fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Encountering a Mystical Creature, Monster? — Short Story
By: Kat Andersson
Tags: Microfiction, Writer, Fantasy, Short Story, Short Fiction

Illustration by https://www.artstation.com/anooj

Chairo’s dad always said there were strange, mystical creatures in the forest behind their house. He’d also said his real father was an elf.

For the first time since she was a little girl, Chairo found herself believing her dad. She touched her very non-pointed ears absently as she peered out from behind the mossy boulder.

At the strange, mystical creature before her.

It lumbered slowly up the rough-hewn stone steps. Naked. Eerie white skin. Huge four fingered hands at the end of long, muscular arms. It was almost twice her height.

What…the…freaking…f- her thoughts cut off as the creature stopped its slow accent and slowly swiveled its bald white head towards her. She pulled back behind the boulder, her heart thumping wildly.

Chairo squeezed her eyes shut tightly before realizing that that was MUCH scarier than having them open. She peered around her at what was a completely normal forest just one minute before. Now she saw fluorescent fungi clinging to trees that were much bigger than she remembered.

She jumped about a foot before scrambling back into a defensive stance, her head aching where a bunch of her hair had been yanked sharply.

Crouched on top of the boulder was the white creature, it’s knobby knees jutting out to the side as it held a hunk of her straight black hair in its oversized hand. She rubbed her head before jerking her hands back into place in front of her.

She knew instinctively that her guard would be useless against this giant creature, but it gave her focus, which helped her control her breathing and stop panicking. On the outside, at least.

The creature had its head cocked as it seemed to study the hair. Then it opened a wide toothless mouth and ate it.

Again, the guard went down as Chairo stepped back in surprise. Back into stance. Don’t be stupid Chairo, she chided herself.

The air shimmered around the top of the giant stone and Chairo shuffled back a few steps, bumping into an unfamiliar tree. Dust or fog obscured the creature, then just as quickly disappeared.

But it wasn’t the white, giant creature crouching on top of the boulder anymore. It was her.

A copy of Chairo looked back at her, cocked her head, and smiled.

Chairo vomited. Violently.
At the end of the day, somehow finishing off the office work or burying it for another day, I…
By: Chinmaya Cm
Tags: Microfiction, Life, Feelgood, Romance, Herwisewords

At the end of the day, somehow finishing off the office work or burying it for another day, I finally text her,

‘How was your day?’

Sometimes her reply is instant, sometimes thay take time as she would be chasing her own deadlines.

One such day she replied, ‘Oh! The job is just a support system, the job by itself doesn’t end the day.. The day is yet to start with our loved ones ...’
A Moment in Time
By: Lexus Ndiwe
Tags: Blue Insights, Microfiction, Relationships, Emotions, Love

Photo Credit: Maddog 229 for Pexels.

A Moment in Time

Before this moment, having ‘a connection’ was something out of fiction.

Devoid of watchers, confidently, your hand reached out like a question.

‘Will you take it?’ it asked.

With only a second’s hesitation, I answered.

With my palm encompassed, yours guided me to you.

And like that, I was in your arms.

The forbidden.

I felt a sense of calm, previously unfelt.

As if I was home.

Wordless, I stood there unmoveable.

You too, did not falter.

Time passed, unknown, wrapped in your embrace.

Once parted, under camouflaged smiles, the action turned memory is now unspeakable.
Deceptively Honest
By: E.D. Martin
Tags: Microfiction, Relationships, Revenge, Abuse, Short Story

Deceptively Honest

Image by soumen82hazra from Pixabay

“This’s awfully good. What’s in it?”

“Poison.” She laughed. “Good grief, just eat.”

“That’s why I have the larger half?” Smiling, he cleared his plate.

Moments later, he keeled over, his face frozen in a silent scream.

“You clearly misunderstood.” Her smile was bittersweet; her husband’s abuse would finally end.
A Tough Negotiation
By: Parzival Sattva
Tags: Flash Fiction, Microfiction, Artist, 100wordstory, Negotiation

Prompts = Collector, Lawyer, Tough

Photo by Senjuti Kundu on Unsplash

‘Tough! No deal!’

Harry Windless, lawyer for a reclusive art collector, grimaced. He’d done deals with obstinate painters, egotistic sculptors, even criminally insane dioramaists. But this negotiation with a precocious four year old prodigy was taking the cake.

‘Mrs. Mundy, can I appeal to your better judgement?’

‘It’s her decision. And part of home schooling. You need to work with her.’

He didn’t know what else to offer. She didn’t want money, tickets to Disney (any of them), a pony, candy… He was lost.

‘You haven’t used the magic word!’

‘Umm… please?’

The girl smiled. ‘Now we can start talking.’

