When Chief Executive Officer Karl Rectanus set out to found LearnPlatform Inc., he did it with a dilemma that as a former educator he was all too familiar with.
“We started LearnPlatform to try and solve a problem that we know every school, school district and university is constantly challenged by: Trying to figure out what educational tools work best to help students succeed,” he explained.
Over $12 billion is on spent on education technology each year, and with the rise of technology in classrooms such as tablets, educational apps and mobile phone devices, teachers are now examining strategies how best to incorporate these advancements into daily lesson plans.
In the education sector, technologies that help to gauge what works best inside the classroom and accelerate student learning are not easily accessible, but are in high demand.
Raleigh-based LearnPlatform aims to bridge this divide by providing educators with useful data on what is helping students learn fast enough to allow for informed decision-making.
“Like a research-based TripAdvisor”
Before co-founding LearnPlatform, Rectanus graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with a degree in history and in education. He worked as an educator, as well as the chief financial officer, for Orange County Charter School in 1997.
Between then and now, Rectanus has worked on three other successful educational innovation organizations, before founding Lea(R)n, the company’s previous name, in May 2014.
Officially launched one year later in May 2015, the LearnPlatform technology is the first comprehensive ed tech management system of its kind. Designed to be research-based, data-driven and impact-focused, the proprietary technology allows educators to find and purchase new ed tech tools, as well as analyze its impact on student achievement using timely data.
“LearnPlatform makes it infinitely easier to discover products; teachers have access to Learn’s free product library, encompassing over 5,000 tools, and can see and share their experiences, almost like a research-based TripAdvisor,” said Rectanus. “We have a developed a rubric and methodology for getting insightful and transparent feedback that is more useful for educators than your typical star ratings.”
Each of the 5,000 tools and products includes detailed feedback from educators all across the country. This process helps educators to organize, streamline and analyze all educational technology being used on one easily accessible platform, in just a matter of minutes.
As a result, LearnPlatform drastically reduces the amount of time needed for educators to make an informed decision on the educational technology of their choosing, and therefore have more time to get back to what really matters: helping students succeed.
LearnPlatform also assists with evaluating a school systems return on investment. The software allows for administrators to evaluate the budget and cost of technologies in place within institutions, and compare it against the actual outcomes its producing inside of the classroom. This remains especially beneficial for higher education institutions.
The University of North Carolina system, which comprises 17 higher education institutions, 20,000 faculty, and 225,000 students, launched a LearnPlatform education technology ecosystem in January 2016 — the Learning Technology Commons. The program allowed for maximized purchasing power and the ability for educational tools to be shared among multiple institutions, a first.
“Our instructors need the academic freedom and support to innovate, while our institutions remain excellent stewards of public dollars,” said Matthew Rascoff, former vice president of the Office of Learning Technology & Innovation for the UNC system. “When it comes to ed tech, those things don’t have to be in conflict.”
“We’re making their lives easier”
Over 50 school districts and 100,000 educators have integrated LearnPlatform into their operational, instructional and financial decision making through a combination of both paid and free subscriptions. It remains free for individual educators, but there are different levels of subscriptions for schools, districts and institutions. Each subscription yields an average return on investment ranging from 9 times to 15 times.
And the companies with products in LearnPlatform’s library? They seem to be satisfied too.
“Most of the product companies we talk to are ecstatic, whether the feedback is good or bad,” explained Rectanus. “And it is because it’s really hard to find out what teachers want and to gather data on what is and isn’t working. We also make it easier for them to get purchased, through our procurement tools. Were making their lives easier too.”
“Results to matter”
Moving forward, LearnPlatform aims to expand as education continues to move more digital. In January, the ed tech startup raised $3.2 million in funding from an assortment of investors, led by New Markets Venture Partners and Emerson Collective.
While Lea(R)n will grow, the mission will stay the same: expand equitable access for all students to the technology that works best for them. With that in mind, the company hopes to target the digital divide that could potentially plague one’s education.
“It would be terrible if that divide expands where those who have money have access and those who don’t, don’t have the opportunity to learn. We think the real goal is for results to matter,” said Rectanus.
“In education, student outcomes are not always the primary motivators for budget decisions or teaching decisions, but they should be. Our goal is for educators to be able to make decisions based on what is best for their students, their learning and their budgets.”
