EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
Verizon Sourcing LLC | October 28, 2021
Verizon Business today announced new BlueJeans Meetings enhancements, including a bundle of features to support hybrid and remote learning. Available as part of specific BlueJeans Meetings plans, or for education customers at a special discounted rate, the new BlueJeans Remote Learning feature pack allows instructors to build a custom teaching experience without the overhead associated with hosting traditional online classes.
Despite connectivity, education and delivery challenges faced by universities and corporate training leaders at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers and students are realizing the benefits of leveraging remote learning tools for education. Adopting an engaging approach to online teaching could further improve operations and students’ experiences. Intended for the classroom setting, online instruction or corporate learning sessions, BlueJeans’ Remote Learning features focus on making the teacher a central part of the learning environment and provides the opportunity for educators to bring their own unique style into the remote setting.
“Teachers are telling us they’re lost, and they’re struggling to keep students engaged in today’s live virtual setting. Having to spend time playing administrator and technical support expert is minimizing their ability to think through compelling, interactive ways to deliver the curriculum virtually. By bringing together our comprehensive education, collaboration and training features into one consolidated experience, we’re making it easy for teachers to operationalize their learning environment so they can go back to focusing on what matters most—educating students.”
Amy Jefferson, Head of Americas Revenue and Growth, BlueJeans by Verizon
Simplified, Customizable Classroom Management
By turning on the Teacher Dashboard, BlueJeans provides instructors with all the necessary classroom management tools they need in one place, making it easier for educators to navigate the complexities of virtual teaching environments so they can focus on having fun with teaching. Designed to save teachers time from the administrative duties of hosting a virtual class, these tools provide easy access to arrange students in gallery view or spotlight a presenter, share content, chat and so much more.
Furthermore, going beyond “just meeting” virtually, instructors will now have the ability to build a custom teaching experience that is best suited for their lessons, students and teaching style. This dynamic view intelligently arranges participants on screen, giving full visibility to the instructors of everything that’s happening in their classroom.
Inclusive and Engaging Learning Environment
As a core element of effective learning, student engagement has traditionally been harder to unlock in virtual settings. Optimized for student engagement, BlueJeans’ Remote Learning features allow the entire class and instructor to collaborate and engage with the information being discussed. The always accessible chat wizard, breakout sessions, participant reactions, intelligent highlights and multi-participant whiteboard increases opportunities for everyone to engage during a live teaching session. Key Remote Learning features include:
Customizable Layouts: See your entire classroom in one view along with all the tools needed to effectively run and manage your session.
Flexible Views: View the entire class in gallery view or the way you like. Sort the video layout on participation level, alphabetical or in priority of raised hand first.
Student Rosters: Know your audience. Keep track of who is joining the session and who is in the waiting room (if activated).
Floating Chats: Never miss a beat or simply multi-task with the new floating chat wizard. Continue messaging while sharing content, whiteboarding or annotating.
Teaching Apps: Elevate the effectiveness of remote learning sessions with quick access to all the essential teaching applications, such as Collab Board, Breakout Sessions, Polling/Q&A and Smart Meeting highlights.
About Verizon
Verizon Communications Inc. was formed on June 30, 2000 and is one of the world’s leading providers of technology and communications services. Headquartered in New York City and with a presence around the world, Verizon generated revenues of $128.3 billion in 2020. The company offers data, video and voice services and solutions on its award-winning networks and platforms, delivering on customers’ demand for mobility, reliable network connectivity, security and control.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
Amazon | April 22, 2022
On April 21st, Amazon’s Career Choice Program partnered with Ancora Education to deliver learning opportunities to Amazon’s employees. Based on a commissioned Gallup survey, Amazon found that 48% of American employees would accept a new job if it offered skill training. 65% of employees reported considering employer provided upskilling as an essential factor in evaluating job potential. In recognition of upskilling as a significant employee retention tool, the partnership with Ancora Education will provide Amazon’s hourly workers with easy access to technical, practical, and classroom training and education courses.
