education | Grockit

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Gets Behind Startup Weekend

By david marino posted November 4, 2011

The press announcement is below and over at edu.startupweekend.org. Huge thanks to Bill and Melinda for the support of Startup Weekend EDU.

Startup Weekend Receives $250,000 Grant from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for EDU Events

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – November 2, 2011 – Startup Weekend, a non-profit organization, powered by the Kauffman Foundation, and Grockit, a social-learning Internet start-up, today announced that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation issued a grant in support of Startup Weekend EDU, a dedicated education (EDU) vertical within Startup Weekend that is designed to attract and assist the education community working to bring new solutions to the industry. With a grant of $250,000, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is backing educators, developers, designers, marketers, product managers, and startup enthusiasts, all of whom share a common goal – to bring new innovations to education.

“The Kauffman Foundation is excited to have the Gates Foundation support this important initiative that will help entrepreneurs with innovative education business solutions learn how to execute their ideas,” said Nick Seguin, manager of entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation. “Startup Weekend EDU builds upon the Kauffman Foundation’s interest in teaching entrepreneurs how to build successful education ventures that have the potential to be some of the next great high-growth companies of the future.”

Startup Weekends are 54-hour events where startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startups with the ultimate goal of bringing new innovations to education. October has already seen three successful Startup Weekend EDU events in Seattle, San Francisco and Washington. The first London Startup Weekend EDU event is slated for November, and the series will announce additional events around the world taking place over the next 12 months.

“Given its dedication to education reform and extensive networks in the space, the Gates Foundation is the ideal partner for us to scale the Startup Weekend EDU initiative,” said Farb Nivi, founder of Grockit.

To register for the London Startup Weekend EDU event please visit edu.startupweekend.org. To learn more about becoming a Startup Weekend organizer please visit startupweekend.org/about/event.

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Grockit Accepted at Georgetown

By Grockit Team posted October 13, 2011

About the Author: Rusty Greiff is Grockit’s Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer and a resident of the greater Washington DC area. Rusty has an extensive background in politics and education.

For over a year Grockit has developed and managed private-label and co-branded products for K-12 schools, virtual schools, charter school networks and major online Universities. Today, I’m proud to share that Grockit and Georgetown University have partnered to provide premium online test prep and collaborative learning for Georgetown undergraduate students, and we will co-market Grockit premium subscriptions at a significant discount for Georgetown alumni.

As one of the most selective academic universities in the world, Georgetown continues to drive online strategies and initiatives that improve student success – we are excited that they have chosen Grockit as a solution for their students and alumni. Georgetown will leverage Grockit’s personalized assessment engine, adaptive and social learning platform and gaming mechanics to drive superior student engagement. Like us, they believe in the power of social and collaborative learning to prepare students.

We’re looking forward to working with like-minded universities in the future. I promise to update Grockit followers with posts every time we create new relationships with Universities, so that you can know when your school has joined the Grockit community.

Just in case you’re wondering, here are just a few reasons why Grockit is attractive to major universities:

* Over the past few years, more than a million students all over the world have used Grockit to practice and study together online to achieve their best scores on standardized tests

* Grockit’s social learning has proven to help students learn more, faster and perform better

* Grockit has figured out how to add and move massive amounts of content, check and curate that content quickly

* Grockit already works with accomplished, forward-thinking schools with strong support and broad awareness

* Grockit is a leader in developing for the most pervasive and important platforms for students and teachers

* Grockit is actively trying to improve learning outcomes for millions of students in under-resourced communities

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Grockit Launches New IIM CAT Product

By jake becker posted September 28, 2011

Earlier this year, we began working to create a new Grockit learning community centered around the Indian Institutes of Management Common Admission Test (IIM-CAT). Over 300,000 students sit for the CAT each year, fighting for as few as 2,000 seats in one of the prestigious Indian management institutes, making it one of the most competitive standardized tests in the world. In 2009, the CAT moved from paper to a Computer-Based Test (CBT), a transition that has simplified the administration process, but presents a range of new challenges to students preparing for the exam.

