There is no doubt that education is going through a transformation. The need for digital skills for employment and the changing nature of work are certainly key drivers.

However, the disparity between developed and developing worlds, the availability of devices and connectivity, and the culture and beliefs of individual countries are all important considerations.

In this mix, I frequently hear EdTech Gurus talk about personalisation and collaboration. Is this utopia or are they goals that will be adopted globally? More importantly, are there clear trends that we can draw upon for the future of EdTech?

Is EdTech free?

Many large corporates in EdTech currently see the sector as an investment or a CSR opportunity. This means there is little money to be made here and as a consequence, the activities are usually limited to selling enterprise or consumer software at discounted prices. If EdTech is to become a thriving market in its own right, then two fundamental things clearly have to happen; it needs to become a key part of the teaching and learning process, and it’s funding needs to become as essential as buying desks and chairs.

School exams are here to stay

The exam system determines how schools work. Period. It’s the way learners progress and comprehension is measured, the way school performance is measured and sometimes how school/college leaders are rewarded. Exams are here to stay, and possibly for the long term as changing them requires wholesale changes and training to the education workforce. Often EdTech is not required for these exams and many still use the model of learners sitting alone writing answers from memory. In this climate, it is critical that EdTech strategies are clear about how they support this model.

Skills are essential

A recent IDC study listed the skills required by employers in their job adverts. Not surprisingly, the top 10 were all digital skills that learners would only develop through the use of technology to produce work, collaborate and communicate. With a self-disciplined approach and out-of-the-box thinking thrown in for good measure. There was a time when demonstrating the ability to pass exams by memorising knowledge was essential for the job market. That is no longer the case and as employers push for skills, education will need to adapt. We have already helped one government with a digital competency framework, which defines and measures learner proficiency at each key stage. This may become the answer as it sits comfortably alongside the current exam system.

Learning is lifelong

Learning, not knowledge is the key skill for the coming years says Learning Possibilities Chair, Prof Stephen Heppell.  As we move into a world changing at an ever faster pace, the ability to learn at every stage of life will become essential, even if it is to just stay current. Most learning, post-formal education, is through technology as is the vast amounts of knowledge in sites like Wikipedia. Navigating these, but also learning to love learning, will become a key part of school life.

 

Read part 1 and part 2 of the Edtech blog series.

In my last blog, I looked at how the education industry was unique, complex and unlike other ‘corporate’ markets. In this blog, I look at how EdTech is the answer to transforming education, but perhaps not as it is currently.

EdTech has the power to transform technology, but only if it’s adopted. The education system is undergoing this process as the need to encourage digital skills, engage learners and drive employability gains momentum. Adoption is the key.

You don’t need the “M”

LMS, or Learning Management System/solution is the title given to almost all EdTech platforms. Many come and go, and few achieve any scale. These platforms have a common characteristic; they manage the process of teaching and learning. Often created by technologists with little experience of schools, they often focus on automating the teaching process by following sequences or steps. In the corporate world, this drives productivity and cost-saving. In education, not only does this limit the teachers’ pedagogical approach, It requires a large investment in teacher training. Not surprisingly, many LMS end up being little more than document repositories or filing systems with relatively low adoption. Flexibility is the key, in both usage models and pedagogical approaches.

Start with the problem, not with the technology 

Often I see EdTech founders keen to improve education and excited about introducing a new technology. This could be artificial intelligence, robotics or even student voice solutions.

The reality is that educational institutions face a number of challenges; connectivity, device shortages, low levels of technology support staff, and teacher-time to name a few. EdTech founders need to understand both the problems they are addressing as well as the efficacy of their solution. Often this needs to be through proper academic studies if teachers are to believe and invest time in the technology.

It needs scale, needs to be secure and also affordable 

Governments have limited funds and often EdTech is low on the priority list, particularly as it is still possible to pass exams well without the need for technology. Many large companies have ‘education pricing’ strategies for their corporate/consumer solutions with discounts of 80% and more. Yet any solution, for large scale deployment, needs to have scale and security, which costs a great deal of money. Having a strategy to address this, whilst being affordable is a key design criterion that EdTech companies ignore at their peril.

