All Categories

IK12 + YC

2/10/2016

by Geoff Ralston and Tim Brady

We are excited to announce that Imagine K12, the original edtech accelerator, is joining Y Combinator to form an edtech vertical within YC.

We founded Imagine K12 in 2011 to help companies innovate in education technology in order to improve outcomes for children in the United States and around the world. YC founder Paul Graham believed in our mission, and with his help and advice, Imagine K12 was launched and has run like a sister company of YC. We utilize a nearly identical application process and startup philosophy and, in fact, Geoff became a partner at YC at the same time. Several companies have participated in both IK12 and YC, and YC partners, including Paul, Jessica Livingston, Sam Altman, and others have given their time to IK12 companies.

Just as YC’s goal is to fund companies that “Make Something People Want”, the goal of Imagine K12 was to work with edtech companies to make something teachers, students, and parents want. We have funded over 80 companies, and in 2016 nearly every school in every district, in every state of the country uses a tool created by an Imagine K12 company. Several of the fastest growing edtech companies in the country are IK12 alumni, including, for example, Remind, ClassDojo, and Panorama Education. During the past five years, the edtech ecosystem has evolved and matured, and technology adoption by schools in the US and around the world has become inevitable. President Obama even promoted computer science education in his most recent State of the Union address.

YC has expanded and changed as well, with renewed efforts in focused areas such as hardware, healthcare, and enterprise. With this in mind, we began talking to Sam last year about more tightly integrating Imagine K12 within YC and creating a YC education vertical. Future YC/Imagine K12 edtech startups would then get the benefit of being full YC participants and we would eliminate the duplication of effort that Imagine K12’s separate schedule, application and interview process, and funding events represent.

We agreed that this year was the right time to create YC/Imagine K12 and decided to launch our first combined batch in the summer of 2016. Going forward, Imagine K12 will operate as an edtech specialization within YC’s program. New YC/Imagine K12 companies will have access to YC’s incomparable startup network and resources coupled with Imagine K12’s robust Educator Network and specialized understanding of the education market.

Edtech companies in the future will use the regular Y Combinator application process and will automatically become part of YC/Imagine K12 if accepted. The entire Imagine K12 team will join YC and YC/Imagine K12 will emerge as a new and potent force in edtech.

Edtech in Practice: Tech Supporting Teacher Development

12/9/2015

Providing effective professional development is hard! Teachers are incredibly busy, and school and district resources are always limited. How can administrators support ongoing, personalized growth for their teachers throughout the year? How can educators access the right resources at the right times, to help them take their teaching practice to the next level?

We recently had the pleasure of interviewing two leaders who are setting far-reaching goals for teacher development in their schools: Vanessa Garza, Director of Teacher Development at Partnership for LA Schools, and Melissa Williams, Director of Teacher Effectiveness at KIPP Metro Atlanta Schools. We asked each of them to tell us about one new edtech tool they’ve adopted to support their visions of personalized teacher growth.

Vanessa Garza, Partnership for LA Schools
the challenge
At the Partnership for LA Schools, Vanessa Garza supports teacher development for 171 elementary, middle, and high schools. Vanessa strives to support her teachers by providing them with frequent opportunities for meaningful feedback on their teaching practice. She notes, “We know that frequent observations are effective at making teachers better. But it’s hard to sustain observation cycles because frequent observations can be cumbersome.”
the solution
To help overcome some of the challenges that frequent observations can pose for administrators and teachers, Vanessa uses TeachBoost to facilitate the observation process.

She described some of the key efficiencies that she’s found using TeachBoost:

Observation reports are automatically organized and distributed to the right people, relieving administrators of a formerly time-consuming process.
Teachers can measure their own performance relative to standards and track their progress towards individual goals set at the beginning of the year.
Observers get a simple interface for recording notes, tagging evidence, giving feedback, and linking to supportive resources (e.g. Teaching Channel videos) while in the classroom.

The TeachBoost observer interface has been especially instrumental in enabling more frequent observations at Partnership schools. The software streamlines the observation process and provides enough guidance and support such that Vanessa has been able to implement a system of peer observations in her schools, increasing the opportunities for every teacher to receive feedback.

“Observers are able to work efficiently with TeachBoost. . . observers can give the teacher
100% of their time and attention while they’re
in the classroom.”

