CELEBRATING 10 000 DOWNLOADS!
We proud to announce we’ve just reached 60 episodes featuring 67 guests, 10 000+ downloads and listeners from 90+ countries, 600+ newsletter subscribers, and all just over the last six months. Thank you to all of you for your incredible support of Edtech Insiders!
BIG FIVE HEADLINES
And now onto the news:
Immerse is a language learning app that takes language immersion to the next (virtual) level and is now available to users in the Meta VR app store. Meta, among many others, is on a quest to build the Metaverse, a virtual world that will forever change how people interact, including in education.
“We are now on a mission to build the first thriving metaverse community that learns, teaches, and builds together,” said Immerse CEO and founder Quinn Taber regarding the partnership.
To learn more about the Immerse and what the future of language learning might look like, listen to our latest This Week in Edtech episode featuring an interview with Quinn Taber.
Despite the boost in Q1, edtech funding is on the decline with a quarterly funding crash by 64% and test prep startups taking the worst hit. With the gradual move back to offline education, even companies like Byju’s, Unacademy, Vedantu and Eruditus are losing customers, causing continued layoffs and restructuring. The massive growth and customer acquisition at any cost during the height of the pandemic did not play out to be sustainable business models long-term.
The Bangalore-based edtech giant Byju’s has recently faced a series of allegations of delayed payments, mass layoffs, and unresolved financial issues. The company has denied many of these claims and is still proceeding with its global expansion plans, bidding roughly $2 billion to acquire Nasdaq-listed 2U. Byju’s parent Think & Learn has already taken over a series of edtech companies around the globe, including Indian Aakash Educational Services, Singapore’s Great Learning and Austrian GeoGebra.
At ISTE 2022, P.J. Caposey, superintendent of Meridian CUSD 223 in Illinois, shared his pandemic lessons and new challenges. Caposey said the pandemic led to technological improvements in online learning and the classroom but also revealed "massive equity and access issues" and a heightened need for social-emotional learning and mental health services. He also raised concerns about what happens once relief funds to mitigate the effects of Covid-19 run out, which would leave districts in an “interesting position.”
M&A
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In the latest episode, we talk to Melissa Jones and Alison Evans-Adnani of Dev Degree, Shopify’s version of a co-op program, allowing students to combine a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science with a four-year rotational placement at the company.
“I've seen Toby, our CEO says, you know, why are we associated with a degree? Because that's what their parents want. He's tweeted that, but really, it's a leveling up. It's that next step and social mobility. And it gives that breadth and foundational understanding. You may or may not be able to tell the difference between a developer on a team who's been to university and who hasn't. But we're betting the folks who've started with us are going to have a strong career acceleration, and hopefully strong persistence in their careers, that they won't get frustrated, and they won't drop out of a career in computer science. And of course, we're a long way from seeing that data yet. But that's kind of what we're anticipating.”
READ
Design For How People Learn by Julie Dirksen
“Instructional Design classic, incredible, readable coverage of key concepts.” - Alex Sarlin