Comment by whytaka | Hacker News Reader

Comment by whytaka | Hacker News Reader

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This is what our startup is doing. We are developing an online publishing platform for shareable and reusable learning activities where the educator can ask for specific formats in their students' response. Some of which can be auto-graded. The aim is to have a crowdsourced global repository of reusable activities that teachers can curate and push to their class so that their role is less in the introduction of material and more in ironing out the difficulties.

We have plenty of encouraging success stories from our expansion in Quebec and we aim to reproduce the same model in the English world. I'd be very pleased if you would take a look.

http://www.ChallengeU.com - our new brand to revamp ourselves in the English market

http://www.Didacti.org - our current brand

http://www.Didacti.com - our current app. Still very much a beta.

I believe I have seen some people speak of their own startups here before but I've never been clear on the rules about 'self-promotion'. Kindly let me know if I have committed a foul.

Hi yutaka, good to meet you again on the Interwebs (we met at pycon).

Can you tell us more about the "learning activities" are like? Is it all interactive demos and quiz questions or are lessons? Are the lessons specifically aligned to some standard (e.g. CCSS, see http://www.nctm.org/canadiancorrelations/ for Canadian equivalents).

And about the company, do students pay? Do teachers who have produced the activities get paid?

RE self promotion, from my experience, slef.plug()s are OK on HN, especially if they are on topic (like yours).

Oh wow, hi! Fancy running into you here! I hope you enjoyed Montreal!

To answer your questions:

Other than moderating for inappropriate content, the learning activities are whatever teachers think is useful. Whether it's aligned with curriculum standards is to the teacher's discretion. However, that being said, a month ago in Quebec we had a 'congress' of teachers from all around the province gather to create content with other teachers of similar disciplines, with the blessing of their respective schools and school boards. We are planning many more of these assemblies and we are developing a partnership with the province to encourage teachers to create content that's closely aligned with the provincial curriculum.

When we have a commanding audience in the US, we will reach out to whomever to aid us in creating or curating CCSS related material.

As for our company, students do not pay and teachers are not paid. (At least not by us.) Teachers' content will always be marked with their authorship giving proper credit where it's due and we have faith that great teachers will teach. Our hope is that teachers will find joy in witnessing the reach of their wisdom and that other teachers will share their wisdom in turn, so that everyone wins. Especially the student.

Our platform is always free to use for individuals and we only charge schools or school boards when we set up private portals for greater privacy controls. We also provide training and strong customer support for paying organizations.

I hope that answers your questions! I'd be happy to take more here (if it's appropriate) or at ytakahashi@challengeu.com!

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