Yippie i ohhh ohh ohh
Yippie i aye ye ye
Robot tutors in the sky
Before I head out to Indianapolis for the EDUCAUSE conference, I keep thinking back to a comment someone made in response to Michael’s description of Knewton marketing as “selling snake oil”. I can’t find the exact quote, but the gist was:
This is what happens when you start to see VCs as your main customers.
I recently attended the ALMAP Summer Meeting. ALMAP is a program funded by the Gates Foundation, with the goals described in this RFP webinar presentation from March 2013:
We believe that well implemented personalized & adaptive learning has the potential to dramatically improve student outcomes
Our strategy to accelerate the adoption of Adaptive Learning in higher education is to invest in market change drivers… …resulting in strong, healthy market growth
As the program is in its mid stage (without real results to speak of yet), I’ll summarize Tony Bates style with summary of program and some notes at the end. Consider this my more-than-140-character response to Glenda Morgan:
@PhilOnEdTech was the agenda of the Gates Summit online at all?
— Glenda Morgan (@morganmundum) June 30, 2014
Originally planned for 10 institutions, the Gates Foundation funded 14 separate grantees at a level of ~$100,000 each. The courses must run for 3 sequential semesters with greater than 500 students total (per school), and the program will take 24 months total (starting June 2013). The awards were given to the following schools:
Josh Kim wrote three predictions at Inside Higher Ed for the EDUCAUSE 2013 conference, and I particularly agree with the basis of #2:
Prediction 2: Adaptive Learning Platforms Will Be the Toast of the Party
Everyone will want to talk to Knewton. The ASU / Pearson / Knewton partnership is a huge deal. Knewton has the technology, relationships, funding, and management team to make a huge impact.
I’ll be looking at EDUCAUSE at the other adaptive learning players. Where are they focusing their platform work? What deals and relationships do they currently have? How big is their market penetration? What is the quality of their leadership team and employees they have a EDUCAUSE?
I’m betting we will see at least one major adaptive learning vendor announcement. A purchase, a big collaboration deal, or a new huge round of funding.
I also expect much of the discussion this year to be on adaptive learning. But one risk of this zeitgeist (if it comes to pass) is that terminology becomes fuzzy and often devoid of meaning. Hey, get your adaptive here. You want to be adaptive, don’t you? We are the adaptive makers… and we are the dreamers of dreams.
Knewton CEO Jose Ferriera has an interesting and revealing blog post up about “the coming adaptive world.” In part, it is a response to a report on adaptive learning by Education Growth Advisors. Jose writes, “Despite our constant protestations to the contrary, observers often confuse Knewton with the many adaptive learning app makers who are now popping up. Or they confuse app makers with platforms. Or they think we’re all competitors.” It’s a bit of a red herring, since the report does distinguish between platform and publisher business models. That said, the meaning of the distinction between these two categories isn’t drawn terribly clearly, and it’s fair for Knewton to try to clarify its market positioning. But in doing so, Jose reveals what appears to be a shift in their thinking about the market for a platform like theirs which tells us something important about the ed tech market in general. (more…)
