Edtech Insiders

This Week in Edtech with Ben Kornell, 1/14/22 with Guest Natalia Kucirkova

January 18, 2023 Alex Sarlin Season 4 Episode 18
Edtech Insiders
This Week in Edtech with Ben Kornell, 1/14/22 with Guest Natalia Kucirkova
Show Notes Transcript

Welcome back to our Weekly Round-up of Edtech news across the industry!

Guest: Natalia Kucirkova of Wikit, AS

Our top stories this week:

1) Companies Becoming Platforms through Consolidation
- HMH acquires school testing non-profit NWEA
- Instructure (maker of the Canvas LMS) acquires evidence platform Learnplatform
- Zoom launches 'Essential Apps' including Kahoot! and Prezi
- Jack McDermott of Chegg on consolidation in Edtech 

2) Edtech Winter creating CEO turnover
- Upgrad CEO Arjun Mohan resigns
- Newsela CEO Matthew Gross leaves, Pep Carrera from Nearpod takes helm
- Udemy CEO and Board Chair retires, is replaced by Head of Udemy Business
- Inspera changes CEO

3) Seattle schools suing big tech
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Seattle schools are suing TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube for causing mental health crises

4) Student Financial Aid Startup Frank Being Sued by J.P. Morgan Chase
- JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon and co are now suing the company, alleging that Frank invented 4+ million fake users to close the sale.
 
-  Ben: "the FTX of Edtech."

5) Edtech Conference Season is Underway
-
GSV announces its "GSV 150" and the "Elite 200"
- SxSWEdu announces its launch contest participants

Funding Rounds


Welcome to Season Two of edtech insiders, where we talk to the most interesting thought leaders, founders, entrepreneurs, educators and investors driving the future of education technology. I'm your host, Alex Sarlin, an edtech veteran with over 10 years of experience at top tech companies. Hi, everyone, we are back it is 2023 Alex Sarlin Ben Cornell ed tech insiders. Welcome back to your home with your kindling fire over here. Maybe you have a bomb cyclone going on outside or beautiful snow. Maybe you're in Miami and you're already down at the beach. We're so glad to have you with us for 2023 weekend and tech kickoff, please make sure that you take a chance to listen to our predictions episodes. Part one is Alex and Ben so you know what to bet against. Because whatever we predict we're usually wrong. And part two where we actually talk to the people who know what's going on our experts. We had six guests. It was incredible. Also a number of interviews coming out what's going on with the pod this week, Alex? Yeah, so we have some terrific upcoming episodes. We talked right over the holiday season with Steve Grubbs of victory XR. They are the company building Metaverse cities with all these different colleges, including historically black colleges and universities trying to make it easier for universities to just try out and access the metaverse and this week, we're talking to Deepak I say car from Professor Jim, which is a company that literally can take curriculum and use AI to make automated instructional videos from text with fake hosts, and avatars and slides that are automatically generated. It's a really interesting product. So I'd definitely recommend checking that one out. But Ben, what's going on in the world? This week? We are going to spare you the should check GBT V in schools because we all know the answer is Jegede. BT and AI is coming. We wanted to kind of get really deep in the EdTech universe. So first headline is companies becoming platforms. Alex, tell us more. Yeah, so a number of pretty Wow ish headlines over the last you know, few weeks, that all sort of in our mind led him towards the same trend. So first off, we saw Houghton Mifflin by NW EA, which is a test service that famously creates the map exam in schools, which is often considered sort of the common benchmark for progress for a number of different grades. So you're seeing one of the traditional publishers actually purchased one of the core assessment benchmarks. That's a really interesting move. And it obviously portends their attempt to sort of be in continued competition with Pearson and to really expand what it means to be an educational publisher, because the NWA is really kind of has become one of the go to benchmarks for learning efficacy, that is a big headline, we also saw zoom, start to take a set of essential apps is what they call them. So there's the Zoom app stores, many different apps, but they're hard to find. Zoom took a number of quote, essential apps and really baked them directly into the platform, making them very easy for users to access, two of which are ad tech products, including our old friend Kahoot, the quizzing platform, and Prezi, which is a sort of dynamic presentation platform that's used by many, many teachers, and educators around the world. So Zoom is saying, Hey, we know so many different things are happening on our platform. Some of these things are education, let's make it as easy as possible for people to engage in educational experiences on Zoom, make these apps really visible, that's a big deal. And then we talked to color tennis right before the break Canvas Instructure bought learn platform, which is an evidence service and Ed Tech evidence platform. So you're seeing Instructure and LMS start to move into the evidence space and say we could actually play a major role in helping educators and school districts and universities decide which tools and maybe even which techniques actually are efficacious within the platform. So these are all big extensions of what these companies do traditionally. And I think it's really interesting to see them expand and consolidate. What do you make of all this, Ben? You know, the predictions when we entered a little bit of our edtech winter is that consolidation was going to happen. And there's kind of the financial engineering of, you know, combining companies allows you To decrease your customer acquisition costs because your sharing channel, it can also improve your product competitiveness by aligning with others. What I don't think we emphasize enough is that this could also be the moment where companies reimagine themselves from product to platform. And the idea that we are seeing this evolution between, you have this problem and this product fixes it to, you're going to get everything you need from our ecosystem, our full suite