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Friday, 12 April 2013
Instructure Launches App Center To Let Teachers, Students Install Third-Party Apps Across Learning Platforms
Props are owed to companies like Blackboard and Moodle for being early movers in the educational software space, particularly in helping catalyze innovation in learning management systems (LMS). The problem is, of course, they began over a decade ago and there haven’t exactly been a flurry of raving reviews since. The Salt Lake City-based Instructure launched Canvas in 2011 to give colleges and universities an alternative.
Like Moodle, Instructure designed Canvas to be open source to let third-parties contribute to create more rapid development and bug fixes, while going one step further by avoiding Flash, offering a mobile product, APIs and scalable hosting. But the problem is that EdTech has yet to become an ecosystem, CEO Josh Coates says, and integrations and APIs are few and far between.
Meanwhile, schools want to know what learning tools are out there, but they don’t want to do the work themselves. So, Instructure is today announcing Canvas App Center — an app library build into its LMS that allows teachers, administrators and students to install third-party apps with one click. Instructure’s independent open apps site is available today, and offers 100 apps, including WordPress, Khan Academy, Dropbox and Evernote. But the company will release the final product — an app center that is actually built into Canvas — in June.
The apps are free to install, though some may require a subscription with the publisher or vendor, but Instructure won’t be brokering that relationship in any way — or taking a commission, Coates says. The company designed its new App Center to help teachers and students personalize the learning experience, providing an easy way to find, install, rate and review apps. The other nifty feature of the App Center is that includes an algorithm that recommends apps based on user preference, the institution and their previous activity.
Today, more than five million teachers and students at over 350 institutions use Canvas as their LMS, which immediately provides scale to the App Center and gives those third-parties a whole new distribution system and potential audience. They also have to be compelled by the fact that Instructure won’t be taking commissions on App Center installs — as will schools. The less teachers and schools have to worry about pricing and cost, the less friction there is, the more installs.
Business-wise, it may not seem like the best strategy, but Coates says that Instructure is focused on building an educational platform — not a one-dimensional product, but a service that includes integrations, APIs, a community and an ecosystem. That’s why the company has made its open library LTI extensions available to the public — now any third-party can add apps to the open resource which should work in most learning management systems.
How many other educational software providers can say that? Not many. InBloom is trying to do this for educational data, but they’re a non-profit, almost a consortium of public/private/startup interests. But it’s unusual for a for-profit company to take the high road like this, but it’s the right move for education to help create an ecosystem — if all the parties involved in education could ever make a decision.
A perfect example: Here’s open educational data initiative InBloom. Here’s a description of people/parents not even being able to agree on InBloom. Yes, startups, someone in education will fight you and the medicine you’re trying to put down its throat. Smile and do it anyway.
“We want to tear down the walled garden that has plagued the LMS market,” Instructure co-founder and CPO Brian Whitmer said. “Third party integrations have existed, but they’ve required the IT
department to make them work. With Canvas App Center, we want to let anyone install an app with one click and begin personalizing their learning experience with these tools.”
I’m sure someone will find a reason to object, though. Because, hey, no good deed goes unpunished. Especially in education.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/vqiiqPZQHoU/
Editorial: Self-driving cars FTW, but not for everybody
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Facebook Home hits Google Play today, available for select Android devices
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Facebook Home Available for Download
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How Wireless Carriers Monetize Your Movements
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Twitter Music Site Goes Live, Teases Imminent Launch
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Best-selling author Daniel H. Wilson on naming robotic villains and high-end gaming PCs
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TSMC narrows production of 16nm FinFET chips to late 2013, wants 10nm in 2015
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Verizon upgrade eligibility extends to a full two years, New Every Two credits expire April 15th
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UK investigates in-app purchases for possible consumer law violations
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Enterprise Specialist Rally Software Raises $84M In IPO As Shares Pop 28%, Now Trading At $18
Rally Software today became the latest enterprise software specialist to go public, and in its debut today on the NYSE, shares jumped 28 percent to around $18/share. The Boulder Colorado-based company, which specializes in agile project management software, priced its 6 million shares at $14, raising $84 million at a valuation of $315 million.
Shares popped more than 28 percent in the first hour of trading, under the ticker RALY, and the stock is now trading around $18/share. That brings valuation to around $401 million.
In March, Rally had originally priced the IPO at $11 to $13 for 5.75 million shares but expanded the offering. Deutsche Bank and Piper Jaffray led the offering.
Rally’s products let businesses implement agile software development and lean practices to speed up the rate of innovation and increase agility in the software development process. As CEO Tim Miller explained it, “if you’re a developer, Rally is the first place you log in in the morning. It’s how you know what you have to work on that day, how you pull your work down, pass it along to somebody else. It’s there for the whole process,” he said.
