Brent Sordyl's blog » Education

Alison.com Talks About The Future of Online Education

Brent Sordyl — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:47:07 +0000

WA – How are you different from the Khan Academy or other players in this space?
MF — There are very few people doing what we’re doing. I’m trying to prove you can do this from the bottom up – asking for as little money as possible for what we do. If you can’t access scale, then this doesn’t work. The amount of money we make per learner is actually very small. It is increasingly difficult for 90% of incumbent players who want to charge huge margins and employ a sales force. We dispense with all of that. It’s just straight on the web. You either like it or you don’t. It’s a freemium model. There’s a couple of distinctions of how we work. If you’re an individual, nearly all the services we offer you are free. What you “need” to learn online is free, what is “nice” for you to have, you pay. When an organization gets involved, we do charge. When an organization comes to us and says, “we don’t have a budget,” we work with them. Our social mission is important to us.

(Full Story: Alison.com Talks About The Future of Online Education)

Imagine K12 – ycombinator for ed startups

Brent Sordyl — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 19:03:10 +0000

Imagine K12 is looking to invest time, experience, energy and resources in entrepreneurs who have a passion for education and the technical chops to create their vision. Over a three month period, we will draw on our extensive entrepreneurial experience, understanding of the Silicon Valley ecosystem, and knowledge of the education industry to give your idea and energy a far greater shot at success.

(Full Story: Imagine K12 – ycombinator for ed startups)

Big Ideas from TED 2011: Letting Students Drive Their Education

Brent Sordyl — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:00:56 +0000

A few years ago, a New York City hedge fund analyst Salman Khan was tutoring his cousins. They lived halfway across the country however, and in order to make it easier to coordinate their schedules, he started making short video versions of his tutorials. And then a funny thing happened. His cousins reported that they liked learning from his videos better than from him.
And then another funny thing happened. He had posted the videos on YouTube, and without any marketing on his part, more and more people started watching. And more and more people started emailing and leaving comments about how much they had helped.

(Full Story: Big Ideas from TED 2011: Letting Students Drive Their Education)

Logging Off: The Internet Generation Prefers the Real World

Brent Sordyl — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:00:02 +0000

They may have been dubbed the “Internet generation,” but young people are more interested in their real-world friends than Facebook. New research shows that the majority of children and teenagers are not the Web-savvy digital natives of legend. In fact, many of them don’t even know how to google properly.
(Link: Logging Off: The Internet Generation Prefers the Real World)

Smories – new stories for children, read by children

Brent Sordyl — Wed, 05 May 2010 14:00:02 +0000

Smories are free original stories for kids, read by kids. 50 added every month
(Link: Smories – new stories for children, read by children)

Charts – The Cost of Educating America

Brent Sordyl — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:00:02 +0000

(Link: Charts – The Cost of Educating America)

Charts – The Cost of Educating America |

Brent Sordyl — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:00:03 +0000

(Link: Charts – The Cost of Educating America |)

Quia – Quintessential Instructional Archive

Brent Sordyl — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:00:03 +0000

Quia is pronounced key-ah, and is short for Quintessential Instructional Archive. Quia provides a wide variety of tools, including:
* Templates for creating 16 types of online activities, including flash cards, word search, battleship, challenge board, and cloze exercises.
* Complete online testing tools that allow you to create quizzes, grade them with computer assistance, and receive detailed reports on student performance.
* Access to over 3 million online activities and quizzes in 300 categories. All of the shared activities have been created by teachers from around the world.
* A schoolwide network that allows effortless collaboration with your fellow teachers.
* An easy, centralized classroom management system including a master student list, archive of student results, and the tools to conduct schoolwide proficiency testing.
* A class Web page creator that includes a course calendar and an easy way to post your Quia activities for students and parents.
(Link: Quia – Quintessential Instructional Archive)

BetterLesson – create, organize and share your curriculum

Brent Sordyl — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:00:04 +0000

BetterLesson was founded by a group of teachers from Atlanta and Boston public schools in the spring of 2008 to help educators organize and share their curricula.

We are committed to saving educators from “reinventing the wheel.” By using BetterLesson as an organizational and sharing platform, educators will be able to lesson plan more efficiently and effectively, allowing them to give warranted focus to creating innovative content, delivering innovative content, grading, tutoring, analyzing data, communicating with parents, and finishing paperwork. Oh, and sleeping.

We are also committed to connecting educators within and across diverse instructional and geographic communities. Our first core principle is that meaningful collaboration among educators is the key to creating and delivering the highest quality instruction.
(Link: BetterLesson – create, organize and share your curriculum)

ICTAC MEMO iPhone Apps for Education

Brent Sordyl — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:00:04 +0000

(Link: ICTAC MEMO iPhone Apps for Education)