On Top of the News
At Hallway, a Start-Up for High School Students By High School Students
Washington Post| September 6, 2012
Behind the Headline
Game Changer
Education Next| Fall 2012
A new education technology start-up called Hallway is being launched by students at an elite Virginia high school (TJ), reports Steven Overly in the Washington Post. It’s an online portal where students can submit questions on school subjects that their peers can answer. Students can then rate which questions and answers are most helpful. The idea grew out of Facebook groups that allowed students to communicate about assignments; the founder of the new venture says that the Facebook groups taught him that students learn best from collaborating with peers in an online environment.
An article in the Fall 2012 issue of Ed Next by Michael Horn looks at the growth of “social learning” sites like Hallway. “if you place the word ‘social’ in front of nearly anything these days, you can get a meeting in Silicon Valley,” Horn writes. (see “Game Changer”)
Another article in the Fall 2012 issue of Ed Next coincidentally looks at elite high schools like Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a selective school that the founders of Hallway attend. (see “Exam Schools from the Inside”)
-Education Next