In helping students meet these challenges, we are thrilled to announce the official launch of the Grockit IIM-CAT group! Here’s the first story covering this news, see the press release below.

With Grockit’s Indian user base growing fast, (in 2010, 27% of GMAT students in India used Grockit) it’s evident that CAT 2011 students are also seeking online solutions. Test Series and practice materials run upwards of Rs. 5000 ($112), and restrict students’ learning environment to test centers, packed classrooms, and the confines of a physical textbook. Grockit expands these borders, providing students 24/7 access to adaptive customizable assessments, social group study, detailed strength and weakness reports and a computer-based experience similar to the one on Test Day.

We are launching with over 3,000 practice questions covering every topic area presented on CAT since 2001. Since we’ve found Verbal Ability to be the most important section for students to practice, two-thirds of our content will be in these areas. We’ve made the Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation sections super difficult, drawing from the expertise of our experienced CAT authors, editors and IIM alumni. And we plan to continue to build out our curriculum on a rolling basis, using information from newly released tests and ongoing feedback from our users. See our official press release, below.

Grockit Introduces Test Prep for India’s CAT Exam

September 28, 2011 — Grockit, the leader in collaborative and social learning, today announced the availability of its test preparation program for India’s Common Admission Test (CAT), the required exam for admission into Indian Institutes of Management (IIM). Grockit, which is currently used by over a quarter of students in India studying for the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), is releasing the IIM CAT program in response to customer demand and the company’s rapidly growing Indian user base.

Grockit’s IIM CAT prep differs from existing programs in that it’s built around an adaptive, social and interactive experience for students. Users have the advantage of preparing for the exam in a virtual group setting and receiving real-time feedback from their peers and Grockit tutors. This “anytime and anywhere” approach allows students who may not live in big cities with easily accessible testing centers to have access to an affordable, web-based alternative. The personalised study plan format adapts to each individual user’s level and shifts as the student improves and progresses. And since the IIM CAT recently moved from a paper-based test to a computer-based test, Grockit’s web-based format gives students a similar experience to what they’ll have during the real test.

“Students in India are incredibly enthusiastic about Grockit,” said Roy Gilbert, CEO, Grockit. “We’ve seen remarkable growth in India over the last year, and we’re excited to help our Indian users tackle one of the highest-stakes exams in the world.”

Grockit created the test prep program for the IIM CAT by working with partners on the ground in India, leading American and Indian authors, and IIM CAT specialists and alumni. The pricing for the program is significantly lower than alternative options currently available; for more information visit our programs page and IIM CAT blog.

“Grockit is the most addictive, creative and engaging product for learning I’ve come across. Thanks guys!” says Shuba, a student from Chennai, India.

The launch of Grockit’s CAT test prep follows Grockit’s launch of Rupee pricing and localised Indian payment options earlier this year. Currently, more than 25 percent of people taking the GMAT in India already use Grockit to study, answering 1.25 million study questions in the past year alone.

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Grockit Announces Facebook Integration to Make Studying More Social

By Roy Gilbert posted September 22, 2011

It’s the week before the SAT and you need help. Reading comprehension is killing you! Your friends aren’t home and no one is answering their cell. Panic! What do you do?

Grockit has integrated with Facebook to help you ace your next exam with your friends. In the coming weeks, Grockit will make it easier for students to create online study groups within Grockit and solve problems with friends. What this means is that you’ll be able to find friends to study with, create permanent Grockit study rooms, and share your team’s progress on your Facebook profile.

We’re excited about this for a couple of reasons. First, this solves a big problem for people that use Grockit. Many people want to study with friends they interact with in other parts of their lives, and we haven’t had a great way of doing that within Grockit. Now, with our new Facebook integration, students can quickly select-and-add study partners from among their friends, even if their friends aren’t using Grockit today.

