A few folks have asked me to elaborate on why I think LinkedIn is the most interesting—and possibly the most consequential—company in ed tech. Imagine that you wanted to do a longitudinal study of how students from a particular college do in their careers, or the effect of social media for brick and mortar in […]
LinkedIn: I Told You So (Sorta)
In December 2012, I tweeted: https://twitter.com/mfeldstein67/status/276406235564220416 At the time, Coursera was the darling of online ed startups. Since then, it has lost its way somewhat, while Lynda.com has taken off like a rocket. Which is probably one big reason why LinkedIn chose to acquire Lynda.com (rather than Coursera) for $1.5 billion. I still think it’s […]
LinkedIn Releases College Ranking Service
I have long thought that LinkedIn has the potential to be one of the most transformative companies in ed tech for one simple reason: They have far more cross-institutional longitudinal outcomes data than anybody else—including government agencies. Just about anybody else who wants access to career path information of graduates across universities would face major […]
Say What? Buzzfeed follows up on D2L story with solid reporting
In a post last month I questioned the growth claims that D2L was pushing to the media based on their recent massive funding round. A key part of the article was pointing out the lack of real reporting from news media. It is worth noting that not a single media outlet listed by EDUKWEST or […]
D2L raises $85 million but growth claims defy logic
Yesterday D2L announced a second round of investment, this time raising $85 million (a mix of debt and equity) to go with their $80 million round two years ago (see EDUKWEST for a useful roundup of news and article links). While raising $165 million is an impressive feat, does this funding give us new information on […]
An Employee View of Textbook Publishers and Ed Tech Companies
Update: For reference, 2U has pointed out to me that they were recently recognized by Glassdoor as the 17th-best medium-sized company to work for in 2014. With an average score of 4.2 (based on 21 reviews), this puts them on top of the other ed tech companies discussed here. The only other education company on the Glassdoor […]