Innovation has the potential to be a game changer for teachers in remote locations and schools with little resources. A series of software application and cloud management platforms provide teachers the capability to learn from the finest practices, personalize lesson plans, manage projects and complete evaluations. Countless students and teachers at all levels are currently utilizing instructional software application, and innovation is just going to play a bigger and bigger role in the class.
Learning management systems, as they’re called, are currently a $5.2 billion market, and they are predicted to grow to $16 billion in 4 years, according to a Markets and Markets research study. It’s not simply schools utilizing this innovation, however. Increasing adoptions of digital content usage amongst business companies and scholastic institutes are adding to the growth, along with the increase of innovations such as gamification and virtual reality.
Among the business leaders in the area is D2L. Its Brightspace software platform involves huge volumes of information and data to help teachers organise their learning plans alongside messaging and grading. It’s used by more than 700 customers and 8 million students, consisting of about half of K-12 and higher-education organizations in Canada.
Blackboard, which was purchased by Providence Equity Partners in 2011, offers its teaching and analytics software application platform to more than 16,000 customers, not simply schools but also federal governments and companies, reaching 100 million users worldwide. Blackboard assists teachings to bring their class online and assists students with personalized year 10 or 12 online tutoring programs.
Tom Vander Ark, a financier in education innovation, founding partner at Learn Capital and keynote speaker for education, says this is just the start. “It’s taken some time to truly establish brand-new learning designs that make the most of platforms. But with the right project management system, I believe that exactly what you’ll see in the next few years is that many schools will enter into a platform network. A network that has a typical learning model, a shared learning platform and expert learning experiences,” stated Vander Ark, who is likewise a partner in Getting Smart, an education advisory company.
The tech giants are wanting to take advantage of this digital strategy too: Google, Microsoft and Apple each offer completely free class tools for students and teachers. Google and Microsoft in particular, “have an extremely light-weight management system, and teachers worldwide are embracing that and using it in the classroom,” Vander Ark stated. “We have actually seen this voluntary adoption of free and economical tools develop in a genuine bottoms-up wave. Educators and the English, chemistry or math tutor aren’t waiting for their school board to embrace a platform. … The leading platforms are actually making it possible for teachers to mix and match their own learning styles to satisfy the requirements of specific students.”
Now Facebook is entering into the education service, helping Top Public Schools, a Bay location charter network, establish a platform. “In addition to utilizing it inside their network, they’re sharing it. … In a short amount of time hundreds of public schools around the nation will have be able to gain access to the platform,” Vander Ark stated. “I believe that this is going to be truly effective in changing K-12 education.”