of integrated products on top of our platform. This has the potential to catalyze that and it's certainly not a new concept, I think, some of the private equity that companies have been thinking about that for a while, and have been rolling up companies with this idea of being a unifying platform. But you know, Jack McDermott's article is really great for identifying that, but they're also rethinking how the software works and moving from salespeople holding kind of, in their bag, five to 10 different products, but actually to thinking about all these things, interoperating and the NW EA one in particular is interesting one because it's a nonprofit. We saw edX sell to to you that felt like an upside move, like we're gonna go reach more people. The question with the NWA one, was it an upside move where Hmh is like, we're moving into, you know, competency based assessment, let's go do this, or was it in W E? Are you saying, we're running out of revenue, we're running out of funding schools are really hard to penetrate, we just need to get out of this game. And it could be both. But I think that we're going to see the strategies go from a slide deck to reality much more in this environment, where there are clear buyers and clear sellers and this interviewing move, I would never have expected them to be a clear seller. It's a signal that there might be more sellers out there than we thought. One thing that this does connect to is a broader ad tech winner. And when you're seeing people consolidating, you're also looking at layoffs. And you're looking at CEO turnover. This is our second headline that kind of go together Udemy the CEO retiring up grads CEO stepping down new Zela with Matt gross stepping down or I don't know passing the baton to pep Carrera ostensibly to sell news, Ella Quizlet, their CEO, Matt glotzbach stepping down in Spera digital assessment platform, they had their CEO turnover. So you know, as much as you're seeing, like, some layoffs and some tightening for the tech winner, you're also seeing CEOs, either, you know, individually making the call, like, Hey, I've had a great run, I'm ready to hand the baton to somebody else. And or board saying we need some new CEO energy here. And what that often means it's not universally the case, but often means you're going from a vision led company where that CEO was kind of the creative force to like get the company off the ground and moving forward to a more market LED or like business outcome focus where Okay, now we're bringing in somebody who's going to see the business to its logical conclusion IPO sale, sustainability, whatever it may be. So it just means that we're amplifying change. So I don't know as you think about the platform's Alex, they see CEOs kind of in moss, in January's making the, you know, handing the baton off. How are you making sense of it? Yeah, I think with each of these SEO changes, I think that they don't all, I think portend exactly the same thing. So you know, Udemy is a very public company, they, Greg Kitchari, who's the one who's retiring and stepping down was already I think, the second generation of sort of new co adult in the room, the founders have walked away from you to me a long time ago. So I think this is really a very sort of natural change. It's a retiring and he's being succeeded, I believe, by the head of Udemy business, which makes total sense, which is the fastest growing business line. For some of the other ones, it feels trickier. And I think it's closer to the narrative you're saying here. So the upgrade CEO stepping down upgrade is one of the big Indian unicorns in edtech. And as far as I've seen, so far, there's not even any reason for I mean, there's been no stated reason why he's leaving. So that makes me wonder if it is, you know, board led, or if it's something I have no idea what it is, but most of the articles about it cite exactly what you just said, Ben, the Ed Tech winter, it's like the landscape has shifted pretty quickly. And I think it's a moment where everybody in edtech is deciding what to do next. Some of the big companies that have lots of money in their coffers are scooping up smaller companies. You know, Jack McDermott's article, like you mentioned, basically talks about how Power School and Renaissance Learning over the years, scooped up 42 different individual ed tech products between the two of them, they got 42 different products into their product line. And I think, you know, we're starting to see a new wave of acquisitions. But we're also starting to see some of the sort of mid sized companies like a new Zillow or Quizlet, Quizlet, was started by a college student, it was Bootstrap, funded for many years didn't take any funding, and was still one of the top 50 sites in the world. Just because it was so incredibly valuable for students is just a terrific flashcard site basically, that everybody knew about. And now they're starting to think of themselves as a business or the board is starting to think of them as a business. And they're starting to bring in new blood. And I think some of the founder CEOs are also probably saying, Wow, we've been through it over the last few years, we've seen the pandemic and this explosion of, of new users. And now the dip and maybe it's time to take a break. And then and just step back and think for a little while. Ben, you specifically found that Matt gross pep Carrera one really interesting, I'd love to hear you expound on that. Yeah. Well, before I dive into that one, I also just think there is this revaluation of the industry that's happening formally or informally. And many of these companies, I think, just the list of companies, I don't see, based on what I know, and what I've been hearing, I don't see any of them at some sort of existential risk, where there's a new CEO coming in to save the day, it actually seems much more. And this is pretty common with like, January New Year announcements. It's these are all folks and organizations that have been pretty well run and have really been thinking about leader succession. And so the announcements that we're hearing now, really pretend to a transition of focus for the organizations, when you are valued at a billion or unicorn plus, and then the reality of your business is in a different spot. It can also be a time where the CEO who's kind of pitched everybody on the billion valuation, you know, hands baton to