But just in cased you missed any of our videos, we thought it would be fun to release our five favorite videos from the last year. It’s a mixed bag of academia, silliness, and Stormtroopers, just like the people who work here.

Without further ado…

1. Behind the Scenes at Knewton Hack Day

You’re telling me I get paid to smash stuff with a sledgehammer? Where do I sign up?

2. Knewton Job Profiles

Find out how Trevor navigates a world filled with coding and Lord Vader’s evil henchmen…

…while Jesse uses his Ph.D in Data Science to act like a six-year old on a beach.

3. Knewton Roundtable

Listen to three heavy-hitters from the adaptive world talk business in this six-part series.

4. Knewton Brownbags

Knewton employees regularly share their independent research and work with other Knewton employees over lunch. And now, we bring those discussions to you! (WARNING: Do not click if you don’t enjoy dorky jokes.)

5. The Week We Built a Lego Death Star (Time Lapse)

Our software developers needed a fully armed and operational place to live.

Our New Year’s resolution is to keep bringing you more videos! Let us know what you’d like to see, and you just might find it in the Knewton Blog in 2012.

Happy Holidays!

Here are five of my favorite eye-catching company-made videos of 2011…

1. Google Flight Search 

Sometimes, a very clear POV explanation of cool new features is more powerful than an over-edited, marketing-ish video.

2. Santa Uses Siri

Getting a celebrity to endorse your product never hurts.

3. Meet the Class of Twitter HQ

The greatest recruiting tool on earth? Showing the world that you work with a bunch of cool people.

4. FedEx Dominoes

Shocking to learn, but as it turns out, if you’re a huge company with a mega-advertising budget, you can make really cool videos!

5. Wistia video tracking

A perfect example of the “show and tell” style of marketing. Plus, I’m a huge sucker for stop-motion animation. (Click over to the Wistia homepage to check it out.)

Any videos we missed? Let us know!

Check out this video of Trevor explaining what it’s like working on the tech side at Knewton.

P.S. Sound like something you’d like to be a part of? Check out our job listings here.

Check out more job profile videos here.

In our “KnerdCast” series, we meet with entrepreneurs in NYC who are doing awesome things with technology. This week: a company that’s using powerful new hardware to keep older computers running and relevant. Check out the video wrap-up we made using Prezi; full interview text is below.

Meet Jonathan Hefter. He’s the 25-year-old founder and CEO of Neverware.

Never heard of him? Neither had anyone else for the year he was living in his parents’ basement building the Juicebox, a hardware product that can hook up to a huge network of old computers and get them up and running the latest software at modern speeds. And, it’s all at a tiny fraction of the cost of replacing those old computers individually. Needless to say, schools and businesses are excited – and so are we!

Read on for his thoughts on entrepreneurship, the NYC startup scene, and his physical and circumstantial resemblance to Mark Zuckerberg.

Knewton: Who are you?

Jonathan Hefter: I am the founder of Neverware. In my free time I enjoy skiing, snowboarding, and I volunteer as a firefighter. I really would encourage anybody who wants to use their time constructively to do so. I think there’s a lot of team-building lessons that you can take away from that.

We tracked you down through Twitter; we were surprised to see that you only had 36 followers. You’re pretty new to this “tweety” thing.

I’ve never really quite got social media. In fact, Neverware is known as New York’s antisocial startup. I still have no idea how to tweet. I’ll still ask around the office, like, “Hey guys I wanna put an exclamation point after somebody’s handle, does that still work?”

So why did you join now?

Well I guess before Neverware, I didn’t have much to say. I was sitting in a basement hacking away. I didn’t really feel like telling people that I was blowing my nose and the back of my head was itchy. What I’m unfortunately discovering is that twitter is in fact an effective way of communicating with large groups of people that are kind of interested in, amazingly interested in, following what you’re doing.

How would you describe what your company does in a tweet?

