The Education Technology Industry Network

Beginning December 2018, I am taking a break from regular updates to Hack Education (in the form of the “Hack Education Weekly News” and the monthly “Business of Ed-Tech” venture funding analysis, specifically). This project will also be dormant. Maybe I’ll pick it up after I’ve finished writing Teaching Machines....

I had to facilitate the discussion for the class I’m taking on school privatization on Chapters 1 and 2 of Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools, the classic book on vouchers and education reform by John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe. I thought I’d post my notes here: The Book’s...

I have just created a handful of new datasets, tracking the various relationships among powerful people in the education industry. The new datasets: Edison Schools Rocketship Education AT&T Comcast Common Sense Media Harvard Columbia Whittle Communications I have to give a presentation to the Spencer Foundation in a little over...

I’ve made some changes to this site, most obviously updating the header image. Thanks to Bryan Mathers. (Why a pigeon?) Those who look closely will also note that I have also changed the copyright information. No longer is there a Creative Commons license on Hack Education material. This really doesn’t...

Ivanka Trump penned an op-ed in The New York Post last week, arguing “Why we need to start teaching tech in Kindergarten.” The answer, of course, is “jobs.” There’s just not enough skills training for five-year-olds, apparently. There are quite a few ed-tech startups that offer products to teach coding...

There’s a story published in Techcrunch back in 2013 that I think about all the time. The headline: “Aardvark Co-Founder Max Ventilla Departs Google To Read A Lot Of Books On Education.” The story announces Ventilla’s job change and speculates about his plans based on a photo his wife posted...

A version of this article is cross-posted to Hack Education In early June, I gave a keynote at the OEB MidSummit on the history of "personalization.“ I only had 20 minutes, so it’s a partial history at best. But as ”personalized learning" has become one of the most prominent buzzwords...

As I start to pull together my research on the networks that are driving education technology narratives, I wanted to gather the think tanks whose research and advocacy helps shapes these (policy) discussions. I also wanted to list the foundations that are actively funding programs and products – and similarly...

I’ve created a timeline for “The History of Pearson” as part of my larger research into the political and financial networks that shape education technology. I’ve been meaning for quite some time to write an article about how a construction company founded in Yorkshire in 1844 could go on to...

I’m waiting for Tressie McMillan Cottom’s analysis of the (rather shocking) news today that Purdue University is buying Kaplan University (and supposedly turning it into a public university-of-sorts) before I say too much. (I’m thinking this has a lot to do with “skills,” “the employability narrative,” privatization, and prestige –...