MARCH 2018 – NEWSLETTER #8 ON LEARNING INNOVATION
• eLearningIndustry.com has published a list of the top 20 LMSs based on user experience. Those are Loop, Learn Amp, Agylia, Skolera, iSpring Learn, Matrix LMS, NEO, Bolt, TalentLMS, Unicorn LMS, Skillcast LMS, Docebo, Totara Learn, UpsideLMS, Learndash, DynDevice, Litmos, Moodle, Open edX, and Brightspace.
• This year’s SXSW EDU conference (March 5-8, Austin) will put emphasis on employability, the implications of artificial intelligence and international education, separating sessions into 25 distinct tracks.
• Tutoring is big business. Varsity Tutors has raised $50 million –provided by Learn Capital– for its instant tutoring mobile app. Already boasting 40,000 tutors covering 1,000 subjects, the company is on the hunt for more teachers. Students pay $60 to $70 by the hour. Kumon, Sylvan Learning, Chegg, and Wyzant are other players in this industry.
• Singularity University has raised $32 million. Funding might go to enhance conferences and executive education programs.
• The IMS Global Learning Consortium has announced Caliper Analytics v1.1, an interoperability standard designed to foster an open ecosystem for learning data.
• Macmillan Learning will make available this spring Intellus Open Courses, a course materials’ product that brings together open educational resources (OER), instructor supplements and on-demand support. The materials are priced at $14.99 per student per course.
• Video lectures should be redesigned for student engagement by properly framing questions, using animations, adding a quizzing functionality, expert instructors and in-video prompt.
• Schools gather student data, but they don’t have the means to easily interpret and make use of it because this data often lacks interoperability, according to The Hechinger Report.
• McGraw-Hill Education will launch this spring a textbook and e-book rental program on more than 250 of its copyright 2019 titles. It will be available via Barnes & Noble and Chegg’s connected platform.
• Strive Talent, a San Francisco-based startup that trains adults for jobs in sales and other “middle-skill” occupations, has raised $3.8 million in venture capital. Other companies that offer online assessments and interviews to match candidates for sales positions with employers are Sales Bootcamp, Sales2Job Academy and Always Hired.
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 #7 – February 2018
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
