computers and phones. From iPads, iPhones and every other type of tablet and phone, we custom make cases with any artwork, logo or design. We make great quality custom cases, at great prices.

How was the idea for your startup born?

Previously working in the wholesale and retail technology products & accessories industry, we found that more and more people wanted to have their logo on their accessories, cases and covers. Yet there were no cost effective options and nobody was very willing to do this.

Now, we make cases for some of the largest (and the smallest) companies all around the world. We have many manufacturing techniques, and a huge range of options that we tailor to every customer, so they can get exactly what is best for them.

What is the main problem in education that you aim to solve.

We help with school branding and the protection of expensive hardware.

In which markets / regions are you active. Who is your target audience.

We are currently active in every region around the world, and can deliver to the most remote places or the biggest cities. We are working on translations for our website into native languages to make it more user friendly.

We are looking for Education Technology Specialists, and Schools that are passionate about their school. We have thousands of customers based in many countries all around the world. Schools, from K-12, Colleges, Universities, and all types of educational institutions trust us with their custom cases and covers.

How do you engage with your target audience. How do you convert them into users of your product.

We have a lot of word-of-mouth referrals, as well as do advertising, and we also send free samples of cases.

What is your business model. How much does your product / service cost.

Our cases are cost-effective solutions to protection. The cost varies greatly and is all price dependent. You can find the full range of our education related product in our store.

What are the next steps in growing your startup.

We are in a steady stage of growth, and we are working more on localisation of websites to gain more non-english speaking customers.

How can people get in touch with you.

We have a variety of contact methods, the best is to go to our website, where there are local phone numbers, live chat, contact forms and more.

Name: Millionlights Website: www.millionlights.org Headquarters: Pune, India Vertical: Professional Development, Higher Education, Lifelong Learning Tech: Web App, Mobile App, TV

Introduce your startup and give a short description of what you are doing.

Millionlights is an education content provider using technology to achieve massive scale. It was formed to create a better future for millions of people across India through learning and skill development. The Millionlights vision encompasses a hope to be able to reach out to the farthest corner of India and deliver skill-based training to everyone. Millionlights believes that for India to be relevant on a global scale, there is a need for millions of trained, skilled people. Education is the only way to alleviate poverty and move a large underserved segment of the population out of their current cycle of unemployment and make them productive members of society. The inspiration for the brand came from the idea of reaching out to millions of lives and lighting up their future through the use of technology.

We are committed to provide educational access by leveraging technology in order to put the best of internet-based education within the reach of the millions who are currently deprived.

Who are the founders, how did you meet, what are your different roles in the startup.

Chairman - Prof. Pradeep Varma Prof Pradeep Varma was an Advisor at the National Board of Accreditation where he advised on critical Senior Management issues. He was also overseeing the development of the National Institutional Ranking Framework for the Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India.

Prior to coming to NBA, Professor Varma was Program Director, National MOOCs Deployment at IIT Bombay and Adjunct Professor (Innovation & Entrepreneurship), Design School, IIT Kanpur at IIT Kanpur.

Pradeep has consulted over areas as diverse as Strategic IT Consulting, New Technology Management, Distance Education, ICT Based education and E-Governance and has served as an India expert and Visiting Faculty with the Gordon Institute of Business Sciences, Johannesburg, South Africa. Prof Varma has also been associated with the Ministry of HRD in several strategic areas.

CEO and Founder – Mr. Akshat Shrivastava Akshat Shrivastava started his journey as an entrepreneur right after doing business administration. He was the co-founder and COO of an IT services company named Xanadutec which is headquartered in the UK. Xanadutec has now grown into a 500 people multi-country IT services and product company. Akshat also founded Alabot, a company in the Artificial Intelligence space that got funded by the Malaysian Government and subsequently merged within their portfolio. Alabot awards (http://alabot.com/press/)

Akshat has also been a part of the NMEICT programme of the MHRD and was actively involved in policy formation for the ICT programme of the Central Government.

What is the main problem in education that you aim to solve.

One of the key features of Millionlights is access to the best authored and curated content leading to industry recognised certification on all screens (Mobile, Desktop and TV). This availability of free and open access is missing in India - we are working to plug this major gap and thus ensuring that every Indian has equal opportunity to get skilled - irrespective of where they are and at what socio economic level.

