Author: IBL News

IBL News | New York

EdTech company Anthology announced this week it sold the Blackboard K-12 Community Engagement division (“Blackboard K-12”), which includes Blackboard Web Community Manager, Blackboard Connect, Blackboard Reach, Blackboard Mass Notifications, and the Blackboard Mobile Communications App.

The transaction amount wasn’t disclosed.

The buyer was Finalsite, a Glastonbury, Connecticut – based website, marketing, and communications software provider for K–12 schools. After the deal, Finalsite holds a client base of 7,000 schools and districts across 115 countries.

Jon Moser, Finalsite’s Founder and CEO, said that “acquisition brings together the brightest minds in K-12 edtech, accelerating transformative improvements in everything from our product development to our customer service.”

In May 2022, Anthology sold Blackboard Collaborate to Class Technologies (Class.com) for $210 million. The private equity firms that currently own Anthology, Veritas Capital, and Leeds Equity Partners seem to follow a strategy based on selling assets of the old Blackboard.

In the PR announcement, the company said that the sale of Blackboard K-12 “enables Anthology to continue its accelerated investment in Blackboard Learn Ultra, Anthology Student, and other areas of the business where Anthology can provide significant value to the global education community.”

IBL News | New York

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced this month that it will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in its drivers’ education.

“Investing in our DSPs (Delivery Service Partners)— means that we are continuing to invest in communities nationwide. I can’t wait to see the future success stories of what these drivers achieve,” said Parisa Sadrzadeh, Vice president of Amazon’s Worldwide Delivery Service Partner Program.

The instrument used by Amazon will be an academic program called Next Mile, that will provide drivers employed by participating DSPs with up to $5,250 per year to access around 1,700 academic programs, including bachelor and associate degrees, skill certifications, and high school completion courses.

In addition, Amazon will add a 401(k) by providing an estimated $60 million over the first year to help these small business owners match employee contributions.

“These new benefits from leading providers and additional rate increases for DSPs to offer competitive pay to their drivers total a more than $450 million investment over the next year,” said the giant e-commerce company.

Small businesses, through the DSP program, generated over $26 billion in revenue for their companies since launching four years ago. There are 3,500 DSPs around the world that employ 275,000 drivers.

IBL News | New York

YouTube announced this week a feature called Player for Education, an embedded player that will show paid course content and programs without ads, external links, and recommendations.

In the beginning, this feature will roll out in EDpuzzle, Purdue University, and Purdue Global. The existing YouTube player embedded in Google Classroom will include this functionality as well.

The video streaming platform disclosed that qualified creators in the U.S. and South Korea will be able to offer paid courses next year. These courses will feature ad-free videos, with the possibility of playing them in the background.

In addition, in the coming months, YouTube will roll out in beta mode Quizzes to allow creators to post questions related to concepts taught in videos.

IBL News | New York

The vast majority — 94% — of online learners have a positive view of online learning, up from 86% before the pandemic, and 83% said they would learn online again. Among graduated online learners, 87% reported achieving an outcome — i.e., a salary increase — they can attribute to their degree.

These are the main findings of the 11th annual Voice of the Online Learner report, based on a national survey of 2,500 adult responders, issued by Wiley last week. [Download Report in PDF]

The Hoboken, New Jersey-based, 200 years-old, educational company Wiley highlights that positive attitudes toward online learning have increased to their highest levels among learners.

“Those individuals who engage in online learning overwhelmingly have a positive experience; they also see real value in the results they achieve through online education, which allow them to advance in their career,” said Todd Zipper, Wiley’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of University Services and Talent Development.

Motivated by career outcomes, online learners mention as factors improving their job prospects and advancing, starting, or changing their careers.

Respondents feel their employer benefits don’t cover enough tuition and worry about having to pay back their employer if they leave the company before finishing their program.

The majority of students still prefer a university less than 50 miles from where they live. More than one-third said being close to their physical campus was important or very important, mainly for two reasons: to attend their graduation ceremony and to connect with their professors.

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IBL News | New York

The U.S. EdTech firm for the K12 segment Frontline Education will likely be sold to Roper Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: ROP) in an all-cash transaction of $3.725 billion by the end of the year.

The owner, the VC Thomas Bravo, recently announced the transaction — which still requires approval from the regulator.

This exit comes five years after Thoma Bravo — a large private equity firm with more than $114 billion in assets under management — purchased Frontline.

Since 2017, Thoma Bravo says that “completed six highly strategic acquisitions, significantly grew its revenue, expanded its market-leading product portfolio from 16 to 30 products, and increased headcount by over 70%.”

Frontline Education claims to have 10,000 education organizations as clients to whom it offers solutions for human capital management, student and special programs, and analytics to increase productivity and performance for K-12 administrators.

Neil Hunn, Roper’s President and CEO, said that this acquisition will enhance its cash flow compounding. He added: “Frontline is a terrific business with clear niche market leadership, a proven track record of strong organic and inorganic growth, excellent cash conversion, and an outstanding management team that will thrive as part of Roper.”

IBL News | New York

San Mateo-headquartered EdTech IXL Learner announced this week its acquisition of Emmersion, a developer of AI-powered language assessments firm, for an undisclosed amount. Emmersion‘s cofounders, Brigham Tomco and Dr. Jacob Burdis will remain with the company.

IBL News | New York

The world’s leading publisher and distributor of children’s books Scholastic Corporation (NASDAQ: SCHL), announced this month the acquisition of Learning Ovations, the creator of A2i, for an undisclosed amount.

The A2i (“Assessment to Instruction”) system provides educators with easy-to-administer, data-driven guidance for instructional planning for both small-group and individualized learning in comprehension and decoding.

It’s backed by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Tier 1 evidence of efficacy.

“Carol Connor [creator of A2i] was a teachers’ teacher, dedicated both to helping every child learn to read – regardless of background, disadvantage, or learning challenge – and to supporting teachers with tools that are both deeply rigorous and easy to use,” said Rose Else-Mitchell, Executive Vice President and President of Scholastic Education Solutions.

The integration of Learning Ovations technology and the team will allow the New York-based 100 years old Scholastic to advance its literacy platform.

IBL News | New York

Today, September 8, the educational community celebrates International Literacy Day (ILD).

This celebration has taken place annually since 1967 to remind the importance of literacy as a matter of dignity and human rights.

This year’s International Literacy Day is celebrated under the theme, Transforming Literacy Learning Spaces.

Despite progress in the last year, the challenges persist, with at least 771 million young people and adults lacking basic literacy skills today, according to Unesco.

In addition, an estimated 53% of ten-year-old children in low and middle-income countries are not able to read and understand a simple story.

Worldwide, at least 31% of students couldn’t be reached by digital and broadcast remote learning programs.

IBL News | New York

Testing and assessment Baltimore – based, EdTech company Prometric recently announced the acquisition of Finetune Learning, which specializes in hybrid AI-human solutions for content generation. The purchase amount was not disclosed.

Headquartered in Boston, Finetune commercializes products that use Natural Language Processing (NLP) transformer models to power AI-driven content generation and classification in tandem with subject matter experts while greatly improving quality.

Roy Simrell, President and CEO of Prometric LLC, highlighted that Finetune would allow improving its support to test takers.

Meanwhile, Steve Shapiro, CEO of Finetune, said that the transaction would allow scaling its solutions and continuing to invest in emerging technologies that serve the wide cross-section markets.