EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
Tynker | November 23, 2022
Tynker, a BYJU's company and the world’s leading K-12 coding education platform, has launched live coaching from expert instructors – including two free sessions – across all of its e-learning subscription plans for students aged 5-18. The new Tynker Quick Start bundle is part of the company's effort to ensure the U.S. can meet outsized demand for technical skills in the job market, which is outpacing the rate the country’s youth are learning to code. The demand for effective coding education is acute. According to a recent Oxford Study, nearly half of all jobs today are vulnerable to automation. At the same time, jobs requiring technical skills will outpace overall job growth by nearly 300 times between now and 2031. In the U.S., roughly half of students have some access to some form of coding education — but less than 5% of students were enrolled in the 37 states where data was available. Stats like these highlight the pressing need for students to learn coding to keep the U.S. at the forefront of the digital economy. With this enhanced offering, Tynker is doubling down on its mission of ensuring every high school graduate learns to code by 2033. Tynker is currently the only platform to offer bundled coaching with a deep, proven catalog of courses, apps and lessons to accelerate kids’ coding proficiency. Coding coaches are highly educated and trained instructors who help demystify the coding experience and enable budding coders to build confidence quickly.
"It’s increasingly essential that every child develops coding skills to meet the demands of the digital economy over the next decade, The strength of the U.S. economy depends on helping students learn how to code now, to meet the forecasted demand for jobs requiring technical skills. When we democratize coding, and guarantee access to coding instruction, we're opening up new worlds for students from every walk of life."
Srinivas Mandyam, Tynker CEO and co-founder.
Getting Kids Coding Instruction Is Essential for Economic Growth
As students learn to code, they gain additional essential skills — including problem-solving, logic and critical thinking — which lead to overall improved academic performance. Many education experts and technologists agree that learning to code can and should start at a young age. Several European countries, including Estonia, Finland, Italy and the U.K., are already incorporating coding into classroom instruction. Tynker’s award-winning, gamified courses and learning platform offer engaging activities for children of all ages – from pre-readers to elementary and middle schoolers to computer science Advanced Placement students. The addition of coding coaches ensures that children start at a suitable level and that learning is fun and engaging while building coding confidence. Tynker is the first and only coding education company to bundle two FREE live coaching sessions with an online learning platform for as little as $15 a month. Tynker is committed to offering the best value in the market, especially for those kids who are eager to learn and could benefit from a structured onboarding approach to coding. For less than the cost of a couple of tutoring sessions, parents can get one year's worth of unlimited coding activities that start with personalized guidance to put their child on the path to success.
The Tynker Quick Start Bundle includes:
Two expert instruction sessions from a highly educated and trained coding teacher
Full access to all Tynker courses, games, apps and lessons (5,000 coding activities)
Six organized levels to help kids progress from novice to expert, with skills certification at each level
Lessons, instruction and activities that are appropriate for ages 5-18
Discounts that are available during Black Friday (40%) and throughout the month of December (20%).
