Six months after the market success of its unique Soundtrap online collaborative music and audio recording studio, the company has made a huge step into the education field. The brand new Soundtrap for Education suite was officially presented at an education technology conference in Orlando.
Soundtrap, already acknowledged as “The Best Website for Education and Learning 2015” by the American Association of School Librarians, tailored its new tool especially for K-12 students, primary and secondary schools around the globe. The company states that it was the first solution for children that allowed them to create music and audio recordings in a shared online environment.
While other music recording tools are complex and often have a steep learning curve, Soundtrap for Education enables students to be up and running in less than three minutes. Students can create professional-sounding music and podcasts alone or with other students from remote locations, all using different devices.
Dian Schaffhauser of The Journal noted that the innovative software was fully compliant with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The children may create music in a safe environment protected from the rest of the Internet, and students access it from within an “invitation-only” group.
Teachers create groups and invite interested students via a link from within Google Classroom. As Soundtrap is a Google for Education partner, it is completely integrated with Google Classroom. Teachers establish private rooms for a single class, a school or a mix of them. It is also possible to have an entire class join the performance and still monitor the work of a single student.
Built-in audio and video chats are available as well. Teachers looking for potential partners for collaborative projects can benefit from the integrated search feature.
Soundtrap for Education is the first software of its kind to work on iOS, Android, Linux, Chromebook, Windows and Mac, confirmed from the company. The interface is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly and helps students further develop their “creative, collaborative and communication skills.”
Currently, over 1,000 educational institutions are using Soundtrap at a price of less than $5 per seat per year, writes Dian Schaffhauser of The Journal.
Soundtrap is a Swedish start-up with an office in Palo Alto. Last year Nordic Capital and several other European investors injected $1.5 million in the company, writes Bernadette Tansey of Xconomy. At the end of 2015, Soundtrap had 250,000 users across 200 countries and more than 1,000 schools. The company is planning to use the fresh capital to expand its office in California and to develop its software further.
According to Bernadette Tansey of Xconomy, new businesses such as Soundtrap and Figma have spotted a very specialized market niche. Many companies provided shared services for business project teams to work together online, edit documents and log sales activities. However, businesses aren’t the only people that need such a tool. Creative teams can also collaborate successfully online. Young companies like Soundtrap and Figma have addressed their unique needs, and investors from the Silicon Valley and worldwide saw the potential and helped them grow.
