Yelp for teachers: new site Graphite launches

Think of it as Yelp for the classroom.

The popular content-rating organization Common Sense Media has launched Graphite, a "one-stop shop" for teachers searching for educational technology product reviews and ratings. Its developers want users to consider it a reliable rating site for everything from educational apps to videos, only with ratings from a small group of hand-picked experts and feedback from fellow teachers.

The project is supported by Chicago philanthropist Susan Crown and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates' Seattle-based BGC3, a sort of combination think-tank and venture capital firm. BGC3 officials said they planned to fund the enterprise for the foreseeable future, with hopes that it might eventually spin off sustainable products.

Already operating in beta, Graphite contains hundreds of reviews for apps, games, videos, websites and other products. It's aiming to have 1,000 products rated by the end of the year.

"This is by teachers and for teachers," said Common Sense Media founder James Steyer, who said each item will carry a "learning rating" from an in-house team of educators. The site will also be home to a broader crowd-sourcing effort built on ratings from users themselves. Common Sense, already a popular site for families, counts 55,000 schools among its user base.

Teachers are excited by the possibilities of digital media, Steyer said, but nervous about quality. The average teacher is something of a Luddite if you believe the results of the group's June survey: 86% of teachers think it's "important" or "absolutely essential" to use digital technology in school, but only 19% use digital content tools and only 14% use digital curricula.

"You're never going to adopt content unless you feel there's a trusted system for judging that content," said Steyer, author of the 2012 book Talking Back to Facebook, about digital media in the lives of children.