EditMentor

Video has become an essential form of communication globally—critical for business, entertainment, and personal expression. With the rise of social media platforms, anyone can become a video content creator and share their ideas with millions of people instantaneously. And yet for how central this form of communication has become, the training for producing videos remains expensive, outdated, and out of reach for the majority of the population. Video literacy means organizing clips with the intention to transmit ideas and evoke emotion. EditMentor is pioneering video literacy education through a cutting-edge web-based platform that simultaneously teaches the art of video storytelling and the technical skills of video creation within an interactive environment. Through this learning-by-doing educational tool, learners—irrespective of their age, gender, wealth, ethnicity and geography—can grasp how to profoundly impact a global audience through video to start a business, create art, and perhaps even change the world.

Video has become embedded as part of the human experience for learning, communication, and self-expression. One billion hours of video are consumed daily on Youtube alone. For today’s students and lifelong learners, video literacy is a critical 21st century skill that benefits them in a variety of personal and professional capacities. And yet, most people are video illiterate. Why? Because video literacy education is thought of as a specialized niche subject that is only obtainable through extensive training. There is a general belief that impactful video creation is a difficult skill that few people can master. This belief is evident in our educational system, workforce, and even the expectations for the video pitch requested in this application. 

Moreover, the methods for teaching video literacy are outdated. While other subjects such as programming, math, and language have forms of interactive online learning, video education is taught using passive video tutorials or books. In the current K-12 system, video literacy education is typically only offered as an elective and requires expensive hardware and software that many schools and disadvantaged populations just can’t afford. Furthermore, there are few expert video literacy teachers, and little support for novice teachers.

EditMentor revolutionizes video literacy education by integrating the technical skills of video creation with the art of impactful storytelling—all within a research-based, interactive learning environment. Students engage in learning by doing: each carefully scaffolded lesson introduces students to a video literacy concept and then challenges students to complete a hands-on task immediately in the program. 

This evolution of video literacy education would not be possible without the technical advances EditMentor has developed. EditMentor is a browser-based program that reduces the bandwidth and computer processing requirements for students. The result is a democratization of video literacy education. A student with limited technical resources can work in a public library at school, then continue their work seamlessly back at home on a computer as simple as a Chromebook.

EditMentor will equip today’s learners with the skills to create video stories that can support their small business dreams, make them successful in professional roles, create forms of self-expression, or even be agents for social, environmental, or global change. In this age of globalism and social platforms, a powerful video from a single person can ignite revolutionary change, and EditMentor can help every person develop the video literacy skills to do so. 

Video literacy is an essential skill for all people, as it is the new global form of expression and communication. And yet for as prevalent as video has become in daily life, no interactive accessible educational tools exist on how to craft meaningful and impactful video content. While there are quality video editing software applications, they can be expensive, require significant hardware computing power, and do not provide training on what is most important: how to craft video content to impact the viewer. The video tutorials and books which are used currently for education are passive learning tools. EditMentor can provide this training in an interactive format, requiring only access to an internet browser—dramatically reducing barriers to obtaining this skillset. Given the endless application of video content, video literacy is a critical skill for three target populations: schools, lifelong learners, and companies training their workforce on video marketing and business presentations. 

EditMentor is well positioned as an educational tool for both K-12 and higher education student populations. Today’s students are digital natives and expect digital content in their learning environments. Video is already an expected communication tool for generation Z, and video education is a natural fit for this age group. Furthermore, students who are interested in pursuing an education in journalism, marketing, film or the media arts are now expected to apply to college programs with prior experience, meaning the loss of opportunity is happening at an earlier age for today’s students if they do not have access to video education in high school. EditMentor offers this student population an accessible curriculum. 

Our largest market population are lifelong learners: anyone of any age who could gain something from acquiring video literacy. EditMentor educates learners on the expertise  necessary to produce impactful video content, from novices of any age to experienced video content creators looking to specialize in a field. Lifelong learners are motivated to acquire video creation skills to further some aspect of their lives—from hobbies, to career development, to self-expression, and EditMentor can provide direct education to individuals at any time. 

Our final market population are professionals in any industry. Statistics show that most companies prefer using videos for marketing materials; 99% of video marketers say they will continue to use it, 88% of video marketers said it provided them with positive ROI. Millennial customers show the strongest preference for video content from brands. Therefore, we feel that every company that creates videos in-house can benefit from EditMentor, and that companies will increasingly seek in-house video editing skill sets from their employees in the future as video creation, much like written literacy, becomes more expected and commonplace.

