Kelci Lynn has an interesting take on SpacedEd over at the About.com Guide to College Life:
“Interested in going to medical school? You may be interested in checking out SpacedEd.com. The site, created by Harvard Medical School professor B. Price Kerfoot, claims to help you “learn most anything in 3 minutes a day.” You’ll be emailed questions once a day that ask you questions related to whichever topic/course you select. The best part: it’s free.”
Thanks Kelci!
Last week I had the opportunity to talk with David Mallon, Senior Analyst at respected e-Learning research and advisory company Bersin & Associates about SpacedEd and some of our plans for the upcoming Enterprise version. David had some great feedback for us on how we could make the platform even better and also some great ideas on innovative ways it could be used, but more on that another time. He has written a blog post on his thoughts on SpacedEd which is one of the clearest explanations I have yet seen - certainly better than anything I could do – and I wanted to share it with our members. So head on over and take a look.
Dian Schaffhauser at Campus Technology magazine wrote an article on SpacedEd that is now available on their web site
As the article says:
“Topics cover the silly–”Fantasy Football 101″–and the serious–”Core Urology for Medical Students.”
which is a great way to describe the broad range of courses we have (and growing every day) and I love the alliteration!
More seriously the article notes the rigor of the peer-reviewed trials that Dr. Kerfoot ran over the last few years while developing and refining the methodology – this level of proven ability of our method is rare in learning technology and we consider it one of our great strengths.
Stephanie Lee over at Inside Higher Ed published a great article on SpacedEd today that includes some quotes from one of our first authors, Dr. Kitt Shaffer, who is a radiologist and Vice Chair for Education in the Radiology department at Boston Medical Center. She noted how she was attracted by the simplicity of both the learning and authoring process:
“…she said she does not usually use online education systems, but likes being able to embed images and audio on SpacedEd. Above all, she said, the site simplifies the learning process.”
You can read the full article on the Inside Higher Ed web site.
Our recent announcement of the licensing of the spaced education methodology from Harvard University is now up on Harvard’s own site. You can also read more about our friends at the Office of Technology Development who have been very supportive of our launch. OTD is the group responsible for helping to commercialize inventions developed at Harvard and have been great to work with. Thanks guys!
New Education Technology, Designed For Social, Mobile World, Improves Learning Retention
Cambridge, MA, July 7, 2009 – Spaced Education, Inc has signed an exclusive license agreement with Harvard University for a new learning technology that was developed and used at Harvard Medical School.
The method, called Spaced Education, was developed by Dr. B. Price Kerfoot, Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. It utilizes a simple question and answer format, delivered in short daily bursts to the learner and backed by a proprietary algorithm that adapts the content based on how an individual performs.
“Our early studies showed that traditional online learning generates only limited long-term retention of knowledge and is poorly accepted by learners,” said Dr. Kerfoot. “To address these problems, we incorporated two research findings from the field of psychology (the spacing effect and the testing effect) into a new method of online learning based on a question and answer format.”
Spaced Education, Inc. has developed and launched the online service and website SpacedEd (www.spaceded.com), which puts this learning technology at the core of a social learning community. Learners can sign up for a wide range of courses, many for free, and receive their courses in a simple question and answer format, delivered on a regular schedule via email, the web, or a mobile device.
The company will market its software as a service (SaaS) solution to individuals, educational institutions, course providers and enterprises that want to offer courses based on the Spaced Education methodology.
Proven in more than 10 peer-reviewed randomized controlled trials led by Dr. Kerfoot, Spaced Education has been shown to change behavior and to be effective, efficient, and well-accepted by learners:
Effective
Efficient
Well-accepted
Certain courses have also changed behavior of participants. For example, in a study of 95 VA primary care providers inappropriate cancer screenings decreased by 26%, a significant potential reduction in cost and patient anxiety.
“In contrast to the standard ‘binge-and-purge’ approach to online education, Spaced Education presents content to the learner in small packets which are repeated over spaced intervals of time to improve long-term retention,” said Kerfoot. “We now combine this with an adaptive algorithm which customizes the content and spacing on an individual basis until a learner has achieved mastery of the material. Initial trial results have been extremely encouraging.”
“The effectiveness of SpacedEd’s learning technology has been proven with unprecedented rigor at Harvard University – never before has a new learning approach been validated to such an extent,” said SpacedEd CEO Duncan Lennox. “Combined with the level of convenience and sheer addictive fun that SpacedEd brings to learning, we believe Dr. Kerfoot’s work will fundamentally change the way the world learns.”
“Dr. Kerfoot’s innovative learning method has been proven to increase retention and change behavior. It is ideal for today’s social and increasingly mobile online world, and represents but one example of a variety of timely research initiatives being advanced across our campus, benefiting society and researchers alike,” said Isaac T. Kohlberg, Senior Associate Provost and Chief Technology Development Officer at Harvard University’s Office of Technology Development, the office that is responsible for all activities pertaining to the evaluation, patenting and licensing of new inventions and discoveries made throughout Harvard University.
About SpacedEd
SpacedEd is a unique and growing learning community, designed from the ground up for a mobile, social world. Using a simple question and answer format combined with a proprietary adaptive algorithm, SpacedEd delivers “Addictive Learning That Sticks.” The SpacedEd service is based on a patent pending method developed and used at Harvard Medical School. Founded in 2008, SpacedEd is headquartered in Waltham, MA. For more information, contact Duncan Lennox at +1 781-583-1503 or visit www.spaceded.com.
“SpacedEd”, “Addictive Learning That Sticks” and the SpacedEd logo are trademarks of Spaced Education, Inc.
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