Second, this was a result of amazingly fast design and engineering work. Thanks to the fine folks at Facebook who delivered this API, we’ve been able to build something we think will be beneficial for our users in just a couple of short weeks.

The result is something that we think will make online social learning a lot easier to use. And this cross-team work matches up with our Grockit core value of Collaborteam — our made-up word to describe the transparent, selfless way we work together.

Here’s the press release from F8, the Facebook Conference.

Grockit Announces Facebook Integration to Make Studying More Social

SAN FRANCISCO – September 22, 2011 – Today at f8, Facebook’s developer conference, Grockit, a social learning company, announced a new integration with Facebook that will make it even easier for students around the world to create Grockit study groups with their friends. Now people using Grockit can quickly create “Study Rooms”, invite their Facebook friends and prepare together for college entrance examinations, such as the SAT, ACT, LSATs, GMATs, GREs, and more. Students can also track and share academic progress and milestone achievements towards their academic goals on their Facebook profiles.

“Millions of students are on Facebook, but they aren’t just socializing. They are helping each other with homework, sharing school resources, and in general hacking together a social learning experience online,” said Farbood Nivi, founder and Chief Product Officer, Grockit. “The cool thing about our new Facebook integration is that students can create, control, and access Grockit Study Rooms right from their Facebook profiles. Study Rooms include tons of content to help with studying, from practice questions, to video lessons, and even personal tutoring.”

Earlier this year, Grockit released research showing that students who study together on Grockit do twice as much work — and get answers correct more often — as students who study alone.

In addition to creating new study groups, people using Grockit can share the total number of hours spent studying, the total number of questions attempted, and their progress studying within Grockit via their Facebook profiles. People can control how their activity is shared with friends on Facebook from their Facebook privacy settings.

To learn more about Grockit’s Facebook integration, please visit: Grockit.com/social

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Grockit For Good: A New Business Model for Education

By farbood nivi posted September 22, 2011

Throughout history, education has been a fundamental contributor to upward social progress. Whether it is the expansion of reading and writing from the privileged class to the masses hundreds of years ago, or the invention of the Internet in recent decades, the expansion of civilization and technology has gone part and parcel with that of access to education.

Today at Grockit we are proud to announce a fundamental shift in our business model, a shift that we believe is one more step in this necessary human movement towards increased access for everyone, including and especially those who are less privileged.

From today forward, Grockit will be a one-for-one business. For every Grockit account purchased, we will provide one year of free access to Grockit Academy to an under-served student. To do this we have partnered with the very organizations that work tirelessly everyday to reach and support these students. Organizations like Higher Achievement, KIPP, Level Playing Field Institute, Magic Johnson Foundation, the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, and TLABs are just some of the amazing groups that Grockit customers can direct their one-for-one purchase towards.

Our desire to create Grockit for Good was motivated by the same reason I founded Grockit in the first place.

After teaching for over a decade I was unsatisfied with the progress of education, especially in light of rapidly advancing technologies that were not reaching students. I was also unsatisfied with the high costs that limited access and scale.

With that, we started Grockit to bring adaptive, social-learning to hundreds of thousands of students all over the world and we believe that our shift to a one-for-one business model is another step forward in our mission to bring effective, engaging education to everyone. We’re calling this new model, Grockit For Good, and if you know an organization that you think would be a good partner, we want to know. Grockit has always been about social-learning, and with Grockit For Good our customers are doing even more to help the world learn.

Farb Nivi
Founder Grockit

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Grockit in Detroit Examiner

By david marino posted August 18, 2011

Yesterday Farb spent some time with Wendy from the Detroit Examiner. The focus of the interview was our relationship with TLabs, an organization based in the Detroit area, providing learning centers to help students prepare for college and beyond. The convo quickly grew to a three-part story.