ABOUT TYNKER FROM BYJU'S
Tynker is one of the world's leading K-12 creative coding platforms, enabling students of all ages to develop the coding skills to design and power animations, games, music, robots and drones, smart devices, virtual worlds like Minecraft, and more. The company's award-winning platform helps kids engage at home, school, and on the go, while developing critical thinking, problem-solving, and programming skills to help them be successful today and tomorrow. Tynker's highly successful coding curriculum has been used by one in three U.S. K-8 schools, 100,000 schools globally, and over 60 million kids across 150 countries. Tynker's partners include some of the world's most respected brands, including Apple, BBC Learning, Google, Microsoft, Mattel, PBS, Lego, NASA, and more. Tynker is accessible from any computer with an Internet browser, as well as via the Tynker and Tynker Junior mobile apps, and offers both free and paid subscription options. In 2021, Tynker was acquired by BYJU’S, the world’s largest education technology company.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
Fullstack Academy | November 30, 2022
Fullstack Academy, a trailblazer in tech education, announced today it has been acquired by Simplilearn, the world’s leading online learning bootcamp offering digital skills training and courses to working professionals globally. Simplilearn is based in San Francisco and Bangalore, India. Backed by Blackstone, Simplilearn has had exponential recent growth, launching new programs and scaling its operations to successfully serve over 70,000 active monthly learners and over 500 enterprise clients. Simplilearn is dedicated to bridging the digital skills gap by providing learners across all career stages with the professional skills needed to succeed and keep pace with the rapidly evolving digital economy. News of Simplilearn’s acquisition of Fullstack Academy comes after a recent new funding round led by GSV Ventures to boost growth plans in India and international markets. This acquisition establishes the edtech company as the largest digital skilling company in the United States. Fullstack Academy will continue its current brand and bootcamp offerings and operate as an independent business unit within Simplilearn. Fullstack is poised to undergo continued growth, building on its 10-year history and experience in the U.S. bootcamp space.Since its founding, Fullstack has expanded its offerings, introducing new bootcamp programs and disciplines within Fullstack Academy, the Grace Hopper Program, government programs, and twenty university and industry partners, growing to over 7,000 alumni across the U.S. In 2022, Fullstack Academy was designated an AWS Authorized Training Partner, enabling delivery of official AWS Training and Certification in high-demand skills areas such as cloud computing. Fullstack was selected to join the 2023 Amazon Career Choice program, offering bootcamp programs to eligible Amazon employees across more than 30 metropolitan areas. Additionally, Fullstack Academy was selected by LinkedIn Talent Solutions as the winner of its 2021 LinkedIn Talent Awards for Best Acquisition Team in the Education category. Simplilearn credits Fullstack Academy’s established reputation for quality outcomes, positive student feedback, trusted partnerships, and talented employee base as the primary factors behind its acquisition of the tech bootcamp provider. Following the acquisition, all of Fullstack’s employees will remain in their roles as part of the combined organization, bringing Simplilearn’s total employee count to over 2,500. Under the agreement, Fullstack Academy will keep its name, leadership team, and staff. It will continue to serve its students and partners as it does today, with no changes to its bootcamp delivery or offerings. Fullstack Academy CEO Jerrad Tausz will remain as the chief executive for the company’s operations.
“This acquisition marks an exciting opportunity for our organization,Simplilearn is the world’s No. 1 online bootcamp. Together, we share an aligned mission of transforming lives by helping students from all backgrounds and skill sets learn the technical skills needed to secure in-demand jobs. We are very confident in the future success of our organization and excited about what the change of ownership will bring to all staff, students, partners, and alumni. I look forward to leveraging our shared vision with Simplilearn to bridge the digital skills gap in the U.S. market.”
Tausz, CEO of Fullstack Academy.
Founded in 2010, Simplilearn offers over 100 programs that teach early- to mid-career professionals the digital skills needed for careers in cloud, DevOps, data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning, digital marketing, and cybersecurity, among other industries. Simplilearn also partners with top global and Indian universities and corporations, such as Caltech CTME, MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, UMass Amherst, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, IBM, and Amazon, to provide training to help individuals and organizations keep up with the constantly changing demands driven by digitization. More than 3 million professionals globally have studied with Simplilearn to date. Bootcamps have been an extremely popular concept in the edtech industry, and there is no denying that learners are looking for the holistic learning experience that bootcamps offer. Through Fullstack Academy’s strong footprint in the U.S. with its bootcamps and elite partnerships with top universities, we are confident that this collaboration will enable us to accelerate our global expansion plans. It is amazing to find a business whose vision is similar to ours and complements our pedagogy and belief system. We are certain to leverage each other's capabilities in a prolific way to attain synergies,” said Krishna Kumar, Simplilearn Founder and CEO. Tyton Partners acted as financial advisor and DLA Piper acted as legal advisor to Fullstack Academy and its parent company.
