beachdreamer
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Thank you Imgur!
We're Socratic (http://socratic.org/) - you might remember us from a post a week or two ago (http://imgur.com/gallery/JkQBxCA/) . A friend of mine posted a GIF demonstrating our educational app on Imgur and it went viral. The outpouring of support and love from this community was absolutely incredible. We are so grateful for all the messages and we wanted to give something back to this awesome community by answering any questions you have about Socratic, education, technology, working in a tech startup, building apps, etc!
PS: To all those who asked about Android - we haven't forgotten about you and are working on it!
For those who missed the original post...
We're creating a free digital tutor for all types of students. Socratic (the app) is totally free, with no advertisements, and helps you learn by analysing your questions to determine the relevant topics and serves up tutorials, videos, advice and answers from real teachers so you don't just finish your work - you actually learn.
The Socratic team hard at work
We have 9 full time employees, 3 contractors, and 1 intern working away in NYC to make learning easier for students all over the world. We're a family really, and have been working together on Socratic for a few years now! Education is our passion, and we really want to create something that, clichéd though it may be, makes the world a better place.
OWL TAX
Unfortunately we weren't allowed to bring a bunch of real owls into the office...health and safety or something. However, these cute owl pillows were hand-made by my Mom - so hopefully they'll suffice!
We can't wait to answer any questions you have - we'll do our best to make sure we respond to every one of them. You're the best, Imgur!
theangrypunk
brodyrick
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gleely
but they didn't learn the most valuable lesson... does bruno mars is gay?
Hkrush
I've been using this ever since the post was made about it, and it is just amazing. Anything I don't understand it explains. Thank you :)
GoldyBronzyIrony
I think this is great for the learning disabled like myself
beachdreamer
that's awesome! idea is to help students of all learning styles
WeiluenHuang
Killer App. You guys are amazing!
beachdreamer
:) !!!!
DentateGyrus
WHOA SHIT ITS EVY!!!! -chlo
GenkiHenkie
This is mind blowing, and I didn't even have to sacrifice my first born for this app!!
gms319
I'm in high school and taking some AP classes. Does it work for that?
beachdreamer
yes it will definitely work for you :) works for all subjects and best experience will be in bio, chem & math right now
RogerTheDodgerNYC
Where did you all work (or what did you do) before you worked at Socratic?
beachdreamer
:) Chris (founder, product) was a PM at Google and Shreyans (founder, eng) was Venmo's first employee. other ppl came from education
beachdreamer
great to have different backgrounds, esp people who have taught in the classroom. team page here: https://socratic.org/team
Honeybadger2198
How did you manage to release this for free without ad revenue?
auria226
how does it read my question if it’s a picture?
beachdreamer
yeah, good question! we use a technology called OCR (Optical Character Recognition) that is able to recognize the shape of each letter (1/?)
beachdreamer
or number and translate it into text. then we do an extra step where we categorize your question into a subject (chem) (2/?)
RogerTheDodgerNYC
tl;dr: Magic
LanceCorporalCarrotIronfoundersson
I've always wonder how apps that don't advertise or charge to download make money?
beachdreamer
yeah, good thing to wonder! most apps and startups out there are VC backed which means we get money from our investors (1/?)
beachdreamer
that's what we're doing right now. it allows us to focus on building out the product w/o worrying about making money. eventually we (3/?)
beachdreamer
will have to make money, but we honestly haven’t begun thinking about how bc that will distract from our immediate goals.
ElBivo
Somehow, miraculously, people just learned all that stuff up until now. What an age.
OverthinkingThis
Neat, if you all are still poking around replies, do you consult people in the study areas in tests and lesson building? (1/2)
OverthinkingThis
I'm a materials engineering recent grad and this interests the hell out of me.
beachdreamer
yeah! we've met with a bunch of ppl in the education world - tutors, teachers, parents, and most importantly, STUDENTS! we user test (1/?)
beachdreamer
all of our new features with students to get their reactions and hear their ideas. our content team is made up of mostly ex-teachers (2/?)
beachdreamer
who have so many thoughts on content creation and teaching pedagogy. and our office is filled with textbooks that we page through a bunch.
SENDMEMES
This is awesome! Is it free?
beachdreamer
yes!! no in-app purchases or anything.
RogerTheDodgerNYC
No adverts either?
beachdreamer
We don't show any ads. The app lets you go to other websites (YouTube) which might show ads, but the app itself doesnt
Hulkhulkthehulkinghulk
How do you make money? You guys deserve it
Helsinkilovingvegangirl
I wish I had something like that when I had to study for my finals...
purplemuppets
WHAT A COINCIDENCE your app was used in my MGST final review on Friday. Good stuff
mburicao
Soo..that means you can't think for yourself anymore eh!..
SwedenIsCool
Does it work in other languages?
beachdreamer
Not at the moment, but it's important to us and we hope to get moving on that as more students use the app!
SwedenIsCool
I want to use it, it looks neat. Im from Sweden :)
DrDoALittleMoreThanBareMinimum
I think it's a great idea, often if you don't understand in class then it's hard to get the home work done and teach yourself at a young age
DrDoALittleMoreThanBareMinimum
Is a hassle because you don't know where to start so you get lost. This I think could help students be more independent.
beachdreamer
Yes! There's nothing more demoralizing than staring at a homework problem for hours and not knowing how to do it. Some students have a (1/?)
beachdreamer
parent / tutor / sibling they can ask for help, but for students who don't, it's a real problem. There's been a lot of research into (2/?)
beachdreamer
how a student's mindset and belief of whether they can do a problem affects their ability to actually do the problem. Check it out (3/?)
beachdreamer
https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve . Our hope is that our app can help students get (4/?)