Vanessa sums up her experience: “Observers are able to work efficiently with TeachBoost. It’s not just a file manager, it’s an organizer and assistant during the observation process, so observers can give the teacher 100% of their time and attention while they’re in the classroom.”

outcomes
Overall, the higher frequency of observations at Partnership schools has changed the value proposition of observations for both teachers and observers. Rather than being evaluative, observations are developmental and growth-focused. Using technology to tighten up the feedback loop, Vanessa has given her teachers the right supports to develop their practice.

Melissa Williams, KIPP Metro Atlanta
the challenge
Melissa Williams is the Director of Teacher Effectiveness at KIPP Metro Atlanta Schools, where she supports 220 teachers and almost 60 leaders across eight schools. Melissa’s goal, and her challenge, is to bring the teacher development rubric to life for her teachers and leaders. As she describes it, “Teachers want to see what great teaching looks like, but it’s hard for them to go to another school or even another classroom in their own building to observe a teacher during a moment of excellent teaching.”

the solution
Melissa adopted the Mission 100% video library to give her teachers easy access to examples of best practices. Mission 100% offers a comprehensive collection of short video clips that capture specific teaching skills in real classrooms. The videos are tagged to a standard framework and, in Melissa’s case, to KIPP’s teaching rubric, so teachers can always find the skills they want to work on.

After deciding to roll out Mission 100% in her schools, Melissa ended up going a step further and working with Mission 100% to film additional footage of exemplary teaching moments in KIPP Metro Atlanta Schools’ classrooms, focusing on examples specific to KIPP’s particular culture and practices. The filming process included classrooms across the K-12 spectrum and incorporated input from instructional managers, school leaders, and teachers on identifying exemplary teaching moments and aligning them to the teaching rubric.

outcomes
The Mission 100% library has given Melissa’s teachers clear, instantly-accessible examples of what best practices look like. Teachers are able to find the guidance they need and then translate those skills into their own classrooms.

“. . . now, our team can show them what these teaching skills look like at level 4 and 5 (master teacher level). So when they go in and evaluate teachers, they know what mastery looks like.”

KIPP’s instructional managers have found that the videos support their work both by providing specific benchmarks for evaluations and as a reference resource for coaching their teachers. Melissa says of the instructional managers, “Last year we revamped our rubric, and it was hard for them to pinpoint what each skill looked like at master teacher level. But now, our team can show them what these teaching skills look like at level 4 and 5 (master teacher level). So when they go in and evaluate teachers, they know what mastery looks like.”

Words of Wisdom
Both Melissa and Vanessa emphasize that when introducing new tech (or new practices generally) in professional development, they focus on innovations that will support individual growth and improvement, rather than placing greater emphasis on evaluation.

For creating buy-in, Vanessa advises that new tech should do more than just replace some part of a current system, it should improve the experience of professional development for all of the stakeholders. Melissa recommends laying out a long-term plan for the role technology will play in teacher growth and development, so that teachers and key stakeholders can understand how it fits into the larger vision.

resources
Mission 100%
TeachBoost
Bloomboard
Teaching Channel

Edtech in Practice: Teaching computer science from grades K to 12

6/10/2015

0 Comments

by Karen Lien

We’re back with the second installment of the Edtech in Practice series, featuring interviews with educators from around the country.

This month, we introduce three educators who are leading the charge to teach computer science to students all the way from kindergarten through high school. It's increasingly imperative for students to be conversant in the language of code, and many K-12 schools are experimenting with computer science courses for the first time.

We asked these teachers to share some of their experiences and favorite resources to inspire anyone who may be teaching (or thinking of teaching) computer science.

Thanks for reading!

Meet the teachers

Faith Plunkett, Jon Armfield, and Tom Simpson

Faith Plunkett, Monte Sano Elementary School
At Monte Sano Elementary in Huntsville, Alabama, Faith Plunkett is tasked with teaching every student about technology. Ms. Plunkett focuses on introducing students to the core logic ideas behind computer science, preparing them for programming classes at the middle school and high school levels.

Her students use drag and drop programs like Tynker to build games and apps, rather than writing code letter by letter. The youngest students, who may not yet be readers, use the Kodable iPad game to build algorithms out of arrows and symbols instead of words!

Jon Armfield, Cardinal Gibbons High School
Jon Armfield teaches engineering, design, and 3D modeling at Cardinal Gibbons High School in Raleigh, North Carolina. Last year, Mr. Armfield launched an introductory programming course using curriculum from CodeHS.

