About Kirsten Winkler

Kirsten Winkler is Education 2.0 Blogger at KirstenWinkler.com, Interviewer at EDUKWEST.com, Consultant at WinklerMedia.com. You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook or Google+

Putting Developers in Barns – Tech Bubble vs. Reality

SO LO MO (social, local, mobile) was one of the buzzwords this year and even the topic of LeWeb in Paris.

Smartphone devices and tablets are evolving rapidly in shorter product cycles and the digerati are always after the next big app. For some weeks it was Oink, Kevin Rose’s first product out of Milk, now it is Path, the limited social network that only lets you connect with a small number of close friends and family.

Since I watched a talk with Clay Shirky about how technology changes society at the moment when it becomes technically “boring”, e.g. the most part has access to it and knows how to use it, I have been thinking if we are actually moving too fast and hence only the ones who can keep up with the latest gadget trends benefit from them.

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Number of the Week: 11,143,333

Number of the WeekSunday is always a great day for me as it’s probably the day when I have the most time to consume media and educate myself reading all the relevant blogs I love but also write one or the other piece myself.

Today, I thought it would be fun to start a new weekly series in which I share an interesting number in online education each Sunday. Based on that definition, I call it my number of the week.

For this week, Dec 12 to 18, my number is 11,143,333 and although it comes from an education startup, it reached me in the most classic way – per snail mail.

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Free to do Whatever I Want – Thanks to You

In case I did not thank you personally for your birthday wishes on Facebook, Twitter and Skype – Thank you so much for your support! Because of you, may you be a friend, fan, supporter or sponsor I am able to do what I do here, on EDUKWEST, Deutsch Happen, Big Think and everywhere else.

I truly appreciate it.

Free to be whatever I want. Whatever you do, whatever you say, I know it’s alright.

Kirsten xxx

Nothing lasts Forever – Forever lasts about three Years – Thoughts on Gowalla and Data

Rome RuinsYesterday morning I learned that Facebook has apparently acquired Gowalla, one of the location based social networks that compete with Foursquare. While the writing that the startup lost the battle against Foursquare has been on the wall for a while there, some hope remained that Gowalla might have been able to turn its network into a digital travel guide.

Now, you might ask what this has to do with education. Well, first of all I wrote a post on Disrupt Education titled “Don’t Check-In for Yourself – Check-In for your Grand Children” in which I explained why I think those location based services have indeed a role in an educational context. But what if the service did not last that long?

Today I would like to focus on the risk of having all your eggs in one basket or all your photos = memories on one service.

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Thoughts on the Future of Ed-Tech Business Models

CentsAudrey Watters wrote an analysis of the current state of business models in education titled “What’s the Future of the Ed-Tech Business (Model)?” on Hack Education that meshes well with my Sunday post on Big Think about Khan Academy and the potential shift towards free education.

Audrey bases her post on the example of Rosetta Stone as she had the possibility to talk to CEO Tom Adams (former class mate of hers) during the Startup Weekend EDU in Washington. The language learning market is of course a very tricky and crowded one compared to rising verticals like math education.

What tickled my fancy are the open questions Audrey leaves us with like the following at the end of her post:

Sell to schools? Sell to teachers? Sell to students? And in any of those education markets, how do you compete with “free” — even when what’s offered that way is actually of inferior quality? Will learners demand high quality ed-tech? Will they (be able to) pay for it?

So, here are my thoughts on future business models in education.

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5 More Reasons Why to Give Away Books For Free

Free AdsFellow edupreneur André Klein of LearnOutLive wrote another interesting post on his blog with the title “5 Reasons Why I Give Away Books For Free” in which he explains his reasoning why he is giving some of his ebooks away for free.

As he states at the beginning of his post, André is arguing from a more philanthropic and altruistic angle and not so much from a business point of view. So to complete this argumentation, I thought I should share my take on the idea of giving stuff away for free, may it be ebooks or other content or written or video, from a more economic point of view.

So here are five more reasons for edupreneurs why to give away books for free.

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It’s on! How I am going to compete with Livemocha, busuu and Babbel

No, I haven’t lost my marbles! But at least now I got your attention, I think.

As you know, I have pursued a side project in German language learning since April 2008 called Deutsch Happen. On the basis of a more or less regular schedule I have produced different kinds of video lessons to test out teaching ideas and to support learners of German as a foreign language who might have no access to paid solutions.

For the past couple of months I have been experimenting with some strategies on how to grow my audience on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and the results are good enough to take this to the next step: I am building a MVP.

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The Fun is Over – Everyone needs a Social Media Strategy

Social Media

If you are following this blog on a regular basis or worked with me on a social media project for your company in the past, you know that one of the corner stones in my strategy has been to use social media quite freely so that it fit with your habits and workflow.

