The speed and depth of private sector innovation in education will have a huge impact on all forms of education in the US. As noted below:
[gview file=”https://publicservicesalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/A-Silicon-Valley-startup-is-quietly-taking-over-U.S.-classrooms-Axios.pdf”]Silicon Valley is determined to improve education by infusing it with technology. Its latest example is Kiddom, whose personalized learning software has quietly entered classrooms in 70% of U.S. school districts, according to the company.
Kudos to Gary for link.
It would seem obvious that there’s an enormous sort of captive market to address with EdTech innovation. As we discussed some time ago, for huge institutional purchases, there’s a bureaucracy to navigate first…who makes platform decisions? How do they make them? Then there’s the actual implementation of new platforms.
As Willy S noted, there’s many a slip between cup and lip…and actually achieving innovative solutions in public schools is, to be blunt, a nightmare of delay, inefficiency, bad decisions, and inadequate implementation and maintenance support. Not every district, but more often than not.
What’s going to be different this time? Many students show up with smartphones in the schools…and amazingly there are still some districts that collect them at the door to prohibit use during the day. Other districts are trying to move curricula to various smartphone platforms.
In some ways, what the students are doing with EdTech on their own, and the platforms they choose and bring to school is going to have some impact, or even a deterring impact, on what steps schools take. That could sort of subvert the typical hierarchical EdTech decision-making tree…and turn it into more of a grassroots process being driven from the bottom up, if you will.