Prague Startup: mySchoolNotebook.com Expands To US INTERVIEW HERE

Two Czech entrepreneurs have developed a note taking app for students that has become very popular in Prague and surrounding areas.

There are a few apps out there for students to take school notes however none are as easy to use or as feature packed as mySchoolNotebook.com. With their app students can take notes, organize them into notebooks and even add audio to the notes. They stay organized in the same way that you would keep a traditional three ring binder.

mySchoolNotebook.com uses Facebook authorization, so to use the app you need to have a Facebook account. The upside to the Facebook integration is that it adds a conduit for sharing notes with fellow students that may be collaborating on an assignment together.

mySchoolNotebook.com also has a pdf export function that allows the student to export their notes as a pdf if you need to have an actual paper version of the notes.

More and more schools across the country (and apparently the world) are allowing students to use smartphones and iPads in class to take notes. This is good for the environment and great for the student as it gives them a way to quickly move their notes back and forth from their computers and makes them easier for reference when writing long papers or studying for exams.

We got a chance to catch up with mySchoolNotebooks.com who were actually in Chicago for TechWeek two weeks ago. Check out our interview after the break

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Minneapolis Startup: Brain Hive To Offer E-Book Rentals For K-12

A Minneapolis startup called Brain Hive is looking to solve a problem for school libraries across the country. That problem, is access to books. With such a diverse taste in content in American public schools, school libraries often fall short in fulfilling student requests for books.

With the wide adoption of tablets and e-books Brain Hive has come up with a solution. Brain Hive has developed a platform that allows students to rent books from their digital library as a supplement to their schools actual library.

The Brain Hive service will offer traditional e-books, non fiction books, graphic novels and books curated by school librarians and administrators. Through the schools portal into the Brain Hive system, librarians and administrators can determine which content is age appropriate, set limitations on numbers of rentals at a time per student, and decide to offer titles around the current curriculum.

More after the break
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DC Startup: Naaya Great For Kids, Great For Parents VIDEO

Washington DC area serial entrepreneur Amir Hudda is at it again. This time though, he’s created a new startup for his kids. Hudda has had several successful exits bringing tens of millions of dollars in profit to his investors.

The story goes a bit like this. As busy as Hudda is, he and his wife still noticed that his children spend a great deal of time on the computer. Furthermore they spend even more time on iPods,iPads,iPhones and as Hudda puts it “i-everything”. With his background in technology he wanted to do something about this problem but he didn’t want to strip his children of technology.

That’s we he founded Naaya. Naaya is a web and mobile based learning platform that provides a lot more than simple coloring games and match the picture games.  The World Of Naaya takes kids through a fully immersive experience where they explore worlds, while learning robust curriculum targeting reading, social studies and 21st century skills.

While there are a lot of companies offering e-learning through the web and mobile Naaya is the first that isn’t targeting just kids and students. Hudda wants parents, teachers and schools to get involved as well.

Naaya features an entire parent portal that will offer reporting to the parent on what the child has been learning, messages they have been sending and receiving, and target areas where the child may need help.

More and video after the break
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NY Startup: We Talk With Three Ring The Winners Of Best Education Startup At New York Tech Day

At the recent New York tech day a startup called Three Ring walked away with the best education startup award. In short three ring provides a platform that makes it incredibly easy to digitize students work. The backbone of the Three Ring system functions as a portfolio or digital filing cabinet.

Teachers can use an iPhone or Android phone and take a photo or video of a student assignment. From there they can organize the entries by tags including student name, class, assignment and other core parts of the assignment which makes it incredibly easy to recall for later use.

Teachers can use the assignments stored in Three Ring to provide assessments of the students work, go over the assignment more in depth with students and easily recall assignments for things like parent teacher conferences.  Three Ring is currently in beta and only for teachers however Three Ring plans to incorporate a parent, student and administrator component.

In the future a parent module or student module could easily be the remedy for “the dog ate my homework”. The possibilities with all four components are endless. Later on, Three Ring could be a way for students to submit an assignment to a teacher once completed. Imagine uploading the assignment to Three Ring and even if the student couldn’t make it to school, got sick before class, or had to leave early for a football game an assignment could be turned in to a teachers Three Ring account and the student could still get credited on time.

There are several tools out there in the digital world for teachers. Three Ring makes is an extremely easy to use tool that can be adapted to several scenarios.

More after the break
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Boston Startup: Abroad101 Poised To Become The TripAdvisor For Studying Abroad

Here’s another great startup idea coming out of Boston Massachusetts, in fact it’s hard to believe that no one else has done anything like this. Abroad101 was actually founded in 2007. In 2010 they won $50,000 as part of the inaugural session of MassChallenge.

So what is Abroad101. The web based service is the brain child of childhood friends Mike Stone and Mark Lurie. They’ve developed a web tool that pulls data from participating colleges on programs to study abroad. There was obviously a need for students who study abroad to find the best programs that meet their educational needs. As Xconomy reports Stone and Lurie knew all too well the “archaic” process of sifting through folders and brochures to match study abroad programs.

Abroad101 allows users (students) to search their growing database of official school sanctioned programs for studying abroad. They can learn everything from course curriculum, to attractions in the city, safety information and find reviews from students who have been through the same program.  If this sounds a lot like TripAdvisor for students studying abroad that’s no coincidence, as executives from TripAdvisor are part of Abroad101’s advisory board.

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DC TechEd Startup Grade Ninja Revolutionizes Grading With ScanTron

Grade Ninja was born when Daniel Kleinman noticed that his sisters were spending their nice weekend days not going outside, jogging, shopping or even relaxing. His sisters are school teachers and they were constantly using up their free time grading Scantron sheets, something that ideally was supposed to be a fast process because it’s Scantron.  That wasn’t the case and Kleinman wanted to do something about it.

Kleinman created an iPad app that uses the iPad’s camera to take a picture of the Scantron sheet and check it against a master. Kleinman, a self-taught Objective C programmer was able to refine the app so it has a margin of error of, at best, 1%. Things like how fast the sheet is fed and if the sheet is still perfectly in tact can swing the margin of error far greater when using a Scantron machine to grade.

I noticed it first with my sisters and my mom. Why are dedicated teachers spending so much time outside of school grading? Teachers spend about a day a week grading, roughly 8 hours. What if we could give this time back? This is why I created Grade Ninja. Kleinman told Carl Pierce of InTheCapital.com

In addition to freeing up teacher’s valuable free time Kleinman’s app will link back to gradebook apps making the grading process seemless and far more accurate than having to transpose anything.  From their website:

GradeNinja can cut grading and recording time down to a fraction of what you spend now. Instantly scan multiple choice tests and input scores directly into your gradebook. Use the ultra fast grid to enter all your scores in a flash for any assignment types.

Kleinmann is sneakerstrapping this startup but we’re sure it’s going to become a hot commodity as TechEd continues its nationwide explosion. As for ScanTron grading, there are so many other issues our public schools need to work out before they make a move away from traditional ScanTron machine.

source: InTheCapital