Digital Discourse / Ed Tech Industry Summit

What’s new in Common Core Standards & Assessments?

February 13, 2013 By

Common Core State Standards (CCSS) continue to be a core driver of educational policies and practice, including for education technology and digital learning. As the deadline inches closer, more decisions are being made, steps taken and information made available. To help SIIA members better track the details and trends, SIIA is launching a new series of monthly reports for SIIA members on the newest and most relevant information, aggregated and summarized.

Notable releases from the SIIA January 2013 report include new system framework guidelines and accommodation policies by the two assessment consortia. Also included are studies with data supporting implementation and recommendations to both developers and school districts as they create their plans for the transition to CCSS.

The SIIA monthly series will  contain information on both the major assessment organizations, Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), as well as on the standards definitions and implementation.  As information is released, it will be added as well, creating a one-stop resource for SIIA members working to ensure their products and services help meet education common core related needs.

Look for more updates by SIIA Education Policy in a month!

Meanwhile, SIIA members can review past SIIA webinars on CCSS, SBAC and PARCC, as well as register for SIIA’s Ed Tech Government Forum, April 9-11 in Washington, DC featuring several sessions addressing these issues.

 

Lindsay HarmanLindsay Harman is Market and Policy Analyst for the SIIA Education Division.

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Filed Under: Ed Tech Government Forum, Ed Tech Industry Summit, Education, Education Events, Education Policies, Education Policy, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

10 Reasons Why the Ed Tech Bubble will Continue to Float

January 24, 2013 By

Fueled in part by socially-conscious investors and tech entrepreneurs, investment in the educational applications market has exploded to an extent not seen since the dot-com boom more than a decade ago. While some analysts are predicting this is an era of irrational exuberance that could collapse like the bubble burst in 2000, there are at least 10 reasons why this time is different:

  1. Lower Development Costs: Hardware and software tools have improved and costs lowered, and the savings in application development and delivery means reduced prices and higher marginal revenues. Improvements include simpler and more powerful authoring tools, many of them open source, as well as cloud and other hosted models that enable schools and companies to more easily outsource and scale.  
  2. Apps Market Dynamics: The proliferation of Apps on various mobile devices provides a more welcoming market environment for educational technology companies. Among these factors is the reduced cost of development and distribution on the various mobile operating systems such as Android and iOS and their app stores (though some revenue sharing models do challenge the equation).
  3. Increased Hardware Access & Connectivity: While a digital divide still exists and too many classrooms still rely on a single computer station, student and teacher access (at home and school) has grown many fold over the last decade. Reasons for this include the reduced cost of hardware (driven by Moore’s law), growing support for BYOD (student’s Bringing their Own Device), and recent investments in tablets, electronic whiteboards and other devices.
  4. Touch Tablet Ease of Use: Many educators view the touch interface as a game changer for student learning through technology. School (and home) spending bears that out. The platforms provide a simplified user interface for students, a simplified operating system that eases school technical support costs, and a tactile functionality that is both beneficial to younger learners and provides a key pedagogical differentiator from other print and digital mediums. 
  5. Educators Asking How, Not If: Educators have crossed the tipping point from asking “if?” technology to asking “how, how much and what?” While luddites still exist and we are a long way from robust integration and effective use, teachers, administrators and policy makers recognize the upside of technology and digital learning and are focused on how to realize the power and promise.
  6. The New Normal: Our education system is charged with doing more with less in light of the recent recession and enhanced common, college and career readiness standards. Technology has increased productivity in other sectors, and K12 education is finally looking at technology to supplant and transform, rather than simply to supplement. At the same time, many are leveraging technology for data analytics, customized interventions, and blended learning that shift us from mass-production teaching to the more efficient, mass-customization personalized learning model.
  7. Educators as Digital Natives: Interestingly, in the past, it has been more veteran teachers that have gravitated to technology than younger teachers who grew up with technology. This is likely starting to change as the technology use by the young teachers and administrators in their personal (and learning) lives is much more prolific in today’s world of mobile apps, virtual communities and online everything. The education workforce is shifting over rapidly post baby-boom generation, and their technology use will follow.
  8. Digital Native Students: Not much need be said. Students are too often disengaged not by the lack of technology but instead by rote lectures and static text. They understand they must be engaged and challenged, and allowed to explore and personalize their learning. They see how technology supports them outside of school. Educators are responding to their demand to bring that robust learning environment into their curriculum or risk losing too many more students to boredom.
  9. Expanded Distribution: While the proliferation of channels — technology platforms as well as consumer forums — can be a challenge for developers, these will be outweighed by the benefits. Mobile devices and app stores are increasing access and reducing consumer risk. Formal and informal learning are blending as parents and non-school learning providers gain access to new tools. Teachers are no longer reliant on slow, one-size school or district-wide purchasing decisions, but instead can use a debit account to download a product for just one or a few students. And a number of repositories and social networks are providing single points of information (if not yet a point of sales) for all products (and marketing).
  10. Parental Advocacy: Increased parental exposure to learning technologies at home is driving their demand for use at school. While parents were sometimes the road block to school board investments, they are more often now leading the charge.

