Lexington, KY - George Goldsworthy has been working with computers as an educational tool since 1984, but it is really just in the past few years, with faster Internet service, that the educational programs "started to get really good," he said.
"They are now truly interactive," said Goldsworthy. "They are upgraded continually, and the recordkeeping is awesome."
The goal of George and Betsy Goldsworthy and their business, Academic Edge, is to get a selection of the best academic software programs into Kentucky schools and train teachers on how to use them.
They have been pretty successful so far, with 73 of the 174 school districts in Kentucky, including Fayette County, using at least one of their handful of products in at least one school.
George Goldsworthy said they have reached only about 10 percent of Kentucky's students. The good news for Goldsworthy and his sales team is that leaves 90 percent left to reach. And the business is expanding its sales territory into Tennessee, West Virginia and the western tip of Virginia.
"The biggest struggle is access to computers," George Goldsworthy said. "As more hardware becomes available to schools, (that translates into) more opportunities we will have."
The Goldsworthys and Academic Edge don't develop the software programs themselves; they review and pick what they consider the best products available to market to schools. Academic Edge is the only company allowed to market those specific products in their designated territory.
"We are very selective in what we represent," Goldsworthy said.
Their sales staff, made up mostly of retired teachers, provides training and follow-up support to ensure that their customers are getting the most out of their programs.
The Goldsworthys got into computer-aided education back in 1984 when Betsy Goldsworthy, then a teacher at Lafayette High School in Lexington, was asked to provide some extra tutoring help for a struggling student.
The number of tutoring requests grew until the Goldsworthys got a small business loan for $50,000 and used $30,000 of that to buy 10 Apple computers, a couple printers and a modem. They opened their tutoring and software sales business on Southland Drive.
At that point, early computer learning tools were really just "electronic workbooks," though they did manage to hold the attention of some struggling students.
And while the software sales didn't take off, The Goldsworthys continued to help struggling students through a private school, Woodbridge Academy, that operated in Lexington from 1988 until 2008.
"We helped a lot of kids," George Goldsworthy said. "But it was always a money struggle."
It was in 2008 that they decided to concentrate fully on marketing the education programs they had found to be successful at Woodbridge.
The big step came with the addition of sales manager Forrest Smith. His background may have made him an unlikely candidate - he had never lived in Kentucky and was coming from a sales job in the oil and gas industry.
But George Goldsworthy said, "he was highly motivated Ö and studied a lot." Now, with a couple of years immersed in the field, "most people think he is an educator," Goldsworthy said.
For Smith and Academic Edge, one of the key selling points of the latest educational software products is the interactivity of the programs.
"The software is reacting in different ways to different students," Smith said, making it appealing for high-achieving students as well as those who are struggling.
The software can determine a student's level of comprehension from the answers given and then suggest lessons that are most appropriate. Smith said that plays into an important aspect of education these days - the individual education plan. "That's the 'in' phrase," Smith said.
And Goldsworthy isn't out to replace teachers.
"It enables Ö teachers to do more," he said.
Smith leads a sales team that has grown to five people spread across Kentucky. Betsy Rutherford helps provide the training and support for the sales staff and the teachers.
"Once a teacher, always a teacher," she said.
In addition to knocking on the doors of individual schools, Academic Edge supports various educational conferences to get its products in front of educators, as well as support those organizations.
George Goldsworthy manages the company finances and stays on the lookout for the next big thing in educational software. What is he seeing these days? Educational software that is compatible with the iPad and other tablet computers. That is something the developers of the products they sell have either already accomplished or are working on.
The iPad, with its portability and long battery life, makes a great educational tool. Woodford County Schools already have taken the initiative to supply all students with an iPad 2.
"The tablet is the future of textbooks," said George Goldsworthy.