Ed Tech Can Be Useful

I have discovered an ed tech creation that actually looks kind of cool.

I should probably preface all of this by noting that this popped up on my feed because Zuck's algorithm thought I'd like to see it. So, not the result of some PR pitch. In fact, sadly, I have to note that we are in the wrong country to have access to this tool.

Not for nothing that this ed tech application comes from a former teacher. But I think it could, maybe, conceivably save teachers time. And it's cool. Here's the quick simple pitch from the BBC version of Shark Tank, a show called Dragon's Den.

Mark Mate appears to be still in business, albeit in the UK. The capabilities of the program are somewhat greater than the creator show in his pitch; you can see more in his "guided tour" and honestly those greater capabilities sound to me like the things that end up putting more time suck back into the product. But I will note that, as someone who answered the question "Hey, Mr. Greene, what does this thing you wrote here say?" roughly sixty gabillion times, I can see other benefits.

As one of the dragons noted, there's nothing here that exactly breaks new boundaries or requires amazing new techno-breakthroughs. That's probably because it was developed by a teacher who was trying to solve a teacher problem he actually had rather than creating a tech-innovative break-things product that requires teachers to completely change how they work. 

Sadly, this is unavailable in the states, though I suspect that it wouldn't be that hard to rig. In fact, I'll wager that somewhere there are some enterprising tech-savvy teachers who have come up with a similar sort of hack. Mark Mate is not the kind of thing that causes earth shattering changes, and it would be great if more ed tech was like that-- not earth shattering, but able to solve an actual classroom problem instead of creating one.