Neverware eliminates the need to ever throw out old computers.

Where do you see your company making an impact?

I see it making a dent anywhere the status quo or the current model of computing persists. Specifically in education, where we have a solution right now: simply buying new PC’s. I think that if you can offer [schools] something that’s not as complex, something that takes care of all the drudge work, it allows them to focus on really implementing new innovative solutions.

So you built the thing. How did you go about telling other people about it?

[Customers] care at the end of the day of what it means for them. And I think that was a very important lesson to me because it wasn’t until I was able to put everything together and really say, “Forget about parallel computing. Forget about remote processing. Here’s a box that you put on your network, and all your computers go really fast, and don’t need to be replaced.” It wasn’t until I reached that point that people cared, because it wasn’t until that point that it was relevant to people. And I think that my crash course in being an entrepreneur has been that single question of “this is great, why does it matter?”. Part of my basement experience was discovering the difference between a technology and a product.

Can you tell us a bit more about your time in the basement?

That was my life. That was my existence. I woke up, worked, worked ‘til I got tired, took a few breaks for fire calls in my department, but that was my reason for existing. And when I got tired, I went to sleep. And I’m pretty sure I started keeping some pretty weird sleeping hours. May have gained a few pounds, but, actually that’s not true. I forget to eat when I work hard; I actually lost a few pounds.

Bill Gates: garage. Mark Zuckerberg: dorm room. Jonathan Hefter: basement. Your thoughts?

It’s funny because almost like paying your dues. For a while I was actually testing the system out at a university, and I slept in the seediest motel I could find, because it was the cheapest. I’m part of that tradition of entrepreneurship, where you look around yourself, and even a place like here, at General Assembly, you’re surrounded by others who have paid their dues by pushing it far past what’s considered safe or sane.

So given your age, your Ivy League pedigree…the comparisons to Zuckerberg have gotta be out there, right?

(Laughs) People say that a lot. I get that comparison way too much. And I’m starting to fear that it’s largely physical. Jewish kids from the Northeast. Maybe there’s some kind of personality similarity.

What did your parents think you were going to do when you grew up?

I think my parents thought I’d have some sort of impact or be institutionalized. Or possibly one of those events would be followed by the other. And I qualify that by saying they didn’t know if it would be in a good way or not.

Why did you decide to stay in New York?

Initially we considered going out to California for the tech talent, but I think it’s really fantastic being in New York. I think we really stand out because there are really quite few New York startups in enterprise. Outside of Boxee, we’re the only guys making hardware. And I think it really lets you foster a close relationship with the rest of the community, being part of that small, focused crowd of startups, as opposed to being in Silicon Valley, where you’re the rule, as opposed to the exception.

Do you have a relationship with any other startups in the NY tech scene?

I think there’s this shared bond amongst NY founders. I think as much as the industry has developed, it’s still quite small. It’s a great feeling, walk into a room and seeing the same faces, and knowing that hey, these guys have been at it with us for the past few months. And it makes you feel a lot less lonely. In particular, a lot of my fellow companies in Dogpatch, Joe Eisenfeld and Peter Margolis of Jibe are especially guys I look up to in management. The guys from Spinback coached me a lot on sales. And just around GA, guys like Carter Cleveland from Artsy, Josh Weinstein from YouAre.TV. They’re definitely guys that I just kind of really enjoy going through the journey with. And Textingly and Food 52 have been kind of Dogpatch companions.

So now that you’ve gotten a taste of being a CEO, can you ever see yourself working for someone else?

It’s funny that I’m focusing so much on helping schools because I’ve never been very good with authority, and I think that’s a recurring theme of many entrepreneurs. It wasn’t ever a matter of disrespect as much as just seeing the world in my own way and not wanting to take someone else’s vision of the world at face value. Rather than take my vision and try to push it onto others, you tend to seek out people who share that vision, and work together.

What was the hardest part of your job five years ago? Six months ago?

