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| Calvin Kang, the chief strategy officer of Classting, poses during an interview with The Korea Times at its headquarters in Seoul. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
Start-up boosts communications in schools
By Kang Seung-woo
After returning home, he was scolded by his mother for the loss, despite his innocence. To his embarrassment, his mother wasted no time reporting the incident to his teacher.When a sixth-grade elementary school student had his first-ever pair of Nike shoes stolen at school in December 1993 -- the second day after his grandmother bought them for him -- he did not report the theft to his teacher because he was scared to do so.
Nearly 24 years later, he believes that if there had been "Classting," he would not have had such a bad memory. He is Calvin Kang, who is a strategy head of the tool designed to address the communication gap at school.
Classting is a classroom-based social platform connecting teachers, students and parents to allow communication and the sharing of useful learning content. It also provides a one-on-one messenger service for parents and students to communicate directly to the teacher.
Social network services like Kakao Talk or Facebook offer similar services. But Classting meets specific needs of teachers, students and parents. Another advantage of the dedicated application is that it ensures anonymity when necessary.
"A lack of communication between teacher and student caused my unfortunate incident in 1993. If I were able to go and talk to the teacher, it could have been solved in a smoother way," Kang, Classting's chief strategy officer, said in a recent interview with The Korea Times.
Since its launch in March 2013, Classting has emerged as a must-have item among teachers, students and parents, thanks to its feature enabling communication between them. The number of users has topped 4 million.
"Teachers can create a virtual classroom community on the Classting app and it enables students, parents and teachers to share class-related study content in real time through smartphones. Any format, including files, pictures, videos or website links related to homework or class projects can be shared," Kang said.
A mother of an elementary school student, who wanted to remain anonymous, said, "The app helps me pay more attention to my son's school life, including school bullying."
"However, more than anything else, its feature enabling direct talk between parents and teachers is the biggest reason many parents use it."
While Classting is emerging as the leading player in the local educational tech market, it is also gaining traction in countries such as the United States, Japan, China, Taiwan and even in Vietnam and Indonesia.
"The app is currently available in Turkish and Vietnamese as well as English, Chinese and Japanese," Kang said.
In addition, the startup has attracted high-profile investors such as Softbank Ventures Korea, Partners Investment and Samsung Venture Investment. Accumulated funding totals 7.5 billion won ($65.5 million).
Kang said there are many other investors from many countries showing interest in Classting.
He noted that more than 50 percent of teachers in Korea use the app -- more than 1.5 million have downloaded it. Following its success, the start-up has begun to focus on personalized learning powered by artificial intelligence by recently opening the Classting Learning app.
"Students can access content from the nation's 22 educational firms all together via the app," Kang said.
The 22 include Daekyo, the Educational Broadcasting System (EBS) and YBM.
"The new app uses deep learning to recommend content based on students' performance and analyzes their strengths and weak spots," he added.
Former elementary school teacher Dave Cho founded Classting in 2012 to improve the education environment by advising why and how students should study.
"Recently, we saw outrageous things happening in schools like parents or even students being violent with teachers due to a lack of mutual respect. To stop this rising problem, there should be more upright, balanced, high-quality education," Kang said.
"However, the current educational system gives little room for teachers, who struggle to deal with all the problems while teaching many students."
Kang added: "With the planned launch of Classting Learning for classrooms, we will improve education process itself to help teachers to teach and for students to learn more effectively. This service is currently on a beta testing and we are very excited for the positive impact that it will have in improving education environment."
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