On March 2, the Center for Digital Education gave a webinar on the 2011 Education Market Landscape. Here are my notes.
The 95 million Millennials are the largest US generation in history, pointing to an increasing long term demand for education, and, hence, education products.
The K12 market
Image by IK's World Trip via Flickr
Classrooms and materials are being transformed over the next 10 years to digital: digital labs, mobile interactive social-aware content, and interact-and-communicate as opposed to display-and-present classrooms. Already, 89% of districts offer digital field trips, 84% offer some online classes, 82% offer at least one advanced technology class, 69% use push technology like alerts, and 88% have classes to counteract cyberbullying.
Technology spending is expected to be flat over the next year or so. The edtech market for K12 should be around $9.5B. This is spread over 14,000 districts, although the top 100 districts account for about 30% of the total. The number one reason for purchasing content is to save money, including counteracting the effects of staff or service reductions, to implement consolidation or efficiencies, to standardize, to automate, or to move to cloud based computing.
Image by Jacob Anikulapo via Flickr
Looking at overall education spending, there should be about a 3% increase in federal educational funds in 2012, to around $77.4B. At a state level, at least 30 states are expecting to decrease K12 spending, and states contribute about 50% of educational funds.
Technology directors are concerned about providing access to the Internet, they are confused about the proliferations of devices, they are worried about bandwidth issues, they are looking into changes in SIS, ERP, and LMS systems, and are starting to become concerned about blended learning and the transition to digital content and Web 2.0.
The Postsecondary market
Image via Wikipedia
Edtech spending in Higher Education is also expected to be flat in 2012, at around $10.3B. Many of the largest institutions are state run, and 41 states are expecting to cut HE spending. This is resulting in a need for institutions to look at economizing, and they are expecting technology to help them increase efficiency, accommodate mobile computing, improve student retention and recruitment, improve tech support, and reduce demand on IT resources.
Some areas of growth are data storage, disaster recovery, ERP, identity and access management, security, and help with staff research. Higher Ed is also grappling with the textbook to digital transition, including looking for the ideal interactive learning environment that integrates well with other institutional systems.
The biggest reasons for purchasing are cost management, productivity gains, data driven decision making, and online education.
