Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Labster Secures $47M in New Funding Tranche to Expand Global Opportunities for Virtual Science Laboratory Simulations

COPENHAGEN and BOSTON – April 6, 2022 – Labster ( www.labster.com), the world’s leading platform for virtual labs and interactive science, has raised $47 million in additional funding to support massive growth opportunities worldwide. This new capital infusion will enable Labster to further develop in Europe and the United States and to establish itself within Asia and Latin America. By investing more funds into its library of science simulations and expanding its reach to younger students and adult workforce skills training, Labster will be able to serve 100 million students around the world through its institutional and government partnerships.

Total investment in Labster now stands at $147 million. This new financing tranche is sourced from new investors: Sofina Group and Pirate Impact, along with fresh infusions from existing investors: Owl Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, EduCapital, NPF Technologies, and GGV Capital. They are joining the Series C round announced in 2021 led by Andreessen Horowitz. Additional investors included Balderton Capital, Northzone, Swisscom Ventures, and David Helgason, founder of Unity Technologies.

“As a contributor to sustainable development, Sofina is proud to support Labster’s vision of empowering millions of students with an engaging STEM learning experience,” said Bertrand Fawe, investment manager at Sofina Group. “The use of immersive virtual reality technology will continue to play a growing role in the delivery of education.”…Read More

The New Librarian: How to set up a Global Citizens program

At Tudor Elementary School in Anchorage, Alaska, “show and tell” has an inspiring twist.

Instead of sharing an interesting rock or a favorite toy, they are sharing messages of peace and personal commitment to making the world a better place. And, through live video conferencing, they’re sharing their messages with students in Argentina, Pakistan, Brazil, Canada, and the United States, as well as locations throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Tudor’s 346 K-6 students are part of the school’s “Young Global Citizens” project spearheaded by school librarian Michelle Carton, a long-time educator and founder of Global Education Alaska. Carton runs the program, which was recently named the Grand Prize winner in the 2018 Follett Challenge, earning $60,000 in products and services from Follett School Solutions for the way it showcases what it means for her students to be global citizens, how it impacts their learning, their perspectives on the world, and the impacts they can have on it.…Read More

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College Choice releases 2016 rankings for best business schools in the world

College Choice, which focuses on college and university rankings and resources, has published its 2016 rankings for the Best Business Schools in the World.

As the economy becomes a more global affair, business professionals are looking towards getting a graduate degree that specializes them in international business. So it’s no surprise that business schools around the world are heeding that call and have developed a degree that meets the needs of these business professionals.

“Enter the Global MBA, a relatively new development in the world of MBAs. Business schools in the U.S. have led the way in graduate business education for decades, and the two-year MBA has long been accepted as the standard. But a new breed of one-year MBAs at schools in both Europe and Asia is on the rise, and to say they’re holding their own in the world of management would be an understatement,” Christian Amondson, Managing Editor of College Choice, stated of the ranking’s publication.…Read More

Where is our obsession with testing leading us?

A look at global STEM powerhouses shows that high-stakes testing doesn’t mean successful students

testing-obsessionWhenever vitally important goals hang in the balance, people want proof that progress is being made toward achieving those goals. It’s human nature—whether those objectives are building a skyscraper, eliminating disease or, perhaps most notably, educating our children.

Equitable, effective and high-quality public education is an essential goal not just here in the U.S., but in virtually every global society. The question is, is standardized testing a fair measure of progress? And what do we sacrifice in the pursuit of such testing?

The answers to those questions may lie in the situation now affecting many Asian nations. Children in that region are outperforming their global peers, and test scores are high. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s most recent PISA study, the Chinese—specifically children in Shanghai and Hong Kong—rank the highest in mathematics proficiency, a key measure of academic success. The United States, by contrast, ranks 36 out of the 65 countries and economic areas measured.…Read More

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