Links to other sites where I publish:

Instagram = https://www.instagram.com/one_hundred_words_by_parz

Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/Parzival-Sattva-427507144484255

Blogger = https://onehundredwordsbyparz.blogspot.com

Medium = https://medium.com/100-word-or-less-stories

YouTube = https://www.youtube.com/user/parzivalsattva

And a link to where my Lovely Lady Love (who also operates the camera) posts her art: https://www.youtube.com/user/recyclinggoddess

Join in on the fun of making a story from the same prompts I do! https://www.facebook.com/groups/565109053911712
SWAT
By: Terry Mansfield
Tags: Microfiction, Fiction, Police, Writing, Karma

SWAT

The police SWAT team broke down the apartment door and shot John Smith dead as he sat on his living room couch watching TV.

Turns out: The wrong apartment, the wrong guy. A tragic mistake.

Meanwhile, the real bad guy, Tom Parker in the next-door apartment, heard all the commotion and quickly crawled through his window and went down the fire escape stairs.

While he crossed the street, a truck hit him and he died instantly.

Sad injustice for John Smith. Karmic justice for Tom Parker.

The police later apologized for their unfortunate mistake and then went about their business, as usual.

The End (of John and Tom)
A Mother’s Undying Wish
By: Mary Keating
Tags: Microfiction, Inheritance, Greed, Justice, Family

A Mother’s Undying Wish

Photo by June O on Unsplash

After the attorney read their mother’s will, Prudence’s two older sisters gloated.

“We always said she was a bitch, Prudence. All those years you sacrificed got you nothing!” Sally nodded while Anna spoke.

“Would you consider sharing your inheritance with Prudence?” asked the lawyer.

“Definitely not,” Prudence’s elder sisters said in unison.

“Prudence, stay behind. We need to talk,” said the lawyer.
Arithmetic VS Political Critique
By: Parzival Sattva
Tags: Flash Fiction, Microfiction, Politics, Arithmetic, 100wordstory

Prompts = Context, Irredeemable, Chess

Photo by Hennie Stander on Unsplash

Principal Eyebrows (Wendy could never remember his name, but he did have enormous furry caterpillars sitting over his eyes) glowered at her. She’d been caught again reading Das Kapital when she should have been practicing arithmetic.

‘You are irredeemable! You need to stop reading that!’

‘Why?’

‘Because it was time to do math!’

‘Do you realize that schools are forced labour camps and teachers are our captors?’

‘We’re what?’

‘I realize context is important. Had I been reading chess texts, I’d have the “Queen’s Gambit” defence, but a political work criticizing capitalism is deemed unacceptable.

‘I… go back to class…’

Links to other sites where I publish:

Instagram = https://www.instagram.com/one_hundred_words_by_parz

Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/Parzival-Sattva-427507144484255

Blogger = https://onehundredwordsbyparz.blogspot.com

Medium = https://medium.com/100-word-or-less-stories

YouTube = https://www.youtube.com/user/parzivalsattva

And a link to where my Lovely Lady Love (who also operates the camera) posts her art: https://www.youtube.com/user/recyclinggoddess

Join in on the fun of making a story from the same prompts I do! https://www.facebook.com/groups/565109053911712
Living in Mars
By: Nanji Erode
Tags: Microfiction, Isolation, Mars, Fake, Simulation

Living in Mars

Photo by Nicolas Lobos on Unsplash

It was the last day of the Mars Simulation Program.

Dr. Gibson and Dr. Whitson were in a Mars-like site on the Nevada desert for the previous 456 days. They pretended to be on Mars and did experiments, grew plants, communicated with us, and, of course, endured brutal isolation. We’re happy it was all coming to an end.

I sent an email congratulating them on completing the simulation program.

The reply from them shocked me:

“Simulation? Haha, that was one hell of a joke! Anyhow, we will blast off from Mars tomorrow as planned. See you all in six months. Bye!”
Global Warming, Perhaps? + untitled (Throwback Thursday)
By: Parzival Sattva
Tags: Flash Fiction, Microfiction, Fishing, Global Warming, 100wordstory

Story Old — untitled

Photo by Infrarate.com on Unsplash

Ember (nee “December”) watched the screen intently. She was waiting to punch the execution button on a large Call order on Canada Maple Leaf gold coins.

Her mind wandered as the screen hypnotized. What was with her genius parents who’d named her December (they’d wanted to name her after a month, like June, but wanted to do something novel). December — who the fuck named their kid December? Aside from them, of course.

Everywhere she went, she was the Frigid Bitch With Steely Blues despite trying to have a “warm” nickname with Ember.

The number she’d been waiting for flashed — Buy!

