The handful of participating startups could be from a technocrat's dream with products ranging from a tablet teacher training software to a solar-powered cooking stove.

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The teacher-friendly software is now used by 200 schools in 20 states.

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She draws on skills she learnt in her previous two careers (she was an English teacher and then a technical writer for a software company), such as leadership and attention to detail.

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Medbery, a former software developer, high school math teacher and Teach For America alum, built her business on the theory is that no classroom is, or should be, an island unto itself.

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Audrey Grant, a prominent bridge teacher who has authored books on the game and offers educational software and bridge cruises, says she admires Ms. Simony's effort "to bring a certain elegance" back to the game.

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For computer-based learning to transform schools into child-centric learning environments, schools must implement the instructional software disruptively, by letting it compete where the alternative is no teacher at all.

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Right now a teacher must score the map by hand, but Stevens is close to finishing a piece of pattern-recognition software that electronically scores those maps.

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