He explained, "I decided to bring coding into the classroom because I know how important it is. But I’m not a programmer, so I lean on CodeHS. It has pacing guides, lesson plans, everything a teacher needs. Students watch video lessons, complete exercises, and go at their own pace."

Tom Simpson, Heathwood Hall Episcopal School
Tom Simpson is a veteran technology teacher at Heathwood Hall Episcopal School in Columbia, South Carolina. Every freshman takes a computer science class with Mr. Simpson, using CodeHS.

Mr. Simpson says, "I took some programming classes in college, but I didn't major in computer science. But I know how to work with computers, I know how to work with students, and now that I’ve tried it, I feel comfortable teaching programming."

Words of wisdom
We asked our featured teachers to share some suggestions for anyone looking to introduce a new computer science curriculum. Their advice:

1. Don't be afraid if you're not an expert.
Tell your students that you’re learning alongside them, and lean on resources that provide a structured curriculum, like CodeHS or AmplifyMOOC. For challenging questions, look to your advanced students or your professional network. If you’re using CodeHS, you can also turn to the network of CodeHS tutors for coaching.

Mr. Armfield described the experience of learning alongside his students: “I have students who blew me away months ago, but I don’t necessarily need to be ahead of them. The students have to learn problem solving. It’d be easier for me to just give them the answer, but I don’t know the answer! So we look at online resources and figure out the solutions together.”

Mr. Simpson said, “My students are used to hearing me say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know you could do it that way!’ My kids definitely outsmart me sometimes, but that’s okay. That’s good!”

2. Bring coding to life with physical interactives and student-relevant applications.
Ms. Plunkett’s students are highly motivated by opportunities to create their own video games and animations. They also love using their knowledge of algorithms to control programmable toys like Bee Bots and Sphero.

Mr. Armfield’s programming students get excited about writing Minecraft plugins and building programs on Raspberry Pi devices. Mr. Simpson’s classes take breaks from coding lessons to design and create with the classroom’s 3D printer or to program their Finch robots. (Last year they programmed the robots to do a dance routine!)

Programming Bee Bots

3. Find the right level for your students
Kindergarteners in Ms. Plunkett’s classroom play games like Kodable and CargoBot that introduce the logic behind algorithms. Older primary students use drag-and-drop blocks of code to build programs in Tynker or Code.org.

At the high school level, students are ready to learn proper programming protocols. Mr. Armfield explains, “I want high school kids to be able to look at code and know what’s going on. They can learn the logical structure from drag-and-drop programming, but syntax, vocabulary, and commenting are really important parts of coding. CodeHS teaches them to use the right syntax and the right protocol.”

Mr. Simpson emphasized that it’s important for first-time programmers to feel successful early on. In CodeHS, lessons start out simple. Students use only four commands to program the actions of a dog named Karel, and everyone succeeds. The lessons quickly ramp up in difficulty, but Mr. Simpson notes, “CodeHS is personalized and broken down into small chunks, so students get to work at their own pace, they get positive feedback, and they get the feeling that they’re always progressing.”

4. Make it fun!
Mr. Simpson says, “If you’re doing CodeHS, you have to get Karel the dog! Ninth graders love the dog theme. Every day we start class with a funny dog video from YouTube. Then we try to relate it to coding concepts, like, ‘While there are still balloons, the dog will pop the balloons.’”

CodeHS mascot Karel the Dog

5. Look to local industries to impress upon students, parents, and school leaders the importance of computer science.
In Huntsville, Ms. Plunkett’s district was motivated to introduce technology to all of its students due to demand from local companies looking for more candidates with technical backgrounds to fill their job openings.

At Cardinal Gibbons High, Mr. Armfield brings in guest speakers from nearby Cisco Systems to talk with students about job opportunities available to programmers right out of college. His students also look at job postings from their favorite game companies to see the kinds of skills required to work there.

Mr. Simpson’s class meets with engineers from Zverse, a local 3D printing startup, to learn about their technology. This year Zverse also set up an internship for Heathwood Hall students.

Looking ahead
What’s next for our featured teachers?

Mr. Armfield is looking to explore integrations between the technology and art departments at Cardinal Gibbons High School, to attract more students to programming.

Mr. Simpson is planning to form a robotics club at Heathwood Hall next year and will offer an AP computer science course using CodeHS.

Ms. Plunkett was recently named a PBS Learning Media Digital Innovator and will be working closely with PBS tech experts, as well as other educational partners, to expand Monte Sano’s technology curriculum for next year.

