So I’m fascinated by bionic technology. Big deal! Don’t you think the best technology is found in ideas intended to enhance people’s lives by taking away barriers and making them more aware or more productive?
The Six Million Dollar man has been the icon I’ve been using for a while now when I’m asked to explain what Joyrite does. Especially investors tend to ask startups to define themselves in terms of another company or product. MaxClass might say they are the Facebook for schools, for example. But Joyrite isn’t reduced as easily, so I chose to explain us as a bionic eye (find the issues) and arm (write the comments) for teachers in their work to mark essays. Apart from the eye and arm, I also want to show that Joyrite is not about replacing teachers but about helping them help students.
Any better ideas to describe us? Let me know in the comments.
With all due respect for Khan, ShowMe is probably a stronger concept for the future. They’re less dependent on one great content producer but are a real platform. Also: easier model to internationalize.
How teachers feel about technology in their classroom (infographic).
Grading essays automatically sounds like a silver bullet, but does it solve the problem it set out to?
In this article the initial angle is that essays are the best way to see whether a student understands a subject. I would call this content evaluation. What most automatic essay scoring services do, however, is help teachers to evaluate students’ writing skills, an important skill by itself. Let’s not confuse the two.
Link to the actual report, which also documents teacher shortages in the Netherlands, Belgium, Turkey, Germany and the UK.
@Joyrite zegt: daar doen we wat aan!
De Europese Commissie ziet dat er een lerarentekort is in een aantal landen, waaronder Nederland, Duitsland, Turkije en België. Met de juiste ICT hulpmiddelen (gericht op het ontlasten van de docent) kunnen we daar natuurlijk best iets aan doen!
The Hewlett Foundation are focusing on the right problem (students don’t get enough writing practice due to costs) but they came up with the wrong solution (fully automating essay grading) in their search for a silver bullet. Why not aim at speeding up teachers’ grading by providing them with the right tools? We try at @joyrite but there are others, too.
willrichardson:
A couple of items from the world of writing and assessment have been niggling at me of late.
First, news that the Hewlett Foundation is sponsoring a $100,000 competition to create automated essay scoring software that, in theory at least, will do as good or better job of assessing student…
Prima idee, maar is DWDD een goed podium voor technische startups?
alexandernl:
DWDD wil iedere maand 3 tot 5 startups de kans geven hun plan te komen pitchen.
Een enorme kans, maar we leggen de lat hoog! Je maakt de meeste kans als je:
- je plan concreet, duidelijk en snel uit kan leggen. Binnen dertig seconden.
- je plan toelicht met een voor de kijker herkenbare…
What I like and dislike about Apple going educational (again)
Like: they’re showing education it’s a market worth investing in Don’t like: if the rumors turn out correct, it’s again about the textbook being replaced. Is that the best way to help teacher work better and more productively?
Vinod Khosla has finished his series on how technology will disrupt society further, especially in health and education. He’s extremely optimistic in this piece on how technology will partially take over from teachers (although he gives teachers a role for socialisation of students).
I agree with his enthusiasm for improvement but I think he should have talked to more teachers for knowledge on content. I also think we could get more results in the near future by focusing first on teacher-assisting technologies. In the process we’ll learn so much that we’ll be able to create more complete standalone solutions.