Our vision is to get 50 million learners in India, open access to the best curated content across any device and platform.

Millionlights hopes to disrupt the current education and skill landscape by adding massive scale to reach across millions of Indians and provide open access to education and real-world skills to at least 50 million learners in the next 5 years. We plan to leverage our platforms and technology to ensure that no aspiring learner is left bereft of access to skills and education either due to lack of infrastructure or good faculty, irrespective of where they may be.

The key feature of Millionlights is access to the best authorised, curated content leading to industry recognised certification. The technology used by the start-up facilitates live lectures, offline viewing, TV programs and faculty and industry interactions and are confident of delivering higher learning outcomes through our platforms. The learning platforms ensure peer interaction, faculty handholding, discussion forums coupled with localisation of content.

How was the idea for your startup born?

The inspiration for the brand and the startup came from the idea of reaching out to millions of lives and lighting up their future through the use of technology.

In which markets / regions are you active. What markets / regions are next.

We are focussing on the Indian market and will continue to reach out to more learners in India.

Who is your target audience.

Our key market is anyone with a need to get upskilled - these learners can be in metros as well as emerging cities across India.

According to the 2014-2015 AISHE Provisional Report, there are now 757 universities; 38,056 colleges; and 11,922 standalone institutions in the country.

Close to 400 Million Indians fall in the college-going age which is assumed to be 15-35.

Our audience is between the ages of 18 to 35 - these constitute a bulk of India's educated youth who need to be up-skilled, trained and certified. We aim to reach out and train 50 million of these youth.

How many users / downloads does your service have?

215,000 learners on the website and our Millionlights TV channel is live across 250,000 homes in Pune, India

Who are your main competitors? What sets you apart from them?

The way we are approaching skilling and online learning is slightly different.

The problem that we are trying to solve is massive. Attempting to solve this should be a national level initiative with collaboration between content creators, technology and learning providers and most importantly - with active participation from Central and State Governments.

In number terms there are more than 150 million learners to be trained and certified in the coming years - achieving this goal should be a national priority and has to be a collaborative process.

To that end we are already in conversation with global MOOCs courseware providers, universities, content creators to add their certifications and training programmes to our platform. The larger our partner base the better it is for our user.

Our goal is to have a bouquet of courses and certifications that cover a wide range of skills and not be limited to one vertical.

Collaboration rather than confrontation is what will help up-skill our people.

How do you engage with your target audience. How do you convert them into users of your product.

Our key feature is access to the best authored, curated content leading to industry recognised certification. Our technology facilitates live lectures, offline viewing, TV programs, and faculty and industry interactions. We are confident of delivering higher learning outcomes through our platforms.

Our learning platforms ensure peer interaction, faculty handholding, discussion forums coupled with localisation of content.

Millionlights is spending heavily on creating content which can easily be consumed by a local audience.

What is your business model. How much does your product / service cost.

There are multiple avenues for monetization. These include sales of Training Courses and Certifications, advertisement sales and inventory sale on TV and across all our platforms. Going forward, we will also look revenue streams from subscription from viewers of our TV channel

If you raised funding, how much did you raise. Who are your investors. If not, are you planning to raise funding.

Initial funding comes from the Founder, and we also raised a Pre Series A. We plan to go for Series A funding in the next few months. We have raised upwards of 500,000 USD to date.

Are there milestones you are especially proud of and would like to share.

Launching of our TV Channel - www.millionlights.tv

The launch of the Millionlights TV channel brings a positive disruption to the current education and skill landscape by adding massive scale to reach across to millions of Indians. Millionlights, across all three screens will provide open access to education and real-world skills to at least 50 million learners in the next 5 years. We plan to leverage our platform and technology to ensure that no aspiring learner is left bereft of access to skills and education either due to lack of infrastructure or good faculty, irrespective of where they may be.

What are the next steps in growing your startup.

We plan to work closely with industry partners to increase our bouquet of content and certification providers so that it reflects the needs of the industry. We will also expand our reach across cable networks, OTT and leverage all digital channels to reach the end user. We will also be curating content from leading indian universities and offering it on the Millionlights platforms.

How can people get in touch with you.

