Education and technology are two peas in a pod. The opportunities for technology to transform the way we educate students are literally endless. And as someone with a background in education, I am stoked on any application that is connecting the two and creating an extraordinary tool for learning. Enter Goalbook – the special education app that helps involve students’ teams in their individual learning plans to help them succeed.
The guys behind the app
Justin Su and Daniel Yoo are the guys behind this transformative education app. With previous jobs at business giants like Deloitte, Oracle and Google, both eventually moved into the education sector. With their mountain of experience in tow, they joined Imagine K12’s edtech accelerator last to create an education app that would help personalize education through creating a single, collaborative network of educators and administrators to help reach individual student’s goals and milestones.
Introducing Goalbook
The two created Goalbook to disrupt the education sector and introduce a new way of learning. However, after graduating from the edtech accelerator last year and testing it on Bay Area schools, the team realized the app would be better suited for the Special Education sector, which Justin believes to be, “the most complex and broken part of our education system.”
Transforming Special Education
Special Education requires a team of educators collaborating around individual student to help them reach individual learning goals and milestones. Goalbook is the next-generation enterprise platform that makes this process simple, easy and more efficient. Educators create individual profiles for students and communicate with other team members, including parents, to update and collaborate on student progress.
Individual Education Plans or IEDs are a very important part of achievement for Special Education. The problem, however, is that these plans are often times neglected or difficult to obtain by educators. Goalbook solves this problem by keeping students on track with their IEDs.
Goalbook’s Backers
Goalbook’s awesomeness has not gone unnoticed. The team just announced they have raised over $915k in funding with supporters that include:
- NewSchools Venture Fund
- Rethink Education
- Greg Gunn – co-founder of Wireless Generation
- Steve Shulman – former Magellan Health CEO
- Patient Capital Collaborative
- Joe Gleberman – Facebook VP of Advertising and Global Operations
Looks like Goalbook has some good friends to help it become the first mobile and social platform for teachers in Special Education. Three cheers for transformative education apps! Well done, Goalbook.