Schools need educational tools that are engaging, flexible, and accessible. As an interactive and gamified learning environment, EditMentor courses continually engage students through challenges that are both pedagogically scaffolded for optimal learning and fun for students. Scores and data are reported to teachers, enabling them to monitor student progress and easily integrate EditMentor into their classroom. EditMentor was designed to run without requiring high speed internet or high powered computers, allowing increased access for students without those tools. Between the comprehensive lessons and low barriers to access, EditMentor is a flexible environment for remote, hybrid, or in-person learning.

EditMentor is in the growth stage of development. The core technology for the platform is complete. Our curriculum team already developed two film courses comprised of 24 lessons, and 250 interactive challenges. We updated the platform based on early adopter feedback. Currently, EditMentor serves 13 school districts, 17 universities & colleges, as well as 28 high schools throughout the US, including Purdue University and the Los Angeles Unified School District. EditMentor has 3,500 paid student accounts since its launch in August, 2020. 

EditMentor is poised for significant growth in 2021. With success in schools on track, we plan to launch support for life learners starting July 1st, 2021.

EditMentor provides an innovative approach to video education by combining an interactive, gamified platform with high quality curriculum and content. EditMentor uses research-based learning methods and design proven to increase learning. EditMentor’s primary method is learning by doing: learners receive information and then immediately put it to use. The interface is designed to reduce cognitive load and split attention by clearly displaying the learning content and challenge alongside the video editing interface, creating a seamless learning environment. EditMentor is an all-in-one learning solution, meaning the video literacy curriculum is provided with the interactive editing suite; no additional software program is required to download or install making EditMentor an economically feasible learning resource. The digital divide was made clear during the COVID-19 pandemic as access and equity to learning resources instantly became a critical issue. EditMentor was designed to run without high-speed internet and high-performance computers; all a person needs is basic internet and a web browser. 

In other subject areas—such as computer coding, math, and robotics—once a new company emerges that teaches the subject interactively online, all other training companies must follow suit or lose their competitive advantage. Great books gave way to great video tutorials, and video tutorials will lose the battle to gamified design. Videos and books cannot replace the learning that comes from human interaction, so EditMentor's training method is certain to spread through the market, a goal that we welcome. 

EditMentor currently has 3,500 students enrolled and using the platform. In one year, we hope to be serving 100,000 learners between an expansion in the education market and a launch to include individual lifelong learners. In five years, we hope to have served 50 million users. Based on viewership statistics from LinkedIn Learning, and confirmed by Google search trends, computer coding training is 75% more popular than video editing training. Popular coding companies like Code.org and CodeCademy each boast 50 million users each. We believe that the fundamental value of video literacy as a 21st century skill combined with a research-based, interactive learning environment can reach this broad user base.  Companies like CodeCademy have been successful because they also provide education on a valuable skill and do so in a fun, interactive way. EditMentor can similarly revolutionize video literacy education for millions of learners worldwide. 

Our scale and access goal is easily measured by our user base, curriculum completion ratio as compared to traditional MOOCs, and user lesson scores. Our growth rate since August of 2020 leads us to be optimistic about achieving our goal of 100,000 students next year. We monitor access by classifying users by market segment, as well as assessing the diversity and demographic characteristics of the schools EditMentor is implemented in. 

The platform itself is a valuable tool to monitor student progress, as student information is captured on each question and challenge within the lessons and students receive a grade for their work. These engagement data and scores provide one avenue to evaluate how the curriculum is facilitating student learning. Additionally, EditMentor plans to engage in research studies with a few partnering school districts. This research would use standard rubrics to evaluate a student video before and after the curriculum to quantitatively evaluate improvement in their video literacy. 

Our future platform capabilities are measured against our product roadmap. We hope to increase our team resources to make several product advances in the next five years, all planned for on our roadmap. 

EditMentor has 17 people contributing at various capacities: two full-time executives, one part-time advisor, and a business developer; the curriculum team has four part-time workers with two additional contractors; and the development team has four programmers, one project manager, one quality control engineer, and one UI/UX designer.