• support@millionlights.org
• https://www.facebook.com/millionlights
• phone +91 98901 22592

Sponsored by Turnitin

Summary: Revision Assistant is a writing curriculum supplement tool that assists learners in their writing process through feedback and actionable comments. All writing prompts are based on hundreds of expertly scored student essays, based on feedback from teachers in classrooms and aligned to state and common core standards.

Revision Assistant helps teachers to better understand the writing process of their students and helps them to make well-informed decisions based on the effort put into each revision. It gives them an overview about each step the student takes during the writing process and lets teachers offer quick and targeted support at each step.

Practice makes perfect. An old wisdom that can be applied to a variety of skills, from cooking to woodworking, from painting to skiing and writing. Writing, an essential part of human interaction, a crucial skill in our daily lives.

In order to become a good writer one needs to sit down and write on a regular basis. Outliers like comedian Jerry Seinfeld made it a habit to write something every single day. During this learning process, revising and reworking content are key to get better at this craft. But how can this be done at scale in our classrooms?

One teacher cannot take a whole school year on one writing task and give feedback and advice on each student’s revision. Or can she? Enter Revision Assistant.

Founded in 2013 at Carnegie Mellon as LightSide Labs and acquired in October 2014 by Turnitin, Revision Assistant launched under its new name in early 2016 with a pilot program covering 20 schools across 6 states in the US.

How does Revision Assistant work?

We had the chance to get a product walk-through from Jason Chu, director of marketing at Turnitin. Though we just had one hour we got a very thorough overview of the product and had enough time to get into the details which is already an important point in itself.

What we saw of Revision Assistant as a product during the demo looked slick and thought-through. The product presents itself in a clean look which reminds of modern cloud-based text editors that get rid of unnecessary buttons and menus, helping the writer to focus on, well, writing.

Teachers can easily set up their class and send out assignments from a library of over 60 writing prompts. The prompts include both open-ended and source-based informative, narrative, and argumentative writing assignments. Teachers can also add special instructions before sending the assignment out.

Naturally, Revision Assistant can be connected to the schools prefered LMS like Blackboard, Moodle or Canvas as it supports LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability), an industry standard created by the IMS Global Learning Consortium.

Before starting with their first draft students can sort their thoughts and sources with a prewriting tool that offers space for their claim, support and conclusion.

During the writing process students can get instant feedback by clicking on the Signal Check button at the bottom of the editor. Areas that need work are highlighted based on the four different traits in the rubric. When a student clicks on the highlighted part she gets an expanded explanation on how to improve the text.

Each Signal Check provides the student with four specific feedback comments, two of which indicate passages that have a strong signal, the other two indicate parts that have a weak signal and need work based on the feedback given.

Each writing prompt comes with its own rubric which is accessible to both, teachers and students. The rubric rates the writing in four traits, Clarity and Focus, Use of Evidence, Analysis and Organization and Language and Genre Awareness. Revision Assistant chose to use a WiFi signal as icon to rate each trait from poor to very strong. Students can use the rubric to check their progress between revisions.

When students submit their work they can add their own assessment or commentary to which the teacher can answer directly through the system. Teachers can follow the progress of each student including every draft, comment, and Signal Check and check the performance of the entire class through a score report in Excel format.

Verdict

Based on what we saw during the walk-through, we think Revision Assistant would make a good addition to a teacher’s toolbox.

Two important final notes before we get into our own Signal Check of the product. Revision Assistant cannot replace teachers and their personal feedback. The product makes it easier for them to handle the workload and to make educated decisions based on the student’s process during the writing.

Revision Assistant also does not support cheating as it does not offer shortcuts for students. There are no sample texts students can simply copy. The feedback they get is there to help them to come up with their own solutions in their own words.

Weak Signals

There are, however, a few drawbacks to Revision Assistant. Other than most edtech tools today, Revision Assistant is targeting institutions and entire districts and is not available to individual educators who would like to use the product in their classroom. It is also limited geographically to the United States.

Both factors will naturally slow down broad global adoption and eventually leave out teachers and private tutors out of the public school sector who would surely be interested in offering the tool to their students.

Revision Assistant is also strict about the creation of its writing prompts and told us that it can’t open the library to contributions from educators, similar to what we know from platforms like Teachers pay Teachers or the recently launched Inspire platform from Amazon.