Links to other sites where I publish:

Instagram = https://www.instagram.com/one_hundred_words_by_parz

Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/Parzival-Sattva-427507144484255

Blogger = https://onehundredwordsbyparz.blogspot.com

Medium = https://medium.com/100-word-or-less-stories

YouTube = https://www.youtube.com/user/parzivalsattva

And a link to where my Lovely Lady Love (who also operates the camera) posts her art: https://www.youtube.com/user/recyclinggoddess

Join in on the fun of making a story from the same prompts I do! https://www.facebook.com/groups/565109053911712
Gutenberg’s Big Idea
By: Mark Starlin
Tags: Microfiction, Printing, Humor, History, Centina

Johannes Gutenberg brought his girlfriend, Gisela, into his shop and showed her his latest invention.

“What is it, Johannes?”

“I call it a printing press. It can produce exact copies of a book at a rapid pace.”

“Incredible. You will become rich.”

“Probably.”

“What will you print first? The Bible would be a good idea.”

“Perhaps so. They are quite popular. But I have an even better idea. I plan to print one million phone books.”

“What are phones?”

“Let me show you. I am quite proud of this one.”

Sadly, the phone didn’t catch on for quite some time.
Long Distance
By: A Fresh Pot Of Coffee
Tags: Flash Fiction, Microfiction, Short Story, Centina

Long Distance

“I know you will marry a Catholic girl, Samuel,” she said as we lay, fingers intertwined, staring at the summer sky on our last date. Tomorrow, she would return to California, two thousand miles away.

“I will write,” I assured her.

“It takes weeks.” She frowned.

The thought of losing her saddened me. “Pack your bags and meet me at the station at nine tonight,” I said. Her eyes lit up.

That night I fell down the stairs. I never made it to the station, nor on my feet again.

On one of my sleepless nights, the telegraph was born.
Market Map & Investment Thesis for Indonesian EdTech Landscape
By: Manas Punhani
Tags: Edtech, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Funding, Venture Capital

The State of the Indonesian Education Sector

Data compiled from Euromonitor, Omidyar Network, World Bank, Ravenry

Indonesia represents a large market opportunity with over 50 million students. The archipelago nation has lagged its emerging market peers on standardized global testing terms — PISA scores are below the regional average and have shown only moderate improvement as compared to its own historical levels (2018 vs 2000). Despite the Government’s commitment to dedicate at least 20% of its budget on education, expenditure on education as a % of GDP (3%) also lags its Southeast Asian neighbors (Vietnam: 4%, Malaysia: 4.5%, Thailand: 4%) and Global Average (4.5%)

Data compiled from OECD

The challenges extend to every aspect of the learning journey across K12 (Primary and Secondary Education), Test Prep, Higher Education and Lifelong Learning / Continuous Learning.

For instance, on the one hand for the ~5 million students enrolled in Offline Bimbel (Tuitions) quality varies dramatically across Tier 1 cities, Tier 2 cities and rural areas. On the other hand, there is a long tail of universities and only a handful of institutes provide high-quality learning opportunities.

There are challenges at each step of the learning journey

In fact, a World Bank report noted that the majority (50%+) of Indonesians who have completed schooling do not have the necessary skills to successfully enter the job market. Even in terms of skill attainment, Indonesia fares worse than its ASEAN peers when employers are asked about demand supply skill gap.

Data compiled from World Bank

There is also a fundamental change in what students want and expect from their education.
Evolution of EdTech Post COVID-19 Lockdown
By: Academia Erp
Tags: Education Technology, Lockdown, Covid 19, Covid 19 Crisis, Edtech

Covid-19 Pandemic has gradually affected everyone’s life. People were trapped in their homes and life came to a standstill. But with great efforts made by the government, everything is getting back to normal. Though this global crisis doesn’t seem to end anytime sooner, various industries have been drastically affected, including the education industry.

Before the pandemic, the education industry was running normally; but now, the schools, colleges, and training institutions, everything has been shut down. And, technology has been proved as a boon to us, as it has played a major role in the EdTech division. The Post-COVID-19 scenario will be an evolution in Education Technology. The educational institutions are looking forward to tie-up with EdTech companies by releasing their online programs that will be easily accessible to the students.

The EdTech companies have faced a boom in the COVID-19 period; their user base has increased drastically, as students, teachers, parents everyone is looking forward to online classes, live doubt-clearing sessions, e-books, and mobile applications. In India, companies like Byju’s and Vedantu have seen a high rise in their user-base. Looking at the situation, they provided free services and download to a few courses, which gradually helped them in increasing new registrations on their platforms.

Due to COVID-19, Education Technology trends are becoming the new normal for the students and their mentors, as well. Soon, it will take the form of a necessity due to the technological advancements that are making our lives easier. Also, when it comes to online education services, it would have taken us another decade to reach where we are now if the pandemic has not happened yet.

Not only students are a part of education technology benefits, but the professionals are too. There are various professional institutions that have come up to provide learning to the professionals, with the help of EdTech. This is how the EdTech is evolving rapidly.

