Civil.Discourse. I heart it.

great points on both sides

Audrey:

"It's one where we frame technology and success in terms of startups’ financial value but not their suckitude, or we shrug when startups suck because they'll just fail fast regardless of the repercussions to users (teachers, learners, schools). It's one where users' learning data, experiences, actions must be monetized. It's one where we wring our hands about user acquisition and business models and then neglect to wrestle with questions about learning, agency, inquiry, or curiosity; one where where we track the growth and viability of startups and not the growth of public knowledge or human capacity."

"Really insightful post Audrey. As a funder in K-12 education startups, we're driven by the needs of the teachers who tell us they lack basic technology tools and digital content to differentiate instruction effectively. We're agnostic about profit status and aim to support the organizations who can provide the greatest value to our educators and schools. For those that worry about all of the activity in the sector, we have a long way to go to saturation. Our infrastructure (at nearly every level) lags behind other sectors. I was in a NYC school a few weeks ago and watched frustrated teachers waste their valuable time managing class rosters in a DOS computing environment. Frankly, I'm jealous of consumer tech where we have umpteen choices for sharing photos." -- Jennifer Carolan of NSVF