Pitch night action on Friday by Jenn Yoo

First off, our apologies on not being more active bloggers – it was our first time organizing and unfortunately we never got the blogging ball rolling. So here’s a quick re-cap of the weekend.

Susie Wise, K12 Lab Director at the Stanford d.School, kicked off the event challenging the nearly 100 innovators made up of techies, educators and entrepreneurs, to make something that matters. It was steep competition from the outset of the 54 hour whirlwind and pitching rounds began with Teach for America, Caliber Schools and Summit PS each presenting their challenges followed by 43 participants. After giving the over 20 teachers a chance to validate ideas by voting on their favorites, teams formed organically around presenters with teacher approved post-its. Saturday was full of action for the 14 teams with a big push from mentors to get outside and talk to users. One team headed to a nearby mall to ask teens how they would value organizing their college application process. Socrafund team member, Henry Peng, explained that their idea for microfunding classrooms “evolved several times over the weekend after getting feedback from teachers and mentors”.

A teaching moment from Michael Staton and fellow judges by Jenn Yoo

Final presentations on Sunday evening included a panel of familiar faces: Michael Stanton from Learn Capital, James Sanders from KIPP, Matt Pasternack from Clever, Jennifer Carolan from NewSchools Venture Fund and Alan Louie from Imagine K12. Presentations ranged from ZenGrade, an organization platform for teachers presented by 17 year old Fouad Matin, to an engagement tool called WordSprout for parents to use with their children.

Second runner up was Applsauce, the TripIt of education logistics. Socrafund was awarded second place and won the Clever API Challenge, by giving teachers easy access to microfund their classroom. Margaret Hagan led Hello Visa to first from an idea that started with gamifying the law and evolved into a navigation tool for immigrants. Team member and design engineer Jerry Lee believes the secret ingredient was in “finding a specific problem that we could answer.” 4.0 Schools, the main sponsor of the event, gave the winning team two free tickets to New Orleans for a weekend training.

The traditional Startup Weekend group shot by Jenn Yoo

It’s amazing what can happen in a room full of like-minded people focused on a single problem and we wouldn’t have had it any other way. For more details, check out our twitter feed.

- Organizers Chapman Snowden and Andrea Bustard

ZenGrade
WordSprout
ScienceSuperHero
SeeSpark
Socrafund
verbal works
Lit
Applsauce
iACCT
Dream vines
pair up
hello visa
Talk to me
OpenEd

Most importantly, I’m thankful for the people I met over the weekend, many of whom I hope will stay good friends and mentors for years to come. A special heartfelt thanks to the Tiedot team, without whom none of this would have been possible.

Yogesh, Sim, Mike, Max, Gershon, Jamie (and Nihal), you guys ROCK. I miss you already.

—

*Startup Weekend is all about launching a Startup in 54 Hours.

**All rises in the emotional roller coaster are strictly attributable to my team members and my mentors, all dips are strictly attributable to me. (=

This past weekend I took part in Startup Weekend EDU in Santa Clara, CA. It was an amazing experience! My phenomenal team, comprised of three developers and two educators, built a working prototype and conducted market research during the 54-hour event.

The issue we sought to address was student engagement. According to the Alliance for Education, “Research shows that a lack of student engagement is predictive of dropping out…” Many students would like to participate in class discussions, but aren’t given the opportunity, since a teacher can only call on one student at a time. Other students are uncomfortable speaking up in class. One of my 7th grade students told me: ”I don’t participate in some of my classes because I’m afraid I will say something wrong.”

I’ve been trying out various audience response systems in my classroom, using iPod Touches, to get simultaneous feedback from all of my students. An overwhelming majority of my students (93%) prefer responding in class via mobile device. Here is what they have to say about it:

“If you say something out loud, people will forget what you said, but if you post it to the teacher’s screen, people will see what you posted and can read it again later if they want to.”

“It’s quicker than waiting to get called on.”

“I like to see everyone else’s answers.”

“Students post things that they wouldn’t say out loud.”

“Others can comment on your answer.”

“Raising my hand is boring and a waste of my time.”

By the end of the weekend, the awesome developers on our team had built a student response system where students’ responses were displayed in real-time. The responses made a collaborative web. Here’s a screenshot from the students’ device:

Here’s the web that is projected on the teacher’s screen (each bubble is a students’ response):

The next step (which the developers didn’t have time to complete) is for students to be able to add ideas to the initial responses. It might look something like this:

I’m confident that teachers would use this tool. 97% of the teachers we polled said that they already use graphic organizers. 91% said that they would use a digital, collaborative graphic organizer creation tool with their classes. You can visit our webpage to add your e-mail to the BETA waiting list.

