In 2008, Nic Borg founded Edmodo alongside Jeff O’Hara, and Crystal Hutter. Edmodo is a free and secure cloud-based learning network that connects classroom community (students, teachers and even parents) together. While teachers have a platform to upload, assign, track and collect assignments to run their classrooms efficiently, students have a platform to connect and collaborate with their classmates anywhere and anytime. Parents could also stay current and get quick answers to questions.
Prior to launching Edmodo, Borg built web-based tools and applications for schools and districts. According to Borg, Edmodo was motivated by the desire to help teachers overcome challenges in teaching (for example, disseminating digital learning resources) and to enable students communicate with their peers and teachers after school hours.
Impressively, Borg has been named in the prestigious Forbes “30 under 30” list in 2014.
It is inspiring to learn about the innovator behind the platform that I successfully use with my students everyday. Students familiarise themselves very quickly with Edmodo’s user-friendly, Facebook style interface. I think Borg’s experience in field of education 7 years before launching Edmodo pushed the idea of taking social media into schools, enhancing participation and engagement in the classroom.
Here is a clip of Borg speaking about Edmodo.
Nic Borg is a good example for any aspiring entrepreneur. Before writing this review, I dug a little deeper into Nic’s story (https://impakter.com/when-innovation-and-education-intersect-the-story-of-edmodo/). Borg’s Edmodo has an impressive user base (60 million), which has steadily grown since the launch of the platform. I find it impressive that this was the first venture the Edmodo co-founders launched. They identified an opportunity to better serve teachers and students as they worked in IT for a school district, and grew their idea in a very organic way. Nic sounds ambitious, as Edmodo is attempting to partner with large organizations to grow their user base even further.
I enjoyed reading and listening to Nic Borg sharing about Edmodo. As one of Edmodo’s co-founders, Nic explained how his venture offered users the benefits of collaboration, cloud and devices in an “always on” learning environment. Nic and his co-founders were entrepreneurs who saw the potential of the internet in allowing teachers and students to have global networks that eliminated sharing, storage, and device barriers. Nic’s foresight and entrepreneurship have transformed Edmodo from an idea into an online classroom where teachers share engaging lessons, build a vibrant classroom community, and update parents using the same platform.