These differences do not imply that every new product and company will succeed. For better or worse, there are probably too many products on the market relative to the number of average users required for product success. Whether investment is all flowing to the right solutions and the right entrepreneurs is still an open question, but it is undeniable that there is growing demand and opportunity for technology in education.

It is also important to note one related potential market challenge — vendor lock-in of content and data. A dynamic market requires minimized barriers to entry such that (school and individual) users are empowered to seamlessly move among existing and new products with minimal risk. SIIA therefore encourages education decision makers and application developers to invest in interoperability. By creating and demanding applications built on common data, content and API standards, information and resources can be more easily shared and exported among any number of proprietary or open applications, thus reducing the risk to educators of a failed product or company. Such standardization is critical for the maturity, and therefore the growth, of the digital learning market, and will ultimately best serve both education and education providers.

These 10 important developments should encourage today’s developers and investors. While the ed tech bubble may not float ever higher, a burst is not likely this time around.

Mark SchneidermanMark Schneiderman is Senior Director of Education Policy at SIIA. Follow the Education Division on Twitter at @SIIAEducation.

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Filed Under: Ed Tech Business Forum, Ed Tech Government Forum, Ed Tech Industry Summit, Education, Education Policies, Education Policy, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Education Technology Innovators Sought for Incubation Program at 2013 SIIA Ed Tech Industry Summit

January 23, 2013 By

SIIA is now is accepting applicants for its Innovation Incubator Program. Selected developers of promising new technologies in the K-12 and postsecondary space will be invited to participate in the Innovation Incubator Program at the 10th annual SIIA Ed Tech Industry Summit in San Francisco, May 5-7, 2013. The deadline to apply for the Innovation Incubator Program is March 8, 2013.

The SIIA Innovation Incubator Program identifies and supports entrepreneurs in their development and distribution of innovative learning technologies. Since 2006, the program has provided incubation for dozens of successful products and companies in their efforts to improve education through the use of software, digital content, and related technologies. The program is open to applicants from academic and non-profit institutions, pre-revenue and early-stage companies, as well as established companies with newly developed technologies.

All education technology companies are encouraged to apply – from start-ups to established innovators. A panel of industry professional judges will then select 10 participants and one alternate to present their products during the Ed Tech Industry Summit. One winner and one runner-up will be selected in the Most Innovative and Most Likely to Succeed categories by conference attendees. Educators and administrators from around the U.S. will vote for the Educator’s Choice Award after online presentations from the selected participants. Classroom, Inc. had the distinction of receiving the first-ever Educator’s Choice Award at the Ed Tech Business Forum in New York City last November.

Innovation Incubator Program participants will be selected from the applicant pool based on key selection criteria, including:

  • The extent to which their innovation represents a “sea change” in thinking
  • Potential to positively impact education by way of enhanced student achievement, teacher effectiveness, cost reduction, and efficiency
  • Education focus and end-user impact/market need for the innovation
  • Representation of K-12/postsecondary market levels
  • Level of originality and innovation

The Innovation Incubator winners at last year’s Ed Tech Industry Summit were:

  • The Language Express, which teaches social and life skills to 3-21-year-olds
  • Game-enhanced Interactive Science, which promotes scientific literacy and student interest in science careers

For more information about the Innovation Incubator Program, or to apply, visit http://siia.net/etis/2013/incubator.asp.