somebody who's really, you know, kind of helping the investor groups, both current and future, understanding the new actual valuation and the path for the news. Oh, one is interesting, because it's, I think, first, I have a ton of respect for news, Ella and how they built their company. And Matt Gross is like one of those hardcore education people who has always been about the classroom, about the learner about the learning paradigm. And the belief has been, if we do right, by educators, we do right by kids, that this, this will work its way out. And it has, you know, he comes from like, Common Core days where when it was launched, there were these new standards around informational texts that weren't supported anywhere. So I think that that era at Newsela, where we saw the rise of supplemental education companies, they are the poster child for that. And it really begs the question of, are the core providers going to start looping in the supplementals. And when you see Pat coming in who joined Nearpod, and help them successfully exit and become part of a larger package, it's pretty clear that they're moving to a spot where they will be likely joining up with someone else to provide a like a full suite of products. So it also just, it's like, you know, there's people in our industry like PABX, who understand how to take a business that is kind of serving a particular niche, and then articulate that value proposition as connected. And I would say, early days of Nearpod, it was a freemium product, where they hadn't really figured out the medium side of it. And as they transition from like founding team and into the pep era, they really built a big and successful business. And so I'm both like, surprised to see macro step down, but I'm also excited to see what PEP is going to do with it. And, you know, I think this kind of a story is something everyone's trying to figure out for each of the companies that we mentioned 100% You know, a side issue for this and I don't know if this is a beginning of a trend or just a one off what we'll have to see but is a Chinese ad tech company, which we haven't talked about Chinese at Tech very much in a while, for obvious reasons, just basically is starting to do a US based IPO. It's a company called quanta saying. And it looks like another possible next move for at least some of these Chinese at Texas and adult learning company is to do IPOs in the States. And so that used to be pretty common, but it hasn't been in a while. And there's a article sort of in Bloomberg basically saying, hey, this might be the first in a series of Chinese ad tech companies who are going to start looking to do IPOs in the US, which I found this like a little bit of a curveball story and an interesting one. But I think it's another side, you know, you see all these things happening in India, you see some of the US companies figuring out their next steps. And it seems like with Chinese tech, it's been completely decimated by regulation, there's maybe a path forward for some of them. So we'll have to keep our eye on on the Chinese ad tech cycle over the next few months. Then one of the headlines that caught my eye, this last couple of weeks that I just thought was so interesting, was that the Seattle Public Schools last week, decided to file a lawsuit against basically all of the social media companies that its tic tock Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube, basically saying that these companies have created a mental health crisis in schools, that they've created a situation where students are, quote, so sad or hopeless, almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that they're stopping doing usual activities, that number of students increased by 30% in the smartphone era, and that they can't find enough counselors. And they're basically saying, hey, tech companies, hey, social media, tech companies and YouTube, you're not doing right by our students. That blew my mind a little bit. I mean, we've heard that backlash sort of coming, but to do an actual lawsuit and put this into the courts because of what you know, tech is doing to students brains, the addictive properties of social media, they call it, it's pretty amazing. What what do you make of it? What does that say about the world right now? Well, I have kind of three hot takes on this one, like one is just the overall Zeitgeist right now is is shifting to anti big tech. And some of that comes out of them being monopolistic or you know, having tons of power. But I also think some of this has to do with the coming out of COVID, just like a reaction to online and tech, kind of overtaking our lives. Second is like for Ed Tech players, we're already getting that backlash from COVID, this kind of shift, there is like an anti ed tech vibe, because people want back in person, and people are overwhelmed with the number of tools. But I think the this bigger, big tech narrative kind of inflames those things. And the third thing that I would say is, is amazing to me that Microsoft and Amazon are kind of coming out of all of this stuff looking really good. And I think, ironically, it's Seattle, right? So of course, they're not going to go after Amazon, or Microsoft. But number two is, you know, the kind of social media players have really, really taken it on the chin. Whereas Microsoft right now is riding high with Chet GPT integration of their cloud, you know, computing with Chad GBT, but also across their suite of products is AI, the vision for AI integration across their suite, you have to basically consider them a huge potential player over the next 10 years, in an ascendant way, two or three years ago, I would have said, you know, Microsoft's a little on the descent. And I think the second is that, and on Amazon side, I think that they had been under fire last year because of labor practices, and so on. But there are starting to figure out their, like public policy moves. And I do wonder, you know, my gut is that Amazon is going to steer away from edtech. Even more, you know, they kind of shuttered 10 marks. I think that the education space is something that's probably too politically tricky. So where do where does that leave us? It's the big dog, Google, what are they going to do? YouTube is competing against tick tock. Kids are a huge user. Google is the largest edtech company in the world with nine of the top 10 According to learn