Five years ago, I was a wide-eyed, naïve freshman in college not studying computers. I was actually studying finance at Wharton, so I’m glad that I’m not using any of that (laughs).

Six months ago, the hardest part was loneliness. It was the hardest part, but I wouldn’t say it was an unnecessary part. It was one of, if not, the most powerful experiences of my life. Especially as a founder, you go through it once, and at least for me, somewhere deep down, the knowledge that I touched, and I was on some level responsible for, every single part of the core technology really instilled me with the confidence that I can deal with anything that may come up.

What about now?

The scariest part is team-building. We have amazing technology, we have an amazing product, now, what we need are more amazing people.

What about in six months?

I see the hardest, and also best problem to have, in six months is scaling. How do you turn a roomful of idealistic, bright-eyed people into a large sales organization? Because part of making a universal solution is being able to hopefully cope with universal demand.

How do you spend your typical day?

I’m kind of transitioning from the point where I was doing a lot of the product work to a point where I’m trying to build an organization that’s going to do a lot of the product work [for me]. So right now, during the daytime hours, from 9 to 5, or in the startup world probably 10 am to 9pm, is kind of non-stop meetings, phone calls, answering emails, and then, kind of a lot of the grunt work for me is done. When everyone goes home, it’s quiet between 9pm and 3 or 4am.

Knewton is an education company. What’s your message to all the educators out there who might read this?

I’d say that at the very base of things, schools have a mission. That mission is to educate kids. Without disrupting the entire school, I think it is important that there are avenues and areas where schools can test out new technologies, because the fact is that if you’re a school that’s not embracing positive change, well, you’re gonna be outshone by a number of schools that are. And as much as schools are a place for kids to learn, I think it’s a place for educators to hone their skill and really learn what new methodology’s out there. The scariest concept to me is kids going to school and schools being the one place where kids have the least exposure to technology, rather than the most. When I was a kid, that’s where our computer was. The first place I saw a computer was in my school. Nowadays, many times, kids go to school, they put away the smartphone, they put away the laptops, and they pretty much put away pretty much everything that’s driving growth in our world.

K: We have to ask. Are you single?
JH: No comment. (Laughs) I am in a relationship with my startup.

You’ve done a fair amount of press and conferences at this point. Have you been recognized on the street yet?

No. I have not yet had to beat away the throngs of screaming girls with a stick. But it’s an issue I’m looking forward to. My mother still sends me girls she’d like to set me up with.

And time for our favorite segment: Two-word Word Association. We say a two-word phrase, and you reply with your own two-word phrase.

“Public schools.”

Don’t knock’em.

Zombie attack.

Road signs.

The Matrix.

Augmented reality.

Outsourcing production.

Early mistake.

Hiring friends.

Can’t fire.

Majority stake.

Medium rare.

Silicon Valley.

Closes at 1.

Neverware groupies.

Not existent.

Favorite memes.

Cigar guy.

Venture capital.

I’m Jonathan.

Biggest fear.

To be fair, my only weakness is bullets.

To show you how it works, Jen and Jess have to get a little “mean” in their exploration of averages.

Don’t worry: Jen isn’t nearly this mean to Jess in real life.

Let’s face it: exponent rules can be bone dry. Hardly anyone gets excited about building out factor trees. Except for my good friend, RoboMath.

With his sweet, autotuned voice and razor-sharp GMAT focus, RoboMath croons his way through tricky Quant questions like he was built for it. Because he was.

Nate and I brought RoboMath to life at the latest Knewton Hack Day. Check out the rest of the projects here, and let us know what GMAT tip you’d like to see autotuned next!

