The 9 Innovation Sprints, of the Global Victoria EdTech Innovation Alliance, will complete their deployment in the middle of the year. Their solutions are being tested in education settings in Victoria, Australia and around the world. Each of the teams have provided a progress report on the status of their projects. 

Data collection has started and solutions have been deployed at institutions globally. The Global Victoria EdTech Innovation Alliance sees the activation of efficacy trials of Victorian EdTech products, in Australian and international education settings, in a structured formal framework. At the end of this exciting program, the teams will share the findings with the public. 

For the EdTech community to have an idea of the types of activities involved in a program of this model and size, we developed this progress update from each team. 

They comment on what they have achieved so far, what they are currently developing and designing, and what they are looking forward to in the next stages.

Cadmus
Cahoot Learning
Edalex
Genix Ventures
Intellischool
Maths Pathway
MentorMatch
Verso Learning
Ziplet

Cadmus
Transforming Online Assessment: An Evaluation of Cadmus

Cadmus is working with 4 subjects at the University of Manchester, and 3 subjects at the University of Melbourne. With the semester well and truly underway, assessments have been redesigned and students have been onboarded to the platform at both universities.

Cadmus have identified data types to collect from the universities and have finalised user feedback surveys. As a result of this program, they are expanding their collection of data to include control subjects and historical comparative data. This will help the team add more rigour to their analysis and ultimately improve ongoing evaluation processes for the business.

Cahoot Learning
Personalisation in Workforce Reskilling: The Efficacy of Cahoot Learning in LATAM

Cahoot Learning has completed the design, localisation and whole-course translation into Spanish. Delivery of Instance 1 has commenced. Their team is thrilled to see that Monash University, their local partner in the project, has been impressed by the Cahoot model and platform.

One of the key challenges that universities across LATAM typically faced was the engagement of faculty in new technology and approaches to learning. In the delivery of this course, Universidad Anahuac had four faculty involved that saw exceptional levels of engagement where they loved the experience. 

The strong partnership between Cahoot Learning and Universidad Anahuac’s Learning and Marketing teams has been brilliant. Cahoot Learning and Universidad Anahuac are currently discussing what a commercial model looks like for future deliveries of this course and other courses to create a certificate program together.

As a result of their participation in the Alliance, Cahoot Learning is pleased to report that they have new partnership leads in the LATAM region.

Edalex
Showcasing Skills for the Workplace: Edalex’s Credentialate Platform for Learner Employability

With the Sprint underway, Edalex has completed their data mapping for the University of Dayton and University of Melbourne. While there are administrative hoops to jump through, particularly around the ethics for this style of program, Edalex is heartened to see that there is so much energy for their solution both locally and internationally. 

From an efficacy perspective, what makes this Alliance so exciting for Edalex is that there is not much available published research in the space they are working in. Therefore, universities and academics are enthusiastic about the possibilities of sharing the outcomes. 

“Our collaborative partners, The University of Melbourne, University of Dayton and the Education Design Lab, are working tirelessly with us to achieve the project objectives and firm up our research instruments in light of our ambitious project model comprising many moving parts,” said Margo Griffth, Project Co-Lead and Head of Business Development at Edalex.

“We’re looking forward to the implementation phase of our research, to really uncover the effectiveness of Credentialate’s learner evidence record from a global perspective and examine the variables between the learner cohorts at an international level.”

Genix Ventures
Exam Management across Cultural Contexts: Genix Ventures’s EXAMINA+ Platform

This project offers Genix Ventures an opportunity to work closely with researchers more than they have been able to in the past. With new updates to the Genix solution, support from researchers will help them interpret the data and see the efficacy of their changes. Importantly, this experience will provide Genix a template for future enhancements to determine their market viability.

Currently, Genix Ventures is in the final development stages of the new platform. In parallel, the team have been preparing the platform, ready for delivery to the education partners. Genix Ventures’ partner in China has completed the content required which has been distributed and reviewed. Candidates have been recruited to undertake the assessments with the next phase providing first access to partner stakeholders and administrators.

The partners are looking forward to the formal pilots — the commencement of assessments. Their feedback will be critical in order to make final amendments to the platform. Formal assessments will take hold late May and Genix Ventures envisage some challenges with the lockdown in China which may impact the number of candidates undertaking the exam. The team does not expect this to have an impact on the final outcome and report.