Make sure to read all three parts at:

Part 1: http://www.examiner.com/city-buzz-in-detroit/rocking-the-act-the-d-makes-its-debut-part-i-of-3

Part 2: http://www.examiner.com/city-buzz-in-detroit/rocking-the-act-the-d-makes-its-debut-part-2-of-3

Part 3: http://www.examiner.com/city-buzz-in-detroit/rocking-the-act-the-d-makes-its-debut-part-3-of-3

Excerpt from Part 2:

TLAB subsequently made the fortuitous connection with Grockit and will offer the ACT preparatory tools through individual 11th-grade student computers as well as in its dedicated area computer labs. Although the majority of TLAB’s students are Michiganians, students have also hailed from Georgia, Arizona, Florida, Ohio, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina and Louisiana.

“Grockit is one of the few providers with keen insight and a solution for educating people in the 21st Century,” said TLAB Founder Dr. Clarence Nixon, Jr. in a press release. “Grockit is leveraging the power of the web in helping students get the tools and the guidance they need to perform at exceptional levels academically and especially on standardized tests. We’re excited to be working with them in helping our students prepare, master the ACT, and do so in a way that’s more effective and more affordable than the other methods out there.”

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TLabs brings Grockit into Detroit Learning Center

By david marino posted August 17, 2011

Grockit has some news this morning, Grockit and TLabs have joined forces to help students in the greater Detroit area. And with so many of us hailing from the great state of Michigan, we’re exceptionally proud of Mr. Jayleon Davis and his progress on the ACT (read press release below).

TLAB Adopts Grockit’s Social Learning Technologies for Test Prep

Detroit-based organization to provide students with access to Grockit’s online ACT prep tools

DETROIT – August 17, 2011 – The Technology Laboratory and Professional Development Center (TLAB), a Detroit-based non-profit accelerated learning program, today announced an agreement with Grockit that will enable the organization to offer Grockit tools to students preparing for the ACT, which is a mandatory test for all 11th-grade students in Michigan. Students will be able to access Grockit’s ACT preparatory tools from their own computer or at one of TLAB’s dedicated computer labs.

“Grockit is one of the few providers with keen insight and a solution for educating people in the 21st Century. Grockit is leveraging the power of the web in helping students get the tools and the guidance they need to perform at exceptional levels academically and especially on standardized tests,” said Dr. Clarence Nixon, Jr., founder of the TLAB program. “We’re excited to be working with them in helping our students prepare academically, master the ACT, and do so in a way that’s more effective and more affordable than the other methods out there.”

With Grockit, students work online with other students and with tutors to learn key concepts, solve practice problems, and develop test-taking strategies. More than 1 million users have used Grockit to date, and the service’s highly interactive and collaborative social learning model has proven to engage students: Compared to Grockit’s average independent studier, the average Grockit group studier spends three times as much time solving problems per study session; solves more than twice as many problems per study session; and is 10 percent more likely to answer questions correctly.

“Grockit helped me connect and learn with other students my own age, and with that help I improved my score on the ACT from 18 to 30 in less than three months,” said Jayleon Davis, a TLAB student in Dearborn Heights, Mich. “Grockit makes studying fun, and it’s helping me gain confidence as I work to achieve my dream score of a perfect 36 on the ACT.”

TLAB centers use data-driven software applications and the support of experienced tutors to help accelerate learning for students ranging from kindergarten to college. Their core academic programs are ACT prep, math, reading, vocabulary, writing, language, public speaking, research and development and leadership development.

About TLAB

TLAB is a faith-based, nonprofit, accelerated learning center founded in Detroit in 2007. It is focused on creating extraordinary academic achievement, among any and all students, to prepare them to assume leadership roles in careers as entrepreneurs, physicians, nurses, research scientists, and other professions. The majority of TLAB’s 300 students come from Michigan, but we have attracted students from Atlanta; Phoenix; Jacksonville, Florida; Ohio, Minnesota, New York, Georgia, North Carolina, and Lake Providence, Louisiana.

