FROM THE DEMO DAY FLOOR: After spending months researching the needs of educators and honing their products, the entrepreneurs who are part of edtech’s Imagine K12 accelerator presented their products to an audience of teachers and investors at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA this week. Here’s our down low on four of the 10 tools racing out of the accelerator.Most are still in their early days.
Free!—Swing Education—Swing Education is designed to help schools find substitute teachers. On the platform, subs and schools can both sign up. Swing will conduct background checks and screening. The platform provides a scheduling interface and facilitates contractor payments for subs. All administrators need to do to book a sub is phin the app.
Free!—Sown to Grow—Sown to Grow is a student-owned scorebook that allows teachers to design assessments activities using tools including Khan Academy, ThatQuiz and Exit Ticket. Students set goals for their work, enter their scores and reflect on performance.
License—Sense—Sense is a hybrid human-machine intelligence solution that aims to help teachers grade open-ended assignments more efficiently, focusing particularly on STEM curriculum. Computers detect patterns in student submissions and break down answers into five to 10 solution types. Teachers provide feedback on each kind of answer, rather than grading each individual submission.
$10—Sesame—Sesame offers a platform that lets teachers set learning standards and then allows students to upload digital artifacts (videos, assignments) to demonstrate how they are progressing to meet those standards. Teachers can see the assets in each student’s digital portfolio and assess how well the learner has performed.
