Clever launched about a year and a half ago to provide a standardized API for K-12 schools that allows them to unlock and share data with outside developers, TechCrunch reports. It’s managed to get 10,000 schools signed up to use its tools since then. Now, according to our sources, the company has raised $10 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital. The funding comes as Clever is finding ways to make schools more connected and accessible for developers. Most schools today use a variety of legacy Student Information Systems (SIS) as a way to store student data. But many of those systems tend to be outdated or custom-built, meaning that the information held within — which includes class lists, attendance, and grades — can’t be shared or accessed by outside developers…
…Read MorePodcast 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.
Microsoft revamps Imagine Cup, adds worldwide semifinals and new challenges
Microsoft’s Imagine Cup is one of the world’s largest software development competitions aimed at students, TechCrunch reports. Since its launch 11 years ago, more than 1.7 million students have participated in it in some form and this year, there are $1 million in prizes up for grabs. In an effort to make the competition closer aligned to what students need to know to get jobs later on (or start their own companies), the company today announced a number to the competition. Until now, for example, the competition’s national finals were the only stepping stone to the global finals. A country’s Microsoft subsidiary would pick the winning teams in one of the three main competitions (games, innovation and world citizenship) and they would go on to the finals. Now, the team is moving away from this Olympics-style model and has added an online semifinal where the entries from 200 teams will be scrutinized by a group of judges from around the world…
…Read MoreSensors are everywhere, and a new project wants to bring them to the classroom for cheap
One interesting element of Google I/O this year were the sensors laid out everywhere around Moscone tracking environmental data throughout the event, TechCrunch reports. Those types of sensors are now all around us, including in our phones and in various smart home devices, and now a new Kickstarter project from ManyLabs wants to help kids get familiar with them very early on. The project is called Sensors for Students, and it wants to build a sensor collection kit that includes a plate for an open-source Arduino board and Grove shield combo, along with one of a variety of parts for a number of different types of sensors, including accelerometers, electromagnetic field detectors, a color sensor, a plant watering kit (similar to one component of the Bitponics automated hydroponic garden), and many more…
…Read MoreWith Google Play For Education, Google looks to challenge Apple’s dominance in the classroom
Teachers will now be able to search for and recommend learning content by category, grade level, and a variety of other criteria, and will have the opportunity to discover content recommended by other educators, for example, TechCrunch reports. What’s more, every piece of content served within its curated portal is pre-approved by educators before being posted, so that teachers can rest easy knowing the recommended content is quality and school-appropriate. Google has already begun to recruit content partners, with NASA and PBS among those that have already signed on to make their content available to users when the store goes live this fall. Yerga said that the team plans to begin accepting content submissions from developers at some point this summer…