It was an exhilarating experience spending the weekend with so many motivated, passionate, and intelligent people. Liam from Class Dojo was a tremendous mentor to my team. He gave us some profound insights that were invaluable to us. He is a truly brilliant entrepreneur (You can read his latest interview here).

I’m excited about the all possibilities that were hatched this weekend, and I’ll be sure to post updates to my blog as this project develops.

Fresh on the heels of Startup Weekend EDU, and after 54 hours of non-stop brainstorming, building, and ultimately, bonding between 120 thrill-seeking, hack-loving innovators, I sat down with ClassDojo co-founder Liam Don to get his insights on the EdTech space and how events like EDU can help shape the discourse around the future of education.

Liam, who was bitten by the entrepreneur bug while attending a Startup Weekend in 2011, subsequently met his future business partner during the event, then “up and quit” his education technology PhD to pursue an idea that ultimately bore ClassDojo, is now seeing first hand the shifts in education made possible by technology.

P.S. and standard disclaimer: what happened to Liam Don and his partner Sam Chaudhary is the stuff made of entrepreneur fairytales. After submitting their idea to ImagineK12, an incubator focused on education technology innovation, the two were literally accepted within days and told they had two weeks to get to Palo Alto, California (from the UK) to start the program. That was in June 2011. Nine months later ClassDojo is being used globally by tens of thousands of teachers, and has raised substantial funding from investors including Paul Graham, SV Angel, Learn Capital and Softech VC.

Before you turn that nice shade of green, or completely attribute their success to the fact that British accented-males have a distinct advantage in the business world (this claim is not data-driven but we all know it’s true!), I can assure you Liam is still stunned at their meteoric rise to fame (did I mention they were whisked off to New York to be part of an NBC reality show after landing in Palo Alto?). Or maybe he wasn’t stunned; he’s just trying to make the rest of us feel better. Either way, he does know quite a bit about EdTech and was kind enough to share his thoughts as he reflected his mentoring experience during Startup Weekend EDU:

AS: In 40 words or less, what is ClassDojo?

LD: It’s an easy way for teachers to manage students’ behavior in the classroom, using real time feedback and rewards that can also be shared with parents.

AS: What inspires you about entrepreneurship/innovation?

LD: For me, it’s about the impact that innovative startups can have on a large scale. The entrepreneurship ecosystem rewards those with the passion, drive, and courage to take a big idea and turn it into a reality. Within the confines of a big company, you don’t always have the freedom to do innovative things; but being an entrepreneur allows me to continually explore new things, apply those learnings to my company, and ultimately serve the end-user better and without waiting years for approval and/or improvement.

AS: What excites you about working in Education Technology?

LD: The most exciting thing is the prospect of having a real and lasting impact on children’s learning and achievement. Historically, the education sector has been “ruled” by a few large companies making it hard for startups to get a foothold. That’s changed a lot recently, so startup companies are gaining marketshare in places like textbook publishing (Kno, Inc.) and assessment (Mastery Connect). It’s a really exciting time.

What we are beginning to see is a huge shift in attitudes to education technology, which includes the openness of teachers and school administrators to embrace technology as well as the investment world seeing the value and profitability of EdTech. Additionally, as organizations like Khan Academy have made clear, there is a demand for independent learning outside the traditional classroom setting. Technology is the driver behind this, and this “individualized” approach to education will only continue to expand and grow in the coming years.

AS: What is the biggest challenge for companies in the Education Technology space?

LD: With the current model, if you want to sell a product to a school it can take at least a year to go through the cycle, because of how school budgets. A lean startup cannot wait for this long sales cycle, let alone navigate through the bureaucracy. The good news is that new models are being developed to address and work around these issues.

AS: What are some of your favorite companies or startups in EdTech?

LD: I really like what Educreations is doing with self-published educational videos; Launchpad Toys continues to amaze me with its educational iPad games for kids; and of course ImagineK12 because they are an important part of the EdTech ecosystem, responsible for providing the tools and resources to launch twenty exciting education startups every year.

AS: With regard to Startup Weekend EDU, did you see any trends or themes?

LD: Over the weekend I saw three distinct themes emerge:

1. Solutions around career aspiration and goal setting; basically platforms to support students throughout the college application and selection process as well as find a career path.
2. With the popularity of data visualization, there seemed to be quite a few teams focused on utilizing data viz to create a better classroom experience, help teachers make sense of data, and also allow parents to better understand their child’s performance metrics.
3. In general, there was a theme around creating classroom technologies that make teachers’ lives easier, giving them more time to focus on the relational aspects of teaching instead of paperwork.

AS: And of course we have to ask, what are your tech devices of choice?

LD: Right now I’m staying fairly connected and on top of it with my iPhone and Macbook Air. Also, an essential tool for any late-night coding sessions is a really good pair of noise-cancelling headphones.