platform, apps used in schools, Google properties, how are they going to navigate all this? When you know clearly the bull's eyes on tick tock because they're Chinese controlled and held. It's really easy to see Google in the crowd. Here's both domestically and internationally and how will that affect their play in education space? Meanwhile, just this week, they're rolling out their Google for Education player, which they had announced not long ago. So, you know, for those of you who are kind of like, what's the ad tech playing in this, the theme of 2021 2022 was generalist investment funds and big tech, really getting into, you know, education space, a lot of workforce, some higher ed and some k 12. Will this be, you know, 2023 VR retraction year for big tech, we're, well, a couple of the big tech players double down on learning as one of their avenues. And the big one to watch, I think, is Google, and the kind of sneaky or Ascendant one. And I mean, sneaky in a bad way. But the underdog here, ironically, funnily is Microsoft. And if you're thinking about I want to exit successfully, or I want to integrate successfully, you're gonna have to think about Google Suite and about, you know, Microsoft's tools coming in the space. Yeah, that's a terrific set of takes on this. I think, you know, my last thought on it is just what surprised me about the story is that it wasn't about a single big tech company. It wasn't, you know, anti meta, we've seen lots of schools had backlash. It was against meta. It wasn't anti Tik Tok, because it's Chinese specifically, it was really saying, it's social media. I mean, they they have they have a quote from the superintendent of Seattle Public Schools. This is what it says, our students and young people everywhere face unprecedented learning and life struggles that are amplified by the negative impact of increased screen time, unfiltered content, and the potentially addictive properties of social media. So this is really about the entire concept of social media. They're basically saying social media, hurts people, it hurts students, it hurts young people. Get it out of here. I don't think I've seen something that kind of broadside in a while. And it does. I mean, then you look at, you know, meta, trying to do the educational Metaverse and trying to come back around and convince universities in schools that are different that it may be social media isn't good for kids. But what about the metaverse? It's gonna make that argument a little harder to make. And then you look at like you said, Ben, Google, you're already so embeddedness calls and starting to lean in a little more and saying, hey, well, you can use YouTube in a really educational way. I think it's a real interesting sign of the Zeitgeist for educators to sort of be this blunt about basically saying, you're driving our kids crazy. That's how you can read this. I think, the mental health theme here too. That's a great take outs and it just does go to show that mental health is becoming one of the kind of core issues for municipalities, school districts, everyone, and it's kind of climbing the ladder versus like academic results and outcomes. Mental health is kind of actually, you know, taking top billing. And then of course, schools continue to be hyper politicized. You know, we saw Ron DeSantis in Florida, this week, start to take new college in Florida, which is a hyper progressive College, they'd say it has a 10 10% transgender student ratio. 10% of their students are transgender, and basically stack it with super conservative, sort of anti woke, you know, players as the board of the college trying to set up an incredible, you know, political war there to his own his own political, you know, flags, but you've been following the scoreboard stop for a while. Well, yeah, I mean, what we're seeing in Seattle, is just part of this broader national fight between conservatives and liberals around the role of schools and education and technology in in education arena. DeSantis basically, is using budget provisions to force higher ed institutions across Florida to report on any expenses related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and then putting pressure on cuts. And I think it's University of Florida refused to submit their kind of anti woke financial statement. So it is, you know, really coming to a political head there. And as you can see, it's the Santas calculation is that this is politically advantageous. axioms meanwhile, just as we came out with a report that 1,500k 12 school board elections included debates about race CRT, you know, also some of them included, specifically gender but these, their report specifically looks at race and CRT. And you know, I was looking at their data set and it's through Ballard pedia. If you go there. They have a spreadsheet I have literally every school board race, the candidates and what their statements were about race. And you know, I click on the first one, and you get some really insane perspectives. Let's see, there's a candidate from Alaska who says, Here's my platform to reopen all schools immediately. This is 2021, to give the children their desk back to have children have their recess time, I will eliminate the Planned Parenthood slaughter clinics from our district and stop the propagandizing of our children against the will of the parents. I will also balance the budget as it's necessary, according to the statute. I mean, I read that, and I'm like, well, at least he's balancing the budget. You know, I think for our listeners, is there a crisis in school boards 23% of the kind of make America great, again, coalition, one school board elections, is that enough to turn the majority on every school board? Probably not. But I will just say from a practical standpoint, if you have one bomb throwing school board member mucking up the board meetings, and you know, kind of creating a toxic culture in the school board, it really has a decimating effect. And my bigger takeaway on all of this nationally is, if you want to prove that government is bad, you get elected to run it, and then you run it poorly. That's kind of like the conservative or, you know, like, I wouldn't even say conservative, like, far radical right way of doing things now is to get elected. And then dysfunctional eyes, the systems to prove your point, I think we're, you know, in a moment from, you know, national elections