Karen BillingsKaren Billings is Vice President for the Education Division at SIIA. Follow the SIIA Education Team on Twitter at @SIIAEducation

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Filed Under: Ed Tech Industry Summit, Education

Hope for Ed Tech

January 18, 2013 By

On January 16th, DC Ed Tech and YEP DC (Young Education Professionals DC) cohosted an event entitled “Hype or Hope? An Exploration of Emerging Education Technologies” and attended by 80 educators, innovators, and members of the Washington, DC education and technology community. The panel of Dr. Elias Carayannis,  Abbey Goldstein, Laurel J. Horn (Special Education Teacher at Thurgood Marshall Academy), Kijana Mayfield, and Maura Marino discussed innovation and its purpose in education, debating the value of the much maligned and praised role of technology in education. The presentations that followed showed exactly how the innovation was being implemented.

The panelists generally agreed that technology is not a “fad” for education, and as an industry it is important to show how to successfully implement new technologies and methods in schools. Technology is not going away and has a real opportunity to revolutionize education; however it should not be implemented solely because it is technology, but to solve a problem.

There are many problems and struggles in education that would benefit from new solutions, but applying an innovative technology just because it is innovative is generally ineffective. The teacher on the panel mentioned several instances where she was asked to utilize something just because it was new and innovative and it didn’t work. However there were other instances where technology had simplified classroom procedures or created solutions for teaching and learning difficulties. Ms. Horn’s examples of successful technology implementation included the use of Mimio boards, Kindles (used for the reading impaired) and blended school software like Education Elements.

Presentations by DC-based companies Naviance, AlwaysPrepped, LearnZillion, and SchoolForce capped off the evening. These four show-and-tell style presentations gave an opportunity for companies to show off their products to the gathered crowd of education industry enthusiasts. Several of the presentation/discussions allowed teachers and developers the opportunity to interact and understand the role of each in the classroom. Some of the presenters were in fact teachers previously and had developed their products to solve a need within their own classrooms; LearnZillion was created by a principal at a DC school looking to solve communication problems between classroom and the home.

So, is Ed Tech hype or hope? SIIA members say hope, but the key is solving educational problems and making products that teachers and schools need and can use. For the past five years SIIA has run an Innovation Incubator Program that reviews many applicants like those companies who presented at the Hype or Hope event. We see many great products that give hope to students struggling to learn and the industry at large.  Look for the new innovations we find at our Ed Tech Industry Summit in May!

Lindsay HarmanLindsay Harman is Market and Policy Analyst for the SIIA Education Division.

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Filed Under: Ed Tech Industry Summit, Education, Education Events Tagged With: , , ,

Navigating Next

December 19, 2012 By

What IS coming next in the teaching and learning process and in the post-PC world?  And how do we in the industry not just prepare for it – but help build the infrastructure, products and services to support the changes that schools want or need?

We know there is an increased focus on choice and accountability within both K-12 and postsecondary institutions.  This focus drove many of the sessions and conversations at the recent SIIA Ed Tech Business Forum: Doing Business During Seismic Shifts. Speakers and attendees discussed the changes happening in today’s schools, the factors driving these changes, and how they expect even more change in the near future.

The ed tech companies who develop digital products and services for the K-12 and/or postsecondary sectors see many opportunities—and of course challenges—in the coming year and beyond. Just what are those opportunities and challenges – and how well will we address them?  While the program isn’t fully developed, here are some topics that we plan to address:

Support for:

  • personalized learning, via adaptive curricula and authentic assessment, and from micro-courses to “flipped” classrooms
  • the increased emphasis on educator and institutional accountability, from the institutions who want to evaluate teachers, their resources, or programs.
  • data-driven decision-making, especially those institutions who are using learning analytics to facilitate intervention, predict future performance, and improve instructional approaches
  • online and blended learning, especially the new modes for delivering instruction

 Learning more about and working with:

  • government entities and education foundations developing free open education resources and management systems
  • the many organizations developing  technical standards for product development
  • new social learning models which are effecting our traditional distribution channels

To remain successful, education technology companies look ahead and navigate the “next’ that will affect their segment of the marketplace. Since education shifts do not happen overnight, the companies have time to change business models or product development strategies where needed.

