Startup and the city: A great moment in history

Editor’s note: Julia Plevin recently started a job at a startup that’s still in stealth mode. She’ll be posting occasional columns on VentureBeat about her experiences.

Like most great ideas, the inspiration for this article came to me while at a bar at approximately 11:37pm on a Thursday night.

It must have been 11:37pm because I had been working on a report to present the next morning until eleven o’clock.

My roommate convinced me to … Continue Reading

Apple sees over 350K digital textbook downloads, report says

Apple’s venture into digital textbooks is apparently already proving successful, according to a recent report from Global Equities Research.

Last week, the company launched a new version of its iBooks iOS application for the iPhone and iPad, which will offer highly interactive electronic textbooks, as well as a new textbook section in the iBookstore. It also debuted iBooks Author, which is a way for teachers to create their own textbooks.

In the first three days … Continue Reading

How schools are reacting to Apple’s entry into education

When Apple announced its textbook initiative on Thursday, there was a rush of excitement among educators. Textbooks from major publishers, which can cost $40 to $75 dollars in print, would be available as interactive e-books for $15 or less. The new iBooks Author application could turn anyone into a publisher, with its simple interactive e-book creation tools.

But then there was the small print: In order to buy and read these textbooks, each student will … Continue Reading

The dark side of Apple’s digital textbook utopia

As it did with music and cellphones, Apple today fundamentally redefined what a textbook is with the announcement of iBooks 2 and its accompanying iBooks Author software.

The benefits of iBooks 2 and its interactive textbooks were hammered home during Apple’s New York City press event today: they’re interactive, easily updated, portable, the list goes on. But now that Apple’s hype machine has calmed down a bit, the issues with the company’s grand plan to … Continue Reading

Can Apple’s new textbook initiative save U.S. education? (infographic)

Apple recently announced a handful of new initiatives focused on making digital books more accessible in the classroom.

The company launched a new version of its iBooks (iBooks 2) iOS application for the iPhone and iPad, which will offer highly interactive electronic textbooks, as well as a new textbook section in the iBookstore. It also debuted an updated version of its education-based service iTunes U, which gives teachers the ability to do much more than … Continue Reading

Kiwi Crate delivers crafts projects to your door, secures $5M in funding

Kiwi Crate, a subscription service that delivers hands-on crafts to your door, has secured $5 million in its first round of funding the company announced Thursday.

The company, which launched in October 2011 with $2 million in seed funding, delivers crates of craft supplies every month for kids ages three to six. Kiwi Crate puts together themed crates that encompass a specific theme – safari, gardening, dinosaurs, and tropical island to name a few — … Continue Reading

iBooks Author: Apple brings the magic of Keynote to e-books (hands-on)

Apple unveiled several new apps Thursday aimed at reforming the way educators deal with textbooks, but the most interesting bit of Apple’s announcement could be the introduction of the iBooks Author app, which lets Mac users with Lion OSX create digital books for free.

I decided to take the iBooks Author app for a spin to see if the app follows Apple’s mantra of simplicity and usability, and I’m happy to report that it lives … Continue Reading

Apple reinvents textbooks and curriculum with iBooks 2, iBooks Author, updated iTunes U

I can’t remember the last time anyone was so interested in education technology, but leave it up to Apple to whip up excitement. The company held an “education related” event at New York City’s Guggenheim Museum today, where many expected it to take on the textbook industry with new, interactive e-books.

And so it did. Apple announced iBooks 2, an updated iPhone and iPad app that will offer highly interactive electronic textbooks, as well as … Continue Reading

iSwifter’s Rover browser aims to change classroom learning

Startup iSwifter said that its Rover Browser for education has seen a quick start in downloads and rapid adoption among schools and teachers who want to use it to provide access to Flash-based internet content for classrooms. Since its introduction in December, the Rover Browser has climbed into the top 30 education apps in the Apple App Store.