Recommended resources
For high school students

For younger students

For anyone

Connect with our featured teachers on Twitter: @MissFPlunkett, @MrArmfieldCGHS, @tsimpsontwit

Does your school teach computer science? Why or why not?
What tools do you use to introduce students to programming?
Tweet us @imaginek12.

0 Comments

Edtech in Practice: Flipping the Classroom with EDpuzzle and Educreations

5/6/2015

by Karen Lien

We know that edtech is most transformative when it's in the hands of great teachers and administrators. I'm continually impressed by the innovative educators we meet who embrace new tech for supporting their students' learning and for managing their schools and classrooms.

Over the next few months, we’ll be publishing a new series on this blog featuring interviews with educators from around the country and highlighting their inspiring examples of edtech in practice. In this first article of the series, we focus on two teachers using technology to flip the learning in their classrooms. (What is flipped learning?) These teachers show us how tech tools can create space for interactive learning and enable deeper relationships between educators and students.

Let’s meet the teachers!

Introducing Mr. Barber
Bobby Barber teaches math at Millville High School, a Title I school in New Jersey. Mr. Barber’s calculus students have always come to class with lots of thoughtful questions about their homework assignments, but when Mr. Barber was busy introducing new math concepts in class every day, there just wasn’t enough time left to assess every student’s understanding and address all of their questions. That’s why Mr. Barber began flipping his class four years ago, giving the students video lectures to watch at home and focusing on math practice in class. He started off by assigning videos from Khan Academy and Brightstorm, but soon decided to record his own lectures using a simple FlipCam setup in his classroom, eventually building up a library of custom math lessons hosted on EDpuzzle.

Mr. Bobby Barber's class at whiteboards practicing math problems

Today, Mr. Barber’s students watch his EDpuzzle lectures at home and answer questions that are embedded directly in the videos. When students walk into class, Mr. Barber already knows what questions they have and which concepts need to be reinforced. EDpuzzle allows him to track which students have watched the videos and see which sections of the video they re-watched, so he knows what they found most confusing. At the beginning of class, he spends only a few minutes at the front of the room clarifying points of general misunderstanding, and then his students break into groups to work through math problems at whiteboards around the room. While students help each other practice new math concepts, Mr. Barber has time to walk around the room to offer guidance, answer questions one on one, and encourage students to push forward. Students who need extra help get the help and support they need, and advanced students are challenged to help their peers. As a result, all of his students are more confident and more successful in their learning.

Introducing Mr. Macfarlane
Matt Macfarlane teaches history at Templeton Middle School, a small, high-performing central California school. A veteran with over 20 years’ teaching experience, Mr. Macfarlane was driven to flip the learning in his classroom because he could see the world changing around his students. Gone are the days when the best memorizers are the most successful students. Today, his kids need to be prepared with a new set of 21st century skills, including problem solving, time management, and collaboration. As he describes it, “I don’t want to spend my precious minutes with students on lecturing. I want to impact my students, which comes when I can interact more with them, when I’m working alongside them and engaging at a deeper level.”

Mr. Matt Macfarlane's class working in groups

To that end, Mr. Macfarlane has transformed his class lectures into media-rich Educreations videos that students can watch at home, thus freeing up all of his class time for interactive learning. In class, students engage in debate, challenge each other’s ideas, and collaborate on projects. Mr. Macfarlane’s classroom is equipped with Chromebooks and a set of big-screen TVs. Students use the Chromebooks to research ideas, gather evidence to support their arguments, and present their work on screens around the room.

“I don’t want to spend my precious minutes with students on lecturing.
I want to impact my students."

Outcomes
Mr. Barber sums up the greatest benefit of his flipped classroom: “Since flipping my class, I get to talk to every single kid every single day.” This has led to deeper relationships with his students, who aren’t afraid to ask questions or make mistakes in class. Students also appreciate the control over their own learning. Busy students can watch when and where they want to, and they can review challenging concepts as many times as needed. On top of all this, Mr. Barber’s students have seen a dramatic improvement in their test scores.

Since flipping his classroom, Mr. Macfarlane is able to make the most of class time. He finds that his students are better prepared to succeed in class, more excited about learning, and more confident in themselves. With his video presentations, students who need to hear something again can rewind and re-watch, or watch again with a parent, rather than being tethered to the classroom’s pace. All students come to class equipped with the background knowledge they need to successfully participate in class. Students and parents also appreciate that students now spend less time on homework, since they are using class time for guided learning and critical inquiry.

