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XWhat We Can Learn from LAUSD's Edtech Spending During the Pandemic
Favot is an award-winning journalist and adjunct instructor at USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. She previously was an investigative and data reporter at national education news site The 74 and local news site LA School Report. She's also worked at the Los Angeles Daily News. She was a Livingston Award finalist in 2011 and holds a Master's degree in journalism from Boston University and BA from the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada.

In the sprint to remake education during the pandemic, Los Angeles Unified School District armed half a million students with internet and devices to stay connected, but experts and parents said that its efforts to teach online sometimes fell short and left students behind.
Parents complained of edtech apps that were hard to hear in some cases or ones that were so cumbersome their children avoided them altogether. Some were age inappropriate, being used for elementary age students who had a hard time navigating them.
dot.LA spoke with a half a dozen parents and teachers about the district's effort to build thousands of virtual classrooms across the sprawling district.
Records obtained by dot.LA show the district spent $390 million in emergency funds for its COVID response from March 2020 to April 2021. More than half was spent on tech like laptops, tablets and hotspots and a lab to process COVID tests. Included in that is $23.4 million in spending on several licenses for edtech apps like Edgenuity, Discovery, Rosetta Stone, Blackboard and Edpuzzle.
While many of the edtech apps the district purchased helped students learn, some parents said others were boring and caused frustration.
One parent group gave its own training for parents to help their children connect to their online classes.
The district has not responded to inquiries from dot.LA about their process. But experts said in the speed in which the process took place what was often left unanswered was how the district chose educational apps.
"As an educational technologist, I am in favor of resources being spent on technology. However, there needs to be a transparent process in place," said Tim Green, a professor of educational technology at California State University Fullerton.
An LAUSD spokesperson said the district sought input from teachers and administrators, surveying more than 11,000 people to determine which apps were being used and preferred by educators. The apps were also evaluated to determine whether they met California's curriculum standards and student data privacy policies.
The spokesperson said professional development for the apps was offered to teachers. And resources were available for parents, including a hotline established to provide consultations with live agents. The agents helped families learn how to use tech and virtual apps.
There remain questions about how the district determined which apps to purchase, including whether teachers, parents and students were involved in the decision-making and whether the district provided professional development to help teachers navigate these apps.
But several parents said they were left on their own to help their kids with their assignments at home using these tools.
Parent advocacy organization SpeakUp stepped in and conducted training for parents on how to use Zoom and other tech. They did this because many low-income parents had never accessed the technology before and in many cases didn't speak English, causing huge barriers to navigating the technology, SpeakUP spokesperson Jenny Hontz said.
"We walked parents through that step by step, but the district did not put many resources toward tech proficiency training. And we were only able to help a limited number of parents with our resources," she said, adding that the group had no funding for this.
Hontz said the district spending on devices and hotspots was essential.
Sonia Sanchez, who has three children in LAUSD schools, said an app called Newsela, which helps students with reading comprehension using news articles, was particularly helpful and enjoyable for her kids.
But, she added, Edgenuity was just the opposite.
Sanchez said her son in high school would postpone anything that had to do with Edgenuity, an online curriculum software for K-12 students, because it was going to take him a long time to get through it.
"They dreaded it," she said of all of her kids.
She said the app is educational and has informative lessons, but for her younger children, it was dull. Moreover, she said teachers didn't follow up with their students about what they learned because the entire lesson and assignment was built into the program. Sanchez said she was lucky enough to be able to sit down with her children as they went through lessons to help because she works part-time from home.
Edgenuity is used by school districts across the nation. A BuzzFeed investigation found that during the first year of the pandemic, more than 500 public school districts purchased the Arizona-based company's software, signing contracts that totaled $145 million.
Deborah Rayow, Edgenuity's vice president for instructional design and learning science, told NBC News that its software wasn't designed for the pandemic and it's up to schools to give live instruction.
LAUSD has been using Edgenuity for years for students to make up courses they didn't pass, known as credit recovery. During the pandemic, teachers turned to it as an online teaching platform.
In August, Meghan Gohil enrolled his son in the district's online independent study program through a district school named City of Angels. It was the only way Gohil could keep his 11-year-old son, who can't get vaccinated, enrolled in the district and learning at home. State legislation prevented school districts from holding Zoom classes similar to what was offered when campuses were closed.
"As much complaining as everybody did about Zoom, it was far superior to what they're doing now," Gohil said.
Edgenuity is the program used by City of Angels to facilitate online learning. Gohil and his son came up with a list of problems they've encountered with the software from poor sound quality on some videos to its focus on the amount of time a student has spent on a lesson rather than comprehension.
When asked whether he's going to re-enroll his student at his regular school in Sherman Oaks after his son is vaccinated, Gohil said, "Hell yeah."
He said it looks like his son, normally a straight A student, is going to get a B this semester.
