Archive for category: Crowd Sourcing

New Orleans, LA (PRWEB) April 16, 2013

education everytime, a startup that uses educational music as a classroom management tool for teachers, won $ 50,000 in prize money by beating out 15 entrepreneurs at the Big Idea contest during New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. The company is slated to launch its music-streaming service for K-12 teachers in time for the 2013-14 school year.

Founder Lorenzo Castillo, along with the help of fellow teachers and their students, pitched to the crowd of 1,700 and garnered enough support to present the winning pitch at the final round. During the meet and greet, they explained how the music helps teachers save time by establishing clear start and end times while also improving classroom culture. “The music helps teachers manage daily routines that often cut into instructional time,” says Castillo, a 5th grade teacher himself. “Saving just a few minutes on a daily basis results in days and even weeks of added learning time over the course of a school year.”

Castillo makes all recordings with his team, laying vocals over custom-made music beats to create songs that help guide students through specific classroom procedures. For example, in the song “Better Than I Found It”, Castillo raps, “paper in the trash, then I’m bouncing / on to the next class, up a mountain”. The song provides students with behavioral instructions (putting “paper in the trash”) and reinforces key values (“on to the next class, up a mountain,” a reference to KIPP’s metaphor “Climb the Mountain to College”).

Deion Brown, a 6th grade math teacher at YES Prep Northbrook school in Houston, Texas, has found education everytime to be a practical tool. “The systems outlined through hip-hop verses engage students of today’s generation and help them to easily remember key routines for success,” says Brown. “The students absolutely love the music,” adds James Mosely, 7th and 8th grade Social Studies teacher at KIPP Polaris Academy for Boys in Houston, Texas. “The music really calms the students and gets them focused for class… It is amazing to see how the students respond to the music with productivity. Teaching a class of all boys can be challenging at times, but this music is something that engages them in learning as well as relaxes them.”

With the seed money from the Entrepreneur Week contest, education everytime is set to release its music-streaming service for teachers in time for the 2013-14 school year. Updates on the release can be found at educationeverytime.com. Teachers can subscribe for a low monthly fee, allowing unlimited access to the entire catalog of music and accompanying materials.

About education everytime

education everytime provides teachers and schools with a music streaming service to manage student behavior during daily school and class routines. The music empowers teachers to manage their classrooms with greater efficiency and control, while also boosting engagement by using popular, culturally-relevant music in the classroom. It was founded in 2009 by KIPP alum Lorenzo Castillo, who began infusing music into his classroom as a KIPP teacher to enhance his students’ learning. Over the past 3 years, e2 music has been implemented in classrooms from New York to New Orleans and has reached over 1,000 students with meaningful and inspiring results.

Resources

Videos: Transition, Homework

Songs: 1-4, Brainstorm, Read Baby