Some of my favorite products are the ones that seem so utterly obvious in retrospect. Because they’re such a moment of insightful brilliance codified into a product. And you’re just like “Yes. That makes TOTAL sense. Why hasn’t anyone done this before?” Take computers. What are they good at doing? That’s right. Computing. So why hasn’t anyone put that to work in an elegant way to support mathematics in schools? Someone has. Meet Portland startup MathLeap.
I first saw MathLeap demoed at Demolicious during Portland Startup Week.
And then I just kind of sat there. Slackjawed.
I mean, yes, there is an awesome and growing collection of edtech stuff going on in Portland, both old and new. And yes, there are tons of creative people building amazing products. But this was just. Yeah. Obvious. And awesome.
Clearly, I wasn’t the only one impressed. Because MathLeap walked away with the Demolicious trophy.
To put it quite simply, MathLeap lets a computer do what a computer does best: execute lines of equations. And that gives pre-algebra and algebra students insightful line by line feedback on their work. All thanks to a Web-based math editor that dissects equations, highlighting errors or missed concepts. With that feedback, the students can see where they’ve made mistakes. And they can also see how their corrections affect the equation.
Founded by former Mozilla Firefox engineer Gareth Aye, MathLeap was beta tested with teachers in Knox County schools in Knoxville, Tennessee. And it’s currently available on Edmodo.
But something tells me that this is just the beginning.
For more information, visit MathLeap.
