Startup Spotlight: interactive whiteboard Educreations

Educreations, a recordable, interactive whiteboard, hopes to be the worksheet of the future. Founders Chris Streeter and Wade Roberts’ began work on the product in 2010, with the eventual goal of “democratizing” education and extending the range of good teachers outside of their own settings. Visual aids are limiting in the sense that they are limited to who can see them. The traditional whiteboard that teachers use in the classroom is limited to just that — the classroom. By using the Internet, the cloud, and touch screen devices, Educreations strives to allow teachers to show their visual aids to the entire connected world.

The duo has created an impressive application that allows teachers to effortlessly teach their class lessons with customizable visual aids. Educreations may seem like a traditional whiteboard app, but the difference is in the logistics. Teachers make use of the whiteboard, while students who are enrolled in their classes can jettison the whiteboards/slides right to their iPads.

Educreations is a robust whiteboard application for iOS devices. They also have a web app for teachers and students without an iPad. These two apps allow students and teachers to relay ideas back and forth over the cloud, whether it be via iOS built-in cloud services or through popular cloud app Dropbox. Teachers create “classes” and give the link to students, which enables them to register for that particular class. The students then get updates (like an RSS feed) to their iPads and can see everything the teacher has laid out for them. Students can make notes, draw diagrams, or even change what the teacher has handed out and submit it back for review.

This is all well and good, but Educreations has an even bigger view of the future.  They hope to transform their successful model and make good on their promise of extending the range of great teachers. With backing from Imagine K12, they hope to take the app from a simple whiteboard app into something much bigger. A database will host all public creations and allow any student to download these lessons. Right now they have a minimal spotlight section, where Educreations handpicks a couple of standout lessons for the public to view. Eventually, there will be a full fledged library for learners all over the globe to peruse and learn whenever and however the wish.

Educreation’s motto? “Teach what you know. Learn what you don’t.”Clearly, the company has big goals for changing how people learn,and letting those with knowledge share it openly and freely. And with this initiative, they just might pull it off.