Education Week - October 29, 2014 - 9

won an award at the 2013 Games
for Change conference, an annual
event in New York City that recognizes
digital games that show social
impact. Another grantee, the New
York City-based Teachley, won a
2014 award for design from Apple
for coming up with a math app for
K-2 students and related tools for
educators.
Taking Ideas to Market
Many applicants to the SBIR program
fall into either of two camps,
Mr. Metz said. The first are entrepreneurs
who have a business strategy
but haven't developed a plan for
researching and evaluating their
products. The other is made up of
academic researchers who want to
shape an idea or piece of scholarship
into a product and need help with
business strategy.
One recent participant in the program
who aligns more closely with
the second category is Kara Carpenter,
the co-founder of Teachley,
a company that helps schools use
app data to drive instruction. Ms.
Carpenter had begun developing a
prototype of the product as part of
her Ph.D. dissertation in cognition
and learning at Teachers College,
Columbia University, along with two
peers from the same program.
Teachley tries to build interest
in its product through the word-ofmouth
testimony of educators who
have used its apps and can persuade
administrators and others making
purchasing decisions to buy it, Ms.
INVESTING
IN ED TECH
This year's class of
awardees through the
Small Business Innovation
Research program is focused
on developing a range of
commercial K-12 products. Some
have received money to cover
several phases of their work,
while others are only beginning.
A few examples:
SOCRATIVE LEARNING
NETWORK
$134,049
Developing a prototype for a website
for teachers to collaborate on and
crowdsource assessment questions.
The network will support Socrative's
existing 1,000,000 registered teachers
in creating, improving, rating,
sharing, searching for, and discussing
assessment questions.
ESPARK LEARNING
$149,549
ESpark Learning works with schools to
provide students with curated playlists
of iPad apps, videos, and assessments.
The project is developing a prototype for
eSparkBeat, a "dynamic dashboard"
with automated teacher alerts to
provide content and resources tailored
to educators' classroom needs.
Carpenter said. The federal grant
money helped the company make
significant strides in defining its
products.
"We were able to take a dry, 'reATTAINMENT
COMPANY,
INC.
$899,966
Offering instruction in English/
language arts to students with severe
intellectual disabilities and autism.
The project is developing tablet- and
app-based technology to provide ageappropriate
content and strategies
designed to help middle school
students with severe disabilities meet
common-core standards in English/
language arts.
SOKIKOM
$1,050,000
Sokikom is a game-based learning
platform to help teachers and
students master math associated
with the common-core standards.
The project is developing a platform
for teachers and a full digital math
curriculum using the company's
previously developed learning games.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education
searchy' prototype ... and turn it
into a product that was appealing to
teachers and kids," Ms. Carpenter
said. "It allows us to transition from
academia to industry."
But some look askance at the government's
role in guiding those sorts
of transitions.
The struggle to bring products
into the marketplace takes entrepreneurs-in
education, energy, and
other fields-through a "valley of
death," which weeds out the ones that
are not meant to last in the private
sector, says Nicolas Loris, a senior policy
analyst at the Heritage Foundation,
a Washington think tank. Those
who make it can arrive at a "valley of
wealth," he said. Having taxpayers
bankroll this or that project distorts
the process, he argues.
"I don't think government involvement
in trying to commercialize
technology or play investment
banker makes sense," Mr. Loris said.
Because the SBIR'S existence was
mandated by law, there was a temptation
to regard its work as more of
a "responsibility to be fulfilled" for
the Institute of Education Sciences,
rather than an office that could
drive innovation, said Grover J.
"Russ" Whitehurst, who directed the
institute during President George
W. Bush's administration.
A program like the SBIR can help
bring promising ideas into the
school market, though the best programs
focused on K-12 should also
be sufficiently "fleet of foot" to give
government officials the flexibility to
finance potentially transformational
technologies, Mr. Whitehurst said.
When Mr. Whitehurst led the IES
from 2002 to 2008, institute officials
were concerned about not getting
enough good SBIR applicants, he recalled.
But
Mr. Metz points out that the
program is now luring consistently
strong businesses, and that participation
has evolved to reflect changes
in the K-12 industry. For instance,
he said the SBIR is now drawing
more of the game developers working
to bring entertaining, and in
some cases, visually dazzling tools
to teachers, students, and families.
One of those program participants
is Pittsburgh-based Schell Games,
which won a grant this year to develop
Happy Atoms, a set of physical
pieces that let students build molecules
and use a camera smartphone
to scan and identify the molecules
they have built.
Normally, creating that game
might have taken the company five
years or more, said Jesse Schell, the
company's CEO, but the business-innovation
award will greatly accelerate
that time frame.
Winning the award also imbues
the company with "a certain credibility,"
he added, that distinguishes
its product from a crowd clamoring
for school officials' attention.
"It's done a huge amount for our
confidence," Mr. Schell said. "It's
made us braver in getting this
started."
lyn, also expressed concerns about
the uneven enforcement of the cellphone
policy. But her primary concern,
she said, is safety.
"It's important for parents to be
able to reach their children" Ms.
Boyd said, noting that many students
in her neighborhood commute
to school without cellphones. "I have
friends whose children have to take
trains to school. Many of them live
in unsafe neighborhoods, where
being able to reach their children is
really necessary."
Changing Attitudes
But Rashid Davis, the founding
principal of Pathways in Technology
Early College High School, or P-Tech,
in Brooklyn, has very different concerns
about safety and cellphones.
"My concern is the safety for students
traveling to and from school
with expensive devices," Mr. Davis
said. "It may be safe to walk around
with your iPhone out in Manhattan,
but in some parts of central Brooklyn,
you could easily be assaulted for
having those devices."
Even though one of the primary
goals of P-Tech is to prepare students
to work in the technology industry,
when students enter the school
through metal detectors each morning,
they are effectively prevented
from bringing cellphones on school
property. Once they enter school,
they have access to school-provided
technology.
Mr. Davis said he is grateful for
the ban, and believes the move to
overturn it will be disruptive to
teaching and learning.
"Educators will be spending more
time fighting with children about
not using their devices," Mr. Davis
predicted, "and that means lost instructional
time."
Mr. Davis is not alone in his apprehension
regarding cellphones in
schools.
But Peter Grunwald, the president
of the research group Grunwald
Associates LLC, said he believes
attitudes are evolving toward
greater acceptance of allowing student
cellphones in schools.
Grunwald and Associates, along
with the Learning First Alliance and
AT&T, published a report last year
entitled "Living and Learning with
Mobile Devices," which details parent
attitudes toward mobile devices for
early-childhood and K-12 learning.
The report revealed a relatively
high level of support from parents
regarding the instructional potential
of cellphones, with over half of
parents saying that schools should
make more use of the devices. Keith
R. Krueger, the CEO of the Consortium
for School Networking, said
that over the past five years, many
school districts across the country
have adjusted their cellphone policies
to reflect those changing attitudes.
"Many
places for the last number
of years have been allowing students
to use cellphones in between
classes or at recess," Mr. Krueger
said. "But it wasn't really used for
instructional purposes, and I think
that while we're still at a relatively
early stage, that's changing rapidly."
13749_12-ST_EdWk_BV_10-29.indd 1
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Education Week - October 29, 2014

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