“Since flipping my class, I get to talk to every single kid
every single day.”

So you’re thinking of flipping your classroom…
What advice would Mr. Barber and Mr. Macfarlane offer to anyone thinking about taking the plunge?

Try it! Start small, flip one lesson or one chapter. Talk to your students about it, and see what happens!
Keep your videos short: 10-15 minutes for high school students, 5-10 for middle school, and under 5 for younger students.
Keep in mind that students may not know how to learn from a video. Watch the first few videos together in class. Show them how to take notes and how to check for their own understanding.
Give students a deliverable for the next day, even if it’s as simple as a comprehension question.
Have a back-up plan for students with limited access to online videos. You can provide copies of the videos on DVD or USB drive, or allow time for students to watch at school.
Reach out to your networks! Both of our featured teachers credit their professional networks with guiding their flipped classroom journeys. Talk to people in your school who have flipped their classrooms, or check out the #flipclass community on Twitter for great advice and support.

Looking ahead
Mr. Macfarlane and Mr. Barber are actively helping other educators in their districts to get started with flipping. What else is ahead for these flipped learning aficionados?

Mr. Barber is experimenting with self-paced learning in his classes. Students have access to all of the video lessons for the entire year, so now his strong students are pushing ahead to challenge themselves with more advanced content, while struggling students focus on mastering each concept before moving forward.

Mr. Macfarlane is experimenting with new tech to support collaboration among his students. He’s also making plans to connect them with other classrooms around the country for geography scavenger hunts!

Dive Deeper
Learn more about Mr. Barber’s and Mr. Macfarlane’s flipped classrooms.
Watch Mr. Macfarlane introduce the Bill of Rights on Educreations.
Watch Mr. Barber’s calculus lesson on EDpuzzle.
Connect with Mr. Barber @MillvilleAPCalc & Mr. Macfarlane @mrmacsclasses.

Have you flipped your classroom?
Tweet your flipped class stories and tips to @imaginek12 #flipclass.

Startup Priorities

2/12/2015

by Geoff Ralston

One of the most difficult tasks for a startup founder is deciding what to do. Where should the tiny number of people working on a brand new company spend their time? Choosing wisely can place your company on the road to success. Spending too much time on the wrong things can condemn the startup to an early death. How do you know whether you are making the right decisions in time for your company to not die?

Usually, my answer to founder questions such as “how should I be spending my time?” is spectacularly simple. Choose a key metric to track and focus exclusively on making that metric grow. When deciding what to do, choose the activity that you believe will directly result in increased growth of your chosen metric.

This is simple and sometimes enlightening. Although making those decisions is still never easy. That is one of the reasons startups are so difficult. Even choosing which metric on which to focus is often the subject of great debate. It is best to pick a metric you are pretty sure you know how to increase. But it is equally important that that metric matter. And by “matter”, I mean its growth will be a good objective measure of how your company is doing, for example by an investor.

There is also a special case where you are trying to decide what to build. Usually you are concerned with metrics around how many users you have and how engaged they are with your product. For simplicity I call the former b for breadth and the latter d for depth. This leads to a rudimentary but surprisingly helpful way to think about how to prioritize product decisions. If c is the cost of building a feature (in whatever unit, engineer days, time to completion, etc., you like), then you can create a simple ranking with the equation:

(b * d) / c

b tells you how many of your users, current or new, will be impacted by a new feature, d describes how important that feature will be to the average user, and c gives you how hard it is to build the feature. The application of this simple formula tends to arrive at a blindingly obvious conclusion: first build the features that affect lots of users as profoundly as possible, and which you can build quickly and cheaply. It is surprising how profoundly hidden the obvious can be and how enlightening it can be to bring it into focus.

Naturally, it can be difficult or impossible to accurately estimate each of the above variables. However, who cares? This is a startup and most decisions will be made using your gut. Make your best guesses and when in doubt, talk to your customers.

There is a bit more to say about the breadth and depth of your product. In a company’s earliest days, it is important to place more priority on d in order to ensure that you have product/market fit. It is useless to try to grow or scale before finding 100 users who really love your product. Only then should you refocus on b and grow your user base in order to get the data you need (from your customers) to determine where to build depth.

None of this is to say a simple formula can replace great common sense and better product sense. It will turn no one into a Steve Jobs. But it does help one think in an organized fashion in the presence of many different possibilities, and can even help resolve impassioned arguments over “what the hell do we do next?!”.

