Online Computer Science Master’s at Georgia Tech Graduates First Cohort

India- and US-based education technology company Springboard has received a $1.7 million in investment to support its mentor-led program for online learning. The seed round funding led by LinkedIn co-founder Allen Blue, Princeton Review founder John Katzman, and InMobi founder Naveen Tewari. Springboard will use the funds to offer additional student services and support to its users.“The company will use the funds to increase its capacity in courses, provide additional student services and support and enhance growth,” Springboard’s co-founder said according to VCCircle.springboard will also offer up to seven new courses in fields not previously covered including web development, app development, marketing and potentially soft-skills courses.enrolled students have access not only to courses and other learning materials, but also to industry mentors and an active community of classmates and alumni to further support their learning. The mentor-centered model translates into a ten-times higher completion rate compared to non-mentor-led online courses, 

The Hindu says.“Our approach of combining a project-heavy curriculum with 1-on-1 mentorship from industry experts creates accountability and ensures that our graduates are ready to thrive in the new economy,” Springboard co-founder Gautam Tambay said, according to Tech New Today.students meet with their mentors on a weekly basis. Mentors work in high-profile companies such as Facebook, Pandora, LinkedIn, Etsy, and Airbnb.springboard, previously known as SlideRule, was initially a MOOC search engine. Realizing that users wanted curated lists of courses based on their needs and goals, the company adjusted its focus to curation and course recommendation. The startup pivoted its focus one more time after seeing poor user engagement with many learners not completing the courses they signed up for. Tambay said:“we noticed that many wouldn’t complete their courses. We got on the phone with a  users, and found out that people were missing some kind of human contact,” Tambay explained.

adding the element of human interaction in online learning through mentors and an accessible and useful community meant that Springboard stood out for its unique, more holistic learning experience:

“Offering content alone is not education,” Tambay told Jon Russel of Tech Crunch. “That’s like sending someone to a library and telling them to learn.”other Springboard investors include Kartik Hosanagar, a Wharton School professor; Kashyap Deorah, a co-founder of Chalo; and Blue Fog Capital. Investor John Katzman said:“Springboard brings a smart team and a promising approach to curriculum and mentoring. With the new economy’s need for perpetual learning, Springboard is poised to have real impact.”Company projections by its founders see massive growth potential in paid student numbers from 1,000 today to up to 60,000 in two years. By 2016, the company projects a 10-fold revenue rate growth at $10 million.so far, the company says more than 1,000 learners have completed their courses, some of which were hired by companies such as IBM and Reddit. Springboard offers paid and free courses with thousands of students currently enrolled in the free options.typically, courses cost $300-$500 per month, which include online material and activities and mentor and community access. The Bangalore and US-based startup numbers more than 110 mentors in the fields of Data Analysis and UX Design over the last year alone.

ESSA Passage Draws More Attention to Computer Science

President Obama has signed a new education bill that will take the place of the controversial ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ from 2001 — and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) will also provide a boost to computer science education.

While the thirteen-year-old act connected funding of schools to the scores that students achieved on standardized tests, ESSA reduces some of the control that the federal government has on education. But according to EnGadget’s Sean Buckley, the new act also makes computer science just as important as other “well-rounded” school subjects.frank Smith of EdTech feels that the new legislation could close the gap in student achievement. Smith explains:

“The latest update to the U.S. National Education Technology Plan has big plans for addressing unequal access to the powerful technology changing schools today. On Thursday, [December 10th] the U.S. Department of Education laid out a vision for the future of technology at schools. The new plan updates technology guidelines issued in 2010, but doesn’t change direction dramatically. Instead, the latest plan sets up a series of bold calls to action designed to ensure technology helps close the achievement gap.”the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) includes various block grants that, along with other uses, are created for technology-related courses. Dennis Pierce of eSchool News shares how the bill will boost funding for ed-tech:“Although it’s not the program that ed-tech advocates had hoped for, many expressed cautious optimism that a section of ESSA under Title IV (“21st Century Schools”) could help schools use technology tools to transform teaching and learning.”the bill comes a full eight years after the No Child Left Behind Act was supposed to expire. The ESSA gives the state more power in choosing how to close gaps in student achievement and gives more importance to technology-related courses.it is the first time that technology has received funding since 2010. That year, the Enhancing Education Through Technology program was funded. There is also  E-Rate, which provides discounts for some technology-related services such as internet access and telecommunications needed to bring the web to the classroom.

According to Yoree Koh blogger for the Wall Street Journal, the new law will likely bring good news for tech companies who continually deal with a shortage of engineers to employ. These companies, including leaders like Google and Microsoft, have been backing any bill that would increase the teaching of computer science in the classroom.hadi Partovia, the founder of Code.org, is also pleased that the bill is going through. Partovia stated in an email:“This week marks a watershed moment for computer science in U.S. Schools. In just two years this field has been adopted by all the largest cities, almost 100 school districts. It’s great to see the Federal government finally recognize this field as a foundational academic subject.”

