Among the many edtech outfits honored as a part of the 2024 CODiE Awards final week is a corporation that doesn’t lead with tech specs, speeds, feeds, and even literacy scores. “Our intention as an organization and our mission is to stop trauma for college kids,” says Terry Thoren, CEO Surprise Media, whose Storymaker software program gained Finest Resolution for Variety, Fairness, Inclusion and Belonging in the SIIA Innovation Showcase, which acknowledges innovators and startups with income of lower than 1M in income.
On this enlightening dialog, Terry explains that Story Maker is a project-based studying program the place college students work in groups to create animated tales, fostering range and collaboration. The instrument emphasizes intentionality, connectivity, and different parts to advertise happiness and psychological well being amongst college students. He highlights the significance of creation over consumption in training and addresses the challenges posed by expertise use amongst college students. He additionally factors to a number of examples of real-world implementation of Story Maker at district and classroom ranges and its potential to have interaction college students throughout varied topics, together with historical past and language studying. Have a hear:
Extra about Surprise Media and their options:
Terry Thoren acceptance speech
Extra concerning the CODIEs:
Innovation Showcase
The SIIA Innovation Showcase, the Stepping Stone to the CODiE Awards, is a dynamic platform uniting entrepreneurs with business leaders, specialists, and visionaries. SIIA values the significance of Innovation Showcase, a time-honored custom of offering a transparent path to the premier training business awards – The CODiEs. We have a good time innovators/startups >1M/yr who’ve made a constructive impression, demonstrated achievement, performed groundbreaking analysis, and proven exemplary management inside the specialised training business.
The 2024 CODiE Awards honored 40 Schooling Know-how merchandise in 35 classes with an extra eight corporations receiving recognition within the Schooling Know-how Management classes. “The winners of the 2024 Schooling Know-how CODiE Awards symbolize the head of creativity and excellence in offering services and products that join numerous learners with instructional sources and instructors,” mentioned SIIA President Chris Mohr. “We’re thrilled to honor this yr’s recipients – the elite of their discipline – who supply options to essential challenges in training at the moment, starting from accessibility and equity to personalised and adaptive studying experiences. Congratulations to all of this yr’s winners.”
Acknowledged because the business’s sole peer-reviewed awards program, the SIIA CODiE Awards enlist educators and directors to function judges within the preliminary spherical of evaluations for all nominees. Their meticulous scoring determines the finalists for the SIIA CODiE Awards, accounting for 80 p.c of the general evaluation. Subsequently, SIIA members forged their votes on the finalist merchandise, with scores from each rounds meticulously tallied to find out the final word winners.
