Can Open Middleware Revolutionize Education?

"It is a miracle that curiosity escapes formal education." These words by Albert Einstein reflect a lot about the current state of education. It also captures the need for overhauling the fabric of our school system. Society needs technology solutions that extract the best out of all the stakeholders in education—students, teachers, and parents. And we need enterprises that revolutionize the learning ecosystem. inBloom is one such company that utilizes and integrates massive amounts of data to change the landscape of the education sector.

I talked to Vincent Mayers, open source community manager at inBloom, to learn how the company is changing school systems and how open source technologies aid in its mission.

Tell us about inBloom and its mission.

inBloom is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to provide a valuable resource to teachers, students and families for improving education.

In 2011, the Shared Learning Collaborative (SLC), an alliance of states, districts, educators, foundations and content and tool providers passionate about using technology to improve education, was formed through the leadership of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). [...]