Startup Spotlight: Slader


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Submitted by Janice Joo on Tue, 07/10/2012 - 4:42pm.

The Details & Back-story 
Slader is a NYC-based ed tech company established in 2009 by co-founders Scott Kolb and Kyle Gerrity. It is a web-based platform for students to view and share detailed solutions to math, science, English, and history questions found in almost 300 American high school textbooks across the US.

How does it work? Students find solutions to specific questions in their textbooks by first searching the Slader site for the textbook containing their question. Students then enter the page number on which their question(s) can be found. They can then browse the results for answers and in-depth solutions.
For all you visual folk, you can walk through their demo video below. Please feel free to comment, too!

Unique Point of Difference
 Slader uses a crowdsourcing approach; students are both the content contributors and content reviewers (through commenting and voting). It is recognized as a FREE alternative to expensive peer tutoring.

Furthermore, thanks to crowdsourced content, Slader is able to support the development of student comprehension and conceptual understanding, as opposed to just accessing the "right answer."

EdLab Relevance
Would Vialogues benefit from more explicit subject streams like Slader, i.e. math, science, English, history... etc. How many people use the "EXPLORE" button on Vialogues as their point of entry into content? Do users prefer an open-ended discovery experience, or a more guided experience when searching for vialogues?

Our Takeaway
Make it easy to find a rich version of exactly what you need: the right answer AND the valuable solution.

Posted in Public | Janice Joo's blog | login or register to post comments »

Daniel Vergara Says:
Fri, 07/13/2012 - 8:27am

Janice, I really find Slader to be an interesting start up company. I feel like this tool will make school work easier. But as Rebecca said, there is the chance of it being used for other things apart from its intended use. But I also agree with the point you are tying to make with understanding the concepts, making it less of an issue.

Oumar Soumahoro Says:
Wed, 07/11/2012 - 6:16am

Cheating is a very important issue in education today but programs like Slader were created before and still need to be created to help those students who do not cheat better their academic scores. The government and schools need to find more efficient ways to get rid of freedom on school grounds because the internet will not help in this case.

Rebecca Hyams Says:
Tue, 07/10/2012 - 4:47pm

Considering how prevalent cheating has become do you think though that students may use this as a tool to make not actually doing their homework easier? I have a feeling a lot of teachers out there (if they know about this) will hope their students never find it

Haymar Lim Says:
Tue, 07/10/2012 - 10:29pm

Cheating on homework is nothing new and can be easily done through facebook or many other existing tools. This might make it a little easier to cheat, but the results are still the same. Since cheating on homework is something that can be done so easily, many teachers I know use policies making bad test grades result in bad homework grades. As long as they are vigilant during tests, this oftentimes reflects on whether or not homework is being done. If someone can solve a problem perfectly on the homework, they should be able to do it on a test. This is by no means a perfect system as students might get stressed during tests or be naturally good at taking tests without doing much homework, but it is a move many teachers have been forced to make. If this tool helps students understand, it should be welcome.

Janice Joo Says:
Tue, 07/10/2012 - 5:14pm

I suppose if these homework assignments are graded, then cheating becomes an issue. But if these assignments are intended for students to understand concepts, then it's less of an issue. What do you think?

If Slader intends to help students understand concepts, then I wonder if they are working on developing a monitoring system. I.e. tracking what types of questions or what subjects they are frequenting. Is Slader exploring analytics to direct students to other related questions? I see potential for growth in this area of adaptive learning...