We will look at these new business models and development strategies at the Ed Tech Industry Summit on May 5-7 will focus on the opportunities and challenges of ‘Navigating Next’, as well as leverage the fact that we’re in San Francisco. Of course, we also celebrate the work of our Innovation participants, CODiE finalists, and those selected to receive the Ed Tech Impact Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Steering Committee is set to start planning the program and there’s room for a few more ‘worker bees’ who can help SIIA recommend topics, speakers, sponsors, and Innovators,  then help extend the invitations, review the applications, and help us promote the conference. It takes a great deal of work to plan and run this conference and while SIIA has great staff to much of the heavy lifting, we rely on our members to provide the thought leadership, and help guide the content, program, and promotion.

To help companies be successful at “Navigating Next” and adapt to the seismic shifts in education, we will make it a priority at the Ed Tech Industry Summit to help attendees understand where the customers are today and where they’ll be in the future.

Join us in San Francisco on May 5-7!

Karen BillingsKaren Billings is Vice President for the Education Division at SIIA. Follow the SIIA Education Team on Twitter at @SIIAEducation

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Filed Under: Ed Tech Industry Summit, Education

CODiE Awards Judges: A Conversation with the Coordinator

October 31, 2012 By

Nominations have closed for the 2013 CODiE Awards, and I am definitely excited about the variety and caliber of products in this year’s program. I know our judges are looking forward to reviewing the products as well. Our first round review is the core of the CODiE Awards. It is also the portion of the program that gives me the most interaction with the judges and nominees. I am constantly in contact with both groups, ensuring that everyone has a great experience.

What is the first round review?

For the first round review, two judges review each product in each category. For example, products nominated in two categories will be assigned four judges. During this first round, judges participate in product demonstration s given by the nominees. Two options are available for the products demonstrations:

– Live product demonstration: Nominations walk through their product webinar-style with the judges participating as they do the walk-through

– Recorded product demonstration: Nominees may already have a video product demo that can be sent to the judges to watch.

We recommend that the nominees keep the demos to under an hour. If it is a live demo, remember to leave time for Q&A with the judges.

The first round review also includes product access. It’s beneficial for the judges to get a feel for the product on their own, as a supplement to the guided demo. Product access can happen in several forms, including temporary online login information or by sending the physical product to the judge.

I also suggest sending as much additional information as you would like to the judges. This can be additional links to PDF’s, videos, news releases, etc.

Who are the judges?

We take great care in selecting the industry experts who volunteer as judges. Each division reviews every judge application to determine if he/she is qualified. We want to ensure there are no conflicts of interest.

For our software and content categories, the judges consist of industry executives and analysts, members of the media, bloggers, investors, and even some customers.
For our education categories, we use educators and administrators as our judges. They are the users of these products and can best determine what products may work the best in their classrooms.

Judging is a great experience because it gives the customers a chance to review the products and provide feedback that the companies can use to make improvements.

How can you help?

We are still looking for judges in several of our categories in Content, Software, and Education. If you are interested in judging or can recommend a colleague please complete our brief judge application.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Angel Scott Angel Scott is Awards Program Coordinator at SIIA. Follow the SIIA CODiE Awards on twitter at Share|
Filed Under: All About the Cloud, Cloud Computing, CODiEs, Content, Content Events, Ed Tech Industry Summit, Education, Education Events, Finalists, Information Industry Summit, Mobility, Social Media, Software, Software Events, Uncategorized

The Evolving Ed Tech CODiE Awards

October 16, 2012 By

Karen Billings, VP of the Education Division, joined SIIA 10 years ago, and has been involved with the CODiE Awards ever since. She even remembers the very first Education category – the Best Learning Product in 1986. Since then, the number of Education categories has grown at a steady pace, reflecting the advances in the ed tech industry. Karen shares her thoughts on this constantly evolving industry and what’s new in this year’s education CODiE Awards.

Tell us a little about the history of Education categories in the CODiE Awards.

The first year of the CODiE Awards, the one education winner was Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, for the Best Learning Product. It was such a popular product, and I remember later on there were spin-off products, and even one called Where in North Dakota is Carmen Sandiego! It’s interesting because even today, Carmen Sandiego is still a product at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Even after a series of acquisitions and mergers, the company is marketing and selling an updated version of this product, decades later. The point is that a good education product with a good instructional design that changes with the hardware capabilities is going to have longevity and certainly, branding. It’s very possible that the teachers who are buying Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego today could have used the product when they were young. The CODiE Awards are in its 28th year and it’s amazing to think about how the very first education CODiE Award winner is not only in the market, but has her own Facebook page.

Why do educators and administrators judge all of the education categories in the first round of judging?