Students across the nation ended the pandemic school year behind. A study by McKinsey & Co. found that elementary students ended the 2020-21 school year four to five months academically behind. And the findings were more dire for Black and Latino students.
In a statement, Edgenuity said it experienced challenges as it quickly scaled to accommodate many more students than it initially expected.
"But in every case, we recognize our role as education and curriculum partners for our school customers comes with great responsibility, and that's why we have worked with our stakeholders to learn from the last academic year and distill those valuable lessons and insights to inform how we have worked with schools as we entered this third interrupted school year," the company said.
It also said it directly worked with LAUSD to provide tools, resources and support.
Gayle Bigyan said her daughters who are in 5th and 6th grades have had positive experiences with edtech apps, including Newsela, Nearpod, Amplify and XtraMath.
"Both of my daughters' reading comprehension, analytical thinking have gotten a lot better because of those platforms, because they used them every day," she said.
She said her fifth grade daughter is now at the top of her class and Bigyan credits the apps in part for getting her there.
She wants teachers to continue using technology even as classes are now in-person.
Teachers also said they also found apps like Newsela and Nearpod beneficial.
Parent Rebecca Cunningham said she wasn't surprised the district spent millions on tech, but she wants the district to be thoughtful on what it will spend going forward.
"Sometimes you throw everything against the wall and see what sticks," she said. "But we need to make sure that we don't just renew those contracts just because. But, instead, we really need to evaluate and find out from the teachers what they are actually using, and what they know how to use."
IXL Learning announced last week LAUSD has renewed its contract with the edtech company, which is used to supplement math and English lessons. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The LAUSD spokesperson said it will evaluate which apps it will continue to use.
"We will continue to monitor the needs of our communities and leverage renewal options accordingly," they said. " Regular meetings are held with each digital tool vendor to discuss usage, professional development, and needed implementation support."- What LAUSD Spent on Tech During the Pandemic - dot.LA ›
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Favot is an award-winning journalist and adjunct instructor at USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. She previously was an investigative and data reporter at national education news site The 74 and local news site LA School Report. She's also worked at the Los Angeles Daily News. She was a Livingston Award finalist in 2011 and holds a Master's degree in journalism from Boston University and BA from the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada.
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Alex Canter On Taking His Family's 92-Year-Old Canter's Deli Digital
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
For true Angelenos, Canter’s Deli should need no introduction. The 92-year old restaurant seated in the central Los Angeles remains a staple of the community and a piece of the city’s identity. In a conversation with dot.LA CEO Sam Adams, founder of Nextbite, Alex Canter, explained how he’s bringing his family’s iconic restaurant into the modern age.
Nextbite is a virtual restaurant platform that helps restaurants connect with delivery apps like Uber Eats or DoorDash and provides opportunities for existing kitchens to drive new business by operating as ghost kitchens for delivery-only brands. If a steakhouse or a fine dining establishment has a slow day or downtime, they now have the option to fulfill online orders for delivery-only brands, expanding their sales and business–often by upwards of 30%, said Canter.
A venture that was initially a tough sell for the 4th generation Canter.
“I used to hear a lot, ‘If it’s not broke don’t fix it,’ but that drove me nuts,” he said. But like with so many other things, COVID changed the landscape and made the value of his business proposal readily apparent. “2020 was a devastating year for the restaurant industry. All of a sudden every single restaurant was scrambling to implement an omni-channel delivery service,” Canter told Adams on the mainstage at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles. “In March of 2020 we signed up more restaurants than in the previous year combined.”
Spurred by the pandemic, Nextbite’s growth accelerated rapidly and Canter brought in investors from Softbank in a deal worth $120 million. The company expanded into collaborations with celebrities, including a “stoner brand” with Whiz Khalifa called “Packed Bowls” that caters to the predilections of cannabis aficionados and college kids. Think tater tots, PB&J, and mac and cheese topped with chicken nuggets.
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David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
dot.LA Summit: How Companies Can Build a 'Relatable' Metaverse
What’s in a name? Shakespeare didn’t hold much stock in the power of monikers, but the speakers at Friday’s “Building the Metaverse” panel disagreed. And if you ask them, the metaverse is a prime example.
Their argument goes that before Facebook changed its name to Meta, no one was giving the metaverse serious thought. But the day after, “everyone all of a sudden had a metaverse initiative,” said Sly Lee, co-founder and CEO of Emerge, a startup building a platform for touch within the metaverse.
Lee admitted that “Facebook has enabled some bad things.” But every big change in history needs a steelman, Lee explained; a strawman with a strong argument who is willing to back it fully.
So, suffice it to say, names do matter. And so do semantics: Lee admitted he’s grateful for Zuckerberg’s contributions (but qualifies that he “didn’t say love.”)