in the US. And, you know, if you look at Brazil and Bolsonaro, like, internationally, we're seeing the these like conflicts play out, but also at a hyperlocal level, we're seeing that education, schools and learning are really activating both sides. So, transitioning from that. There's also, you know, we talked a little bit about the pullback from education due to tech winter, and so on. The last story we wanted to share with you is just a shocker. Frank, which is a college financial aid and financial analysis, financial planning software, had a mega deal bought by Chase, and Jamie Dimon $475 million. Their founder was a Charlie Jarvis, I don't know if I'm saying that right to base Jarvis was a 30, under 30 award winner and basically had created this incredible platform that helped, you know, high school and college students plan their finances for successful navigation of college purchase for $175 million. Turns out allegedly that 4.2 5 million users were totally pure fiction, and it's kind of like FTX comes to attack. You know, JP Morgan's spent 2 billion alone in 2022. Working across acquisitions, data, cloud infrastructure, etc. But this is one of the startup really only had 300,000 customers, according to chase, and they'd paid 10 million personally to Charlie Jarvis with another 20 million guaranteed. So they not only was it 175 million, but this is a big personal windfall. And I think it just goes to show that we in education are not immune to potential fraud. And that this is the kind of story that just scares away generalist acquirers or investors from our space? I don't know, you pay a lot of attention to the higher ed space, like, what's your take? Yeah, I mean, the story totally bewildered me. It's obviously just sad for I think everybody involved, I guess my only insight potentially, is that, you know, we talked with Sabrina Manville of Edmond a while back on the platform, and she she wrote a great editorial for the newsletter. And her take was that it's really, really hard to create edtech products that can actually make a meaningful difference in this sort of student debt world that can help students navigate it, they can help them repay it well, that can help them, you know, just sort of make sense of it or find the best options or find scholarships. And and her take was, the reason for that is it's just hard to know who the real buyer is. There's a lot of weird mixed incentives, when it comes to sort of a platform that does that. And Frank was actually a little bit of an exception to that rule. It was doing a sensibly at the time really, really well had lots of users and was trying to, you know, enter exactly that space to help students find their funding. So I totally agree with your last point, which is that if Frank becomes sort of the default Back to a poster child for this pretty niche part of Ed Tech. That's not a good thing at all for the field, we were speaking in an upcoming podcast episode with Laurel Taylor of candidly, which is a site that also tries to address student debt. And I think, you know, I'm really curious about how the other companies that are in this space are going to see this and how they're going to avoid being sort of painted by that big brush the same way that all the crypto companies have to avoid being painted with the brush of, of FTX, it's going to be weird to see it pan out. And meanwhile, of course, debt relief is still going to be stuck in the courts for quite a while in the US. So it's just a mess. Yeah, there is a thin tech at Tech zone overlap zone. And I think this is just going to cause every board to say, hey, we need more proof that the numbers are real, and the data is real. But if you do have real numbers, and you do have real traction, you know, this could also be, you know, a strong counterpoint to say, here's how we've done it differently. Before we wrap with our m&a and investments. You know, 2023 Start is a great time to look forward and just see what's coming up on the agenda. ASU GSB just announced their elite 200. What are you looking forward to coming up and any takes on the new lists and new conferences coming up? Yeah, so GSP put out there sort of GSB 150 companies, they put out the elite 200 which is the competition for the GSB cup South by Southwest edu just announced the competitors for their pitch competition. I love this part this season of the EdTech year, I'm really excited, you know, we're going to be at GSB. You know, we're doing some edtech insiders events. And I'm hoping to be in South by as well. What's exciting to me is just when you see the companies coming out there, it's companies that you know, many of which we've talked to on the platform who really, really have incredibly optimistic and strong viewpoints about where education should go. And I think you know, we've all been sort of veering through our this edtech winter, you know, the end of the year, we hold on IQ reported that the total funding for edtech of the year was like about 10 billion down from about 21 the year before. So really pretty serious pullback and the conferences I think are everybody's opportunity to sort of reset, get energy from each other, see all the really cool new companies that are coming out. I know that transcend fellowship, Alberto or an Aza does have 10 Different companies in fellowship, I'll be in the elite 200 this year. And it just you get to really feel the communal aspect of everything. So I'm pumped about conferences and hoping to be at South by as well as as GSB. But I think that's it for our new segment for this week. A lot going on. And we'll jump into funding and m&a as well as to our guest Natalia Koba, who is a professor out of Norway talking about evidence in ITT Tech. So let's go through the funding rounds and the mergers and acquisitions for this week. Most of the big funding rounds coming out at the beginning of January this year are coming from India from the Indian edtech market, we saw lead school have a $20 million dollar round. And In related news, lead scorer is also set to acquire Pearson's local K 12 learning business in India. So Leeds cool is getting both funds and some content and, you know, Pearson run business to sort of accelerate its own growth. We saw ad tech startup totl raised $17 million from Sequoia Capital, and others that's also an Indian Ed Tech, as well as paramedic ed tech startup viro Han, raising $7 million. These