Socratic (Google)

Last updated

Socratic
Logo of Socratic (educational software).png
Type of businessSubsidiary
Type of site
App, website
Created byChris Pedregal, Shreyans Bhansali
IndustryEducation, Internet, Mobile Learning
Parent Google LLC
URL socratic.org
Users 11 million (estimated) [1]
Launched2013

Socratic is an education tech company that offers a mobile app for students. The app uses AI technology to help students with their homework by providing educational resources like videos, definitions, Q&A, links and more. [2]

Contents

Socratic was first launched as a web product in 2013 by Chris Pedregal and Shreyans Bhansali, in New York City, United States. They launched their app under the same name in 2016.

In March 2018, Socratic was acquired by Google for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition was made public in August 2019, when the Founder and CTO (now engineering manager) Shreyans Bhansali announced that the company had joined Google. The wake of news was accompanied by a redesigned iOS app. [3]

Starting from August 2018, Socratic became no longer available for user contributions; past contributions were kept, but it was no longer possible to ask, answer, or edit questions. [4]

Technology

The Socratic app utilizes artificial intelligence to accurately predict which concepts will help a student solve their question. Over months, millions of real student questions were analyzed and classified. Then the app uses that data to guess on future questions and provide specific education content. [5] [6]

The app works by letting students take a photo of a homework question, [7] a feature that was later added to Google Lens. Using Optical character recognition (OCR), the app is able to read their photo and classify it using the technology described above. Students receive various "cards" in the app with different learning resources such as definitions, YouTube videos, Q&A, and original content and illustrations written by the Socratic.org web community. [8]

In January 2017, Socratic added additional Math features to the app, including step-by-step equation help and graphs. [9]

Subjects

There is currently a total of four main groups of subjects on Socratic: [1]

See also

Related Research Articles

Cramster.com was an educational technology website that provided online homework and textbook help for college and high school students in areas such as math, science, engineering, humanities, business, and writing. Cramster used a freemium model, allowing students to pay for or earn access to premium services. Founded in 2002 by Aaron Hawkey, Robert Angarita and Kavé Golabi, the company was headquartered in Pasadena, CA. In 2010, the company was acquired by Chegg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knewton</span>

Knewton is an adaptive learning company that has developed a platform to personalize educational content as well as has developed courseware for higher education concentrated in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The company was founded in 2008 by Jose Ferreira, a former executive at Kaplan, Inc. The Knewton platform allows schools, publishers, and developers to provide adaptive learning for any student. In 2011, Knewton announced a partnership with Pearson Education to enhance the company's digital content, including the MyLab and Mastering series. Additional partners announced include Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Macmillan Education, Triumph Learning, and over a dozen others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quizlet</span> American online studying platform

Quizlet is a multi-national American company that provides tools for studying and learning. Quizlet was founded in October 2005 by Andrew Sutherland, who at the time was a 15-year old student, and released to the public in January 2007. Quizlet's primary products include digital flash cards, matching games, practice electronic assessments, and live quizzes. In 2017, 1 in 2 high school students used Quizlet. As of December 2021, Quizlet has over 500 million user-generated flashcard sets and more than 60 million active users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chegg</span> American education technology company

Chegg, Inc., is an American education technology company based in Santa Clara, California. It provides homework help, digital and physical textbook rentals, textbooks, online tutoring, and other student services.

Firefly Learning is an educational technology company based in London, England with offices in Sydney, Australia that provides virtual learning platforms to hundreds of schools around the world. The Firefly platform allows teachers, students and parents to publish and access information from anywhere with an internet connection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ABCmouse.com Early Learning Academy</span> Subscription based education program for children 2–8

ABCmouse.com Early Learning Academy is a digital education program for children ages 2–8, created by the edtech company Age of Learning, Inc. The program offers educational games, videos, puzzles, printables, and a library of regular and “read-aloud” children’s books, covering subjects including reading and language arts, math, science, health, social studies, music, and art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duolingo</span> American educational technology company

Duolingo, Inc., is an American educational technology company that produces learning apps and provides language certification. Duolingo offers courses on music, math, and 43 languages, ranging from English, French, and Spanish to less commonly studied languages such as Welsh, Irish, and Navajo. The learning method incorporates gamification to motivate users with points and rewards and interactive lessons featuring spaced repetition. The app promotes short, daily lessons for consistent-phased practice.