Thanks to Sam Altman and Karen Lien for providing helpful comments on earlier versions of this post.
For the original post, please click here.

Announcing a partnership with Education Entrepreneurs

11/12/2014

by Karen Lien

We are excited to announce a new partnership with Education Entrepreneurs, the UP Global community that houses Startup Weekend Education, Startup Digest Education, and more. Going forward, Imagine K12 will guarantee an interview to the winning team from every Startup Weekend Education event!

Startup Weekend Education (SWEDU) is a weekend-long event hosted in cities all over the globe throughout the year. Teams are formed at the beginning of the weekend and then spend 54 hours researching and prototyping solutions to problems in education. The weekends culminate in a round of presentations by each of the teams, judged by a panel of edtech experts.

Whenever SWEDU teams decide to focus their time and energy on growing their ideas into successful businesses, we encourage them to apply to Imagine K12. Starting a company is always hard, and the education market presents unique challenges. At Imagine K12, we strive to improve the chances of success for each of our edtech companies with a combination of strategic advice and mentorship, targeted seminars, highly engaged networks of entrepreneurs and educators, and $100,000 in funding.

We receive hundreds of applications for the Imagine K12 program each year, and we typically interview about one quarter of the companies that apply. In our selection process, we look for strong teams with great ideas that have the potential to reach massive scale, attract venture capital, and ultimately have a positive impact on education outcomes. Startup Weekend Education looks for these same characteristics in its competition, and so we look forward to meeting the winning teams and learning more about their companies.

The Imagine K12 interview process is brief. We meet with companies for about 15 minutes, and then within a few days notify the founders as to whether or not they’ve been accepted. In the interview, we are looking to get to know the team and dig deeper into the product and the vision for the company. We always look for evidence of commitment and passion from each founder on the team, as well as a deep understanding of the problem that the company solves. We recommend that Startup Weekend Education teams spend a few months working together before applying to Imagine K12, so they can form solid working relationships within the team and devote time to studying their market and building an MVP.

While the Imagine K12 interview guarantee only extends to first-place teams who want to build their SWEDU ideas into full-fledged companies, we encourage all SWEDU entrepreneurs to apply to Imagine K12. We consider applications on a rolling basis from February through August. When a company is accepted, we immediately fund them and begin advising them. In the fall, all selected companies move to Silicon Valley to work together in person in an intense three-month program.

Check out the Education Entrepreneurs website to find an upcoming Startup Weekend Education event in your area, and hopefully we will see you at Imagine K12 soon!

Silicon Valley and the Edtech Revolution

6/24/2014

by Geoff Ralston

Silicon Valley holds a certain mystique among entrepreneurs and investors. More cool technology was born here, more wealth created, and more technology revolutions begun, than anywhere else on the planet. The Valley’s formula for success has been the subject of debate and business school cases for decades. It certainly helps to have excellent local universities churning out scores of engineers and entrepreneurs. It also helps that founding a company, whether it be a success or failure, is viewed as acceptable and even desirable by the community. When the folks you bump into at the local watering hole, the supermarket, and cocktail parties are all starting companies and changing the world, it feels like anyone can.

But one tech revolution that escaped the influence of Silicon Valley the first time around was education technology. Although the past is littered with efforts to make technology matter in K-12 education, few of those companies came from the Valley, and even fewer were successful. The Valley’s bold investors have generally stayed far from the space.

In the past several years, however, there has been a major realignment in the edtech world. Silicon Valley is once again leading the charge in a technology revolution, and this one might just have the greatest impact of all. Ironically, the revolution was kicked off by a hedge fund analyst in Boston, who got funding from Silicon Valley and then Bill Gates to create--not the next edtech Google--but rather, a non-profit: the Khan Academy. Nearly singlehandedly, Sal Khan made competent teaching available to any child in the world at any time. He based his new organization in Mountain View, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley and in the five years since there has been an explosion of edtech ideas, companies, and investment emanating from the Valley.

The idea that great education was never for the few and should always be available to all led to the creation of MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses, led by Silicon Valley companies like Coursera and Udacity. New school models like Rocketship Education and Summit Public Schools bet on “blended learning” curricula that merge traditional teaching with individualized, adaptive learning technologies. More recently a tech founder from Google and Aardvark, Max Ventilla, founded a new kind of school called AltSchool to rethink how children are taught. Companies like Edmodo, ClassDojo, and Remind (formerly Remind101) are rethinking how communities of parents, teachers, and students can connect and collaborate on learning and related skills. And new classes, notably in programming and computer science, began spreading from Silicon Valley and out to the world via companies like CodeHS.

