Facebook Takes a Step Into Education Software - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/technology/facebook-education-initiative-aims-to-help-children-learn-at-their-own-pace
SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook, which transformed communication with its social networking service, now wants to make a similar impact on education.
The Silicon Valley company announced on Thursday that it was working with a local charter school network, Summit Public Schools, to develop software that schools can use to help children learn at their own pace. The project has been championed by Mark Zucker
berg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive, and one of his top lieutenants, Chris Cox.
“We’ve seen that there’s an opportunity to help apply our skills to the future of education, and we all wanted to find a way to help make an impact by doing what we do best — building software,” Mr. Cox wrote in a blog post announcing the initiative.❞
“It’s really driven by this idea that we want to put learning in the hands of kids and the control back in the hands of kids,” Ms. Tavenner said in a telephone interview. The software, she said, allows students to work with teachers to create tailored lessons and projects. Teachers can also administer individualized quizzes that the software can grade and track.
The platform, which is separate from the Facebook social network, is now being used by nine Summit schools and about 20 others. Ultimately, Ms. Tavenner said, “our motivation is to share it with everyone and anyone who wants it,” including other charters and public school districts. The software would be free for all users.
Like Internet.org, Facebook’s latest education initiative is not quite philanthropy and not quite business. The company owns the rights to the contributions it makes to Summit’s original software and could use that to eventually enter the education software business.
Mike Sego, the Facebook engineering director running the Summit software project, said making money was not an immediate goal. “Whenever I ask Mark, ‘Do I need to think of this as business?’ he always pushes back and says, ‘That shouldn’t be a priority right now. We should just continue making this better.’ ”