are from funders such as bloom ventures totl was raising money from Sequoia Capital India. And finally in our Indian Ed Tech roundup $12 million 12.62 edgy vans, which is a company that offers loans for schooling upskilling and test prep. It's an extension of a series B fundraise in the non India news, which is much smaller, we saw a Phoenix based Scola raise $10 million. That's a company that's helping K 12 schools in the US enroll and recruit students. We also saw how D which is a comprehensive web portal for higher ed extend their series A by $5 million. And finally the community engagement platform forge that's FLR J, which is sort of a borderline ed tech, but it's really about bringing people together and supporting online communities, including learning communities, raised $2.3 million. The only acquisition that came across our radar this week was b2b ed tech company e wo low that's u O L O also in India, buying A coding platform called techie TK, i e, that's an all stock deal. And it's basically a b2b ed tech buying a coding platform. So reminds me a little bit of when you know, Pluralsight bought Code School back in the day or Skillsoft bought Code Academy just, you know, relatively recently, when you have a b2b platform buying, you know, a set of content or a platform that does coding practice and assessment is a really valuable thing to offer your business clients. So there's our funding and mergers and acquisitions for the week. For our deep dive today, we have a really special guest, and Natalia Kusa Cova, who is a professor of reading and children's development at the University of Stavanger in Norway. And she is an expert in ad tech evidence and has been looking at it from her perspective in Norway. It's really interesting to see what she has to say. Welcome to the podcast, Natalia, thanks for having me. So you've written extensively in a number of different venues about the role of evidence in edtech, including a recent paper for edtech producers about the importance of evidence? Why do you think evidence has been overlooked for so long and ad tech? And What signs do you see that it might be on the rise in the coming year? Right? Well, as far as the sign and this is shifting, I think the obvious one would be the market demands. That was, I think, quite nicely summarized by collar practitioners, so was on your show before. And we too, have seen greater demand for our services. So the demand is coming from schools and districts for evidence, documentation, and wicked, our company has been providing services to at stake to integrate more research into the development of the products. So the clear sign is not only from customers, but also from funders, both private and public, who are really demanding more documentation and proof of evidence that an editor is effective. And then I have been now fellow of the Eclipse Foundation, I don't know if you are familiar with them, but they have been calling for a culture shift for some time now to put evidence at the heart of the stag industry. So there are some signs out there that I think are showing that the ecosystem is shifting. And in terms of the reasons, well, you might think about several reasons. But perhaps they give you three, and maybe you have more, but the ones I've been thinking about is that, you know, it's takes time to produce solid and rigorous research. So the reason we have been waiting for this for some time is that studies take time to develop. And such incremental research when you're comparing different editing or when you're looking about their added features. That takes some time. And I as a researcher, I've been thinking that I really want to be confident before I make a recommendation for policy and for designers like this is what you need to do. So now we have meta analysis that are showing what works and what doesn't work. And that, of course, makes us more confident to speak to policymakers and so on. I'd love to jump in here, Natalia and I feel like you really do a fabulous job not only of describing the potential solutions, but also the problem. I would love to just read a quote from your report understanding evidence. And I love that it's a brief guide for ad tech producers to so you were thinking about how do I make this for the tech community. It says a discrepancy between the rhetoric of ad text potential for positive learning. And the scientific evidence showing the opposite has led to a divided public discourse. Some uncritically promote ad tech as a force for educational change, while others universally perceive ad tech as a threat to analog and in person teaching. Tell us more about that kind of problem statement. And also just in terms of the different groups or the spectrum of groups. What is the current state of evidence in education before you talk about kind of the different methodologies? Well, one way of expanding the quote is to use the example of edtech used for literacy development or children's digital reading something I have been specializing in. Because if you translate the quote in that context, you know, the rhetoric of ethics potential for positive literacy learning, that is based on the notion of equity, you know, you want digital books because they are lower costs to distribute, they're more accessible they can be adjusted to various learning needs. They can be personalized with their storylines they engage reluctant children to read. So there is a huge potential for all children to participate in literacy. But that potential gets quickly overshadowed by the evidence we have. And by we, I mean, a consortium of researchers, you know, several international studies and meta analysis showing that many, really many digital books are not optimally designed to support children's literacy. So they are not in local languages, they have many distracting features, they interrupt conversations between parents and children or children and teachers. So that is a problem. And if such low quality ads tag is taken to classrooms, then, you know, teachers rejected, they quickly abandon the digital books in favor of print books, and that is where you get into this polarization, that the potential is not met. And the perceptions then escalate and you lose the nuance in the debate, it then becomes about technology being either good or bad. And I think that's a big shame. Because if we lose the nuance in the debate, and we are