About Grockit

Grockit was created to improve academic achievement and extend learning outside of the classroom. By applying adaptive learning algorithms and innovative social networking and online gaming technologies, students experience a fun and engaging way to master academic skills and achieve personal best scores on standardized tests. The diagnostic, prescriptive and adaptive nature of the underlying Grockit platform ensures that each student receives a personalized learning experience, designed to help them overcome areas of academic weakness. Founded in 2007 by Farb Nivi, a former Teacher of the Year for The Princeton Review and academic director at Kaplan, Grockit is headquartered in San Francisco and has received funding from Atlas Venture, Benchmark Capital, Integral Capital Partners and prominent angel investors including Reid Hoffman (founder, LinkedIn) and Mark Pincus (founder and CEO, Zynga). For more information, please visit www .grockit .com.

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Thoughts from the KIPP Charter School Annual Summit

By david marino posted August 11, 2011

Rusty Greiff is Grockit’s Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer and a resident of the greater Washington DC area. Rusty has an extensive background in politics and education.

My 8-year old son is a LEGO junky. He goes through three basic steps to LEGO greatness:

1) he shuts the door to his room

2) he pours the 500 pieces of LEGOs on the floor

3) he lets it rip.

Skyscrapers, spaceships, laser-rovers; massive and intricate structures are built – most of the time with his brother and best buddy next door. Often, I will peer through the crack in the door to assess their progress. Rarely do they know where their LEGO journey will take them, but they are comfortable in leaping ahead together, adjusting the pieces, and brainstorming until the creation is complete, often ending in a multi-player “high five”.

Last week, I played and learned with my own set of LEGOs along with some of the most talented educators in the country at the KIPP Charter School’s Annual Summit in Nashville, TN. Every year, KIPP brings its teachers, directors, funders, experts in the field and students together to discuss best practices. Alongside KIPP’s finest teachers, administrators and students, I led a 90-minute session, LEGOs in hand, on collaborative and social learning. The LEGO exercise and talk was meant to help participants better understand the impact of Grockit’s adaptive and collaborative platform as it is applied to KIPP schools. Currently, Grockit and KIPP are partnering to connect California KIPP students in peer-peer SAT/ACT test prep, with the goal of mastering test prep content and improving scores through social learning.

Not surprisingly, bringing people together (with a massive box of LEGOs) with different learning styles, specific skill sets and expertise, can create a dynamic experience that translates into some beautiful results.

By way of examples, Grace, a KIPP teacher from Washington DC preferred working in a team of 2 to build the foundation while her colleague Jennifer created a three-story roof garden to attach to Grace’s structure. A KIPP teacher from Newark encouraged her team to strategize first, drawing elaborate plans before finding color-coordinated LEGOs to complete the building. One AP teacher demanded of his team, “Just have fun” and attacked the LEGOs, building a killer “car-house” that of course could fly.

The LEGO exercise and session was an easy demonstration of existing academic research suggesting that by engaging learners through social games, collaborative problem solving and peer-to-peer studying, companies like Grockit are helping learners master subjects and achieve higher test scores. Literally, this is what we do at Grockit every day for our hundreds-of-thousands of students.

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Grockit goes abroad

By Grockit Team posted June 20, 2011

You might have seen the news, but Grockit has recently created better support for our customers in India. Here’s an excerpt from an announcement on May 25th.

Grockit (www.grockit.com), the leader in collaborative and social learning, today announced it is responding to the Indian market’s need for online test preparation for American admissions tests with the launch of Rupee pricing, localized payment options and Indian marketing campaigns. As part of this launch, new Indian users are encouraged to enjoy an extended free trial of Grockit, with premium purchasing available early next month.

More than 25 percent of people taking the GMAT in India already use Grockit to study, answering 1.25 million study questions in the past year alone. Grockit’s Indian users have been vocal in their desire to have an easier local payment method. Of these users, about half of them are studying for the GMAT and the rest are split between the GRE, SAT and the Grockit Academy, which includes Math and Language Arts studying for grades 7 – 12.