Chu explained that the creation of a writing prompt on Revision Assistant is pretty complex due to the underlying data gathered from 300 to 500 expertly scored student essays per writing prompt. But the company plans to work closely together with school districts to cater to the needs of teachers. At launch Revision Assistant offered 38 writing prompts and ramped up its library to 60 for the new school year.

Revision Assistant does not provide a grammar checker. According to the company this decision was made upon the feedback of teachers who told the team they preferred students focus on writing and not simply fixate on revising to fix grammatical errors. It also does not work seamlessly together with the company’s flagship product: plagiarism check.

The product also does not include an automatic grading feature. Revision Assistant suggests that teachers could use the signal bars as a form of evaluation and attach a grade to those measures.

Last but not least, teachers need to keep in mind that Revision Assistant is still in its early stages. It might not be perfect in terms of feedback all the time but as Revision Assistant is built upon a machine learning algorithm the system will learn from every student revision and interaction.

Strong Signals

Through its narrow focus, Revision Assistant offers a great solution for its specific niche. The product looks and feels clean, is easy to use and integrates well with existing LMS technology as well as state and common core standards.

Revision Assistant saves every single revision, making it easy for students and teachers to track back and get an overview of the entire process.

The product does not offer shortcuts by offering better phrasings but encourages students to think about their writing and work out their own solutions based on feedback and actionable commentary.

The feedback is immediate so that students know instantly if their new draft came out better than the previous. Since feedback is broken up into four different categories students can work on different aspects individually in each revision or tackle all categories at once.

Last but not least, the growing writing prompt library offers a good selection of topics, probably more than a teacher will ever need in her classroom.

This review is sponsored by Turnitin and written by the EDUKWEST editors.

Name: Livecoding Website: www.livecoding.tv Headquarter: San Francisco, USA Vertical: Professional development, Lifelong learning Tech: Web App

Introduce your startup and give a short description of what you are doing.

Livecoding.tv is an educational, interactive social coding platform where you can watch professionals code in real time like a TV. It is a place to watch and learn from engineers building games, mobile apps and websites. Instead of reading books or polished recorded videos you can watch the whole process of a project development step by step in a production environment. Our users are professional engineers, computer science students and hobby coders. We help people take their skill to the next level.

How was the idea for your startup born?

The idea was inspired by founder Michael J. Garbade playing games on Twitch.tv and developing software in a Linux virtualbox environment. The aha moment came with the question "what if there was a livestreaming platform where software engineers could share code, exchange experiences, socialize and take their skill to the next level.

What is the main problem in education that you aim to solve.

Lack of an educational environment where people can learn faster and more efficient by watching professionals who have extensive experience and like sharing it.

Who are your competitors? What sets you apart from them?

We’ve no direct competitors but indirectly YouTube and Twitch are compared to Livecoding. We are solely focused on educational content where people watch to learn. Our users have a strong desire to improve their skills through peer-to-peer learning (personal development).

In which markets / regions are you active. What markets / regions are next.

US, China, Brazil and Russia among others

How many users / downloads do you have?

250,000 from 194 countries and over 21,000 projects

Who is your target audience.

Beginners, intermediates and experts

How do you engage with your target audience. How do you convert them into users of your product.

PR, social media and word-of-mouth recommendations

What is your business model. How much does your product / service cost.

We’re not fully monetizing yet, but in the future, user premium subscriptions, freelancing contracts, recruiter accounts, and job postings

If you raised funding, how much did you raise. Who are your investors. If not, are you planning to raise funding.

We are a Y-combinator S15 company. Livecoding.tv is funded by top-notch US and UK private angels, Y-combinator, and European Pioneers. We will be raising a new round soon.

Are there milestones you are especially proud of and would like to share.

Yes, we released a complete re-design of Livecoding recently and launched a  mentorship program to pair mentees with mentors.

What are the next steps in growing your startup.

We plan to release our Asia-Pacific streaming cluster,  Android and iOS mobile apps, project playlists, do live competitions and offer structured content. In the months to come, we will add more topics besides “coding”.

How can people get in touch with you.

Email: partnerships@livecoding.tv for all partnership and investment-related inquiries.

In the third quarter interest in early stage edtech startups in India dropped slightly compared to Q1 and Q2.