The following is an overly precise and intentionally pompous grammatical analysis of a Mac’s love letter to Philadelphia Phillies 2^nd baseman Chase Utley from the show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

(1) Dear Chase, (2) I feel like I can call you Chase because you and me are so much alike. (3) I would love to meet you someday, it would be great to have a catch. (4) I know I can’t throw as fast as you, but I think you would be impressed with my speed. (5) I love your hair. (6) You run fast. (7) Did you have a good relationship with your father? (8) Me neither. (9) These are all things we can talk about, and more. (10) I know you have not been getting my letters because I know you would write back if you did. (11) And I hope you write back this time and we get to be good friends. (12) I am sure our relationship would be a real home run! (13) Rooting for you always.* (14) Mac

(1) This introduction is an acceptable way to start a letter.

(2) The author correctly uses the pronoun “I” as the subject of the initial clause (“I feel… Chase”). However, his decision to use the objective case pronoun “me” in the second clause is a bad one, as the first person narrator (“I”) is part of a compound subject (“you and I” for the verb “are”).

(3) The two independent clauses in this sentence are incorrectly separated by nothing but a comma; unless the comma is replaced by a semicolon or a coordinating conjunction is added, this sentence is a comma splice.

(4) The first clause contains an ambiguous comparison because it compares a clause (“I can’t throw”) to a pronoun (“you”). The reader does not know the author’s intent; the sentence could be interpreted as “I can’t throw as fast as you can throw” or “I can’t throw as fast as you (are able to move).” Additionally, the preposition “with” cannot be idiomatically paired with the past participle “impressed.”

(5) This sentence is technically acceptable. One could reasonably argue that the possessive pronoun “your” lacks an antecedent, but in context, the sentence is grammatically sound.

(6) This sentence is technically correct, as the word “fast” can function as an adverb and modify the verb “run.” Were I a quibbling man, however, a more standard adverbial modifier would have been a welcome alteration if I were given a choice.

(7) This sentence is perfect.

(8) A more acceptable, yet still colloquial, sentiment would be, “Neither do I.” This alternative formation at least contains a noun and a verb in an inverted sentence (in which after the verb comes the subject). Even still, the word “neither” assumes a negative answer to the preceding question.

(9) Contextually, the pronoun “these” is ambiguous because it seems to be referring to “the topics of conversation previously mentioned.” Since these “topics” are mentioned not as nouns in a list, but as consecutive independent clauses, a pronoun cannot accurately refer to them. Additionally, the independent clause is followed by a “comma + and.” In such cases, an independent clause must follow. The word “more” is not an independent clause.

(10) When two actions occur in the past, but one action occurred before the other, the earlier action should occur in the past perfect tense, while the later action should occur in the simple past tense. In this sentence, logic tells you that Chase would have received the letter before being able to respond to it.

(11) Sentences should generally not begin with a coordinating conjunction; a continuation transition word would improve the sentence. Additionally, two independent clauses are separated by the coordinating conjunction “and,” yet there is no comma!

(12) The word “would” is used to express the result of a past-tense hypothetical situation (e.g. “If we met, we would become friends”). However, the author claims to be “sure” of the outcome in this case, so the future is more appropriate. (Note: the author employs “would” properly in Sentence (4), as he merely speculates about, and is not sure of, Chase’s potential reaction to Mac’s velocity.)

(13) This participial phrase seems logically to be modifying the noun “Mac,” but if such is the case, the phrase should end with a comma.

(14) Mac spells his name correctly!

Here is my corrected version of Mac’s letter:

Dear Chase,

I feel like I can call you Chase because you and I are quite similar. I would love to meet you someday; having a catch would be great. I know I can’t throw as fast as you can, but I think you would be impressed by the speed with which I can throw a ball.  I love your hair, Chase. You run speedily. Did you have a good relationship with your father? I did not. Not having a good relationship with one’s father, your hair, and the speed with which you can throw a ball all represent potential topics of conversation, and I am confident that we could generate even more topics. I know that you have not been receiving my letters because I know that you would have written back if you had received them. Moreover, I hope that you write back in this instance and that we become good friends. I am sure that our relationship will be a real home run.