Today’s panel, which also included Josh Neuman (co-founder/CEO of MELON, a metaverse game development studio) and Tricia Biggio (CEO of Invisible Universe, an internet-first studio targeting animation) is focused on digital identifiers: names for sure, but also avatars. Moderated by dot.LA reporter Samson Amore, the panelists discussed the future of what navigating the web and socializing online might look like.
With brands rushing into the space and consumers becoming savvier than ever, the key to optimizing initiatives designed for the metaverse, Biggio explained, is to try to be as native to consumer behavior as possible. As an example, she cited a recent partnership between her company, Invisible Universe, and the recently retired Serena Williams.
“The story of Invisible was that we saw Serena had gotten her little girl her first baby doll…this doll kind of took on a life of her own,” explained Biggio. Invisible Universe saw an opportunity to transform the doll — which Serena’s social following had embraced — into a character that could live on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Their work has since paved the way for a book called "The Adventures of Qai Qai," a television series that is currently in development, and “a few other things.”
“We’re very lucky to partner with Serena at the very genesis of the company,” Biggio continued. “I’d love to say she put down the tennis racket so she could focus on building Qai Qai with me,” Biggio joked.”
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But is this a space where people want to go and be with their friends? The people who will spend the most time in the metaverse are presumably Gen Z and Gen Alpha, and these younger generations, Neuman said, don’t distinguish “between their experiences in real life and the digital world.”
Call it whatever you want, but understand that the metaverse is coming for all of us — and hopefully, soon we’ll understand what that means.
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Akenta Health Takes First Prize in dot.LA's Pitch Contest
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
The first night of the 2022 dot.LA summit concluded on Thursday with a pitch contest featuring three carefully selected L.A.-based startups, the founders vied for a prize package from WeWork, Fenwick & West and Evolution.
The pitches—screened in pre-recorded segments between the night’s fireside conversations—were judged by three L.A. business experts: M13 Partner Anna Barber, Fenwick & West Associate Chance Goldberg and Evolution’s Managing Director and Co-founder Matt Auron
The three finalists included Shirin Laor-Raz Salemnia, founder of Whiz Girls Academy, a female-focused tech lifestyle brand that hosts hackathons and sells merchandise designed to inspire interest in STEM education; Marco Paschina, the founder of Akenta Health, a digital platform aimed at making healthcare more accessible for Latinos; and Antony Tran, the founder of Foundry Six, an augmented reality gaming company trying to bridge the gap between digital fantasy and the real world.
The judges grilled each founder on a host of topics: from headwinds in the healthcare industry to business model specifics to whether or not it’s possible to get hardcore fantasy RPG players out of their gaming chair and into the real world.
Salemnia was up first. She explained her vision for a her lifestyle brand serve a function far beyond simply being cool and making money. Whiz Girl’s main focus it to make STEM topics exciting to girls ages 8-13. Through a combination of secret agent-themed hackathons and a line of slick merchandise, Whiz Girls plans to leverage Salemnia’s prior experience at Mattel to make tech attractive to a new generation of girls. The company plans to operate through a sponsorship model and has already inked deals with big names like Adidas and the L.A. Sparks.
“We want to be a household brand,” said Salemnia.
Akenta followed suit, fielding questions about how Akenta planned to navigate an environment as complex as the United States healthcare system and how the company would be different from other telehealth ventures. It’s a lofty goal aimed at serving a real need: If the platform is successful, it could expand healthcare access for one of America’s fastest growing demographics, providing tangible benefits to 63 million Latino Americans. The basic concept is that the digital service would connect Latinos with bilingual doctors and allow patients to take advantage of telehealth appointments, renew prescriptions and view lab work. And because it’s employers that pay to use the platform, the service comes at no cost to the patient.
“The big problem is that Latinos are extremely under served,” said Paschina during his pitch. “We want to help those people that cannot afford to pay those out of pocket costs. If you don’t trust your doctor, you don’t want to get the care.”
Finally it was Tran’s turn to take center stage. Foundry Six is trying to build an augmented reality gaming experience quite unlike anything that’s come before it. Positioned as a fantasy role playing game, many aspects of the game felt familiar: a leveling system, gear and loot and a host of mythical enemies. But all of this is taking place against the backdrop of the real world. A magic shield might be hidden on an actual mountain top; Chuthulu might spawn in a pond down the street. You’ll actually have to leave your house to find quests and rewards. If done right, the game should blur the lines between gameplay and reality.
“That’s the space we want to play. We think that’s going to be a lot more magical,” said Tran.
With pitches pitched, Barber, Goldberg, and Auron then left the stage to deliberate. Unseasonably warm Los Angeles air circulated amidst the crowd gathered atop the Petersen Automotive Museum’s penthouse patio. Hors d'oeuvres sweated on table tops. A drum rolled, metaphorically.
When the judges returned to the stage, Barber announced that it would be Akenta that would take this year’s prize. Paschina returned to the stage to accept his trophy and pose for photos.
Well deserved. Congratulations to all our entrants and good luck.
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.