Edtech Tool Recap Accelerates to Quarter Million Users in Under Semester
Menlo Park, CA (PRWEB) October 03, 2016 -- Rivaling the growth of other popular edtech tools like ClassDojo and Edmodo, Recap, the free video response and reflection app developed by Swivl, accelerates past 250k users after just a few months. After making its beta debut earlier this year, Recap's simple interface and versatility have won over many students and educators. “We’re extremely pleased with the response to the launch of the app, and we’re excited about its potential to make an impact in classrooms and accelerate the personalization movement in education,” said Swivl co-founder and CEO, Brian Lamb.
Recap was created in response to the pressing industry need for new formative assessment tools that do more than just collect answers. “This is a very easy formative assessment tool. It gives me an instant snapshot of what the kids can explain and it lets me know if they understand the concept verbally,” said Kirk Humphreys, a middle school math teacher from Deerfield, IL. Another teacher, Shannon Schroeder, who teaches 8th grade English, notes Recap’s ability to give each student a voice in the classroom. “The shy, quiet student and the outspoken student all get heard, and all students get a chance to communicate in a format that is familiar and comfortable for them,” said Shannon.
One of Recap's first users Jon Dufay, a high school forensics and biotechnology teacher from Washington, found multiple uses for Recap. His students use it to set goals, review lessons and new topics, improve presentation skills and establish class rapport, all while having fun. “The kids work with it, they figure it out and get to know each other maybe in a way they wouldn’t have before, so I’ve actually really enjoyed it and I think they have, too,” said Jon.
English and Math are the top two subjects taught by Recap users. Science, History and Social Studies are not far behind. Grade levels range from preschool to higher education, but while Recap power users can be found at each level, currently, 3rd-5th grade teachers make up almost half of Recap’s teacher user base, while 6-8th grade teachers make up the second largest category of Recap users. The app is also gaining popularity in professional development.
Here’s how it works. Recap allows educators to pose questions and gather video responses from a whole class, a student, or a group of students, who can record their responses on almost any mobile device or computer. Teachers sign in with Google, create classes and assignments and add students, using class pin login for younger students and Google login for higher grade levels. After students submit their responses and self-assessments, the videos can be rolled up into Daily Review Reels or shared with others through non-searchable links.
One of the latest improvements made to the app is the new two-way commenting feature that allows students to respond to teacher’s comments under video responses, enabling a deeper dialogue within the app. “From the moment we launched Recap we’ve been partnering with educators to understand the uses and key features. The ability to message students and dialogue back and forth about their response was a broad request by teachers at all levels,” said Brian Lamb. The Recap Beta launch was the result of thousands of development hours and feedback from hundreds of educators. 250K registrations and multiple app updates later, improvements keep coming as Swivl continues to listen and respond to hundreds of thousands of beta users.
About Swivl
Founded in 2010, Swivl’s mission is to transform education technology by making it less immersive and more flexible, focusing on creating meaningful, actionable dialogue between educators, students, and parents. Swivl is best known for the Swivl Robot. Launched in 2012, Swivl now has hardware and software tools in over 20,000 schools around the world. Swivl is based in Menlo Park, CA.
To learn more about Recap please visit: http://letsrecap.com.
Tatyana Vinogradova, Swivl, http://www.swivl.com, +1 (408)421-6589, [email protected]
Share this article