Education Week - Navigating the Ed-Tech Marketplace - (Page S10)

CONTINUED FROM PAGE S9 Chávez has also helped pilot a new, broader project being organized across Chicago, called leap Innovations (for Learning Exponentially. Advancing Potential.), which is meant to give schools access to ed-tech products that have been screened for quality-and to give companies the opportunity to test their products in classrooms. After an initial period of beta-testing, the program will officially launch a fuller pilot this fall, with a focus on delivering pre-K-8 literacy instruction to schools. Schools apply to participate, identifying the specific educational needs they hope to address through technology as part of their applications. They will receive free software for the length of the program and training on how to implement the product in classrooms. More than 50 schools applied for the fall program-traditional public schools, charter schools, and private schools in Chicago are eligible-and 15-20 are expected to be selected to participate. Companies apply for the program by submitting a detailed application, and if they make it through an initial screening, appear before a "curation panel" consisting of educators, literacy specialists, and a learning scientist. One of the chief benefits is the opportunity to have technology tools evaluated in real classrooms, using "flexible but rigorous" research methodology, including internal and nationally norm-referenced tests. If they achieve positive results, that's information they can use to market themselves to schools across the city-a major market, with 400,000 public school students- and beyond, said Phyllis Lockett, the ceo of leap Innovations. About 30 percent of the vendors applying for the program are "mature" companies, while the rest are early or midstage, said Ms. Lockett. Initial funding for the nonprofit came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and funding or support has also come from numerous other sources, including the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and the Parthenon Group, a national consulting company, among others. "We want the best solutions," Ms. Lockett said, and the process is "agnostic as to which companies get chosen." Educator Feedback A similar concept is at work with the Learning Innovation Hub, a program launched this year by the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, in cooperation with the NewSchools Venture Fund, an Oakland, Calif.-based philanthropic investment group. The iHub, as it is known, will attempt to connect ed-tech entrepreneurs with educators, who will give companies feedback on their products and what could be changed to improve them. After an application process, eight teachers were named fellows through the program. They received stipends of $1,750 and agreed to devote 40 hours over the course of the spring 2014 semester for professional development on using the education products, provide vendors with feedback, and collect data. In the first year of iHub, four companies were chosen to participate in the program, which this year focuses on middle school math instruction. One of the foundation's hopes, said Mr. Chaudhry, whose organization is co-leading the project, is that both the process of reviewing products-and the products themselves, if educators find them to be of highquality-will "permeate up." "Ideally, it scales from the classroom to the entire district," he said. Starting small, whether through pilot projects or other small trials of educational technology, is a good idea for schools and districts, argued Mr. Hodas of Innovate NYC Schools. Doing so gives school administrators the freedom to make mistakes and make adjustments before the stakes are too high. "You're going to be mostly wrong a lot of the time," he said. "You learn more from being wrong than being right. You have to build that into your process." n S10 | NAVIGATING THE ED-TECH MARKETPLACE EDUCATION WEEK * June 11, 2014 > www.edweek.org/go/edtechmarket Vendors Struggle to Master the K-12 System BY SEAN CAVANAGH L ike many education technology entrepreneurs trying to do business in the K-12 market, Gary Hensley was convinced he had a great product. And like many of his peers, he soon discovered the market wasn't as accommodating as he'd hoped. Mr. Hensley, the developer of a dropout-prevention software program, spent two years trying to build a base of customers in schools and districts, which meant trying, often without success, to pin down which administrators made decisions about whether to buy products. He picked up business, though not enough to keep his company's resources from dwindling to almost nothing. His experience mirrors those of many companies trying to do business in the nation's schools. For those vendors, particularly small- and medium-sized ones, establishing a foothold in the K-12 market requires stumbling through a complex financial, logistical, and bureaucratic landscape that some argue stifles the flow of new ed-tech products, and innovative ideas, into schools. In some respects, the complex, methodical nature of the K-12 market is by design. District rules on spending and procurement are based on checks and balances meant to protect taxpayers and ensure that decisions are made transparently, with varying degrees of input from administrators and elected school boards. Where some see an arcane, tangled process, others see an appropriately cautious one. For Mr. Hensley, one challenge was figuring out which district administrators had the authority to buy his product, called Intagrade. Then, he often had to go through a committee of school officials reviewing the proposed purchase, and follow-up with staff who were not included. Then he needed to convince them that the price-99 cents per student-was within their budgets. In some cases, he tried to guide them to possible sources of funding. The district technology budget was one such source, though there were other options, such as federal School Improvement Grant funding. "Our slogan was, 'It's cheaper than an iTunes song," Mr. Hensley recalled. But for any ed-tech company, getting "from idea to selling is a big step," he acknowledged. Eric Nelson, a social studies teacher at the North Lakes Academy Charter School in Forest Lake, Minn., works at his home office in Minneapolis. Mr. Nelson created a digital game modeled on fantasy football to get students interested in politics and world affairs. He is now trying to monetize his game, working on it at night and on the weekends. http://www.edweek.org/go/edtechmarket

Education Week - Navigating the Ed-Tech Marketplace

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - Navigating the Ed-Tech Marketplace

Contents
Education Week - Navigating the Ed-Tech Marketplace - SCover1
Education Week - Navigating the Ed-Tech Marketplace - SCover2
Education Week - Navigating the Ed-Tech Marketplace - S1
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