One such EdTech company in India is Serosoft. We are focused on creating sustainable value growth through unique ideas and innovative solutions. And Academia is our Education ERP software that helps to automate and manage the entire campus operations, administration, and learning needs in a very effective way.
Dear Citizens of the world,
By: Michael Chian
Tags: Pedagogy, Education Equity, Covid 19, Education, Edtech

When a child suffers, our future ripples. When a nation is in turmoil, other nations face uncertainties. When a pandemic hits the world, killing indiscriminately, life as we know it changes forever. As positive as we may all want to be, at the subconscious level, it is a fact that life will never be quite the same again. This is when we need to hold on to each other even tighter, to brave this new unknown future.

“The sudden switch to using digital instruction may have led to suboptimal results if compared to a business as usual in-presence instruction, as teachers, students and schools all had to unexpectedly adjust to a novel situation.“ OECD, 24th September 2020

Many fundamentals of the educational industry have been tested and exposed during this time, from basic infrastructure to core pedagogical processes. On reflection, the core teaching and learning fundamentals have become more important than ever to ensure we navigate this new environment and keep students engaged. The collaboration of Educators, Children and Families is now a key determining factor for a child’s education.

“Students’ attitudes and dispositions are influenced to a great degree by the support they receive from families and teachers and by the role models they are exposed to. Support from families and teachers, including parental emotional support and teacher enthusiasm, are important for the development of positive attitudes towards learning and can ensure that students acquire the attitudes and dispositions that maximises their ability to make the most of online learning opportunities. Yet, some families and teachers may struggle to provide such support — especially during the COVID-19 crisis — because of a lack of time, insufficient digital skills or lack of curricular guidelines.” OECD, 24th September 2020

In this capitalist world, we have grown to accept that there are those who are privileged and those who are disadvantaged. How then do we respond in this new world where the disadvantaged are now even more vulnerable? The numbers in this pool are rising by the day, and we at BeED believe that it is our responsibility to help shore the tide.

Calamities will rage through our world like a firestorm, but like nature, rebirths will happen and life will persevere. We should look forward to the new year without forgetting the past. We need to embrace global communities and reach out to every single soul on their knees to forge ahead into the future. Seek new collaborations, but never forget the sacrifices made by many who are unnoticed and quiet.

At BeED, we will continue to go beyond education and embrace… life.
Top 5 Challenges For Edtech Startups & Solutions To Them
By: Natalie Koltunova
Tags: Analytics, Edtech, AI, Solutions, Startup

The education market is investors’ delight. Despite the fact that many ed-products are entering the market, there is still a huge niche for innovative solutions and much-needed tools. This is the right time for edtech startups in the USA, educational forerunners, and forward-looking companies to take action now and to reap benefits later. Why is it so?

The fact is that over the next 10 years the number of post-secondary graduates will increase by 350 million and the number of K12 graduates will increase by 800 million. The world population grows by 200,000 people every day. We will likely add another 1 billion people by 2030, putting enormous pressure on education to scale up effectively and sustainably. This sector will see a great demand.

Source: HolonIQ

Read the full article here: http://bit.ly/3nJyNl1
Running a Feedback Improvement Session
By: Rachel Zankman
Tags: Remote Working, Smore, Workplace Culture, Feedback, Edtech

Have you ever felt shaky about an interaction involving feedback? Whether you’ve given feedback that was received in a way that you didn’t intend or reacted poorly to feedback given to you, these conversations have a tendency to get sticky And if they’re honest, most people out there would answer yes to both questions — so it’s nothing to feel bad about.

But there is a way to make them better.

Okay, but how?

Because most of my colleagues have been in a feedback debacle before, I decided to run small-group sessions with different employees on some helpful tools to give and receive more effective feedback.

If you too are interested in improving your collaboration with others and improving your effective communication skills, follow my easy guideline for running your own Feedback Session.

I think your teams will like this session as much as our teams did at Smore!

The Guidelines

Pick a couple of Feedback Models to work with I suggest picking at least two models, so your team members can choose to work with the model that resonates with them the most. I picked SBI(R) and STAT/AR because I found them easy to remember, but there are plenty of different types of models out there. Just pick a couple that suit your team’s needs! Describe the different model components with relative examples to help solidify the models in your team members’ minds. Create a couple of hypothetical scenarios and ask your team members to act them out based on the models you just went over I think it is important to create at least two scenarios. One scenario should address constructive feedback that needs to be given, and the other, positive feedback that needs to be given. When we think of feedback, we tend to only think of constructive feedback, but learning how to give positive feedback is equally as important. Open the floor for a voluntary discussion about personal experiences surrounding feedback, and how their experiences could have been more effective with the use of these models. Make sure to tell people this is a safe space, and honor confidentiality when different people share their experiences. You may also want to start by telling everyone to not use names of the people they are referencing if the experience being described happened in the workplace. Research and describe tools for responding to defensiveness Research and describe tools for getting comfortable receiving feedback

Now go ahead, and run that session!