talking about print versus digital, and not talking about which format and design work best for which types of learners, which is really about which promise of attack we could be researching and looking at. That's such a great point, I really liked the way you're expressing that the opinions get polarized, you know, we've been in ad tech a long time. And I think of researchers like Justin Reich, or Audrey waters, and people who've written about ad tech where Larry Kuban from a sort of informed skeptical point of view, they look at the research and they say, Hey, you have this rhetoric that it's going to change everything, it's going to make learning so much better. But we haven't seen the proof yet. And it strikes me as there's a sort of a cultural difference between the researchers like yourself, and some of the people you're quoting this consortium who really want to get it right. And it takes a long time, they really need to do these randomized controlled trials or other types of valid research. And then ad tech companies, which are at heart, they're still businesses, and they still want to move quickly. And they want to get their products into the hands of as many students as possible without jumping through a lot of hoops. I'm curious how you've seen that, you know, that tension play out, because the research community obviously wants what's best for students, but so does the EdTech community. And it feels like sometimes that polarized nature puts them at odds with each other. That is such a good point, you know, you have a group of researchers who tend to adopt the perspective that if the design is bad, we can fix it, and we can find a solution for it. But there are also groups of people who believe that we don't have to necessarily adopt or jump on the bandwagon and think about what can we do with analog and traditional methods? And sort of asking the critical questions like, do we need this? And of course, the answer lies in trying to marry those perspectives and seeing what the traditional approach can bring to the innovative one. But it can get quite polarized. And I think that is how it started. But we're seeing much more merging now and synergies when it comes to why it has taken so long. You know, I think one of the key reasons is also that policymakers have now developed rules and regulations that are based on the evidence that has been generated by researchers. So we are now looking at evidence as a criterion to be tied to federal funding and rules and regulations. And, of course, in US, you have Issa, and we now have national reports in the UK, where the recent report by the Norwegian government. So there's some clear messages around the need for greater evidence checks. And that, of course, helps with the procurement of evidence based, that's tech in the US. We're also doing some remediation when it comes to this because the science of reading, otherwise known as you know, phonics instruction that has been proven by many, many, many studies, is now that a lot of state governments are putting in science of reading legislation to make sure that the curriculum they're buying is aligned to the science, but it hasn't been for a long time. There's been a lot of you probably know more about this than anyone. It's there's a lot missing. I'd also say, you know, we're seeing a lot of movement in evidence base to the top at Tech VCs region. And owl released impact reports in the last several months to kind of not just highlight the finding annual returns, but also define and highlight the educational impact of their portfolio companies. And we also, you know, part of the big news in this space is that learn platform was just acquired by Instructure. So we're seeing the players understand evidence as a service is valuable, I guess, you know, for our listeners, it would be great practically in your paper, you recommend three methods that we can bring evidence into edtech versus national requirements, such as essa tears, certification options, such as the ISTE standards? And the third is use of research consultancies, like learning platform or wicked S, or educate ventures, can you walk us through these three methods and the pros and cons of each and, you know, just for our listeners, what's practical given where they are in the journey of their edtech company or in their school or school district? Well, methods or perhaps pathways to be more evidence based. And I mean, again, I'm keen to know what others think, because obviously, I'm giving more of a provider rather than client customer perspective here. But the way we think about these different pathways, and this is based on the requests we have from companies, and the way it's been conducted in our research groups is that there are different evidence needs when an edtech company is in a growth cycle. So you can have evidence for scale and evidence of learning impact. And ideally, they run as two prongs of one cycle together. You know, you don't want to scale your product if you don't have evidence for positively influencing learning. So they need to work together. Many companies don't have connections to schools, and they're willing to test their products, and they don't have research teams. And that is where the test beds come in, and companies and labs that pair edtech companies with pilot school settings to test and develop products. So that is the other pathway, that is when edtech commission, us or other companies to run a study to help them established, you know, what kind of impact are they making in this specific setting, or where they sit in relation to ESA and other established evidence parameters? So those will be the three main methods if you like. So sounds like you're saying there are a number of different options for an edtech company, they can be aware of the national requirements of the countries they're in, they could pursue certification, such as SD certification that shows that they are meeting certain standards, they could use research consultancies, and the research consultancies can connect them to pilot schools and create research programs to accelerate their evidence story, right. So ideally, an edtech would have a portfolio of evidence that combines this usability with effectiveness and efficacy, and pedagogy. Right. So in other words, you have the independent scientific, third party evaluations, and you have the teachers views based on their