This worked pretty well throughout 2009 and 2010 when social networks were still a thing of the pundits and digerati. In 2011 we saw a tipping point and more “regular” users joined the services which eventually led to much more content flying around, making it more difficult for professional users to get their message through.

I already wrote about the “decline” of Twitter last week, and I will give you a short update on my new strategy and its outcome today.

But, as you can already tell from the title of this post, the message I want to get through is pretty clear: everyone, may it be a startup, established brand or individual user needs a strategy for social media. It’s getting far too serious to just use it for fun.

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MRU: More Tablets, More Funding, More Innovation

Monday RoundUp

The week started with some thoughts on the iPad and its growing importance in teaching special needs students.

As the Online Education market is constantly growing, it attracted the first fraud rings.

Education Elements raised $2.1 million for blended learning solutions.

Stickery raised $325k for math education apps

Udemy raised $3 million from Groupon co-founders for international growth and marketing.

busuu launched a Spanish Business course.

Rosetta Stone is searching a new CEO.

Boogie Board Rip, a robust note taking tablet.

Stanford Student creates Braille Writer app for visual impaired learners.

After Hours #5 with Knewton, Skype, AnyMeeting, AcademicPub, YouTube, BenchPrep, 99designs, Online Education, OpenClass, Steve Wozniak, Siri & more.

Big Think: Text Messages – The Least Common Denominator in the Classroom

Is Twitter becoming the Exhaust Pipe of Social Media?

Over the past couple of weeks I have become increasingly frustrated with Twitter. I have the feeling that I get less value out of it than maybe 6 months ago. Clearly Twitter lost some of its appeal when Google+ launched.

Now, before I get deeper into that, let me explain the three main (and up to now only) ways I used Twitter for.

Number one has been to get first hand information, insights and personal tidbits from interesting people I followed. It rounded the profile of blogger, podcaster and CEOs I was reading / watching / interviewing. Number two was to get breaking news of the industry. And number three was to share my posts or interesting links.

Two of those reasons are completely broken, only one still works rather well.
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Contest: EDUKWEST is giving away 5 Free Tickets to LAUNCH Pad Oct 21st

LAUNCH

We have the first LAUNCH Pad Tablet Conference coming up on Oct. 21 at Microsoft in Mountain View, California. As the name suggests, the conference will focus on how tablets have changed the way we use technology and engage.

The potential of iPad and other tablet devices is immense, throughout the conference you’ll learn how they’re being used and what’s being developed for them.

EDUKWEST has the privilege to give 5 free tickets to our readers (each is at a value of $1000 for non-developers). As EDUKWEST is a media company for education, we are, of course, interested in hearing what you develop/would develop for an educational use of iPad/tablet devices, where you see its greatest potential and how you see today’s students want to learn with tablets.

Everybody, developers, teachers, schools administrators, principals, startup people, is more than welcome to join the competition. To enter the contest you need to

  1. subscribe to the free EDUKWEST Newsletter
  2. answer the questions “How would you use iPad in an educational context? What products would you build for teachers to use or you think students would like to learn with?” in the comments of the blog post linked below.

edukwest.com/launch-pad-tablet-conference-october-21st-5-free-tickets-for-our-readers

Good Luck!

Disqus is building a Social Network based on Blog Comments

KWVlog

Yesterday, I came across a new feature of Disqus, the comment system I have been using on all my blogs since early 2009. At a first glance, I barely noticed the red notification message that now shows up on each Disqus enabled comment section.

I noticed it because Big Think, the blog network which I contribute to with Disrupt Education just switched their comments to Disqus. Sunday, I wrote a blog post about Siri, the new voice enabled assistant on the iPhone 4S and its implications on learning and education.

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MRU: Guest Posts, ESL Giants, Chegg, E-Readers and Tablets

Monday RoundUp

In a guest post Christopher Grant whom you might remember from several interviews (Sclipo, emagister and review:ed) he lays down why user experience is becoming increasingly important in education.

Abril Educacao continued its shopping tour and acquired the Brazilian publisher Maxiprint.

The second guest post of the week came from James Ashenhurst. He shared his thoughts on the future of textbooks, becoming a hybrid between book and application.

GlobalEnglish announced a complete relaunch of its brand along with the launch of three new, communication and collaboration centered products.

Chegg enters the daily deal space with the Chegg Deals platform. Another step towards the goal of becoming the place to go to for students.

The $35 USD tablet effectively became a $50 USD tablet but it is reality as promised. The first 10,000 Aakash devices are going to be shipped to schools.

As a defensive answer to Amazon’s new Kindle line up, German booksellers offer their own e-readers at competitive pricing.