You’ve got the structure, now add your personal touch.
Michalův podzim 2020 #kiskpodzim
By: Michal Černý
Tags: Semestr, Kisk, Edtech, Publikace

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
Dominate Your Niche, Podcast Episode with @iamDrWill
By: Stacey Roshan
Tags: Technology, Edtech, Entrepreneurship, Education

I had another chance to be on the Dr. Will Show Podcast! Will Deyamport, III, Ed.D & I dig into my journey to becoming a teacher → edtech integrationist, coach, speaker, author… the power of developing relationships & modeling… helping teachers in the current climate… & more!

Here are some timestamps to highlights from the episode:
Challenges for Educators in 2021. There are always challenges, but that’s…
By: Alexander Lim
Tags: Edtech News, 2021 Trends, Education Technology, Education, Edtech

Challenges for Educators in 2021

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

Technology is making it easier for students to learn.

Edtech will be the most widely used in class.

Online classes will be more common, and the students will be able to learn at a pace that works for them.

There are always challenges, but that’s what makes what we do so rewarding!

The Biggest Challenges

I think one of the biggest challenges is making sure that students are getting everything they need out of an experience so they can succeed later down the road when they’re going into college or careers or whatever they decide to do after high school. Another challenge is making sure all students have access to opportunities, especially those who come from underprivileged backgrounds and might not otherwise have access to these opportunities. That’s why giving back and making sure all kids get a chance at success is important to me because it has changed my life for the better.

My Vision for the Future

I want every student to have the same opportunity that I had and to be able to go to a great school that gives them not only a great education but also has their best interest at heart. It’s important that we are all striving for the same goal: for students to be successful in life. I want every child to have access to all of the opportunities that they need to succeed in life.

My Advice to Educators?

Don’t ever stop learning. There is always something new going on in education, and there are always new ways to use technology to make learning better and more effective. Learning how to use technology well is important because it will not only help you teach but also help you connect with students in a different way so they’re more engaged and motivated.

About the Author

I am an educator have over 3 years of experience in product management, technology leadership, startups, angel investing and Edtech. I’m the Founder an EdTech startup Cudy Technologies (www.cudy.co) to help teachers teach better and students learn better using videos and interactive activities. If you are a teacher or student, signup for free at https://cudy.co/sg/register to start teaching and learning better today!

You can connect with me on Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderlhk) and let me know that you are a reader of my Medium posts in your invitation message.
What’s new in ClassIn — Online Test!
Tags: Online Education, Virtual Learning, Edtech, Education

ClassIn has released its new online test feature! The features include test questions, online test sheet, test and test result data. Now teachers and students can simply and easily take tests through ClassIn.

Browse the features

1. Manage test questions: teachers can store their test questions in the cloud drive, and then open the test questions in the classroom and lesson. They can edit and manage the test questions using ClassIn.

2. Send an online test: teachers can send online test sheets to students in the Class and Classroom.

3. In the test: Students can go through tests in Class and Classroom. In the Class, once students complete the test and submit it, teachers can view their answer sheets. If it is in the Classroom, teachers may check students’ answer sheets in real time.

4. Test data: It supports an automatic marking feature, which has made filing work far easier than in the traditional way. Teachers can simply check the result of every student. Teachers can explain the test questions and the result in the classroom thereafter.

How it works?

Step 1: Manage your test material

1. IM Cloud Drive
Mass Street University Is Now Mass Street Data School
By: Bob Wakefield
Tags: Education Reform, Online Education, Edtech, Education

This has been a long time coming.

When I started Mass Street University my intention was to do nothing more than provide a place to educate clients about the things I was doing for them. MSU has now become so much more than that. Consequently, the name no longer fits the mission.

Originally, the school was named “University” using the nomenclature of the in-house training departments of many large corporations. Those companies that have enough staff to have their own training department often name it their university.

Once the mission of the school expanded beyond Mass Street Analytics clients, I immediately recognized that I now had a marketing problem. I did not want people thinking that we were an actual degree granting university. To prevent the mistake, I had my attorneys write up a nice disclaimer which you see on a lot of our content. But it is not enough to have some fine print. It was clear a full-on name change was necessary.

Changing the brand’s name presents numerous legal, technical, and marketing challenges. We basically have to go through everything, scratch out “University”, and replace it with “Data School”. That is not going to happen overnight.

Everything going forward will carry the MSDS brand which will be immediately recognizable. As time permits, we will start walking backward through our content and replacing branding as we go. The last step will be to change the URL which will be the most challenging part of changing the school name.

Some older material may never get the rebranding treatment as it is just not worth our time to go through every single power point and lecture just to change a word. Please bear with us as we make this transition.

