EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
Paper | March 15, 2023
On March 14, 2023, Paper, the education support system (ESS), announced the acquisition of Readlee to address the literacy crisis. It would use Readlee's innovative learning tool, artificial intelligence and speech recognition technology to improve learners' reading skills.
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress report, about one-third of 4th and 8th graders cannot read the basic achievement level, which is the test's lowest level. The National Center for Education Statistics data shows that about 34% of American high school students graduate with reading proficiency. Unfortunately, this proficiency decreases further to 18% for recent graduates. This data shows that the literary crisis has become a systemic issue, and there is a flaw in the current educational approach.
Master teachers collaborated with Harvard researchers to design Readlee for better learning outcomes, and it would become 'Paper Reading' after complete integration into Paper's ESS. This tool will listen to students' reading, give real-time feedback with individualized support, and measure their success. With AI and speech recognition, it approaches reading through learning science, showing that reading aloud improves vocabulary, memory, and confidence. It aims to support students throughout their academic journey and after graduation.
Co-Founder and CEO of Paper, Philip Cutler said, "This acquisition reflects our commitment to providing the academic support that empowers students throughout every stage of their learning journey. Improving literacy proficiency is an essential component of our mission, and we believe research-backed technology and repeated practice are the keys to addressing the mounting literacy crisis." He added, "We are excited to join our forces and aligned missions to have an even bigger impact on students. Our teams are already working together to change the future of education. Our mission is to help create a world where everyone has the ability to read, learn, and become a success."
(Source – Cision PR Newswire)
About Paper
Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Paper, an e-learning solutions provider, offers services for personalized learning, tutoring, essay review, academic and student support, homework help, teacher support, remote education, teacher assistants, and virtual tutoring. It develops confidence in every student with its educational support system. It serves over 3 million students from different school districts across the United States and Canada. It provides individualized support to every learner to solve their problems and discover different ways of learning. It helps teachers and administrators review student activity and track their progress with its data-driven insights and metrics. It instantly connects students with tutors for support in their tests and assignments.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
Emtrain | January 09, 2023
Emtrain, an emerging revolutionary eLearning and analytics solution provider, announced it will serve as Cisco's exclusive diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training partner for a global initiative that will provide anti-discrimination and inclusive culture analytics and training to the company's partners and suppliers. The partnership builds on Cisco's promise to offer anti-discrimination and inclusive culture training to all of its employees and make it available to the rest of the Cisco ecosystem.
We've seen time and time again how companies can influence behavior and society beyond just their own workplace. At Cisco, we have made a commitment to promoting and advancing social justice within and outside the company, and we know we can lean into our ecosystem of partners and suppliers to join us on this journey," stated Cisco EVP and Chief Policy & Purpose Officer Fran Katsoudas. He also said, "We're choosing Emtrain to help us because they have been instrumental in helping us measure and improve our internal pro-social skills, which leads to increased diversity, equity, and inclusion, and we're confident they can do the same for our broader ecosystem." (Source – Cision PR Newswire)
According to Katsoudas, Emtrain was picked for this function because they have demonstrated success in acquiring employee perception data and delivering benchmarked DEI scorecards and analytics while concurrently engaging individuals with relevant, timely content. Cisco earned a 92% completion rate for their employee-inclusive culture training earlier this year.
"More than ever before, businesses are influencing our culture. Cisco has the size and reach to create a new standard and expectation for D&I."
Janine Yancey, Emtrain's founder and CEO.
The "Building Skills for a Conscious Culture" course was made available to Cisco partners at the 2022 Partner Summit on November 1 and is presently being implemented with select suppliers.
About Emtrain
Founded in 2004 by Janine Yancey, Emtrain is a provider of eLearning and analytics that quantify the impact of workplace social dynamics. The company's solutions go beyond compliance to foster inclusivity, ethics, and respect as professional competencies through the use of video-based skill-building training. Emtrain collaborates with industry professionals and uses current events to create video-based training content on themes including sexual harassment, unconscious bias, respect, and ethics.
More than 600 companies, including Bed Bath & Beyond, Genentech, and LiveNation, use Emtrain's platform. Recognized by Fast Company as one of the "World Changing Ideas 2020" and one of the "Inc. 5000 2021" fastest-growing companies. Emtrain is a woman-owned and driven firm funded by venture capital.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
PowerSchool | January 31, 2023
On January 30, 2023, PowerSchool, a provider of cloud-based software for K-12 education, released updates for its PowerSchool Unified InsightsTM and PowerSchool Unified Classroom® solutions. The updates include LearningNav and ContentNav, new data-driven personalized learning products, and a new resource library inside Unified Insights MTSS, providing educators with verified, research-backed tools and strategies. The company also announced time-saving software Clouds, designed to give educators a more connected approach to engaging, planning, and monitoring the unique needs of their students.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress's latest "National Report Card" results show the impact of learning disruptions that students have experienced. It illustrates declines in math and reading for fourth and eighth graders in the United States, with math scores experiencing the greatest drop since NAEP testing began in 1990. Each student is at a different stage in their learning journey, indicating that educators require tools and resources to address individual student needs, personalize learning, and optimize their operations.
The updates, expected to roll out in the first half of 2023, provide the following:
LearningNav, an intelligent platform using machine learning and AI to provide personalized learning paths that adjust to the student's needs. An educator can view a student's starting point, select learning goals, and then review a constantly adapting personalized pathway recommendation for that student. Once the pathway is assigned, students can cover it at their own pace.
ContentNav, an update to Unified Classroom, is a one-stop shop for high-quality, pre-approved content that simplifies access to resources such as district-created materials, curated partnership content, and open education resources, which will support teacher instruction.
Resource Library, released by PowerSchool Unified Insights MTSS to help educators address students' individual needs. This library will provide educators with vetted, research-backed strategies and tools.
The company's new Clouds, that are persona-specific options that have been integrated and built to enhance how educators serve their students by bringing all necessary tools into one centralized location. The six Cloud types offered are Student Information Cloud, Personalized Learning Cloud, Educator Recruitment Cloud, Educator Effectiveness Cloud, Student Success Cloud, and Workforce Development Cloud.
About PowerSchool
Based in Folsom, California, PowerSchool provides cloud-based K-12 education software. Its mission is to supply the education ecosystem with unified technology that enables educators and students to fulfill their potential in unique ways. Schools and districts can manage state reporting and related compliance, finance, human resources, special education, talent, registration, funding, learning, instruction, assessments, grading, attendance, and analytics in one unified platform. The company serves around 45 million students worldwide, with 12,000+ customers, and sells solutions in over 90 countries.
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