Piazza is a learning management system which allows students to ask questions in a forum-type format. Instructors are able to moderate the discussion, along with endorsing accurate answers. The software was invented by Pooja Nath in 2009 in order to speed response times and create a common place where students could engage in discussion outside of the classroom. Utilizing an extensive notification system and a simple layout, the response time on Piazza averages approximately 14 minutes. Instructors also have the ability to allow students to post anonymously, encouraging more in-depth discussion. The word Piazza comes from the Italian word for plaza—a common city square where people can come together to share ideas and knowledge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DreamBox Learning</span> American online software provider

DreamBox Learning is an American online software provider that focuses on mathematics education and reading education at the elementary, middle school, and for reading, the high school level. The mathematics software provides pre-kindergarten through 8th-grade students with over 2,000 lessons presented as animated adventures, games, and challenges, while the reading software provides students in elementary to high school levels with articles to boost their reading skills.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brainly</span> Educational technology company

Brainly is an education company based in Kraków, Poland, with headquarters in New York City. It is an AI-powered homework help platform targeting students and parents. As of November 2020, Brainly reported having 15 million daily active users, making it the world's most popular education app. In 2024, FlexOS reported Brainly as the #1 Generative AI Tool in the education category and the #6 Generative AI Tool overall. Also in 2024, Andreessen Horowitz reported Brainly as #6 in the Top 50 Gen AI Mobile Apps by monthly active users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kahoot!</span> Norwegian online educational quiz game

Kahoot! is a Norwegian online game-based learning platform. It has learning games, also known as "kahoots", which are user-generated multiple-choice quizzes that can be accessed via a web browser or the Kahoot! app.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tynker</span> Educational programming platform

Tynker is an educational programming platform to help children learn coding skills, including game design, web design, animation and robotics. It includes courses in Minecraft Modding, Minecraft Game Design, Creative Coding, Python and CSS.

Pluralsight, LLC is an American privately held online education company that offers a variety of video training courses for software developers, IT administrators, and creative professionals through its website. Founded in 2004 by Aaron Skonnard, Keith Brown, Fritz Onion, and Bill Williams, the company has its headquarters in Farmington, Utah. As of July 2018, it uses more than 1,400 subject-matter experts as authors, and offers more than 7,000 courses in its catalog. Since first moving its courses online in 2007, the company has expanded, developing a full enterprise platform, and adding skills assessment modules.

ClassDojo is an educational technology company. It connects primary school teachers, students and families through communication features, such as a feed for photos and videos from the school day, and messaging that can be translated into more than 35 languages. It also enables teachers to note feedback on students' skills and creates a portfolio for students, so that families can be aware of school activities outside of meeting with teachers.

Yup (formerly known as MathCrunch) is a San Francisco–based educational technology company that provides on-demand tutoring services for math. The service is provided via a mobile app, which connects tutors with students in real-time. The company was founded in 2014, in San Francisco, by Naguib S. Sawiris, who also acts as the CEO. The company has been featured in publications such as Forbes, Fox, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photomath</span> Camera calculator

Photomath is an educational technology mobile app, owned by Google. It features a computer algebra system with an augmented optical character recognition system, designed for use with a smartphone's camera to scan and recognize mathematical equations; the app then displays step-by-step explanations onscreen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Padlet</span> Knowledge management software

Padlet is an educational technology startup company based in San Francisco, California and Singapore. Padlet provides a cloud-based software-as-a-service, hosting a real-time collaborative web platform in which users can upload, organize, and share content to virtual bulletin boards called "padlets".

Google Expeditions was a virtual reality (VR) platform developed by Google and designed for educational institutions. Using Android or iOS smartphones, the companion mobile app and head-mounted displays such as Google Cardboard or Daydream View, students could take virtual trips to various destinations. Well-known partners included the American Museum of Natural History, National Geographic, WWF and the National Museum of Korea. The platform was discontinued on June 30, 2021, and was merged into Google Arts & Culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">QANDA</span> AI-based math problem-solving and tutoring platform

QANDA is an AI-based learning platform developed by Mathpresso Inc., a South Korea-based education technology company. Its best known feature is a solution search, which uses optical character recognition technology to scan problems and provide step-by-step solutions and learning content.

References

  1. 1 2 "Socratic". Socratic.org.
  2. Bhansali, Shreyans (July 14, 2016). "Making learning way easier — Introducing the Socratic app". Building Socratic. Retrieved November 9, 2016.
  3. Perez, Sarah (August 16, 2019). "Google discloses its acquisition of mobile learning app Socratic as it relaunches on iOS". TechCrunch. TechCrunch. Retrieved December 8, 2019.
  4. "Socratic.org website will close to new contributions". blog.socratic.org/. Retrieved January 2, 2019.
  5. "Socratic Application Allows Students To Post Homework Questions, Get Answers". The Daily Nexus. Retrieved November 9, 2016.
  6. "Socratic Used Extensive User Testing to Build Powerful Free "Digital Tutor" App — Emerging Education Technologies". emergingedtech.com. August 23, 2016. Retrieved November 9, 2016.
  7. "How to Make Learning Easier than Cheating (EdSurge News)". EdSurge. Retrieved November 9, 2016.
  8. Bhansali, Shreyans (July 14, 2016). "Making learning way easier — Introducing the Socratic app". Building Socratic. Retrieved November 9, 2016.
  9. "Homework Help App, Socratic, Launches Math Features". newswire.com (Press release). Retrieved January 18, 2017.

Further reading