EditMentor founder and CEO Misha Tenenbaum is an experienced editor who has worked in the film and television industry on many successful projects in Hollywood, California. Misha has experience as a successful entrepreneur with his first company, EditStock. Misha hired Gor's firm, Flux Technology, to build the prototype of EditMentor and after a year, Gor's skill, passion, and belief in EditMentor's mission lead to a business partners and the formation of a global team working hand-in-hand to leverage their expertise and make EditMentor a success. 

In the development and first prototype of EditMentor, the responses and feedback of learners and educators were collected and carefully reviewed for ways to improve the platform. The learner is the most important part of EditMentor, and we continually seek to iteratively improve for the benefit of every learner.

Our approach to diversity starts with a diverse and equitable staff. We are a global company with employees who have a dizzying variety of backgrounds. In building our curriculum, we consider and encourage diversity. We believe that videos export culture and that all people should be prolific video creators to express their values, life styles, and emotions. Video is a global communication tool, as it can express emotion and the human experience regardless of the language spoken, and we believe this intrinsic quality of video will continue to drive equity and inclusion. These beliefs are driven by our leadership and guide the entire team in the development of the platform and curriculum. 

As an educational technology platform, equity also extends to accessibility. All learners should be equally supported to suit their needs and we continue to develop new features to facilitate every student’s learning. When we received feedback from one early adopter that they had students with low literacy skills, we created audio playback for all lesson content to provide another modality for learning. Not only do we want to be ADA compliant, but we want to go the extra mile for every learner to have the best chance of success.

While EditMentor is seeking financial support to expand development of its platform and curriculum, we are also focused on increasing our learner base and believe Solve’s resources and partnerships could help us do so. This could come in the form of mentorship on how to gain widespread adoption in secondary or higher education, or how to market this education solution to professional organizations and individual lifelong learners. Like any new business, EditMentor could benefit from guidance and expertise in human capital, public relations, service distribution, and more. Our goal is to reach as many learners as possible, and we welcome any support to help us achieve this. 

The primary area we need support and partnership in is expanding our learner base and gaining access to new populations who would benefit from video literacy education. Our business model is set up to enable EditMentor to be an affordable option for as many people as possible, and therefore we will be more successful financially the more learners use EditMentor. There are certainly barriers to entry in educational markets in the United States, but we also seek to be a global company and could benefit from partners who could expand our footprint in areas of the world most in need of equitable education and empowering people to express their stories and culture. 

We would like to partner with organizations who have similar interests in advancing equitable education through technology for the betterment of all people. The Geneva Learning Foundation, for example, shares our goals for equitable education and we would be excited to know how they could see EditMentor as a tool to produce “local, contextualized knowledge that is connected to global networks.” As we believe EditMentor can provide valuable skills in video literacy, we would like to partner with the Strada Education Network to help understand the path between student learning and career opportunities. We would look forward to partnering with any other foundations and organizations that see the benefit of educating people in video literacy and wish to advance that skill globally.

EditMentor is currently used by primary and secondary students. Video literacy is a key skill for students to acquire in school because it will help them understand how to apply intentional video creation to many potential career opportunities. Additionally, students who wish to apply to college programs for journalism, marketing, film, or the media arts are frequently required to display their video skills at the time of application. This means that students with video literacy skills have a strategic advantage. Only those privileged students who have access to the expensive hardware and software will acquire this advantage, increasing the educational divide. EditMentor democratizes video literacy education and helps all students have an equal opportunity to achieve educational or career goals.

EditMentor provides a complete video literacy education from the foundations to specialized fields. The courses provide scaffolded, gamified, active learning for students while providing data insights and grade integration for teachers. EditMentor is a flexible educational technology that can be implemented in classrooms in a variety of ways, further supporting teachers in an evolving teaching learning context. 

EditMentor teaches video literacy, a STEAM subject that integrates technology and the arts. A primary goal of EditMentor is to reduce the barriers to video literacy education and make it accessible to all students. Specifically designed to reduce the bandwidth and computer processing power, EditMentor only requires basic internet and inexpensive computers, such as Chromebooks. The subscription model for schools also makes this platform an affordable solution for all schools.

EditMentor believes video is the new world literacy, and that it is critical for all voices to be equally heard. Video literacy education can support women and girls gain equal access to not only this skill, but education and career opportunities as well. 

EditMentor is an innovative technology solution to teach video literacy, a 21st century skill every student should learn. As a STEAM subject that combines technology and the arts, EditMentor can help close educational inequity and help all students achieve their educational and career goals.