"At Ancora Education, we recognize firsthand the importance of a secondary education and the opportunities it can provide. Amazon is offering its employees a pathway to improving their lives. We are proud to be an official Amazon education partner and value the trust they have placed in our ability to instruct and train their employees."
-Natalie Willliams, Vice President of Client Operations, Ancora Education
Amazon’s Career Choice program is known for its stringent selection process for selecting third-party education partners. It especially focuses on selecting partners committed to helping employees in their learning process. It includes providing job placement assistance, and offering complete educational support that results in career success.
"We're committed to empowering our employees by providing them access to the education and training they need to grow their careers, whether that's with us or elsewhere. We are glad to have Ancora Education as an education partner so we may continue to offer best-in-class training to our employees."
-Tammy Thieman, Global Program Lead of Amazon's Career Choice program
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ONLINE EDUCATION
Teachmint | December 22, 2021
Teachmint, an education infrastructure startup and the creator of India's largest teaching platform, today announced that it has acqui-hired the Indian arm of edtech startup Teachee. Helping educators and creators sell courses online, Teachee was launched in India in October 2020 by Vlight Technology Pte, a Singapore-based company. This comes at the heels of Teachmint's acquisition of Teachmore, a course-selling platform which enables teachers to sell educational products like online courses, live classes, quizzes and more through their own apps and websites.
With this, close to 20 members of Teachee's India team are now a part of Teachmore by Teachmint, strengthening the company's course-selling offering and enabling it's community of millions of teachers to grow their online presence. Teachee's India country manager, Aakash Kasaundhan, has also joined the company as a Senior Director, leading the business growth of Teachmore by Teachmint. This acquisition comes at a time when the Teachee platform is being discontinued globally.
"We are very happy to welcome the Teachee team to the Teachmint family. This acqui-hire will aid the expansion of our course-selling offering and help deliver even more value and innovation to our teachers. With the aim of scaling our user base from 10 million to 100 million and beyond, we are laser focused on increasing our team strength and bringing the best talent onboard. This acqui-hire gives us a great boost and we are well positioned to revolutionize the growth and monetization opportunities for educators and creators."
Mihir Gupta, Co-founder & CEO, Teachmint
Aakash Kasaundhan, Senior Director, Business at Teachmore (former India country manager at Teachee), said, "Teachmint's growth has been phenomenal and it's inspiring to see a company build such state-of-the-art infra solutions for educators across the globe. Our team at Teachee is thrilled to join the Teachmint group and we are definitely stronger together! Despite the discontinuation of Teachee's platform, the teams across the world created truly memorable and outstanding outcomes for thousands of creators and teachers and we are geared up to bring our experience and energy and take Teachmint to new heights."
Teachmint recently marked its first acquisition by acquiring Teachmore in a cash plus stock deal to expand its course-selling offerings. This follow's Teachmint's series B fundraise of $78 million in October 2021. This gets added to the suite of education-infra products that Teachmint has been offering including Teachmint's mobile teaching app, Teachmint for Institute and Teachmint for developers. With adoption from 10+ million users, 4,000+ educational institutes and multiple international edtech partnerships, Teachmint today is the only solution catering to end-to-end infrastructure needs of educators; from K-12 schools to after-school tutoring to universities and even edtechs.
About Teachmint
Teachmint is an education infrastructure provider and India's largest teaching platform. It was founded in May 2020 by Mihir Gupta, Payoj Jain, Divyansh Bordia and Anshuman Kumar - alumni of IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi with executive experience at OYO, McKinsey, Swiggy and Roposo. The company is reimagining the infrastructure for education through their proprietary classroom technology, which is highly optimized for education providers across the world, including individual teachers, schools, universities and edtech organizations.
Through Teachmint's classroom infrastructure, teachers are able to deliver live online classes, ensure continuous student engagement and automate their admin workflows. Today, the platform is available in 15+ Indian and International languages including English, with 10 million+ teachers & students from 25 countries on its platform.
Teachmint is backed by leading investors such as Rocketship.vc, Vulcan Capital, Learn Capital, Goodwater Capital, Epiq Capital, CM Ventures, Lightspeed India, Better Capital and Titan Capital.
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