JFoulds
A question asked a lot before was - "Doesn't this defeat the point of learning?". Thoughts?
beachdreamer
yeah, great question. the reason we’re building this app is precisely to make learning more accessible. when we began researching students’
beachdreamer
study habits to figure out what would be most helpful for them, it was very clear that a lot of students turn to Google. Google is really
beachdreamer
good at getting you an answer - that’s what it was built for - but it’s not very helpful when you’re trying to learn the answer to a Q.
beachdreamer
So we’re trying to build something that will teach you the concept you need to answer your question (with videos, explanations,
beachdreamer
step-by-step for math and showing the best results from the web) and hopefully help you understand how to answer similar Qs in the future
DPHENS
Does this look infected to you?
beachdreamer
Hmm ?
RogerTheDodgerNYC
How long did the app take to develop?
beachdreamer
We've been working on it for a little less than 2 years. We started out putting a very, very simple app in the app store called (1/?)
beachdreamer
"Homework Genius" just so that we could start seeing what homework questions students had and how we could help. People started using (2/?)
beachdreamer
that app and within a few months we had 1 million homework questions. We started using those to build the smart "AI" type logic in the (3/?)
beachdreamer
app. Once we got that to a good place, we closed down "Homework Genius" and launched Socratic.
Lemonbuns
I need that pillow! It would make for an excellent reading pillow
RogerTheDodgerNYC
+1 they look comfy as hell!
beachdreamer
Haha! My Mom actually sewed that by hand as a christmas gift for the company :) I wish that we could get more :)
Lemonbuns
She did an amazing job, super cute :)
TtheWriter
Not sure how I feel about this. It seems like a calculator for all subjects. =|
millanbel
A calculator is a tool.
beachdreamer
calculators don't teach - you just type in some numbers and get one final answer, which isn't what we're doing.
khadegar
Did you guys think about the potential impact of the app an the student's ability to look for information by themselves?
TtheWriter
Yes, but we learned times tables by song and memorization. States and capitals also. Just looking it up when you struggle seems... off.
beachdreamer
explainer cards, videos, Q&A from web all provide the why and how behind your question and answer
Tomadzo
So, you're not really teaching, just a search engine
beachdreamer
So we try to do both. If you search for a chemistry or a bio question, you'll most likely see some custom teaching content that we've(1/?)
beachdreamer
created, like this: https://socratic.org/app/explainer/576a03ea7c014952b7efb55e
blrghbro
When will andriod version released
beachdreamer
We're working on it right now but it'll be a little while before the app is released. I'll come back and update this thread (1/2)
PGMacDesign
Do you guys need help building it? <-- Android Dev
beachdreamer
Yes, how do we get in touch?
PGMacDesign
Hit me up via my email on Github, should be same handle as the imgur one here.
Kobbz
How did it go? :D
beachdreamer
when it's ready, but you can also sign up here if you want to get emailed: socratic.org/android
kdm36
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Xm0ur3r
Dot
type1diabeticwithnoinsurance
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RogerTheDodgerNYC
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jktyree
What you guys are doing is amazing! I can't wait to see the android version. Keep it up guys
fukthisusernamebullsht
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niceonedude
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CoconutLogic
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jonysnake420
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PolarHailStorm
Do a new thread/post when you do. This sort of shit should be reposted often to spread awareness.
beachdreamer
Sounds good!
PolarHailStorm
By the way you all look like you should be in an episode of Cheers around the bar instead of the regular cast.
westo48
How high does the math and what not go up to?
beachdreamer
good question. the socratic math card currently helps with most algebra (equations, polynomials, fractions, etc), and we're improving (1/?)
beachdreamer
the functionality literally every day. you'll get other results too that will help with all sorts of HS level math and some college. (2/?)
beachdreamer
we've just begun work on Explainers in math which is very exciting - they will break down types of math problems step by step!
westo48
That's really cool!! The reason I ask is because I'm a math major right now, almost done :), and I was curious to see what it encompassed
beachdreamer
good for you! check out the app and let us know what you think. so important to get feedback from students
DavidBowiesEyepatch
Won't this just reinforce weak instruction practices?
wlfman
I'm going down the rabbit hole now but I just wanted to say I support your questions about the app, instead of just saying "oo fancy app!"
DavidBowiesEyepatch
Thanks, I have nothing against a good app. However, I work in a SaaS company and ai I see a lot of, "oh! shiny!" for software and I'm jaded.
wlfman
*high five*
beachdreamer
Interesting. You mean this could allow teachers to do a worse job of explaining or clarifying in class? Truth is a lot of students (1/?)
beachdreamer
these days don’t have great teachers or don’t realize they didn’t get a concept until they get home. We want to provide a (2/?)
beachdreamer
“digital tutor” of sorts for all types of students who are struggling right now. This app isn’t designed with teachers in mind, rather (3/?)
beachdreamer
getting students immediate help at home (tho we have had some teachers use the app in class!)
DavidBowiesEyepatch
Everything you just said. Your app fixes bad teaching technique, but what's next, replacing the teachers?