“There is a strong demand in the Indian market for Grockit’s services for standardized tests,” said Roy Gilbert, CEO, Grockit. “Students in India are incredibly passionate about Grockit and we want to support this demand as we improve the overall Grockit user experience from start to finish. Over time, we plan to roll out additional features for international users to make Grockit even more accessible and useful for students around the world.”

According to recent data released by the GMAC (Graduate Management Admission Council), Indian students taking the GMAT represent the second-largest testing group in Asia and the third-largest testing group in the world, after the US and China.
So, you might be asking yourself, “what’s the big deal”? Why is India important to Grockit?

India is one of the most populous nations in the world and one of the fastest growing economies. India continues to be an important business and development center for global businesses rooted in western economies. This means American colleges and graduate schools continue to be very important to India’s diverse economy. It’s people are young too – nearly 31% of the estimated 1.2 billion people in India are 14 years old or younger. If you want to disrupt education worldwide with a solution that addresses how the youth of the world communicate and learn today, India is a great audience to prioritize. And, Grockit has seen remarkable growth in India over the last year.

One more thought. Grockit is attractive to new learners because we have an always-on, social learning experience. Already, Grockit users enjoy nearly a thousand daily instances of International study cooperation in questions, answers and “thanks”. If the Grockit community is going to continue to represent the global online audience, India will continue to keep Grockit growing “overnight” when all of our US learners are looking for late-night help and conversation.

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Grockit is a finalist in the Next Generation Learning Challenges

By Ari Bader-Natal posted April 14, 2011

I’m happy to announce that Grockit is a finalist in the second wave of Next Generation Learning Challenges. I’d like to share a bit about this project and why we think it’s important. Here’s the project summary:

The Virtual Study Hall: Making Personalized Learning Collaborative

Virtual schools let students learn from any place at their own pace. The challenge in this individualized learning is that without a synchronized curriculum and shared venue, students can feel disconnected from their peers and alone in their studies. As online learning options are increasingly available at the secondary and post-secondary level, the issues that virtual high schools face today are a preview of challenges to come with this new wave in technology-enabled learning. While the move towards personalized learning appears to necessitate a move away from social/collaborative learning, this need not be the case. Grockit has developed a web-based learning platform that bridges this gap, with a collaborative learning platform that creates networks for self-paced learners. Building on an existing relationship with Florida Virtual School, we will demonstrate and measure how this platform can increase learning gains by connecting and engaging thousands of students enrolled in 7th-9th grade level math courses online.

This project addresses a stumbling block that many technology-based efforts for individualized learning either have faced or will face soon: a large-scale shift towards truly personalized learning in a school fragments a single cohort of learners into single-learner cohorts. For online programs and courses, this fragmentation can negatively impact student engagement and completion rates. In building a system to be both collaborative and adaptive, Grockit has grappled with this issue for several years, and has now identified several solutions to enable both approaches to be supported simultaneously. For courses offered entirely online, restoring the opportunity for peer-to-peer collaborative learning can be quite powerful. By building a technology-based learning environment as a social construct from the bottom-up, students can reap the benefits of studying within a community of learners — a sense of connection to other learners, informal peer-to-peer assistance and motivation, and a social context for studying.

We’re looking forward to the opportunity to implement and evaluate this approach on a large scale at Florida Virtual School, which is the largest state-led public virtual school in the country. For this project, we’ll track and quantify the impact of incorporating Grockit’s core platform into 7th-9th grade level math courses on student engagement and learning outcomes, and will share and publish our findings with the larger community of researchers and educators interested in improving online learning.

I’m happy to say that Grockit is quite open about our ongoing research efforts, including our peer-reviewed publications, assorted research collaborations, current domain applications, and underlying pedagogical foundations. If you’re interested in learning more, check out our overview on the Methodologies and Technologies of the Grockit Learning Platform. If you work with a school (traditional or virtual) that may be interested in partnering with Grockit, or if you are an education researcher or learning systems designer interested in discussing potential research collaborations, please let me know and I’ll be in touch.