Always rooting for you,
Mac

*This sentence is not read aloud during the episode, but I paused the episode at just the right moment in order to capture the sign-off.

Let’s get serious. Justin, you need to think about the SATs. Granted, you were very funny in that sketch with Tina Fey on SNL, and you have amassed a truly astounding number of Youtube subscribers. But despite what the Canadian government, your stylist, and your travel stylist might be telling you, famous people do go to college. Shaquille O’Neal. Bill Clinton. I’m sure there are many more.

I have to be honest here, Biebz. I’m only writing to you because my 14-year-old cousin emailed me the video of your song “One Less Lonely Girl,” with the subject line “My hero Justin Bieber needs to take your SAT class.” She loves your music, but she’s right. The lyrics in this song demonstrate that you are not prepared for the grammar section of the SAT. Let’s look at some lyrics:

And when you’re mine in the world
There’s gonna be one less lonely girl

All right, I know that you personally didn’t write this song (thanks Wikipedia!), but it’s still your reputation at stake. And unfortunately, the song is not doing you justice. Why? Keep reading.

The song is about “one less lonely girl.” I understand from the context of the song that, once you unite with a certain female, you will reduce the number of lonely girls in the world by one. For example, if there were 100 lonely girls in the world before you made your move, there would be only 99 afterward. In other words, there would be fewer lonely girls in the world.

The word “less” can only refer to uncountable quantities. Meanwhile, the word “fewer” refers to countable quantities. Examples:

I’m pretty sure I know what you’re thinking: “This is a grammatical technicality. Who cares?” But unfortunately, it’s not that simple. The lyric actually makes you look bad, Justin. I’m not doing this grammatical analysis to be a jerk; I’m doing it for your image.

Since “less” cannot be an adjective that describes the countable noun “girls,” it therefore must be an adverb that describes the uncountable adjective “lonely.” Your grammatically savvy fans will be out there thinking that you cannot stop a girl from feeling lonely; they will think that you can only reduce a girl’s feelings of loneliness by some unspecified degree. In essence, you can only make a girl less lonely.

So, Justin, I would like you to enroll in the Knewton SAT prep course right away. I’ll pay for it myself. I am sure you are an extremely busy guy, but the course is entirely online, so you can attend classes and take practice tests whenever and from wherever you want. And when your new single, “Bieber Grammar,” goes triple platinum, I’ll only ask for a small percentage of future royalties.

Sincerely,

David Ingber
Celebrity SAT Teacher

It all began with a high five.

I was teaching an online class, and all 27 of the students in the class answered a difficult question correctly. In an attempt to form what I thought was the closest approximation of a congratulatory hand-slapping ritual with my students, who were attending the class from wifi hotspots and Ethernet ports all across the globe, I pushed my open palm toward my camera. I encouraged them to do the same.

It was then that I learned about the Virtual High Five (aka “The VH5″).

In its most primitive form, the VH5 looks like this:

o/*\o

Take a moment with it. It’s almost like a Magic Eye: People take different amounts of time before they see it. Don’t rush the process. Appreciate the journey.

Now, it should be known that a VH5, like a HIH5 (Human Interaction High Five), requires two people. During class, if someone does something that is VH5-worthy, one person (aka “The Instigator”) will begin the process.

It is then incumbent upon a second person (aka “The Terminator”) to complete the action, never forgetting to include the asterisk (aka “The Action”) that demonstrates the efficacy of the slap.

When done properly, the VH5 should look something like this:

Alex P.: o/
Susan K.: *\o

The execution is not difficult, but timing is paramount. Potential Terminators must be on their virtual toes if they sense that an Instigator is about to present a well-deserved accolade.

This Educaticon helps to validate the accomplishments of the students, foster a sense of community in that online classroom, and, most importantly, keep me from wiping my greasy hands on the lens of our very expensive cameras.

Read on for the list of my favorite Educaticons.