skip to Main Content

Yonge Street Media: Crowdmark, moderated marking and helping teachers grade better

Crowdmark Logo: Grade BetterYonge Street Media, a weekly online magazine that covers talent, innovation, diversity and quality of life stories in the Toronto region, covered Crowdmark‘s efforts to disrupt the way teachers grade and interact with students in their Innovation section on Wednesday, June 19, 2013.

Crowdmark graduated from the UTEST program earlier this spring. Last week, the company announced it has raised $600,000 in seed funding and completed two successful proof-of-concept pilot projects. Its co-founders are from the University of Toronto.

Here’s an excerpt from Hamutal Dotan‘s article (emphasis ours):

It is the bane of every teacher’s existence: grading. Though essential, it’s also repetitive and time-consuming. It is also increasingly prone to concerns about inequity: from grade inflation to inconsistent standards across different classrooms, sometimes parents, students, and even teachers themselves have a hard time deciding just what the grades they have assigned actually mean.

Aiming to help with both those problems is Toronto startup Crowdmark. Founded by two University of Toronto mathematics experts–the department’s associate chair, James Colliander, and graduate student Martin Muñoz–Crowdmark provides teachers with a suite of tools to facilitate faster grading, and enables teachers to handle large volumes of grading collaboratively.

Continue Reading

Crowdmark to save teacher marking time and government dollars

Ed-tech start-up completes successful EQAO and Canadian Open Math Challenge pilots

Crowdmark Logo: Grade BetterTORONTO, Canada (June 11, 2013) — Crowdmark Inc., a Canadian education technology start-up, is positioned to save cash-strapped Departments of Education millions by making massive-scale testing more efficient. Crowdmark has raised $600,000 in seed funding through the University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology (UTEST) program, MaRS Innovation and U of T’s Connaught Fund, among others.

This story was covered by Yonge Street Media, TechVibes, EdSurge and PEHub.

Dr. James Colliander, co-founder and CEO of Crowdmark
Dr. James Colliander, co-founder and CEO of Crowdmark.

The Crowdmark assessment interface, informed by decades of teaching experience and research by company co-founders, James Colliander (Professor of Mathematics) and Martin Muñoz (Researcher and Developer), at the University of Toronto, streamlines the complicated and time-consuming grading workflow for teachers.

Crowdmark archives student work and all grading feedback into individual digital portfolios that students and parents may access any time online and via mobile devices.

Through two separate pilot projects, Crowdmark has achieved proof-of-concept as a novel and scalable solution to the problem of assessment blockage that eats into already limited resources in education systems worldwide.

Continue Reading

ClevrU Corp. acquires NewMindsets Inc. to transform online education market

Deal strengthens competitiveness of online learning platform for global mobile learners

The ClevrU platform will integrate New Mindsets Inc.'s technology through this acquisition.
The ClevrU platform (shown here) will integrate NewMindsets Inc.’s technology through this acquisition.

WATERLOO, ON, Canada (April 23, 2013) — ClevrU Corporation today announced that it has acquired NewMindsets Inc., a company founded on online pedagogy researched and developed by two Schulich School of Business professors that has provided leading-edge educational content and services to over 10,000 Schulich students at York University over the past decade.

Through the acquisition, ClevrU will fully integrate NewMindsets’ proven e-teaching pedagogy in leadership, researched and developed by Professors Gareth Morgan and Jean Adams, into its world-class e-teaching platform, to be presented to York as a pilot and then delivered to millions of students worldwide.

TechVibes, EdSurge, Private Equity Hub, Yonge Street Media, and the Waterloo Record covered this announcement. The release is also viewable on CNW and in Chinese (.pdf).

The two companies announced a partnership in October 2012 to establish a second-generation online learning standard.

Continue Reading

ClevrU partners with Schulich School of Business professors to target online education market

MaRS Innovation and York University’s commercialization office support new partnership

Students in China interact with the ClevrU platform
Students in China interact with the ClevrU platform. Photo courtesy of ClevrU Inc.

In the age of ITunes, videotaping lectures or converting existing textbooks into e-books won’t make you the market leader in online education.

Thanks to a new partnership between ClevrU, and NewMindsets Inc., facilitated by MaRS Innovation and York University’s commercialization office, Canadian technology and content promises to establish the second-generation online learning standard for millions of students worldwide.

Continue Reading
Back To Top