Rajat Gupta, chief executive of Menlo Park, Calif.-based iSwifter, said the Rover Browser can run on the … Continue Reading

Chegg’s new e-book reader is practical, comfortable, boring

Chegg’s digital textbook reader is the “nice guy:” comfortable, treats you right, but doesn’t come with many exciting twists.

“[E-readers] are built for reading purposes, not studying purposes,” said Brent Tworetzky, product leader for Chegg, in an interview with VentureBeat. “We wanted to create an environment that works where students need it.”

Digital textbooks are quickly replacing the traditional, heavy, and cumbersome books of semesters past. This is especially the case as laptops replace notebooks … Continue Reading

How to teach history (and lots more) with Minecraft

Randy Fujimoto has a mission statement on his website: “A quest to transform education through game-based learning.” That’s a big idea, to be sure, but we think he might have a chance to succeed, especially with his new model for teaching history using, of all things, Minecraft, the new indie gaming sensation that has players exploring, mining and creating in an open, sandbox world.

The new project shows the unintentional, creative consequences that result when … Continue Reading

The Web is a student’s primary source as universities adopt the digital age (infographic)

Education must evolve as curriculum changes, and new subject information becomes available. But it also must change to adopt the Web and accept that students are using it for just about everything.

Students learn in totally different ways now that the age of the Internet is upon them. The knee jerk reaction after receiving an assignment is to consult Google, as opposed to hopping off toward the library. Not surprisingly, 93 percent of students prefer … Continue Reading

Kids (and adults) will have fun learning math with Hungry Fish for iPad

Video games for the iPad are an unlikely ally in the fight to help America’s students close the achievement gap in math. But that’s just what startup Motion Math has in mind.

Motion Math is a San Francisco game design studio that creates fun and engaging iPad and iPhone games to teach children mental arithmetic skills. Motion Math: Hungry Fish was released on Thursday, to teach addition and subtraction with the help of a fish … Continue Reading

YouTube makes its site safe for the classroom

Let’s play a quick game of word association. I say, “YouTube,” you say the first thing that pops in your head. Did the phrase “educational resource” come to mind? I didn’t think so, and therein lies a perception problem that often gets the video streaming site banned from schools.

To tackle this setback, the Google-owned property has created a safe-for-classroom network setting called YouTube Schools that restricts student access to just the content available on … Continue Reading

Edmodo wants to be the cloud leader in EdTech, raises $15M more

Education technology is a red-hot market, and both startups and investors are taking note.

Edmodo, a social network for education, stands poised to benefit tremendously from the great shifts taking place in educational delivery. The company announced today that it raised $15 million from  Greylock Partners and Benchmark Capital. Greylock partner and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and Benchmark Capital general partner Matt Cohler also joined Edmodo’s board.

A typical student will spend 13 years in … Continue Reading

Netflix chief’s DreamBox Learning startup raises $11M for adaptive learning

Educational game company DreamBox Learning, which was acquired in part by Netflix chief Reed Hastings, has raised a new $11 million round.

DreamBox has created math software that is “adaptive.” That is, a child can log into an online game, start playing, and the game will react to the skill level of the child. If the child does well, the game adapts the lessons so that they are harder. If the child needs more help, … Continue Reading

How to turn a teen into an engineer (study)

A recent study shows that teens are much more interested in engineering when they’re simply exposed to it.

Engineers do cool stuff. They build cities, save lives, create music and design computer systems. Plus, they make a ton of money, relatively speaking.

All these things are the stuff teen dreams are made of, and just hearing about them can help turn young students — including teenage girls — on to engineering as a college major … Continue Reading

Kid studies Java as a second language; should more do so?

At the Park School just outside of Baltimore, Maryland, 8th grader Chance Williams was having a lot of trouble in Spanish.

At one point, Chance’s father, Jeff, found himself sitting in the principal’s office with the Spanish teacher when a wild idea struck him.

“I thought, he loves computers, why not let him pursue that instead? Why not let him take Java as a foreign language.”

In a conversation with VentureBeat, Williams, who runs a … Continue Reading