The Education Division wanted to have educators and administrators review the products in the first round because they are the real experts. They know what other products are out there, and they have probably used a number of different products in their category, so they have the expertise. They are the best judge of what is going to work in the classroom, and that is a big part of what we mean when we say a product is the best.

The Education Division is able to leverage its relationships with the professional associations and online education communities such as edWeb to reach the teachers. We partner with them because they can directly reach out to their members. For example, SIIA cosponsors a games channel on edWeb, so we can reach teachers who are active in the games-for-learning community. That community helps us find those educators who would be the best at judging the games category.

Why do you like having three top awards, for Best PK-12, Best Postsecondary, and Best Overall?

First of all, I think it’s very special to have some very high-level categories where companies don’t nominate but they are recognized. It’s a very special recognition. It’s a way to pull out the best of the best. In some sense we are following other awards programs. In the Oscars, they have lots of awards, but the most exciting one is Best Picture of the Year. We know that the winners have appreciated that award.

Why do so many education companies love to nominate for the CODiE Awards?

The number of products that are out there in the market have grown substantially for over 25 years. It’s followed the growth of technology, as schools have started to move from the use of print materials and transitioned to the use of digital. Twenty-five years ago, using Carmen Sandiego was a very unique and probably isolated event by a few special teachers who were excited about using that Apple II in the classroom. As access to hardware increased, the software market evolved, and professional development supported technology integration, educators and administrators started to see the benefits of using technology. They saw student engagement, and positive results. The market grew, and as the market grew, the CODiE Award nominations grew, the interest grew, and school budgets grew. It has been a consistent, steady growth for 25 years.

Many of the products that were submitted in the first 10 years for the CODiE Awards had been developed by teachers. Teachers themselves then ended up forming companies. Jan Davidson was a Language Arts English teacher. She wrote a program called Reading Blaster for kids to use in her classrooms on an Apple II. She started sharing it with other teachers, and her husband, Bob Davidson, decided that there might be a business in selling that program to other teachers. They formed a company called Davidson & Associates, which was an early member of the then SPA (Software Publishers Association.) I like knowing that some of the educators reviewing this year’s products may be designing a product that could be a CODiE Awards winner in a few years. It could be the next Carmen Sandiego or Oregon Trail!

Which category are you most excited about this year?

I’m always anxious to see who is nominating in brand new categories. This year, our new category is Best Personalized Learning Solution, which evolved from work we have been doing in the Education Division for the last several years. It started with a working group on personalized learning after our Education Board undertook this as a key initiative. Personalized learning is a new market. Legacy companies can incorporate those attributes as they modify their products, and so can the startups who are designing new products. The thing I look forward to most is seeing nominations come in from companies I don’t know yet. There are so many new companies each year, and some are so new I haven’t even heard from them. When I see their nominations come in, I go to their website and find out about them, and it makes me excited about the direction that education technology is taking.

How can small companies compete in the CODiE Awards?

I think that the small companies with brand new products are viewed very positively by judges. The judges like seeing something new. It’s great to see the start-ups getting the same amount of visibility as larger companies when the finalists are announced. And when the SIIA member companies vote in the second round of judging, every company gets the same number of votes in each category, no matter what size they are. When all of the winners are listed on the press release, some will be large companies, some will be small companies. Some will be companies educators will recognize, and some will be totally unknown. Hopefully when people see a winner they’ve never heard of, they will go to their website and check them out.

What makes the education CODiE Awards banquet so special?

We have so much fun at our awards banquet! It’s a very special event for our companies. They enjoy it. It’s another thing to look forward to at the Ed Tech Industry Summit. We held the gala for the 2012 CODiE Awards on the second evening of the conference and will continue the tradition in 2013.

It’s funny, before I worked at SIIA, I worked at various member companies for 15 years. I came to many of the conferences and even spoke at them, but I never attended a CODiE Awards event! I’m not sure why. The first CODiE Awards gala I ever went to was the first year I started working for SIIA in 2002-in fact it was my second day on the job! I discovered how much fun it was, and how special it is. I really have had fun every year since.

Angel Scott Angel Scott is Awards Program Coordinator at SIIA. Follow the SIIA CODiE Awards on twitter at Share|
Filed Under: CODiEs, Ed Tech Industry Summit, Education, Education Events, Uncategorized
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