In 2011, we founded Imagine K12 because we believed the conditions for an edtech revolution were in place. The ideas above were beginning to germinate and we believed then and still believe today that connecting the people of the world to each other, and to the internet, the repository of all knowledge and information, would inevitably have as big an impact on how our children learn as it has had on almost every other thing we do. So far we have funded over 50 companies (90% of them remaining in Silicon Valley) who intend to make this happen.

You know a revolution is happening in Silicon Valley when the money shows up. Venture Capitalists and angel / seed investors have gotten in on the game. CB Insights records a record $509mm in edtech financing in Q1 of 2014 [1].

In many ways California is the perfect place for the revolution. We have Silicon Valley and amazing public universities, and yet the California K-12 school system is in disrepair. We have wealthy schools next to low income schools. We have an active charter industry. We have big urban districts as well as rural districts. We have a healthy immigrant population (ESL). We’re working on solutions to our very own problems and bringing a wonderful Silicon Valley sense of optimism and possibility about technology, and the positive role it can have in making education better for every child in California and elsewhere.

EdSurge, edtech's main information source and the author of the eponymous, must-read industry newsletter, points out that 43% of all the edtech jobs being offered are now in the San Francisco Bay Area. The next highest contender, the Greater New York Area, has 22% of the total. [2] It is worth pointing out that EdSurge is, itself, a Silicon Valley startup.

The edtech companies and jobs are here. The preeminent edtech accelerator is here. The top VC firms in the valley are writing checks. There is definitely a new game in town. Edtech has officially arrived in Silicon Valley.

[1] http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/ed-tech-venture-capital-record
[2] https://www.edsurge.com/n/2014-06-16-where-are-the-edtech-jobs-a-look-at-openings-in-the-u-s

Reflections on Imagine K12’s First Three Years

2/27/2014

by Geoff Ralston

Just over three years ago, Tim Brady, Alan Louie, and I approached Paul Graham with the idea of creating a "Y Combinator for education." We were prepared for summary rejection. Paul does not hold back if he thinks an idea is bad, and we had serious reservations of our own. Was a vertical accelerator a good idea? Were there enough edtech companies to populate one? Did we know enough about accelerators to run one? As it turns out, Paul was not only enthusiastic about the idea, he offered to help us get started by showing us how YC works, by sharing great edtech companies with us, and by helping Imagine K12 launch. He also helped us pick our name!

A short time later Imagine K12 was born, and we were live with a website, an online application, and a really, really bad logo:

Despite the logo and hastily generated website, the applicants began to show up. Our first cohort launched that summer, and now five cohorts later we have worked with 54 great companies, the vast majority of which are still alive (sadly, six are no longer operating). Three years into this venture, so many things are new and different that a moment of reflection seems deserved. Let’s start with the overall environment.

Education Technology
It is an overstatement to say that edtech has been transformed over the past three years, but there is no doubt that change is happening rapidly. We take little credit for this change, except perhaps the amazing proliferation of new edtech accelerators that we seem to have launched. (There are now twelve.) But equally impressive is the growing reach of edtech companies. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are serving a global audience via providers like Udacity and Coursera. Tools like Edmodo and Imagine K12’s own ClassDojo have enjoyed impressive viral spread throughout the US school system, and there was even an edtech IPO (Chegg).

The country is moving shakily towards adoption of the Common Core, and the government seems committed to true broadband connectivity via the ConnectEd initiative (supported by industry’s Education Superhighway). One-to-one classes (where every student has a laptop, iPad, or other device) are increasingly common, although the economics of implementation means that more often than not these classes are found only in the wealthiest schools. And innovative teaching methods enabled by technology, from the flipped classroom to hybrid models, continue their spread.

With the edtech landscape shifting and changing, Imagine K12 has not remained static either.

Our Team
We are still three partners, but our friend and original cofounder Alan Louie is no longer one of them. Alan left Imagine K12 to focus on literacy and early childhood education, and our first employee, Karen Lien, was promoted to partner. We also created a new position, manager of educational partnerships, and Jonathan Jew-Lim has done a fantastic job in the role. At the same time, our program has significantly evolved.

