The University of Virginia's Jefferson Education Accelerator has scooped a $1.5 million grant from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation to pursue its research on how education technology is transforming education. The JEA, created last year to help find and evaluate promising edtech companies, looking for ways to translate the data they collect into useful tools for teachers.
"They like that we represent a different approach," JEA CEO Bart Epstein told DC Inno in an interview. "Like how we help companies through a difficult phase of adolesence. It's hard to grow an edtech company and do all the high quality research at the same time."
Measuring the impact an edtech company has on students isn't easy. Plenty of edtech firms gather up big chunks of potentially useful data, but without a universal way to collate and refine the raw numbers, that data isn't very useful. JEA is attempting to remedy that with its own database, where the companies it singles our for partnership can apply the data they gather to the latest educational research methods. JEA picked Reston Va.-based Echo360 as its first company partner last August, followed by Agile Mind, a list the new grant will expand upon.
"[The grant] is supporting us on the supply side of the equation," Epstein said. "We'll be picking seven companies over the next four years working in areas they care about like tools to help inner city teaches use and manage data for the benefit of students."
"Very few edtech companies have done any research at all," Epstein said. "But the right data can make every part of the education ecosystem more robust."