The overall hope is that this bill will cause computer science to find its way into more American classrooms, leading to more graduates who qualify to work at tech companies. Code.org shares that while there are over 600,000 computer jobs currently open in the US, only 38,175 students graduated from computer science courses last year.

California Faces School Renovation Needs, Budget Constraints

California’s system of school construction and maintenance is subpar and unfair, with low-income districts often under-funding construction but overspending on patching facilities that need major restorations, according to a study by Jeffrey Vincent, deputy director of the Center for Cities + Schools in the Institute of Urban and Regional Development at U.C. Berkeley.“California must bolster – not recede from – its role in the state-local funding partnership for K-12 school facilities. Moving forward, the state should ensure that all school districts can reasonably meet both maintenance and capital investment needs” by combining local dollars with “stable and predictable state funding.”

The study was published as new data has been released showing inequality in facilities funding in the state. It is possible that school construction could be a controversial issue in the Legislature next year, writes John Fensterwald of EdSource.the last state-funded construction bond was passed in 2006, and now the state has run out of money while there is still about $2 billion worth of district projects waiting to be funded. The Coalition for Adequate School Housing (CASH), a group comprised of school districts and building and design contractors, has collected enough signatures to put a $9 billion bond on the November 2016 ballot.of that amount, approximately $2 billion would be used by community colleges and the rest would be divided among K-12 districts, technical education partnerships, and charter schools. Last year in his budget message, Gov. Jerry Brown said the state should not acquire further school construction debt. He suggested that local school districts make their contributions larger.

Without the backing of Brown and the California Teachers Association, the school coalition will have a difficult time getting the $9 billion bond passed. State Department of Finance officials and school construction leaders have discussed a new funding framework. The structure could take the form of a smaller bond, based on the ability of the districts to pay.

An editorial by The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board says the study will certainly impact local decisions such as San Diego Unified’s $100 million plan to refurbish Memorial Prep, a struggling middle school in poverty-stricken Logan Heights.

The editors disagree with Vincent, saying that California should consider a revised, equity-driven path to school construction funded by the state. But this approach would come only after the adoption of reforms that mandate districts to be responsible and prevent the destructive cycle of “disrepair and replacement with their facilities.”

They add that Vincent found 62% of the state’s districts do not adequately maintain their facilities. When improperly maintained, facilities need replacement more often. The reason for this, in part, is that during the Great Recession, the Legislature suspended the state directive that required that districts spend at least 3% of their budgets on maintenance. In essence, districts gave up on maintaining their school buildings and now that there is funding, districts have not increased preservation up to previous levels.unless mandates on maintenance are put in place and enforced, the maintenance budget will always be at risk. But most important, say the editors, it is unfair for students of 2035 to have budget constraints because of bond debt that was used to fix broken windows and remove graffiti in 2015.

Li-Fi Poised to Take Over for Wi-Fi

Li-Fi, a new, super-fast alternative networking technology capable of reaching speeds hundreds of times faster than current standards in real-world use, could soon replace Wi-Fi.

Harald Haas, a professor of mobile communications at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, has created a working model of a Li-Fi system, transmitting data through LED lightbulbs flickering on and off over a matter of nanoseconds.  Haas recently demonstrated his prototype by transmitting a video from an LED lamp to a solar cell on a laptop.

“Li-Fi is essentially the same as Wi-Fi, except for a small difference—we use LED lights around us to transmit the data wirelessly as opposed to using radio,” Haas says.Wi-Fi, which currently carries half of the world’s internet transmissions, works by using radio signals to transmit data to a number of electronic devices, including phones and laptops.  As more people gain access to the internet, the use of Wi-Fi is expected to expand, which experts such as Haas believe will result in the creation of a “spectrum crunch” that would see Wi-Fi networks slow down under the high demands, reports Adam Boult for The Telegraph.