Our Program
The basic structure, derived from YC, has not changed. We continue to attract great speakers like PG, Jeff Weiner, Dan Rosensweig, and Reid Hoffman to our weekly dinners. We have added an Educator Demo Dayearly in the program where founders demo/pitch their products to an audience of teachers, principals, and administrators.

The program itself now runs only once a year in the fall, rather than twice in the winter and summer. Demo day is in January followed by rolling admissions for the next fall’s session. We also raised a Start Fund which writes an $80,000 note to each company accepted to Imagine K12. Finally, we are about to move offices from Palo Alto to Redwood City (thanks for three great years, AOL).

Our Results
Imagine K12 companies have had a serious impact on the world of education. ClassDojo is used in hundreds of thousands of classrooms, as are Remind101 and Socrative. Hapara is used in thousands of schools around the world and CodeHS is rapidly changing how programming is taught in middle schools and high schools around the country. Bloomboard and TeachBoost are professional development platforms of the future used to help teachers improve, and Panorama Education provides tools that allow schools to measure their own performance and use that knowledge to improve.

These are just a few examples of the dozens of Imagine K12 companies who have raised tens of millions of dollars and most importantly are making a difference for schools, teachers, and children around the US and the world. Actually, upon reflection, that was the goal all along.

Meet the Fall 2013 Cohort

2/4/2014

by Geoff Ralston

We are proud to introduce the 13 companies that just graduated from Imagine K12’s fifth cohort. The companies from our Fall 2013 session presented at Demo Day on January 14th. We are now considering applications for our sixth cohort and will accept companies on a rolling basis. We will begin holding office hours and working with accepted companies even before our annual program begins in September.

The Fall 2013 cohort was an exceptional one, including several companies that achieved ramen profitability by Demo Day. All of the companies are launched and have achieved impressive traction. They comprise an impressive range of ideas, from programming courses for kids to enrollment tools for education administrators. Here is a brief summary of each company. More information is available via the link above as well as on each website.

Cellabus is a Mobile Device Management Platform for Education that helps schools manage large numbers of different types of devices in diverse settings.
Class Central is a search engine for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
Classroom IQ is a cloud-based platform for managing open-response questions.
Classwork replaces pencil and paper in 21st century classrooms. Students write their work – math problems, drawings, text, etc. – on Classwork whiteboards.
DeansList is a new gradebook that helps schools assess critical “soft skills” like perseverance, diligence, leadership, teamwork and grit.
Edoome turns the classroom into an online community to connect teachers, students and their parents so they can communicate and collaborate in an easy and secure way.
EDpuzzle allows teachers to create a personalized lesson from any video.
Front Row is math practice for 21st century classrooms: adaptive, gamified, and data-driven.
Geddit is classroom feedback that starts with students and gives teachers the real-time feedback they need to address each student’s individual needs.
Kaymbu is an iPad-based documentation system that allows teachers to capture the essence of classroom activities and strengthen relationships between home and school.
Kodable is a curriculum introducing kids aged 5 and up to the basics of programming in a fun game.
Panorama Education is a survey tool used in more than 4,500 schools for data analytics and collecting feedback from students, parents, and teachers.
SchoolMint helps schools and families manage the enrollment process simply and cost effectively.

Our application for the 2014 cohort is now live. As noted above, admissions will be done on a rolling basis, so it is advantageous to apply early not only to reserve a place in the 20 companies we will accept per year, but because admitted companies immediately get funding and advice, as well as access to Imagine K12’s extensive networks of founders and educators.

Imagine K12 Manuals

8/22/2013

by Geoff Ralston

At Imagine K12 we spend lots of time helping founders develop the skills they need to build successful companies. Some of these skills revolve around building and presenting a pitch, fund raising, running a company, and other basic entrepreneurial skills. Whenever possible, we will write very short manuals or primers in these various areas as references for Imagine K12 folks or anyone else who might find them useful. You will be able to find these documents on our Manuals page here on the Imagine K12 website.

<<Previous

IK12 + YC

Edtech in Practice: Tech Supporting Teacher Development

Edtech in Practice: Teaching computer science from grades K to 12

Edtech in Practice: Flipping the Classroom with EDpuzzle and Educreations

Startup Priorities

Announcing a partnership with Education Entrepreneurs

Silicon Valley and the Edtech Revolution

Reflections on Imagine K12’s First Three Years

Meet the Fall 2013 Cohort

Imagine K12 Manuals

Authors

Archives