Edmodo: Founders Nicolas Borg and Jeff O’Hara
Nicolas Borg is co-founder and CEO of Edmodo. He and Jeff O’Hara are former Chicago area schools IT support technicians. The two recognized the obstacles teachers face in attempting to incorporate technology for learning in their classrooms. With their ideas and in response to teacher feedback the two developed Edmodo to meet the needs of the 21st century teacher.
Nicolas Borg and Jeff O’Hara on YouTube
Edmodo provides a free, secure place for teachers and students to participate online. Founded in 2008 the social networking site resembles FaceBook but is a customizable virtual classroom for collaboration, content sharing, class discussion, notices, homework, and grades. Teachers can also create learning networks with colleagues in Edmodo. The company experienced significant growth since launching in September, 2008. In 2010 there were 500,000 users by late 2011 that number had grown to nearly 5 million.
Edmodo has a powerful team serving as board members and advisors. Among these are Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and Matt Cohler, former Facebook vice president who joined the board of directors in 2011. Both are partners in investment firms that invested in Edmondo in 2011. These two were attracted to Edmondo because of it’s rapid growth which they attribute to the number of engineers employed. More than half of the 35 Edmodo employees are engineers.
Robert J. Hutter is chairman of Edmodo. He is a Harvard University graduate with a background in education and extensive experience in co-founding and managing educational ventures. Greg Mauro, an entrepreneur, investor and founder of several successful ventures, is a board member at Edmondo.
Learning that Edmodo is the product of two school employees who recognized a gap in education and collaborated to develop an innovative solution is encouraging. I recognize entrepreneurial potential in myself and am motivated by this success story.
References
Business Wire, (2011, December 8). Edmodo Raises New Round of Venture Capital Financing; Reid Hoffman, Matt Cohler Join Board. Retrieved May 28, 2012 from: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20111208005229/en/Edmodo-Raises-Venture-Capital-Financing-Reid-Hoffman
Edmodo: Who and When: A Brief History of Edmodo. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from: http://edmodo.barrow.wikispaces.net/Who+%26+When
Learn Capital, (2011) Team. Retrieved May 28, 2012 from: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20111208005229/en/Edmodo-Raises-Venture-Capital-Financing-Reid-Hoffman
Raice, Shayndi, (2011, December 8). Facebook-Style Learning Site Gets $15 Million. Wall Street Journal, (blog). Retrieved May 28, 2012 from: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/12/08/facebook-style-learning-site-gets-15-million/
Deborah S 7:18 am on May 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Claire,
Great summary! I’m always amazed at the ventures that spring out of people recognizing a gap or a problem in the way something is currently being done. The real challenge is being able to follow through on it. It seems as if they have solid board members who should be able to leverage their past experience with LinkedIn and Facebook to take the company to the next level.
Deborah
Claire Burgoyne 11:32 am on May 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Deborah, I agree with you. It’s not too uncommon to share great ideas but its far less common to hear about people taking their ideas to the next level. I think it requires passion, courage and a great deal of stamina to move past the idea stage. That, and of course support from experienced individuals.
HJDeW 8:27 am on May 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for providing this background information. I had heard about this venture but didn’t take the time to learn more. Based on this summary, I took the plunge and have established an account. If it’s coming from the ground roots of an education technology need, it’s GOT to have benefit for educators, because education (teachers and leaders) are frequently left without sufficient or effective tools to face the challenges in the job.
Claire Burgoyne 11:43 am on May 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
You’re welcome Helen. Completing this assignment was valuable for me too. I’ve had an Edmodo account for some time but haven’t used it yet. Now that I know more about Edmodo I can see advantages to using it with students rather than always working in Moodle. It’s a format students who use Facebook are familiar with which could encourage more participation in discussions. A user friendly way for them to share photos and videos as well as text.
janetb 8:00 pm on May 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Claire,
Thanks for the summary. I had heard about Edmodo recently but haven’t used it myself and after reading your summary I am going to look into it. I have been trying different venues for online asynchronous class discussions and haven’t quite found the perfect fit yet.
I appreciated your comment about the founder being an IT guy for a school district – certainly someone who would have heard a great deal about what teachers are looking for!
Thanks,
Janet
Claire Burgoyne 12:10 pm on June 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Janet, I hear what you’re saying about finding the right venue to encourage asynchronous class discussions. This year for the first time I’ve had some success with that in Moodle forums but as I said earlier, I wonder if using a format more familiar to students would encourage greater participation.
Did you know that Edmodo recently added Google docs integration? That’s got me very interested as it could prove helpful during group projects. For more ways to use Edmodo you might want to take a look at: http://www.slideshare.net/seyfert6/20-ways-to-use-edmodo