According to the company’s S-1 filing, it has over 1,000 customers, 34 of which are Fortune 100 companies, and there are 168,562 paid users on the service. Big name customers include Intel, Disney, Oracle, McGraw-Hill, and eBay.
The company has continued to grow revenue, from $29.7 million in 2011 to $41.3 million in 2012, a 39 percent jump. Total sales grew again in 2013 to $56.8 million, a 38 percent YOY growth rate. However, this hasn’t been enough to save Rally from yearly losses. In 2013, net losses were at $10.8 million ending January 31.
Rally has raised nearly $70 million since inception in 2001 from VCs like Mohr Davidow Ventures, Greylock, Boulder Ventures, among others. Along the way, Rally has picked up a number of acquisitions including AgileZen, Flowdock, and Agile Adventures.
Miller told TechCrunch in an interview that it plans to use the money raised in the IPO to “increase financial flexibility, continue to invest in growing the business organically (both domestically and internationally), invest in the sales force, and product development.”
Miller also mentioned that the company will continue to make acquisitions along the way as it grows the business.
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Facebook Messenger for Android updated with chat head support
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Don’t Blame Windows 8 for All PC Sales Woes
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Engadget Podcast 339 - 04.12.13
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Russia plans over $50 billion in space spending by 2020, eyes space weapon deterrent by 2030
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PSA: Pick up your T-Mobile iPhone 5 today
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Chinese Scammers Turn Fake iPhones Into Real Ones
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Google and T-Mobile are streaming Coachella live on YouTube April 12th - 14th
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Next-gen mobile Kepler graphics demoed, said to make current tablet games look like 'vintage 1999' (video)
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Distro Issue 86: The return of Roku's simple set-top box
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«Modernos», siguiente nivel: hacerle fotos para Instagram a la comida de los demás
Esta jocosa broma de Hungry consiste en ir por los restaurantes pidiendo a la gente permiso para hacer una foto de su comida, con la excusa de «es que es para subirla a Instagram».
Mike, Mike, ¡tráete el foco! … Qué, ¿A que ha quedado bien, eh? ¿Y qué filtro te apetece que le ponga, el Early Bird, el Hudson, quizá el X-Pro II…?
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/humor/modernos-siguiente-nivel.html
Injectable Electronics Light Up the Brain
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7 Responsive Design Tips to Revamp Your Workflow
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Rockmelt says goodbye to its social web browser, says hello to Rockmelt for Web
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NYPD now has Android smartphone arsenal to pull up records, identify perps
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¿Están los caminantes de The Walking Dead legalmente muertos o legalmente vivos?
Médica y legalmente es relevante el hecho de que el cerebro de un caminante aún funcione, aunque sólo sea el tronco del encéfalo y algunas otras partes "básicas".
En la mayoría de los Estados [de EE UU] la muerte legal se define por una versión de la Uniform Determination of Death Act, que establece que una personas está muerta cuando «hay un cese irreversible de las funciones circulatorias y respiratorios, o cuando hay un cese irreverseible de todas las funciones del cerebro, incluyendo las del tronco encefálico».
Si no fuera porque el corazón y los pulmones de los caminantes no funcionan los caminantes se podrían considerar legalmente vivos. Pero como en cambio están legalmente muertos no hay esperanza de hacerles responsables de las muertes que causen, ni por lo penal ni por lo civil.
El artículo está escrito por psiquiatras y abogados y desde tales ópticas considera distintos aspectos que rodean la situación narrada en la serie. Por ejemplo, con la ley en la mano los vivos, aún actuando con sus mejores intenciones «serían duramente juzgados» por muchos de sus actos, caso de las muertes por compasión para evitar que alguien que está a punto de morir se convierta en un caminante.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/peliculas-tv/caminantes-the-walking-dead-legalmente-muertos-legalmente-vivos.html
Tiny DARPA chip has six-axis inertial guidance for military GPS backup
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O2 Refresh plans split service and handset charges for easy upgrades
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Lovefilm users get One Tree Hill, The West Wing and other Warner Bros TV serials
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Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Electric Drive test-driven, quietly tears up the track (video)
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Nintendo to retire Wii network services in Japan, including the Weather Channel
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GTA radio brings its broadcasts to iTunes and Spotify
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Ya puedes ordenar qué ocurrirá con tu cuenta de Google cuando hayas muerto
Inactive Account Manager permite definir el plazo de inactividad a partir del cual Goolge iniciará la ejecución de tus deseos.
Antes de que llegue la fecha Google enviará notificaciones por correo.
Si no recibe la orden contraria, no hay respuesta o sigue sin haber actividad en la cuenta entonces procederá a la ejecución del plan según las preferencias del usuario, que puede incluir notificar a contactos e incluso enviarles tus de datos almacenados en Google y/o que sean eliminados.
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/internet/puedes-ordenar-que-ocurrira-cuenta-google-hayas-muerto.html
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