Back To The Future Of Education

COVID-19 has created one of the most significant disruptions in history. Closures of schools and other places of learning have, based on UN data, affected nearly 1.6 billion learners in 190+ countries — 94% of the world’s student population, and nearer 99% in lower-income countries.

In the majority of cases, educators have done a heroic job in adapting to these extremely difficult circumstances and deserve credit and patience.

And although education is an area few argue is unimportant, it is nevertheless an area that — relative to other industries — has been slower to adapt/evolve than other industries. On one key metric — the adoption of technology — education is a significant laggard: spending on technology barely represented 3% of the overall market (worth $6 trillion+) in 2019. And why is this? It is not, by and large, because the technology does not exist but rather because of inertia: a sense either it’s not affordable, it’s not worth it, it doesn’t fit with certain political/ philosophical beliefs, or it’s simply not how it has always been done.

In CitiGPS's survey, it shows that while there is a real sense of the risk posed by COVID-19, the crisis represents a watershed in terms of attitudes to technology/edtech among educators. Some of these sources of inertia may finally be swept aside as the value of technology — in terms of improved outcomes, finding new sources of revenue, offering variety in the mode of teaching, reducing costs, and, now with COVID-19, building in redundancy — is truly being realized.

In short, necessity isn’t the mother

of invention, for edtech, it is

the mother of adoption. 

Looking at the education market, we can see the current crisis driving an acceleration in edtech growth. CitiGPS not only sees the market doubling over the next five years to around $360 billion per year but note the ‘Edtech Gap’ — the gap between the share of usage (50% of all study hours being digitized) and share of spending — could be almost 8x this at $2.7 trillion. The benefits of greater adoption of edtech will be felt in not only better outcomes/lower costs but also increased access/reduced inequality, something that could have a meaningful impact on economic growth, especially in less advanced economies, but also at a global level. So while COVID-19 brings challenges, it also brings with it an opportunity.

CitiGPS's work found that while universities expect only a one-off hit to enrollments (i.e., a limited if not positive impact on a 3-5 year view), there is a general expectation that university financials will experience some level of permanent damage as a result of COVID19.

This reflects survey data showing smaller institutions are more bearish about permanent financial impact relative to larger institutions, while the latter account for a bigger portion of enrollments. However, there are several pain points which universities of all sizes need to address including nervousness around international enrollments, risks around government funding and tuition dilution, and substitution risk from online offerings. 

The (admittedly forced) move to almost 100% online teaching during the pandemic meant faculty and administrators were obligated to consider how technology can be better incorporated into pedagogy, some of which will stick even after the pandemic. The importance of building resilience/redundancy and ensuring equitable access to education to some extent now trumps budgetary considerations and pushback from stakeholders. Overall 80% of respondents said they intend to increase their technology investments going forward. 

Virtually all institutions around the world — universities and K-12 schools — have been forced to teach online. Given the amount of time administrators and faculty have been compelled to invest in thinking about integrating online learning into their pedagogy, the survey suggests there might be a greater appetite for adopting edtech resources to deliver a more engaging and personalized learning experience. While the summer (or equivalent) term was completely online, many are shifting to a hybrid model starting with the fall (or equivalent) term. They believe some of this hybridization will continue in the post-COVID-19 world in the form of flipped classrooms (assigned reading and listen/view online lectures at home, concept engagement in the classroom), virtual labs and field trips using immersive tech, greater engagement through gamification, or greater personalization through adaptive digital courseware.

50% of All Studying Will be Done Online

In terms of actual engagement, institutions expect around half of all daily hours to be digitized. Emerging market respondents expect e-learning to be more ubiquitous than developed market respondents

The 94-page report is well worth the time spent reading the different perspectives of countries and the experts that were questioned and included in the report.

Ben Nelson, CEO, and Founder of Minerva in particular hit a chord with, "It turns out there is no filter in a video conference that makes a university lecturer terrible. The reason an online class is so terrible is not because of the technologies, it is because of the class. They always have been awful. We all remember they were awful. The reason we think fondly about the two or three professors we had as undergraduates that were really great, is because the 30 or so others we had were terrible."

It is encouraging as an EdTech company to read what you believe, what you have heard directly from professors, higher ed leaders, and students are backed up by studies such as these.

Our E-Learning platform has been formed by the feedback of over 300 students, faculty, university leaders, and instructional designers that have shared their pains and gains from having to transition in record time to remote learning. The discussion organically revealed the need for one centralized location to create learning content, conduct class whether recorded lessons in an asynchronous mode or live video in a synchronous environment, promote peer to peer learning, and make online classes active and immersive.

www.ElevateU.ai is currently working with faculty across the U.S. to create interactive live and recorded courses. By looking at the past, we are creating the future of higher education.

Using the centuries-old model of textbook-based instruction, we are creating a living, breathing, and adaptive textbook infused with artificial intelligence. With machine learning, our AI textbooks and digital courses created by professors are delivering content to each student in their own mix of learning modalities best suited for them according to visual, auditory, and kinesthetic of V.A.K.

Currently being used in beta with professors at the University of Arizona, professors from other universities are hard at work to incorporate their AI Textbook for the spring semester on January 2021.

We are still conducting demonstrations and webinars for professors and universities for Spring and Summer semesters. To schedule a 15-minute call or schedule a demo as a single professor, or as a department head or administrator click here for availability.

The future is bright because we are learning from the past to

?teach in the future.