On a personal note, I am excited about the change. It is just one step closer to this school being what I now envision it as. An online technical school that teaches valuable skills at low cost and offers a globally accepted certification as proof of your hard work. We are still a long way from that dream, but I am certain with your continued support, we will get there sooner rather than later.
EP 44: วิเคราะห์ Edtech ไทย สู้ตลาดโลก 2021
By: Nut P
Tags: Edtech, Analysis, Technology, Thai, Startup

MedEd

"For effective result' Today we have not stopped developing and creating tools to help manage the course scheduling…
The Top 13 Most Promising Edtech Startups
By: Natalie Koltunova
Tags: Startup, Edtech Startup, Edtech, Technology

Brand-new startups and pioneers have the upper hand in the educational sector. They can set trends and create demand. They are pushing and boosting the modern market and gaining wide popularity among learning institutions more and more.

Forward-looking startups always try to solve common problems through market pain points or to predict what is going to be in demand or what niches no one has ever filled before. Here I came up with a list of 13 most promising edtech startups who survived in the harsh conditions of competition and withstood all challenges!

Read the full article: http://bit.ly/2KxvbUm
5 Lessons We Learned About Tech In 2020
Tags: Life Lessons, Fintech, Covid 19, Technology, Edtech

4. Soft skills will be more valuable

In pre-pandemic times, managers would frequently check-in with either their team members or customers whether that be through meetings, email, or a video or conference call. Now that remote work will be a permanent feature of our lives, it is important for us to better convey emotion and empathy through technology as well as understand non-verbal cues. Great communicators are good at listening and skilled at explaining priorities, expectations, and opportunities.

Put simply, it’s important that leaders account for what they’re saying and when they’re saying it.

5. Innovation will only speed up

Agile development is certainly not a product of Covid, but now, software cycles will be defined by months or weeks, not years. Organizations will have to think about developing flexible platforms — especially if they’re customer-facing — that can be used broadly, can deliver a quick ROI, can adapt quickly to consumer feedback or changing market demand, and can deliver immediate results. The business value must be clear and the path to getting to a rapid development cycle must be demonstrated.

Leaders must be clear about their priorities. They will have to make tough choices on whether they should focus on digitizing their customer experience immediately or if they should create a new customer business model, for example. But a digital workflow can boost productivity and make the most out of limited resources, especially during an economic downturn like our present one.
Hope cannot be the plan for success
By: Anup Deshpande
Tags: Education Technology, Edtech Tools, Education, Edtech Startup, Edtech

40% of students drop out of higher education in the very first year around the world. This is bad for the students, bad for the school, and bad for the entire economy. Trackegy, Inc fixes this.

Current Education software is not enough to fix the problem. The key education providers lose 40% revenues due to student dropouts. Students have different learning patterns. One size doesn’t fit all. Classes are inflexible and Static. Instructors don’t get enough feedback to improve their classes and teaching styles to address student needs. This makes businesses suffer revenue losses.

Trackegy provides an opportunity to add ⅓ of their existing revenues by providing focus and engagement to students and improvement ideas to instructors. This helps student retention with increased revenues and a higher level of education.

Traditionally, Teachers teach the students, and the students learn online or in the class. Students form their own study patterns, study accordingly, and hope to graduate. This product enables students to practice the study material and get beneficial metrics and AI-based guidance. Teachers get feedback on their content and teaching from the tool depending on student interaction.

Students get personalized guidance to change their study pattern to boost their progress, focus on the right topics, and deadlines to keep track of. Instructors get insights on how students learn and get guidance on industry and locational averages. Businesses get better results from students and provide an improved experience to their students and instructors, thus making happier trainers and satisfied students.

We are building out a customer pipeline at this time. If this intrigues you as an education provider, a teacher/instructor, or as a student, please feel free to contact us at support@trackegy.com.

My name is Anup Deshpande. I am the co-founder and the CEO of Trackegy, Inc. I have 25 years of technology experience blended with leading Agile transformation at various fortune 150 organizations. I have been teaching for 8 years at various universities and have experience running my own company for certification prep classes.

Mohan Govardhanan is a co-founder and Chief Technology Officer who specializes in product development. He has experience leading software teams primarily in the ERP, PDM & Retail sectors. He has a team of 5 full-time engineers.

Sonali Kimsen is a co-founder and Business Development Officer who comes with vast experience leading a business development team at Intel for more than 2 decades.
The need of practical skill training for commerce students in India
By: Ca Hardik Dave
Tags: Education In India, Education, Practicalskills, Career In Commerce, Edtech

Working at a consulting firm in the day time and taking lectures in the evening or working in the consulting firm at the consulting firm on weekends whereas, taking lectures on weekend …this has been my simple routine for the past 5 years.

My biggest observation that I have made in these 5 years is that there is a huge gap in what is being taught to the students in the college vis a vis what is needed in the practical world.