LearnBoost launched the Spanish version of its LMS. The translation has been crowdsourced by the users and more major languages will follow in the weeks ahead.

PointScribe tries to raise money via Kickstarter to port its technology that enables children to learn handwriting and cursive on their own to the iPad.

On Sunday I reflected on the iPad and its importance when teaching special needs students.

In EDUKWEST #74 I had the pleasure to talk with Osman Rashid, Co-Founder and CEO of Kno. As you know, I have been rather critical about Kno from the start and therefore it was really interesting to talk to Osman and get his point of view.

In EDUKWEST #75 I talked with Tim Brady, founding partner at imagine K12. Tim was Yahoo’s third employee right after the two founders and has a tremendous knowledge and track record in the Internet industry. We talked about the incubator and the first class that graduated recently.

Sunday’s Big Think post was about Steve Job’s last “One more thing” and how Siri will replace learning.

And last but not least, After Hours brought you all the interesting news that we could not cover on EDUKWEST.

MRU: Video in Education, Tablets in Education, Value your Education

EDUKWEST

YouTube launched a dedicated channel for teachers. Here educators can find and share videos with best practice tips, classroom activities and so on.

sofatutor, a Berlin-based startup in the online video tutoring space relaunched its website and opened its own production studio.

The science and researcher platform Mendeley in partnership with PLoS invited developers to create apps that make science more open.

The domain Languages.com is up for sale. Perfect fit for language or translation business?

Rosetta Stone launches new Experience Kiosks in malls across the US. Visitors can actively interact with students and Studio Coaches.

“This is not a dream, this is reality” India’s $35 USD tablet will ship on October 5th.

My thoughts on the results of the babbel survey about learning types and having a plan for learning a language.

Teacher resource site BetterLesson raised $1.6 million. A growing market?

ShowMe added some new features to its platform, making it easier to browse the video lessons.

Project WissensWerte is civic education for the YouTube generation and something I’m planning on writing more about in the coming weeks.

Misc

Thanks to Google you can read the famous Dead Sea Scrolls online.

Popplet is a new and easy to use brainstorming and mindmapping platform.

Teagueduino lets you build small, computer controlled machines and teaches you essentials in coding.

Wacom introduced three new Bamboo tablets which are great for interactive whiteboards.

The dream of every IT admin who needs to prepare multiple iPads in school or in a company: Griffin MultiDock.

Big Think

Thoughts on the launch of the Kindle Fire and its potential in the classroom.

Why digital media is competing with the information learned in school and how this can be used to flip the classroom.

Lexiophiles

Value your Education – my interview with Lexiophiles about what makes a good teacher and the future of education.

After Hours

Last but not least, my 10 minute video recap of all the stories that did not make it on EDUKWEST in form of a blog post.

How to foster Handwriting in Schools and use its Creative Potential

I remember a time when my classmates and I were taught handwriting in school and had to practise pages and pages (at least in my memory but as a child everything appears to be a lot) of how to write the individual letters of the German alphabet correctly. We even got marks on how beautiful our handwriting was back in elementary school.

These days are definitely over! The reality in schools is that already today devices play a bigger part in modern classrooms. A good thing you might say as nobody should be judged for bad handwriting? Let’s see, as there are also benefits to still writing cursive.

I have also realized about myself that the more I’m using technology and devices the worse my handwriting gets. I’m not able to write as quickly as I was used to, and I also think it’s not as beautiful as it once was. I wouldn’t go so far to say that I’m at risk of unlearning it but my handwriting has become untrained, increasingly now as the majority of my work day takes place in front of one or the other device and includes pen and paper less and lesser.

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MRU: Google+ Hangouts, Social Good in Education and ESL is Big in Japan

The open source learning management system (LMS) Moodle launched a mobile app that enables teachers to interact with their students via iPhone.

Google+ Hangouts got some really powerful features like recording, Google Docs and screensharing and something similar to a basic interactive whiteboard.

Microsoft and Comcast both announced new programs to support under-served students of low-income families with cheap broadband Internet access, discounted hardware and software as well as free digital literacy training.

Amazon lets you now use your Kindle to borrow digital books in over 11,000 US libraries. All you need is, of course, a Kindle and a valid library card.

Grockit changed its business to a “one-for-one” model. This means that for every paid subscription to the service one student in need will receive free access to the service. The social learning network also launched a Facebook integration of the f8 conference.

Only 3 days after Google released the API for Google+ Hangouts, a German startup called Conceptboard launched a very sophisticated whiteboard as free integration.

A report by Reuters underlined that the ESL and online education space is booming in Japan. The reason is increased fear for jobs amongst the white collar workers who are widely known for their poor English skills.