Intellischool
Data Collation, Correlation and the Classroom: Big Performance Data through Intellischool

The primary focus for Intellischool has been to deploy and test a new feature. Their mission is about changes to practice, and helping educators feel more confident in using analytics in the classroom. They have made excellent progress working with their local education partner, Parade College, and have begun collecting data. Educators in India and Singapore will soon review the platform in a proof-of-concept model. 

They are interested to see how they can use the data from this project commercially, and how they can sharpen an elevator pitch to engage future partners.

Maths Pathway
Personalised, Modular Learning: Assessing How Context Impacts the Delivery of Maths Pathway

Initial diagnosis, student monitoring, and baseline data analysis has begun in the Maths Pathway Sprint. Their school partners, Mill Park Secondary College and Port Vila International School, are interested in how the data collected from this project can help inform their own teaching and learning. 

In partnership with the schools, Maths Pathway are designing a new data tool/dashboard that intends to help identify “highly productive” classrooms. This will allow schools to use live data to rapidly highlight bright spots of implementation with their schools. The school partners have paid particular attention to what they believe is worth measuring, which has led to productive conversations about where to put measurement and improvement efforts in those schools.

MentorMatch
Mentorship for International Student Success: An Investigation of MentorMatch

The MentorMatch platform was deployed in early May after some necessary development needed to meet the criteria of this program. This has been especially useful for MentorMatch, as it forced them to create a secondary product offering, being a more accelerated program. Something MentorMatch had on their roadmap, but no necessity to build until now. 

Guidance by their researcher has also been extremely helpful to the MentorMatch team. It has led to a more commercially focused product than expected. The researcher encouraged the MentorMatch team to go narrower and deeper in the reporting on the impact on learners. This should better highlight the positives and provide better insight for process improvement. 

MentorMatch has leveraged this program to enter new partnerships. They have been trying to do business with both education partners for some time. This program was the catalyst to work with La Trobe University and Acsenda School of Management (Vancouver) for the first time. With the subsequent evidence from this program, they intend to use the insights gained to connect with more universities and offer universities a point of difference (through a structured mentorship program) in the competitive higher education landscape.

Verso Learning
Collecting Feedback to Better Support Teachers: Responding to K-12 Student Needs with Verso Learning

Throughout this Alliance, Verso Learning has been thoroughly considering: how do we empower teachers to use student voice from the classroom to be more agile in their practice and better meet the needs of all students? 

Teachers at Verso Learning’s partner schools are currently in the process of using Verso to collect feedback from students in the classroom. Verso’s evidence-based approach helps students to reflect on their learning and well-being whilst providing teachers with data through dashboards that help them prioritise teaching strategies to maximum student engagement and learning.

In the first few weeks of using Verso in class, teachers are already reporting “a-ha” moments from the student feedback collected and have commented on how simple it is to use and its potential for saving time in their planning and preparation each week. School leaders are seeing the alignment with local and state priorities and the Verso school reports are helping leaders with professional learning priorities, PLC conversations and measurements against AIP progress. 

Colin Wood, Verso Learning CEO, commented: “The support from the research team at Monash University has been amazing and has helped us narrow our focus in reviewing more specific impact that Verso is having on students, teachers and schools, rather than trying to address a myriad of issues and school priorities.  Verso is interested to see how the broader EdTech industry values the efficacy reports that come from this project.”

Ziplet
Ziplet: How Regular Feedback Can Benefit Teachers and Learners

Both partner schools are in phase 2: free, contextual use of Ziplet in the classroom, understanding their students better, and gathering feedback.

Since commencing the project, teachers have gathered over 5,000 responses from students at Foyle College, and 3,000 responses at Kingsley Park Primary. 

The Ziplet team is looking forward to finding out what teachers have learned from their feedback, and how the experience differs between primary and secondary schools in different hemispheres of the world. 

The Global Victoria EdTech Innovation Alliance program is funded by the Victorian Government as part of the $3.6 million International Research Partnerships program under the International Education Short-Term Sector Recovery Plan.

For more information about the initiative visit Global Victoria EdTech Innovation Alliance.