Last week, we challenged you to share your notes in exchange for a $5 Starbucks card. Now that Spring Forward Challenge has ended, we want to give a shout out to all those GradeGurus who won some free caffeine.

Congratulations to:

Thank you to everyone who participated! This challenge was a huge success and tremendously increased our Facebook fan page activity.

Keep uploading and be sure to look out for future promotions from GradeGuru on  Twitter and our Facebook fan page!

In a recent eSchool News article titled ” Class in 140 characters or less?”,  GradeGuru Founder, Emily Sawtell and Dr. Kathleen King discuss their perspective on social media in the classroom and  share research that points to a staggering reason why 50 percent of students today will not graduate from college.

The eSchool News article  “Class in 140 characters or less?” covers the increasing need for student engagement in the class room and how social media can be leveraged to solve this crisis.

Check out some of the points from the article highlighted below:

“In a recent McGraw-Hill Education survey, a staggering 98 percent of students agreed social networking is beneficial to their education. Yet a CDW-G survey indicated only 14 percent of instructors believe there is educational value in using social networking sites.”

“This disconnect between student and instructor perceptions stretches across the range of social media sites and even to what many in the commercial sector now think of as traditional technologies.”

“Encouraging instructors to use social media and giving them incentives—like linking tenure to digital teaching innovation and using unique methods to engage and connect students in the classroom—will place colleges on the cutting edge and, most importantly, drive student performance and retention.”

To read the full article see : Class in 140 characters or less?

Join us this week for our Spring Forward Giveaway. We’re giving away Free Starbucks just for sharing your study materials!

From Monday March 22^nd – Sunday March 28^th, GradeGuru will be giving out free Starbucks Gift Cards to every 10^th person that shares their study materials.

Things to keep in mind:

• We’re looking for study guides, chapter summaries…anything you’ve created that can help others.
• Students that share work created by their professor like tests, PowerPoints, etc. and images/information from the internet will not be eligible to win.
• Limited one gift card per student

Tell your friends, tell your classmates and most importantly – share this link: Starbucks Giveaway on Facebook or Twitter to get the word out.

Follow winners on our Facebook and Twitter pages!