experiences. And it's the combination of evidence and experience that needs to work together and, of course, should have children's voices at their heart. Lovely. I think that's a great note to end on children's voices at the heart. You asked about the pros and cons, right? Yeah, yeah. It's not necessarily even pros and cons. But for each strategy, you know, who's the right person to initiate that strategy? Or when's the right time? I mean, obviously, if you're an ed tech provider, you can't initiate national strategies, or a national framework. But I do think, you know, from a practical standpoint, when do we lean into those? And when do we use that as our kind of evidence strategy or tool? Right? And I think that's, that's such a good question, because there are various types of evidence. It is really about different horses for different courses, you know, and at stake needs to establish what is their imperative or the purpose, whether they want to meet a certain tier in SI in a given state or established at a new added feature makes a difference, or perhaps they want to scale to a new market. So they would be adopting different strategies and different methodologies for the different aims. And I think this is really worth emphasizing that you have multiple pathways. And while the need for evidence is global, and most at stake operate internationally, the requirements for evidence and its demonstration, they vary across countries. And this is not surprising, you know, education is key to national development. So by default, you will have different rules regarding the purchase and growth requirement of educational resources, which I think is part of, but you have different national curricula. So the content of edtech needs to be adjusted for that variation. And naturally the journey to evidence, it won't be linear, it will take some tours and detours for each company, till they reach this solid evidence base of efficacy. So the companies that have established their core proposition or the non negotiables, if you like, they can then test how well these work in different settings, and what adjustments can be made, while keeping the same positive impact, right. So one method is to work with university partners, or university accelerate labs, and they can then support at stake on their evidence journey, they can help them establish their value proposition theory of change, you know, the different types of evidence pieces, which they can then refine and can be used for communication strategy that is then used for influencing government officials, for example, it's a really interesting, I'm hearing, you know, the idea that companies can first have to sort of think about their initial markets, and what are the national or even state standards that really matter? When it comes to efficacy? How do you establish that your product works in its local manifestation. And even that, you know, it's good to do it in a in a pretty controlled way. But then when you go into new markets, other countries in Europe, you know, a lot of the tech companies go to many countries very quickly, because the markets are limited in any one country. They have to sort of think about it a little bit a new but not in an intimidating way. Just think about how does what works in one country continue to scale and continue to have the efficacy as it keeps going. I love the idea of working with University accelerator Labs, which are, you know, branches of universities that try to move at the speed of business. And of course, research consultancies, like, learn platform, like wicked as which you run out of Norway, educate ventures in England, the last question I have for you is a little bit of a curveball. But your research is so interesting, even outside of evidence, one of the things that you research is a multi sensory reading sensory books that engage all children's senses, including the sense of smell, taste, and touch. I just had to ask about that. Because I think that I, it's hard for me to even imagine that, I'd love to hear how you think about these sensory books, I think our listeners would find it interesting as well, right? Well, I have been researching children's reading in multiple formats. And I was trying to overcome this dichotomy between print and digital and rather think about children's reading as a multi sensory experience where you involve the whole body and you become immersed in a story, both with the text and the visual elements, but also in terms of listening to stories and either swiping the page or using touch to opening different pages. And the sense of smell has been very much underestimated in this interaction. So we have been thinking about adding smell, not only is ambient smell, so the smell around you, but also smell that is then embedded in the book. So that is where all factory books started. And now I'm thinking about adding the taste to it so that we can really have a multi sensory experience. And this is quite exciting to see how if you bury these different elements and how much you foreground or background, the different senses, how that influences children's some experience with the story and also the learning. So that is the current research project that I'm working on. And it's funded by the Norwegian Research Council. So it's mostly with Norwegian children, but we're also looking at the impact with Malawian children. So it's an international project you can say, how cool is that? I you know, as you're talking I think of all the children's stories that have tastes really embedded in them you have you know, Goldilocks eating the bears, food and Hansel and Gretel eating the candy and Charlie in the chocolate factory and how amazing and immersive would it be if kids could actually taste and smell those stories as they're in them? It's a beautiful world to envision. I'd love to see that come through. Natalia Kucha. Cova is a professor of reading and children's development at the University of Stavanger in Norway, and she runs wicked a s which is an ed tech evidence consultancy for ed tech companies. We really appreciate you being here with us today on Ed Tech insiders. So, thanks for listening to this episode of edtech insiders. If you liked the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the EdTech community. For those who want even more Ed Tech Insider subscribe to the free ed tech insiders newsletter on substack.