About Fullstack Academy
Fullstack Academy is a national tech education provider based in New York City. Founded in 2012, it offers web development, cybersecurity, data analytics, DevOps, and product management bootcamps. Fullstack Academy also offers the Grace Hopper Program, an immersive software engineering course for women and non-binary students, in addition to partnerships with leading universities nationwide, including Virginia Tech, Caltech CTME, and Louisiana State University. Graduates have been hired by Google, Facebook, Amazon, Fortune 100 firms, and startups.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
YuJa | November 10, 2022
South Texas College has deployed the YuJa Enterprise Video Platform to serve its five campuses and two higher education centers located in Hidalgo and Starr counties, along with a virtual campus.Initially, the institution was seeking a solution to replace Ensemble Video, which was acquired and ended development for its educational video platform. YuJa’s Video Platform enables full-scale media management, lecture and video capture tools, course and event live streaming, in-video quizzing, video editing, captioning, and more, all while integrating with Blackboard, South Texas College’s Learning Management System. Because of the features and value YuJa’s portfolio offers, the institution has since expanded to replace VidGrid, which also is phasing out its education offering.
“While migrating ed-tech tools can be a challenge, we’ve worked to streamline the process ,Institutions can consolidate tools to replace disparate systems while also creating more cohesiveness, offer more features to course designers and instructors, and provide budget-friendly costing in providing tools designed for education.”
Nathan Arora, Chief Business Officer at YuJa, Inc.
South Texas College is among a continuously growing number of institutions in Texas that rely on YuJa’s ed-tech tools to serve students with engaging, interactive content, including at Dallas College, University of Texas at El Paso, Lamar University, McLennan Community College, Texas Wesleyan University, Clarendon College, Vernon College, Lone Star College, Texas State University, and others.
ABOUT SOUTH TEXAS COLLEGE
Founded in 1993, South Texas College offers more than 127 degree and certificate options, including associate degrees in a variety of liberal art, social science, business, math, science, technology, advanced manufacturing, and allied health fields of study. Additionally, South Texas College is the only community college in the State of Texas to offer five baccalaureate degrees. South Texas College has a faculty and staff of more than 2,200 to serve the college’s five campuses, two higher education centers, and one virtual campus.
ABOUT YUJA, INC.
YuJa is a leader in ed-tech solutions. Our platforms provide organizations of all sizes with the tools to educate, engage, inspire and collaborate. We serve learning enterprises within all sectors, including higher-ed, K-12, government, healthcare, non-profit and corporate. We have legal headquarters in Delaware with primary U.S. offices in Silicon Valley, California, and Canadian offices in Toronto.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
School Pathways | December 05, 2022
School Pathways has created a two-way product integration with Zoom Video Communications, Inc. that allows schools to connect Zoom Meetings with their Synchronous Instruction and Live Interaction calendar in School Pathways' software. Once connected, the Zoom integration will automatically log student participation in online meetings. The passage of Assembly Bills 130 and 167 in California mandated that Independent Study and virtual learning educators provide and track regular opportunities for synchronous instruction and live interaction. While state-specific, this requirement is indicative of an overall trend as online instruction becomes more enmeshed in education following the COVID-19 pandemic. As Zoom is a leading platform for conducting online learning, School Pathways' new Zoom integration allows for streamlined tracking and cuts down the amount of time teachers have to spend logging virtual instruction meetings and participation. The integration also makes it easier to keep engagement tracking and re-engagement plans for students up to date. Having piloted the School Pathways Zoom integration at Visions in Education, Director of Operations Michael Brubaker explains, "I believe that this new feature will really benefit schools, teachers, and students as they schedule and track Synchronous Instruction or daily Live Interaction.
"Teachers will benefit immensely from the simplicity and convenience of this Zoom integration,Not only will this result in accurate AB 130 and AB 167 compliance and reporting, but it will also help educators engage with their students on a deeper level."
School Pathways CEO Oliver Wreford.
About School Pathways
School Pathways is a California-based education software company with 20 years of experience in K-12 education. We provide solutions for virtual, hybrid, and independent study programs that simplify school operations and foster student success in a variety of learning environments. In addition to a Student Information System better-built for non-traditional learning environments, we offer software that allows our clients to manage online learning agreements, student activity tracking, re-engagement communications, audit preparation, adult education, and more.
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