BrightLoop — Helping Teachers with Useful Insights
Our EdTech feature of the week is BrightLoop which is a very helpful tool for teachers to generate important insights about their students when and where required. Read what Molly Levitt, Founder of BrightLoop has to say about this great product.
1. Could you please shed some light on your company and product?
BrightLoop is a tool that helps teachers capture insight from the interactions and work that they do with students daily. Teachers know that these moments shed huge light on how to support a student or modify the curriculum based on student and class needs. However, as a teacher the most effective methods were post it notes, binders, filing cabinets — and at the end of a busy day using these purposefully can be a challenge.
BrightLoop is a multiplatform tool, usable on any tablet or computer. We like to think of ourselves as the extension of a teachers brain where your insight is where you need it, when you need it. BrightLoop helps a teacher move through their day by Collecting student and curriculum insight, Reviewing it for grades, conferences and student support meetings, and for Planning differentiated lessons. We worked hard to make it a tool that genuinely saves teachers time and makes them feel empowered to see through all their great ideas in the classroom with less management.
2. What was the vision behind BrightLoop?
I created a working prototype for BrightLoop to use in my classroom before I knew what a startup was. I never thought I would leave the classroom, until I realized just how little support was being provided for teachers and knew that BrightLoop could help change that. We believe that there has been too few products that are created to support teachers in the way they already operate in the classroom; And too many created to “fix” teachers and the failing education system. Every other industry has tools designed specifically for the worker’s needs, but teachers get things built for other industries pushed on them from non-educators — are we surprised this doesn’t work?
We hope to empower teachers without asking them to change; to make teachers feel successful in their work; to improve student learning without deteriorating the teacher experience. We have designed it so it helps with differentiated planning, supporting kids with special needs, paper management, planning and grading so the teacher can focus on the things that they love — teaching!
3. What were the biggest challenges you faced during BrightLoop’s development?
When I originally dreamed up the concept of BrightLoop, I just wanted to use it in my class. I reached out to a friend with some technical background and he built a simple prototype for my classroom. When other teachers were interested I realized this was something that might be helpful for many teachers. I learned one of my most important lessons when I brought it to an event called StartupWeekend EDU where I met my co-founder Marco Morales. I realized that what I wanted was a list of features and until we were able to design with solid user experience we were going to be just one more thing a teacher has to deal with. Marco brought this understanding of user experience and the product began to transform.
Over the last year Marco and I both had full time jobs. I was teaching first grade in Boston during the day and working on the design of BrightLoop with Marco in the evenings. It was an exhausting year, but I think there was a huge importance to me staying in the classroom during that time. Some nights we’d stay up late discussing features and design and then I would walk into my classroom and realize I would hate that feature in practice — it needs to change. We have been through 28 iterations of the design up until this point where we finally feel ready to launch.
4. What are the plans for your target market and other market as well?
We are selling BrightLoop direct to teachers first, and trying to keep the costs low by using kickstarter as a way to crowdfund the remainder of the development so the cost can be around $35 a year. Our initial product is for K-5 and special education teachers who teach one class or under 30 students.
5. Tell us about your journey as an entrepreneur.
As an edtech company, our mission and vision is to always be learning. Entrepreneurship is something that will constantly challenge you. My background is as a teacher so I have been given the opportunity to do hands-on, real-life learning in running a business. Sometimes this can be frustrating but overall it has been magical. It is a great reminder as a teacher and student of the importance of helping your students to be excited to learn new content in a way that makes them feel as though they are solving real world problems.
6. What are your views on the education market? Any suggestions or tips for EdTech entrepreneurs?
Involve teachers every step of the way! Too few companies do this. Make sure teacher’s know that you are with them and that you believe in them. Teachers are some of the hardest working, least respected professionals and they deserve much more than the respect we give them as a nation.
7. What is the one lesson in your life as an entrepreneur that you would love to share?
There is beauty in the pivot. Don’t assume that what you believe first is the truth. If you take every day in stride and you really listen to your customers and mentors, sometimes the path you end up taking can be much more powerful than the first one you would have chosen. That being said, when you know in your gut that a choice is right — listen.
Sign up at: http://brightlooplearning.com/
Originally published at www.edtechboard.com on November 6, 2013.