You need an adoption strategy

So you have a large government contract and a deployment plan. Great. The key to getting ongoing business is adoption. Will teachers use the solution? The graveyard of failed EdTech solutions is vast. Adoption begins with product design and usage strategies, not with training. We were so convinced that this was the key to a successful EdTech business, we published our strategy – ADOPT (an acronym for our 5 stages of e-maturity: Awareness, Development, Optimisation, Pioneering and Transformation). It went on to become the UK’s national e-maturity framework and the foundation for all our solution development.

Combined with the uniqueness of the education marketplace (see last blog) these four considerations make EdTech truly distinctive. These characteristics are commonplace in those who succeed in the education world, however, I suspect that many of you will be wondering if this is just too difficult? The answer for Learning Possibilities has been the dual benefits of being a growing business and the satisfaction of seeing a large number of learners gain improved education outcomes.

In the next blog, I look at the current trends in education and how they will dictate future EdTech marketplaces.

Dr Mehool Sanghrajka is the Founder and CEO of Learning Possibilities. He has been working at the forefront of education for 20 years.

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I often get asked to talk to EdTech start-ups about how they should approach the market to become successful long term players. I have finally got around to writing the no-nonsense blog on success in EdTech that I promised many of them.

This three part series, will be published over the next few weeks, looking at the different aspects of the education marketplace and the factors that often lead to success.

The Uniqueness of Education

For many decades, EdTech has be touted as the answer in reforming education. For two decades ‘21st Century Skills’ have been paraded as the answer to the growing skills gap between school/college leavers and employers. Yet there are few success stories in EdTech. The problems in education are complex, as are the solutions.

New entrants to the EdTech market often confuse it with the corporate or wider public sector markets and assume good technology will rapidly gain momentum.

Understanding and navigating the nuances (highlighted below) of the education market is the key to finding a viable and adoptable solution.

Think…Slow Down!: everything in Education moves slowly.

I often laugh at the phrase ‘Education is a get rich slow business’, and it’s usually true.

Education around the world is broadly split into fee-paying and (state or central) government institutions. Both have unique characteristics, but the key differential is scale. In almost every country, learners in government institutions far outnumber, by several multiples, those in fee-paying institutions. In addition, governments usually buy for large number of schools where as fee paying institutions are usually alone or grouped in small numbers.

The other EdTech market is the consumer or parent. Studies show that parents engagement helps their children’s academic success. Here the challenges are different; alignment with curriculum and school teaching, marketing strategies to reach target parents, and competing with free products like Khan Academy.

If you want (or need) scale, then understanding government purchasing cycles is the key. These cycles can be multi-year and sometimes be part of a wider national vision to build a knowledge or digital economy. Procurement may involve public tenders or strict funding criteria. Learning to navigate these needs to be an essential part of any EdTech strategy. 

Governments buy, teachers teach and students learn

In the corporate world, purchasing decisions are usually through a purchasing department and often related to a productivity or cost-saving ROI (return on investment) measure. Education is different. Teachers are overworked and therefore saving costs is not their priority. Further asking time-poor teachers to invest time in learning technology solutions is usually difficult when it’s frequently possible to pass exams well without access to specific learning technology. We focus our strategy on meeting government strategies, whilst having firm plans to engage with teachers and drive learning outcomes for learners.

Buying happens only within academic calendar windows 

Unlike the corporate world, schools operate within the boundaries of school terms and holidays. This defines when purchasing activities, pilots and project rollouts can happen. It also determines when related (but separate) items such as devices and connectivity may be bought.

Understanding the rhythm of the education calendar is vital, as is being part of the annual cycle of exhibitions and conferences. We set our annual calendar and plan our sales campaigns and customer pilots around school terms.

Schools don’t like variable costs

Today having a scaleable solution often means some form of cloud service. These are usually ‘pay-as-you-use’ services, which means incurring variable costs, sometimes with little ability to control teacher or learner usage or behaviour. This model is also contraindicative, as good usage means higher cloud consumption costs.

