Empire Edge Strikes Back

The empire may have struck back in Star Wars, but it's nothing compared to what Empire Edge, a Manhattan-based tutoring company is conquering in the standardized test market, particularly for the SAT.

If you've checked the link, you'll see that the website isn't all that snazzy - nothing compared to the Princeton Review or Kaplan. So why am I impressed?

Empire Edge's iPhone app for SAT Math, called Adapster.

If you've read my stuff before, you know that I have a list of of the best iPhone apps for the SAT. Well, this one's going on there immediately.

Jody Steinglass, with his undergraduate degree in Economics from Yale and his Masters in Interactive Education from NYU, is the founder of  Empire Edge and the whiz behind Adapster.

The app is unlike any other SAT study app I've seen. It's truly adaptable to the user. For instance - if you answer a question incorrectly about quadrilaterals, the software makes note of it, and offers you further instruction on that concept while assembling more of those types of questions for you to work on. It also offers hand-written explanations of the theory behind the correct answer and tutorials with question-answering strategies for what you've missed.  Amazing. Just check out the demo - you'll see!

Why should you study concepts you already understand? With this app, you don't have to.

Currently, Adapster is only running SAT Math. However, SAT Reading and Writing is coming soon (in the next few months) and the ACT will be following soon after.

Bonus? Steinglass' software is not just intended for the iPhone. His long-term goal is to "transform the role of technology in education" by tailoring instruction toward the unique needs of every student in classrooms across the country:

"Scores of students of different abilities can sit in the same classroom with the same instructor and still enjoy a customized experience that keeps each of them challenged and motivated."

Will his technology work to truly differentiate learning? I don't know. But I do know that the app is fabulous and it's refreshing that someone is actually thinking about education in a 21^st-century kind of way (for once).

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Did you like the demo? Leave me a comment below!

Photo courtesy Empire Edge