In fact, this gap between classroom learning and the need for industry-specific practical training is so real that the student feels frustrated when they join their first job and realize that they do not know the work to be done in that office and the things that have been studying for several past years in colleges is completely outdated.

I would keep my discussion very specific for the commerce students attending degree courses in India. At the college level, students pursue degree courses such as B. Com, BAF, and BMS for graduation. Now, these courses are purely theoretical and have no reference to the work that you would need to do in the practical world.

A commerce student usually get placed in industries like consulting firm, stockbroking firm, banks, insurance companies, marketing companies, HR firms etc. right ?

Don’t you think that each of these industries has its different working culture and you would need to specifically groom yourself with the right skill to be able to find a good job?

Question is, how do you train yourself with such the right skill that can groom yourself for the practical world?

This is exactly the objective with which we have launched our education startup — Jott It.

We are an Ed-tech company that offers academic and practical skill courses for the commerce students. The goal is to bridge the gap between the skills possessed by students at the time of graduating vis a vis the skills expected by the practical world.

To achieve that goal, we offer:

► Academic Courses –Academic courses comprising of concise video lectures, study material, and compilation of MCQs which would help you to gain necessary conceptual clarity for the subjects and prepare for the exams very comfortably. The objective is reducing the amount of time, money, and efforts that you need to prepare for the college exams and help you channelize them to groom yourself for the practical world.

► Practical Courses — Do you want to work with a top consulting firm? or a stockbroking firm or marketing, HR, or stock-broking firms or a bank or insurance company? But not sure, whether they would hire you? Well, don’t worry! We have these industry-specific practical skill courses that train you for the work to be done in these offices as well as the necessary inter-personal & business writing skills.

You can download the application from Google Playstore as well as Apple Store.

Do let me know what you think we can do better to groom our students and train them for the practical world.
Interviewed by Finnemore Consulting
By: Graham Reed
Tags: Mis, Edtech, Interview

December 2020: I sat down (virtually) with another stalwart of the EdTech sector, Nick Finnemore of Finnemore Consulting, to discuss the MIS market, EdTech payments, the rise of the Big 8 and what inspired me to start Omega Pegasus…

Nick spent many a year in the upper echelons of Capita (SIMS), where he and I interacted far too many times. We sat down in December 2020 to talk about the MIS Challenge (Stats), and what inspired me to start the project. We chat about the MIS sector in general and what the future looks like, including the rise of the ‘Big 8’ corporations who are hoovering up all the MIS and other vendors in the market.

We also talk about Payments within EdTech. Most interestingly of all, and an important note, is this was filmed just DAYS before the big announcement of Montegu purchasing Capita SIMS (their whole education unit in fact) AND the investment into ParentPay! Which is really interesting to see just how much was predicted!

Another article covers this news in more detail: SIMS, NuMIS and The Big 8

The interview includes exclusive details of some other projects also in the mix!

Full interview below:
Webinar: 3 Ways a Tablet Can Energize Your Digital Teaching @khanacademy @wacom @TeachWithKhan
By: Stacey Roshan
Tags: Flipped Classroom, Edtech, Remote Learning, Education

I am excited to share the recorded version of my webinar, hosted by Khan Academy & Wacom. In this webinar, I focus on the following topics:

You can catch the recording on YouTube here:

Here are the session slides, with many more resources to click and dig deeper into the solution that will work best for you based on tools you are already using in your classroom.
How to develop an online photography school?
Tags: Website Development, Edtech, Edtech Startup, Elearning, Photography

The photography school is the first edtech project in Russia to teach photography. Its main idea is convenient online photography courses with quick feedback on assignments from teachers. The founder of the school is businessman Arkady Akulov. Once he himself got carried away with photography and could not find a training course for himself: classes were held offline on a rigid schedule, which was inconvenient for him.

Then Arkady applied his experience in launching digital products and launched a distance learning platform. To develop the product, he invited a team that had previously worked on a related Prophotos project — we were part of it.

The scaling of such a product had to be thought out right away because tens of thousands of users are needed to pay the project off. The minimum viable product in this case was not a video recording of the course, but the first version of the Learning Management System (LMS).

The client’s team with our help had to create and launch a classic educational product from scratch with functions for two groups of users — students and teachers.

Students had to register, choose and pay for courses themselves, take video lessons, upload homework results, and receive feedback. Teachers had to see the work of their students to be able to comment on them and explain what could be improved.



In 1 year we launched Fotoshkola.net — a classic online learning platform built in Ruby / Ruby on Rails with the main LMS features. Read the full case study on our website.
Dos principios de KPI que nos ayudaron a incrementar nuestros resultados en 200%
Tags: Business Development, Kpi, Business, Skyeng Global, Edtech

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Digital Pedagogies & Project-Based Learning
By: Sarah N. Walker
Tags: Teaching, Digital Pedagogy, Project Based Learning, Ideas For Education, Edtech

Photo by Octavian Dan on Unsplash

When students hear the word “project”, it may fill them with panic or irritation. But how can we make projects more interesting as educators? The answer is simple: Project-Based Learning.