Government customers usually only work on predictable fixed costs, that they can budget. Having strategies to manage variable costs is usually necessary for global reach.

Students change class every year

As all parents know, children change classes every year. This makes student identity management and data security complex, yet critical. Teachers changes classes and schools many times in their education career. Managing this is more complicated than standard corporate implementations where user change or turnover is low.

In the next blog, I will look at how EdTech is the answer to transforming education, but perhaps not as it is currently.

 

 

Learning Possibilities are thrilled to renew their Microsoft Gold Partner certification for Gold Datacentre, Gold Cloud Productivity, Silver ISV and Silver Collaboration and Content.

Learning Possibilities is a co-sell ready global Microsoft Partner working in 5 regions with partners in over 20 countries, working with local partners on a global scale to deliver LP+365, the next generation Learning and Collaboration Platform. Hosted on Azure and proven to drive adoption of all major features of Office 365, the app drives school investment in Office365.

LP+365 is built on LP+ technology and has been used by over one million learners globally, won major national and international awards for its efficacy and is built on our ADOPT Framework, the UK national standard for e-maturity in schools.

Our continued efforts in improving the app have led to the addition of a multilingual interface, auto-provisioning functionality and the LP+ Exam tool.

To learn more about LP+365 click here to download our brochure.

 

 

We are thrilled to be attending Bett UK 2019 showcasing the latest version of our LP+365 app, the new features we have added and what’s to come for the rest of 2019.

Showcasing the LP+365 Multilingual Interface

The LP+365 multilingual interface allows students and teachers to seamlessly switch between languages in the menu bar. The language options are unlimited and supports multiple scripts, for example Arabic and the Indian languages.

Languages can be selected dynamically by the user and the choice of language is determined by the global administrator. Having the right language drives adoption of the platform and the embedding of LP+ technology into daily use.

Managing Learner Identities & Auto-Provisioning Feature

Managing Learner Identities throughout students education career is critical for ensuring security. LP+365 is integrated into Microsoft SDS and many other school administration tools for auto-provisioning.

Introducing…LP+ Exam

Preview the new tool we have been working on, LP+ Exam. The tool is integrated into our platform for school and ministry of education n exams. It boasts a wide range of question types with auto-marking features, monitoring and submission capabilities, question randomisation and auto-save offline functionality. LP+ Exam delivers results through a full analytics and reporting package.

Download our new LP+365 brochure here to learn more about LP+365 & contact us at info@lpplus.com to meet with us at Bett UK 2019.

We look forward to seeing you there.

As we reflect on a successful 8 years of holding the national contract for digital wales we look back on the impact the platform had in inculcating Microsoft technologies into schools across wales.

 

Check out the Microsoft blog below & take a look back at the successful project:

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ukschools/2015/07/30/hwb-and-digital-wales-guest-post-from-gerald-haigh/

 

Level: K-12

Usage: 100%

Initiative: Monitoring and measuring learning outcomes

 

Key Findings…

Enjoyed sharing resources and sending messages via the app. Easy to communicate particularly useful using the announcement and discussion tools.

 LP+365 enables student engagement inside and outside of the classroom

LP+365 supports blended learning pedagogical scenarios

LP+365 develops self-paced personalised learning strategies

 

The Challenge

The Ashok Leyland School in the Hosur region of Tamil Nadu is committed to providing the best possible learning environment for a rapidly changing world. LP+365 is perfectly placed to support Ashok Leyland School’s sustainable and scalable model aiming to achieve a 20% improvement in learning levels of students as well as a 20% reduction in dropout rates and increase in attendance and engagement.

The success criteria for this project centred around being able to measure how far LP+365 helps at least three-quarters of the students are able to integrate technology with their lesson, collaborating and sharing their views and ideas across collaboration tools.

 

Chandrachoodeshwaran M, Microsoft digital learning coordinator at Ashok Leyland School said:

“The students have really enjoyed integrating digital technology into their pedagogical journey. Using the Office 365 toolset integrated into the LP+365 app makes teaching more time efficient.”

