ISTE 2016 Coverage

Ideaphora Secures BrainPOP Investment for Concept Mapping Tool

The company will use the new funding for product development and sales support of its subscription-based concept mapping tool that will launch this summer.

• By Sri Ravipati
• 06/27/16

Ideaphora, a provider of knowledge mapping technologies that integrate with digital content, announced it has received funding from BrainPOP, a company that creates educational animations and games. Although the financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed, the investment promises to bolster Ideaphora’s product development and sales efforts as it prepares to launch a subscription-based online concept mapping environment.

Ideaphora is developing a browser-based knowledge mapping tool that will integrate with an array of digital content for districts, schools and educators. “Ideaphora’s technologies are the first to deconstruct digital content into meaningful concepts, automatically generating keywords that students can drag-and-drop into concept maps that they build right alongside the resource,” according to the company.

The tool, Make-a-Map, is part of an effort to improve students’ assimilation of digital content as schools move away from using print resources. Make-a-Map enables students to draw connections among concepts, images and clips from BrainPOP educational movies. According to Ideaphora, students in schools using BrainPOP have created close to 600,000 concept maps in Make-a-Map in the 2015-2016 school year.

Ideaphora will launch its stand-alone tool this summer for an annual subscription fee. Educators interested in using the tool can sign up for the free classroom pilot program. BrainPOP will be exhibiting at ISTE 2016 in booth No. 2700. Further information is available on the Ideaphora site.