“Radio spectrum is not sufficient,” Haas says. “It’s heavily used, it’s very crowded…we see that when we go to airports and hotels, where many people want to access the mobile internet and it’s terribly slow. I saw this coming 12, 15 years ago, so I thought ‘what are better ways of transmitting data wirelessly?’”Li-Fi was found to reach speeds of 224 gigabits per second in a lab setting, which could allow a person to download 20 full-length movies in just one second.  Haas’s research shows Li-Fi can achieve data density 1,000 times greater than Wi-Fi because Li-Fi signals are limited to a smaller area.in addition, whereas Wi-Fi can extend through walls, allowing neighbors to “share” the connection, Li-Fi is not capable of this, and can be contained by closing the curtains, which could make it potentially more secure.haas went on to say that lights would not need to be kept on throughout the house in order for the system to work.  The bulbs could be dimmed to a level in which they appear to be off but are still transmitting data, writes Emily Matchar for The Smithsonian.the technology also has possibilities for smart home appliances by creating a network for devices located within a home to talk to each other.one company, Velmenni, recently put the technology into real-world situations in offices and industrial environments in Estonia, finding that it was capable of reaching the high speeds attained in the lab.several other companies, including Oledcomm and pureLiFi, have also jumped on board to bring the technology to customers.  Both companies offer a kit to aid in the installation of Li-Fi networks at home and in the office, with pureLiFi promising speeds of 10 Mbps.

Professor Harald Haas, from the University of Edinburgh in the UK, is widely recognised as the original founder of Li-Fi. He coined the term Li-Fi and is Chair of Mobile Communications at the University of Edinburgh and co-founder of pureLiFi.the general term visible light communication (VLC), includes any use of the visible light portion of the electromagnetic spectrum to transmit information. The D-Light project at Edinburgh's Institute for Digital Communications was funded from January 2010 to January 2012. Haas promoted this technology in his 2011 TED Global talk and helped start a company to market it. PureLiFi, formerly pureVLC, is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) firm set up to commercialize Li-Fi products for integration with existing LED-lighting systems.

In October 2011, companies and industry groups formed the Li-Fi Consortium, to promote high-speed optical wireless systems and to overcome the limited amount of radio-based wireless spectrum available by exploiting a completely different part of the electromagnetic spectrum.a number of companies offer uni-directional VLC products, which is not the same as Li-Fi.VLC technology was exhibited in 2012 using Li-Fi.[24] By August 2013, data rates of over 1.6 Gbit/s were demonstrated over a single color LED. In September 2013, a press release said that Li-Fi, or VLC systems in general, do not require line-of-sight conditions.In October 2013, it was reported Chinese manufacturers were working on Li-Fi development kits.in April 2014, the Russian company Stins Coman announced the development of a Li-Fi wireless local network called BeamCaster. Their current module transfers data at 1.25 gigabytes per second but they foresee boosting speeds up to 5 GB/second in the near future. In 2014 a new record was established by Sisoft that was able to transfer data at speeds of up to 10Gbps across a light spectrum emitted by LED lamps.

AEI Releases Education Agenda for the States Brief

In an effort to help state lawmakers across the nation, the American Enterprise Institute put together a briefing that lists a number of do’s and don’ts for reform in K-12 education, higher education, and early childhood education.

The briefing, titled An Education Agenda For the States, begins with Director of Education Policy Studies at AEI, Frederick M. Hess, said that in general, it matters more how a reform is executed rather than whether or not it is attempted.  He goes on to clarify that this means education reforms should be left up to individual states rather than carried out by the federal government, as it is often difficult for federal officials to produce the results that will most help students.“The US Constitution leaves education to the states for a reason: states are close enough to their communities and have suffi- cient control over schools and colleges that they can promote reforms in a manner that is actually likely to deliver.”

The briefing begins by discussing the importance of early childhood education, which is the foundation for learning and brain development.  According to researchers from Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child, “Early experiences determine whether a child’s developing brain architecture provides a strong or weak foundation for all future learning, behavior, and health.”

While a number of issues, including poverty, neglect and maltreatment, have been shown to have a negative effect on a child’s ability to learn, the authors contend that research has shown that high-quality care for at-risk infants, toddlers and preschools can help these children to overcome such disadvantages and rise above the negative consequences associated with them.

As such, the authors suggest that reforms look to expand beyond an increase to pre-kindergarten programs, arguing that pre-k can sometimes be too late for disadvantaged children, and that early childhood expansion should begin at the infant stage.  Because learning begins at birth, brain development at that time becomes crucial.The authors suggest creating initiatives that can test what works while at the same time serving children well, as the authors stress that how a program is designed is just as important as it existing at all.  However, they continue to stress that new programs should not built up too quickly because it creates programs that are less-effective.

The authors continue by discussing the K-12 system in the US, which they say creates opportunity within each state.  In order to create a high-quality education system, they suggest that each state complete a comprehensive review, and that regulations should not micromanage schools.  They go on to say that instead of using standardized tests and teacher evaluation systems, states include a variety of tools that allow for flexibility.

The briefing concludes with a discussion of higher education, in which authors discuss the portability of transfer credits, suggesting that state lawmakers allow credits to transfer between state colleges and universities in an effort to shorten the amount of time spent working toward a degree, and therefore decrease the amount of money they spend on tuition.AEI warns not to simply spend additional public dollars, but instead to find a way to put the correct amount of funding into each institution to help them to better serve their students.