Rather than having a group of students present a PowerPoint they put together the night before, let them do something. Assign a project that has them engaged and learning new skills they may find useful. Give them access to new and exciting digital tools that they can use in a project that you give them ample time to complete, and see what they manage to create.

Utilizing your TPACK (Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge) you can help your students find and master new tools and skills afforded to us by the technical age we live.

A great example of a possible PBL that ties in with my area of specialty, English Language Arts, would be as follows:

Instead of having student teams write a book report at the end of the year, student teams are to take an assigned reading (such as a book we read and discussed in the first semester) and make some sort of content for their peers to consume based on it. They can make a student short film, rewrite the story as a play and perform it as an podcast, animate a chapter, etc. The point is to produce something for their peers that is consumable and distributable.

These are all options that I have some form of experience with or have some sort of knowledge that I can use to help them as needed or point them into the right direction (i.e. I know of free script-writing applications, how to use video editors like Adobe Premiere, where they can record a podcast and how to do so, and I have experience with and enjoyed doing all of these things myself when I was in school).

Photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash

The best part about this proposed project is that at the end of the project I can take all the films, plays, and podcasts they made and distribute them back to the students on DVDs that they can take home and share with their family — this is something my high school A/V teacher did for us at the end of the year, and it’s something I still treasure to this day.
Content Curation & Your Blog
By: Sarah N. Walker
Tags: Mockup, Class Blog, Content Curation, Edtech

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

The Class Site or Class Blog is the perfect space to curate appropriate content for your students related to current or future units. At the moment my blog has combination of content curated for my students: examples of PBL paths they can take (podcast or digital storytelling) as well as book recommendations (which I feel is my duty as an English teacher); and content curated for fellow teachers: examples of EdTech that can be utilized in this classroom (such as this post, here!).

But content curation is also about information collection, and in cases such as PBLs, where students need multiple resources, there is no better way to share curated content than on your blog! Content curation apps/extensions like Diigo are useful for gathering and compiling information, but once you’ve done that the only thing left you can really do is share the link to the compiled resources (called an Outliner by Diigo). But how do you give your students access to this Outliner in a place where they can easily find and access it? Sure you could give them a slip of paper with the link written on it (but what if they misplace it?) or you could email it to them or a parent (but what if that email gets deleted or buried under junk mail?).

The best place for it is the place that isn’t going to disappear, and a place that students already have access to: your classroom blog!

Here is the blog post I made for my Outliner: https://snw83.medium.com/pbl-project-student-resources-for-community-pbl-87fd1ad171c3
What will liberate the next billion?
By: Subhadeep Bhattacharyya
Tags: Sdgs, Edtech, Change, Education, Startup

Swami Vivekananda said, “ Education is the manifestation of perfection already in human beings”.

In the centre of the development narrative for the world, is the issue of poverty and resulting inequality — an issue that goes back aeons.

It’s widely established that mass education is one of the surest ways to pull people out of poverty. So why does poverty, inequality and global tensions stemming from unequal progress still persist after so many decades of global efforts?

After thinking deeply about this for a really long time, I have come to the conclusion that the model of education that we widely envisage and apply has a fundamental flaw. Maybe, after all, it’s not so much of a skilling problem, as much it’s a manifestation problem.

Let me explain …

The current education system deeply assumes that people know nothing. So it focuses on grades and certificates, curriculum and tactical technicalities. It weaves not just a primary and higher education system built on these low-ROI beliefs — but also a continuous learning system that spans edtechs and learning for adults too now which is constantly reminding people of the next thing they don’t know and monetizing that insecurity. The current process does very little to build strong will, minds that can weather uncertainties, risk-taking, self-confidence, fearlessness, etc.

Quoting Vivekananda again “All the wealth of the world cannot help one little Indian village if the people are not taught to help themselves”

A critical step to survive the future and reboot humanity will be educating our education system to shift the focus on building the mind from building herds in the name of education.

“No more weeping, but stand on your feet and be men. It is a man (woman)-making religion that we want. It is man(woman)-making theories that we want. It is man(woman)-making education all round that we want “ Swami Vivekananda

Your thoughts?

Prayers for the planet.

#edtech #impacttech #vivekananda #futurism
Türkiye’de bir girişimin 2020 hikayesi — 1: Neler oldu?
Tags: Girişimcilik, Edtech, Education, Türkçe, Startup

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ถอดบทเรียนโครงการที่ทำเพื่อพัฒนาการศึกษาไทย WE Pioneer: Explore you goal รู้จักตัวเอง มุ่งสู่อาชีพในฝัน
By: Natcha Komolthiti
Tags: Edtech, Startup, Education

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