Result…

For teachers, the advantages of the LP+365 learning and collaboration platform are clear. LP+365 enables the school to reach the government set goals to improve not only student learning outcomes but the collaboration tools contribute towards improving attendance and student engagement.

Chandrachoodeshwaran M explained adding the ability to personalise content has had a positive outcome on focused learning:

“The auto-provisioned Class Notebook is a major advantage of the app over using OneNote, improving class collaboration.”

Click here to find out more about LP+365 or Click here to arrange a FREE demo

We are thrilled to announce the new multi-lingual feature on LP+365.

The LP+365 multilingual interface is now available in beta, and allows students and teachers to seamlessly switch between languages in the menu bar. The language options are unlimited and supports multiple scripts, for example Arabic and the Indian languages.

Languages can be selected dynamically by the user and the choice of language is determined by the global administrator. Having the right language drives adoption of the platform and the embedding of LP+ technology into daily use.

The new feature will help students to…

✔ Learn new languages

✔ Improve the fluency of native languages

✔ Be part of the international community

✔ Develop digital skills using their native language

The feature helps teachers to…

✔ Drive usage of the app and improve digital literacy

✔  Improve students adoption of new languages

✔  Help teachers communicate with international students

Check out the multi-lingual promo video to find out more…

 

As always we’d love to hear from you and your thoughts about the new updates. Contact us on Twitter or Facebook to let us know what you think!

 

The LP+ Tech Team have been busy bug fixing & updating the app to improve it’s performance in the classroom:

✔Students are now able to begin their assignments directly through email hyperlinks

✔Improved links to picture tile thumbnails

✔Optimised performance for retrieval of blog categories

✔Improved Assignment views to meet web accessibility standards

✔Calendar bug fixes and improved views in all browsers

✔Improved provisioning of special characters in Class Notebook

✔Improved ability to export active licence info for user accounts

✔Progressive Web App now includes the analytics feature in the full school app

✔Mobile browser optimisation

✔New Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 optimisation

 

We’d love to hear from you and your thoughts about the new updates or answer any questions you have about these changes. Contact us on Twitter or Facebook to let us know what you think!

As a school student (and that was a good few years ago now – think flared trousers and too much hair!) I loved mathematics. We were one of just two pilot schools for the then revolutionary School Mathematics Project. SMP focussed on things such as sets, graphs, Boolean logic, non-Cartesian co-ordinate systems, non-decimal number systems, matrices, vectors and more. It was visual, relevant (I still see the world in Venn diagrams!) and exciting. I did well, but then suddenly along came “A” levels; sadly, there was then no “A” level SMP maths, so I was plunged into a mysterious world of calculus, quadratics and algebra in general. It was like waking up in a foreign country, confused.

Years later, when the I first watched a (huge) supercomputer solving a quadratic equation I remember thinking how handy it would have been to access that kind of helpful power, day to day during my “A” levels. Sadly, that supercomputer’s cost ran into millions of pounds, and filled a room when we installed it in Westminster. Actually, it remains the most expensive and largest computer that I ever purchased.

Today however, thanks to the miracle that is captured in Moore’s Law (where Gordon Moore noted that overall processing power for computers doubled every two years or so), much more power than that huge early supercomputer is in today’s sleek phones, tablets, and laptops. As the hardware has got better, the software has got cheaper too! As a big fan of OneNote, it still amazes me that this simple tool has the power to let you type in, and then watch, as OneNote solves mathematical equations using many mathematical functions.

However, this is not about just solving those equations, it is about understanding those solutions and OneNote will helpfully step you through all the stages of a solution. You can repeat, review, vary and solve as often as you like. Repeat until understood. Brilliant!

This all matters of course, because in a world of big data and of algorithms, good mathematicians are scarce. Kids dreaming of a career as a Games designer need good maths. A career in health needs good maths, practically every senior career post, including in schools, needs good mathematics. Now, if I can just build a time machine and take wonderful OneNote back to my “A” level maths paper…