To learn more about Liam Don and ClassDojo visit: www.ClassDojo.com

Follow Liam @liamdon

Follow ClassDojo @classdojo

The other amazing mentors–Randy Weiner, Corey Reid (Mastery Connect), Scott Rutherford (UserVoice), David Straus (Kno), Eli Luberoff (Desmos), Lorraine Akemann (Moms With Apps), Ush Patel (Bright Star Apps), Dan Carroll (West Denver Prep), Ashar-Hashmat Khan (Agnitis), David Bill (Urban School of San Francisco), and Alan Loule (ImagineK12)—gave generously of their time and expertise as well.

Networking is one obvious reason mentors participate but certainly not the only one. I’d also argue that the connecting that happens among mentors is deeper and more authentic than most networking opportunities.  Helping others brings out the best in people. The conversations naturally focus around best practices, and we all learn from each other.  It helps to know that other entrepreneurs have or are facing similar challenges, to share lessons learned, to provide sanity checks.

There’s also an energy that pervades these weekends—it’s incredible that a large group spends 54 hours creating solutions that will improve education, while learning how to start a business. For some mentors it’s almost a nostalgia to return to their own early startup days that appeals to them.  These events also serve to recharge. I know I’m returning home with renewed commitment and verve, though I’ll probably need a day or two to catch up on some sleep before I’m in full mode!

The teacher part of me loved seeing how much learning took place this weekend—in education terms the experience is truly differentiated. People come in at various levels of expertise and readiness and they all experienced growth—what more could a teacher ask?

People organize Startup Weekend EDU events for a variety of reasons.

Nihal ElRayess cares passionately about making education more significant on the national agenda. For her, if the non-educators in the room only went home and kept talking about issues facing education, the hours she spent pulling off this event would have been worth it.  It’s also about creating community, bringing together participants from different backgrounds, different careers and working for 54 hours towards a common goal. It’s also about giving people an opportunity to experience “entrepreneurship” and encouraging teacherpreneurs as well as non-teachers to collaborate on education problems (pushing them to learn how to identify real problems) and innovation in education.

Having developers/designers/entrepreneurs working with educators to demo a real MVP by Sunday night is an added bonus.  I first met Nihal at my first EDU weekend when she joined our LessonCast team for the weekend—aside from her mad design skills, her passion for improving education was immediately apparent, so I’m not surprised that she tapped into her Teacher For America Alum network to co-organize this successful past event.

As a successful entrepreneur and cofounder of Kno Inc, Babur feels strongly that it’s important to contribute toward creating a strong ed tech community, and he wants to give back because many other entrepreneurs have supported his own entrepreneurial journey, a frequent sentiment heard among this crowd.

Babur also wanted more access to educator voices—with each event, more educators are participating, so this will become increasingly even more true.  It’s one of the main reasons I keep returning to these events—I want educator voices to infuse what’s created during these weekends. If people are going to spend so much time and energy creating a product, then let’s make that product actually improve education.

Recruiting talent was another possible outcome for KNO; these weekends are a great venue to showcase and find talent. Let them know if you’re interested!

Babur didn’t mention promoting name recognition, but it’s certainly an added benefit. I didn’t know much about Kno before coming to this event—I’m based in Baltimore, so that may be part of it. Through this event though, I now two of the great guys behind this organization, Babur Habib and Ousama Haffar, and I can now share what their company provides in future situations where people are looking for their solution. If folks from these organizing companies want feedback from teachers in the future, I’d certainly be willing to help them, and I imagine other educators who participated feel similarly.

I’m grateful that Nihal’s team and Kno Inc  did such an amazing job this weekend!

• EduCat (for Impact provided execution can take place)
• Out of Cite (for Execution)
• and The Good Life (for design – Tufte award)

Qeyno is back again for its fourth Startup Weekend EDU with a focus on career spotting for kids.  Kalimah Priforce focused much of his work on STEM careers for girls. This weekend his team is creating a game that helps students from underserved populations learn about careers and learn skills needed to be successful in those fields.

After Kalimah signed up for this weekend, Patrick Supanc from Alleyoop, a startup recently acquired by Pearson that also focuses on career preparation, became a judge.  Audrey Watters commented on both of these startups entering this similar market. In a DC EDU event, a similar situation occurred when a team pitched a second language learning program with Rosetta Stone as one of the judges.

The situation can be framed in a number of ways—presenting to the competition, an opportunity for partnerships, possibilities to be sell to a larger company, and/or feedback from someone in the same space.  It really depends on the players and the specifics.

As more companies become involved with Startup Weekend EDU, these tensions will continue to arise.  It will take honest ongoing conversations to ensure the right balance between the established and the emerging companies at these kinds of events.