This week’s EDUKWEST interviews included an update with Nathan Parcells of InternMatch about the recent funding round and the new features, my interview with Derek Muller of Veritasium in which we focused on how to shoot educational videos for YouTube and an “on tour” interview with Armin Hopp and James Shepard of digital publishing / speexx about the company’s recent relaunch and the new product features.

My monthly guest post on ESL Library was about the Implications of English becoming a basic skill into today’s society. What is next for the ESL space?

The Sunday post on Big Think / Disrupt Education was a reflection on what I learned from talking to Derek Muller and what needs to be done to make science videos more effective and engaging. Only Getting the Right Answers is Wrong

Last but not least you can watch a rundown of all the stories in education that did not make it on the EDUKWEST blog in the second episode of After Hours.

My closing statement for this week’s MRU is that we’re looking for additions to the EDUKWEST Newsteam. If you’re interested in becoming a writer you can send me your application via LinkedIn or Twitter.

Those of you who find value in our articles, who want to support EDUKWEST and make it sustainable are more than welcome to make a donation if your monetary situation allows it, of course.

KWestions Ep. 27 with Derek Muller – Incorrect Information has more Effect on Learning

How I first heard about Derek Muller, the creator of Veritasium was in the course of his take on education’s current fairhaired boy (not really but let’s use the metaphor), Salman Khan and the Khan Academy.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe that videos definitely have their place as a tool in education. I am a producer of educational video, Derek is one. There is no doubt that videos do their part to make explain things in a new, visual and engaging way but other tools also have their place. Salman Khan is doing a great job of breaking complex things down and to present them in an easy and digestible way.

To put Khan Academy and its founder in the place of having all the right answers to our problems and sort of being the savior of education is wrong, and the way I see it, it’s also not what he intended to do.

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MRU: Free Math Help Online, College Recruiting and Videos in Education

The Ministry of Education of Ontario in Canada is offering free online math help for students grade 7-10 via a platform called Homework Help. All teachers are employed by the state and students connect via live chat and interactive whiteboards.

Following its strategy of becoming the one-stop-shop for students from college to university Chegg acquired Zinch, a platform that connects students to scholarships.

Also in the student recruiting space McGraw-Hill lead a $1.6 million funding round for Unigo, an information and resource platform for college application and financial aid.

The University of London became YouTube EDU’s 100th partner. Looking at the history of the university it is a natural fit as the University of London is the world’s oldest provider of distance degrees.

CommonCraft videos and the website are now available in 8 different languages, making a truly global resource for educators and trainers world wide.

I also interviewed Dave Schappell of TeachStreet about the Startup Weekend EDU in Seattle at the end of this month.

Finally, you can listen to all the education news that did not make it into a blog post in the new “After Hours” format on EDUKWEST.

KWestions Ep. 26 With Jeffrey McManus – Is Coding the new Literacy?

I did this episode of KWestions in the course of the EDUKWEST interview with Jeffrey McManus on his company CodeLesson and my general interest in the growing startup scene around educating people how to code.

As you know, instead of focusing on what a particular startup does, the KWestions format is about the bigger picture. You have probably heard me talking about the importance of education and skills for one’s career and how I see a shift regarding key qualifications needed happening right now and at an increasing pace.

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MRU: Global Language Communities, valued Interns and Biz and Livia Stone

Livemocha is strengthening its footprint in Latin America. Abril Educacao bought 5.9% of the Seattle-based startup and is planning to build a platform for the rising Brazilian middle class.

Babbel is going to expand its mobile offers by acquiring the application department of software company Aspirement in October. The premium language learning community also tripled its revenue in 2011 and is planning to expand to North America.

InternMatch raised a $500k funding round from renown investors, expands US wide and launched a new feature for companies called Community Pages. Those pages are showcases for company culture and help interns to get a first idea of what it will be like working for the company before even applying for an internship. Launch partners are major brands like Pixar, Aol, Wikimedia and others.

The Des Moines Area Community Colleges are planning to extend their offering by implementing WizIQ Classrooms in Fall. The platform will be used for everything from virtual office hours to synchronous lectures, lesson capture or outreach to prospective students.

Biz Stone and his wive Livia announced the first fundraiser for the Biz and Livia Stone Foundation. The goal of the non-profit is to support education and conservation efforts in the state of California.

In EDUKWEST #71 I talked with Josh Koppel, co-founder of ScrollMotion. ScrollMotion is a renown developer of digital books, magazines and applications and is behind the digital version of Esquire and the Oprah Winfrey magazine. Now, the company turned the HMH Algebra 1 textbook into an interactive application. The company has the potential to become a vital competitor for Kno and Inkling.

On Big Think I wrote about Language Learning Communities being the pubs of the global village and the Digital Backpack becoming more and more a reality.