Top Mathletes Emerge from the 2017 Canadian Open
OTTAWA, Ontario — The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) is pleased to announce the results of the 2017 Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge, supported by the Actuarial Profession, in particular the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) and the…
Providing a better learning experience for students in online courses
Distributing, collecting, grading and returning paper-based coursework can be time-consuming and inefficient. Exams are often marked by teams of teaching assistants and instructors, but collaboration and ensuring consistency is difficult…
From gamified Old English to new grading software, edtech is on the rise
While much has been said about tablets in the classroom and students who can’t write cursive, education technology goes beyond those basics. It’s a rapidly growing tool in lecture halls, filling the gap left by traditional teaching mechanisms…
New grading software saves teachers time and governments money
What started as a “logistical nightmare” – marking 5,000 exams with just 100 graders for the 2011 Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge (COMC) – has evolved into a rapidly growing start-up with global market potential. Founded by University of…
Crowdmark my Words… But not my Blog
There is something that has annoyed me about my blog for quite a while now which is the length of some of my posts. While I am aware that people are time poor and want to read succinct posts and that “Long is lazy and brief is hard” I have…
Software takes the pain out of marking exams
As a rule, teachers are enthusiastic about forming young minds and putting their energies toward bettering the next generation. As another rule, teachers hate marking, and they hate it with the heat of a thousand blazing exam papers. James…
Big-Brain Hunting: The Key to Supercluster Success
When Raymond Laflamme first met Howard Burton, the founding executive director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, he was sure he was being set up by the FBI. The year was 1999, and in the wake of an espionage scandal at the Los…
The Future is Attending University Inside a Café: Why Starbucks Can Win the MOOC Game
Where content was arguably once king, in 2014 content is ubiquitous. Sitting in a Beijing Starbucks at on a winter morning in 2007, borderline delirious from lack of sleep, I had a vision of the future of learning that I’m more convinced than…
The Accelerator Series: UTEST
Despite A Limited Sample Size UTEST Insists on Building Great Startups The students, faculty and recent grads at the University of Toronto sure do have it nice. After all, they’re eligible to apply for the University of Toronto Early Stage…
New assignment-marking tool created
A new online grading tool is now available to simplify the process of marking paper assignments at the university level. The idea for the tool, named Crowdmark, came to founder James Colliander in 2011 in the wake of the Canadian Open…
Spotlight on Startups: teachers can cut exam marking time in half with Crowdmark
U of T mathematics professor James Colliander’s startup, Crowdmark, is poised to revolutionize exam marking and eliminate hours of inefficiency through a new tool developed with the help of several of U of T’s entrepreneurship support systems…
An “A” for Teamwork
A mathematics professor has 5,280 exams to mark. The exam is 16 pages long and divided into three sections – each of which must be graded by a different person. Each exam is stapled together, meaning sections can’t be separated and graded c…
New EdTech Company in Canada: Crowdmark
As PEHub Canada reports, there is a new EdTech entrant, this time hailing from Canada: Crowdmark. The company offers to cut the time educators spend on grading the students’ exams and grades. Founded in 2012 by James Colliander, a math professor…
Ed-Tech Startup Crowdmark Earns Top Grades From First Adopters. Will VCs Follow Suit?
It perhaps takes a university professor with tech savvy to invent an online company that helps teachers to grade students better. That description fits James Colliander, a math professor at the University of Toronto, who after 22 years of…
Anticipating the inevitable, Lesson 1: Locationary and Crowdmark
Despite the rapid changes in today’s society, education, knowledge and certification will continue to be critical conditions for everyone looking for employment in the network and knowledge society. To learn, to know and to know how to learn is…
U of T’s Crowdmark Pitches at LaunchEdu, Begins Accepting Sign Ups
Toronto-based educational startup Crowdmark pitched at Jason Calacanis’ LaunchEdu yesterday as one of about 20 companies selected to showcase solutions. Crowdmark appeared on Techvibes two weeks ago when it was revealed that the company had…
Local education startup Crowdmark aims to change how teachers grade
It is the bane of every teacher’s existence: grading. Though essential, it’s also repetitive and time-consuming. It is also increasingly prone to concerns about inequity: from grade inflation to inconsistent standards across different classrooms, sometime…
Crowdmark Raises $600K in Seed-Stage Funding
Toronto-based Crowdmark Inc., an education technology startup, has raised $600,000 in seed stage financing from the University of Toronto Early-Stage Technology (UTEST) program, MaRS Innovation, the University of Toronto’s Connaught Fund, RIC Ce…
Crowdmark Raises $600K to Simplify Grading
CROWDMARK: $600K seed round to Toronto, ON-based Crowdmark from a crowd of investors and programs, including University of Toronto (UT) Early-Stage Technology (UTEST), MaRS Innovation, UT’s Connaught Fund and others, reports Canada Newswire. The two-year…
Education Technology News: Online Education Startup Crowdmark Saves Time and Money
Set down the heavy pile of paper and cap the red pens. Crowdmark Inc., an online Canadian education technology start-up, is on its way to revolutionizing the way teachers administer and grade exams. Based out of Toronto, Ontario the Web…
Crowdmark to save teacher marking time and government dollars
TORONTO, June 11, 2013 /CNW/ – Crowdmark Inc., a Canadian education technology start-up, is positioned to save cash-strapped Departments of Education millions by making massive-scale testing more efficient. Crowdmark has raised in seed funding through the University…
Crowdmark Completes Successful EQAO Demonstration
A Teacher’s Inside Look At The Golf Road Junior Public School Pilot The Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) is a Crown agency of the government of Ontario that administers province-wide standardized tests to all public school…
Crowdmark Lends a Helping Hand with Handwritten Assessments
Students aren’t the only ones who fret over finals and exams. Just ask any professor or TA, or better yet: see how their their arms and wrists feel by the time they’re done grading. James Colliander, a Professor Mathematics at the University of Toronto…
Student entrepreneurs get the green light
Ever have trouble making group decisions? What if there was software that makes the process less painful by gathering preferences and facilitating data-driven decisions that maximize value for everyone? Hate job interviews? What if you you could…