Learning Innovation | February 2018: 2U, WeWork, Laureate, ACT…

FEBRUARY 2018  –  NEWSLETTER #7 ON LEARNING INNOVATION

2U will pay $13m to lease WeWork’s Flatiron School Learn.co platform technology. Additionally, 2U will provide up to $5 million in scholarship funding for WeWork 175,000 members and 4,000 employees interested in pursuing graduate degrees in 2U schools. The 13,000 students enrolled in 2U programs will access to WeWork co-working office space.

Laureate, the global education giant, is shifting its focus by selling off some international institutions in Morocco, China, Malaysia, Italy and Cyprus, and refocusing on emerging markets such as Spain, Portugal, and Latinoamerica.

ACT, the test-maker nonprofit organization, is investing $7.5M in Smart Sparrow as a way to become more involved in the learning process, provide more analytics and adaptive solutions to teachers and students, and go fully digital in the next 3 to 5 years.

Businesses are expanding their internal training programs to serve the needs of learning audiences that include customers, channel partners, contract workers and others who need product knowledge and skills. This is called extended enterprise, and it requires better LMS technology and custom developed proprietary content to help sell products or services.

Edraak.org, the Queen Rania Foundation’s educational site, has announced its expansion into K-12, in order to meet the needs of school-aged children across the Arab world. The project has been powered by a $3 million grant from Google.org.

EMC School, a language-learning unit of New Mountain Learning, has acquired Zulama, a Pittsburgh-based company founded at Carnegie Mellon University, which currently offers a game design curriculum.

•  Chile passed a historic major education reform law that guarantees free higher-education at state universities  –which will receive $495 million over the next 10 years.


The IBL newsletter is a topic-curated email report compiled by Michael Amigot, Founder at IBL Education, a company specialized in Open edX technology and video course production. If you enjoy what you read please consider forwarding it. Click here to subscribe.

Archive:
IBL Newsletter #6 – January 31, 2018
IBL Newsletter #5 – January 15, 2018
IBL Newsletter #4 – December 2017
IBL Newsletter #3 – November 2017
IBL Newsletter #2 – October 2017
IBL Newsletter #1 – September 2017