[purchase_link id="13005" text="Purchase" style="button" color="green"]

Noteworthy was the first investment from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative into an Indian startup. It is also estimated that the edtech market on the subcontinent will reach $2.5 billion by the end of this year.

This EdTech Market Brief is designed with readers in mind that want to stay at the top of their game, who have a special interest in the latest happenings in the Indian education technology sector with a focus on EdTech startups and investments.

It features a total of 43 curated articles from leading sources covering the latest trends and numbers that are shaking up the education scene1 on the subcontinent. It includes 9 Op-Eds and interviews with Indian edtech founders, 4 articles covering K-12 and Higher Education, 18 articles about Indian edtech startups and 6 articles about angels and VCs investing in the Indian edtech market.

EDUKWEST tracked 16 founding rounds in Indian edtech startups for the second quarter of 2016 with over to $55 million in disclosed funding spread across 12 rounds. The biggest rounds this quarter went to Byu’s  ($50m), Prozo ($1.1m), LIQVID ($1m) and Unacademy ($1m).

The number of funding rounds is down compared to Q1 and Q2 (16 instead of 21). Like in the first quarter, Byu’s takes the lion share of investments in Q3 with its $50m round, leaving $5 million invested across the remaining 15 startups who received funding this quarter.

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Promo: Use the code INDIAH12016 at checkout and get 15% off when purchasing the EdTech Market Brief India Q1 and Q2 together.

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Summary: Coursera’s introduction of a monthly subscription model for parts of its MOOC platform is not a Netflix like revolution of higher education but a mere adoption of the very successful revenue model used by e-learning platforms such as lynda.com or Pluralsight.

Of course, adding a matching and accepted payment scheme to a growing choice of tech focused Specializations courses is a logic step to take if you want your slice of this fast growing and very lucrative market segment. But it also navigates Coursera on a collision course with the aforementioned established players and the deep pockets of LinkedIn..

Oh, and what about disrupting higher education by making it accessible to everyone? iversity, Germany’s MOOC platform that was recently saved from bankruptcy, might have the answer to that question.

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Netflix for Higher Education?

Last month Tom Willerer, CPO of Coursera and former VP of Product Innovation at Netflix, introduced the new monthly subscription option in a blog post. According to TechCrunch the inspiration for this payment model came from his work at Netflix, the online streaming service that disrupted video rentals and cable TV subscriptions.

I think one does not have to look too far outside the edtech vertical to find the real inspiration behind subscriptions for Coursera’s tech skill focused Specializations courses. lynda.com and Pluralsight have successfully built their business upon this model years ago.

And given that the tech and business focused Specialization courses target the same audience as lynda.com and Pluralsight, it just makes sense to offer potential subscribers a payment model they are already familiar with. Coursera’s monthly pricing depends on the Specialization and is between $39 to $89 while lynda.com starts at $15 and Pluralsight at $29.

Coursera’s higher pricing is most likely based on the origin of the course content, meaning that a certification from an established university might still be more valuable than one from an e-learning provider.

Follow the Money

Since the MOOC hype reached its peak two years ago, almost all of the global key players have started to drift away from their focus on higher education towards catering the needs of the tech industry by filling the “skills gap”. Udacity was first with its Nanodegree programs, Coursera and edX followed suit with their Specializations and MicroMasters.

Udacity also phased out nearly all courses from higher education institutions and subject matters that are not related to the tech industry. Coursera and edX still offer a good choice of courses outside the tech sphere but that might slowly change as well.

Germany’s MOOC platform iversity escaped bankruptcy earlier this year by restructuring the firm and getting a life saving cash infusion from Holtzbrinck Digital. Before this, iversity also started to focus more on learning paths that cater to tech companies and under the new / old management it seems that courses from higher education institutions outside the fields of computer science, business and marketing won’t be a priority anymore. This leaves learners who are interested in topics outside the tech bubble with just a handful of options like UK-based FutureLearn or Bill Gates’ favorite legacy player The Great Courses Plus.

All The Same

My hunch is that in 2017 the differences between a MOOC and a tech skill learning platform will diminish even more.

As I pointed out earlier this year, there is no reason why Lynda.com could not enter the MOOC vertical by teaming up with institutions in higher education. Now being part of LinkedIn, Lynda.com would also have some interesting competitive advantages over Udacity, Coursera and edX.

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