Industry News

Discovery Ed Acquires Ed Assessment and Feedback Company

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 08/10/20

Education media company Discovery Education has acquired Spiral, a London-based company that supports collaborative learning and formative assessments. The terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

Spiral has five modules, each designed to engage learners in different ways:

• Quickfire Lite lets the teacher ask verbal questions and get quick responses from students;

• Quickfire provides a planned quiz with multiple format responses;

• Discuss turns a presentation into a discussion thread for the class to participate in;

• Team Up allows students to work together on presentations; and

• Clip turns public videos into a live chat with questions and quizzes.

Activities can be saved for use in a live class online or posted as assignments for students to do on their own.

There's no need to run Spiral through a learning management system. Teachers can invite student participation with a code or email link. However, class rosters from Google Classroom can be integrated into Spiral.

According to Discovery officials, Spiral's product features complement its own curated content and existing assessment and student collaboration tools, adding that the acquisition will provide additional ways for customers to do their teaching.

"Discovery Education is focused on providing school systems outstanding digital services that connect students to learning in and out of the classroom," said Discovery Education Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy, Philip Nanney, in a press release. "The acquisition of Spiral aligns with our strategy of adding features to our digital services that save educators time and increase student engagement.

"Discovery Education shares our commitment to connecting students to learning no matter where they are, and we look forward to working closely on that mission with our new colleagues," said Hamish Kennedy, Spiral's founder and CEO.

Spiral is based in London.