Robert Hunt of Studyladder

Few people in the UK edtech community will ever have heard of Robert Hunt, who died unexpectedly last November. I was lucky enough to meet Rob and his wife Audrey several years ago in Sydney when they had taken over StudyLadder from its founders (two teachers). Rob, was born in New Zealand and started his […]

6 years ago Education More
 

BETT(er)!

BETT can be a love hate dynamic. I love going and seeing new ideas and people but I hate the schlep to Excel, the usurious food and drink prices and the petty bureaucracy ,etc. This year I decided to take it easy and to do what I tell everyone else not to – freelance the […]

6 years ago Education More
 

Draft text from my keynote at 2nd Education Innovation Africa Conference Nairobi June 2016

This is the outline text from the speech I gave in Nairobi in June. The actual speech was much shorter (just 5 key points) but I’ve been asked to post the full version several times and thought it would be a good use of time while stuck in my sick bed yet again over the […]

6 years ago Education More
 

Edtech Exits

Exits in edtech are complicated. and vary widely from intra-investor share sales (often before Series A), share swaps (generally a bad idea), trade sales, listing (high unlikely) and occasionally there might even be some cash (normally tied to impossible earnout targets). Characteristics It’s generally a very illiquid market Changing priorities for investors (portfolios, time horizons […]

6 years ago Education More
 

The stupidity of crowds

Would you let a crowd decide how to operate on your cancerous lesion/child’s appendix, etc? Never, yet I constantly hear references in the tech community to ‘the wisdom of crowds’. When I was a young jackaroo I spent too much time (in my view) herding and counting sheep. Sheep can seem rather stupid and unpredictable, […]

6 years ago Education More
 

Twitter storm

Dismay is an understatement at the faux outrage generated by the BBC story about Tring School requiring parents’ buy for ChromeBooks. I saw the story from a Twitter post from Tom Bennett, someone I really admire in the education ecosystem. Tom’s line is that that Tring’s plan was, ’clearly discriminatory’, and with over 30,000 followers […]

7 years ago Education More
 

What links a Pension Ponzi Scheme & our EU vote?

For years I have battled with educators and others who see no role for the for-profit sector in education. When I point out that without it they’d be teaching in a local park or leading their class by writing with a stick, they almost get the idea, but what clinches it is when I challenge […]

7 years ago Education More
 

Does edtech really work?

I hear and read constantly that edtech doesn’t work. I agree, but for different reasons. First, let’s set the scene. My knowledge is about edtech in the UK; specifically England. In this market the government has spent (rather than invested) billions of pounds, most of which has been completely wasted. My metric for failure is […]

7 years ago Education More
 

Are private schools businesses?

Three years ago I said the business model of most independent schools was either broken or unsustainable. My thesis was that most private schools were inefficiently run because of several factors including: asset heavy structures inflexible delivery modes – low pupil teacher ratios also equals labour inefficiency approach to IP – instantly created and consumed […]

7 years ago Education More
 

Academisation

Education is a political football – as whoever is in office tries to push through reforms based on their ideological perspectives, irrespective of what’s gone before or the impact on schools. In edtech this has led (in the UK and elsewhere) to waves of edtech ‘revolutions’ most of which have failed dismally and at great […]

7 years ago Education More