Education Week - Navigating the Ed-Tech Marketplace - S12

Common Core
Raises Questions on
Future of Ed-Tech
Spending
Market analysts generally predict ed-tech purchases linked
to the standards will be directed toward digital tools that show
the greatest performance in the classroom
BY ROBIN L. FLANIGAN
O
ne of the major
challenges ahead
for educational
technology companies
centers
around this question:
Once schools
buy the hardware and install the
broadband, will the money districts
and states are investing in ed tech to
prepare for the common core simply
fade away, or will it shift to new priorities?
Several
market analysts, ed-tech
company officials, and education
leaders say they do not expect to
see the money disappear, but they
instead expect a shift in the use of
that money that places an emphasis
on the impact of different products.
"What's going to happen now is
that with this proof of efficacy, you're
really going to be able to see who's
doing a better job of making kids
ready," said Deborah H. Quazzo, a
managing partner at gsv Advisors,
an education-sector-focused investment
bank based in Chicago. "This
is a great place for us to be able to
make sure we're getting a real return
on investment in the quality of
the products that are purchased."
Others echo that perspective.
"Common core is driving a much
more sophisticated use of technology,
and we'll see spending increases
as we learn more about the impact of
new instructional models and pedagogies
to support the standards,"
said Larry Singer, a managing director
for Pearson's North American
schools group.
As technology becomes more affordable
and powerful, as well as
less threatening to K-12 educators,
market players, and observers predict
the next wave of ed-tech investments
will center on digitally delivered
personalized instruction and
professional development targeted
at the common-core standards and
assessments.
And as districts address data security
and student-privacy concerns,
fully support teachers, and shift to
more plug-and-play interoperability
solutions that allow applications
to work with each other in easier
and more useful ways, there will be
"more and more of a reality around
the personalization of learning than
the rhetoric we have now," noted Steven
Pines, the executive director of
the Education Industry Association,
based in Vienna, Va. "Today, there's
this mantra that we want to have
1-to-1 delivery of instruction, and it's
a wonderful and right path to be on.
But it's more aspirational than it is
universally implemented."
Personalized Priorities
To push past the aspirational rhetoric,
the Metropolitan Nashville Public
Schools in Tennessee used a grant in
2012-13 to let 10 of its 153 schools
create tech-rich model classrooms,
a move that has spurred a strategic
plan to have blended learning environments
in every school by 2017-18.
"Blended learning defines the environment,
personalized learning
defines the instruction," said Kecia
Ray, the executive director of learning
technology and library services
$2.47B
$6.87B
$5.26B
$1.24B
SOURCE: Pioneer Institute for
Public Policy Research
S12 | NAVIGATING THE ED-TECH MARKETPLACE
EDUCATION WEEK * June 11, 2014
> www.edweek.org/go/edtechmarket
TESTING
INSTRUCTIONAL
MATERIALS
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
TECHNOLOGY
WHAT DOES IT COST
TO IMPLEMENT THE
COMMON CORE?
Technology will be the biggest
expense for states and school
districts as they prepare for,
and implement, the Common
Core State Standards,
according to one recent
analysis.
http://www.edweek.org/go/edtechmarket
Education Week - Navigating the Ed-Tech Marketplace

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