When we launched Educational Impact in 1999 it was not uncommon to get calls from teachers asking if we could just send them a VHS tape. Others wanted to know if they would receive a letter notifying them of our local TV channel. Back then most teachers had never viewed video on a computer, or even knew it was possible. Most school computer labs had no speakers and few, if any, teachers had ever taken an online course.

As I look back I wonder how we survived!

Today the challenges are different. Schools want a one-stop-shop for all their digital applications. Our videos and courses must work and fit perfectly on every computer, laptop, iPad, phone, and digital wristwatch. School customers today seek greater levels of customization and breadth of content than ever before.

At Educational Impact, we are inspired by these challenges. We continue to innovate by providing new content and improved solutions to the customers we serve. However, in our fast-moving EdTech industry there is one thing that doesn’t change: Good teaching is still good teaching. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were celebrated teachers of ancient Greece. If we had video of their lessons, we would certainly gain remarkable insight into the profession of teaching, and all of us would be better for it.

Here at Educational Impact we are focused on real classroom video. We love the challenge of capturing inspirational, unscripted classroom interaction. We may film all day just to capture that special moment where a single teaching strategy comes to life between a teacher and student. It never gets old when our team returns from a day of filming and say “George, wait till you see the classroom footage we got today!” Their enthusiasm for their profession always inspires me.

When we recently filmed in the state of Delaware, our intent was to capture a specific instructional strategy being used by the teacher. But instead, we ended up with the unexpected opportunity to capture a brilliant unscripted moment that we ultimately matched with video analysis to use in a course on a different topic (see video excerpt here). It must have been how the old miners felt when they found a nugget of gold.

While our online academy features video of many of the today’s leading educational experts, our core mission is to continue to look for new and exciting opportunities to take you inside of great classrooms to watch exceptional teachers in action. And we all know that better teachers mean better schools….and better schools mean a better world.

 

George Elias
Educational Impact Founder & CEO