This is the keynote presentation and speaker notes from the BbWorld

Transact 2012 conference in Scottsdale, AZ on March 20, 2012,

researched and delivered by Frank Catalano, principal, Intrinsic Strategy.

Kindly note: while the presentation is…

Copyright © 2012 Frank Catalano

…permission is granted to excerpt parts of it as long as credit is given via

attribution to Frank Catalano and Intrinsic Strategy. (The referenced data,

research reports & most of the images are, of course, not covered by this

copyright – just the final presentation.)

However, please don’t deliver or post this presentation in its entirety

online. (I trust you, even though I probably don’t know you.)

You can find out more about Frank at

http://intrinsicstrategy.com

follow him on Twitter

@FrankCatalano

or email him directly

frank@intrinsicstrategy.com

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Give you an idea of my perspective

20 years strategic consulting, 4 years as a corporate VP at Pearson

Worked in digital learning, edtech and consumer/business tech

For trends, consulting Senior Analyst for MDR’s EdNET Insight service

Also a long-time columnist and broadcast commentator:

•Currently GeekWire.com (http://practicalnerd.com)

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Seen three tech boom-bust cycles while consulting

Personal computer software, multimedia CD-ROM, dot-com

From consumer, K12 and higher ed technology work

That’s my vantage point

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I don’t reuse presentations or talks

Most recently available research, added to my observations from

conferences and industry sources

Gives you the most up-to-date picture I have

Hopefully, pull it together with unique insight

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What’s our agenda?

It’s basically in three parts

1) What student expectations are

2) Where innovation is coming from and what’s driving it

3) And what it’s developing into over the next three years – in 5

transcendent trends that span K-20

Making sense of the view through a garbled tech window

Why three years?

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This is Jennifer, a Seattle ninth grader

One of the few times you’ll see Jennifer without personal technology …

because she’s studying with school materials

She graduates in 2015, three years from now

She is providing us with our point of view

And is your future student.

Let’s start with her personal tech world…

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Jennifer is floating in a sea of personal, mobile tech

Look at these results of 2011 Speak Up National Research Project (to be

updated this April/May) by Project Tomorrow

• 295,000 students, 42,000 parents

This sets baseline student – and parent – expectations

Smartphone access jumped 42% from previous year for MS/HS students

• (Front blue row is high school)

In line with new Pew study showing 46% of US adults have smartphones

Key point: Relatively no difference in numbers when analyzed for Title 1,

community type (urban, etc.) or other demographics

• Pew found the fastest growth among the lowest incomes

What’s around her …

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It’s increasingly all about tablets

Pew Internet and American Life Project: Number of US adults with tablets

doubled over the holidays

• Similar increase for eReaders

• 29% of US adults now own either an eReader or a tablet, up

from 18%

Driven by price cuts, portability (form factor and content)

Nielsen: In tablet-owning households, educational apps are a top use

• 9% increase in overall kids’ tablet use from a year earlier

So back to Jennifer and her level of school technology

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A 1905 slide rule, if you must know

Not entirely fair, and almost trite to say, but her world in K-12 is still

different than her world outside of K-12 – but it’s changing rapidly

Important to remember that the term “digital native” applies to Jennifer

and even her younger teachers and principals – 30 years and younger

Jennifer’s real ninth grade environment….

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Data is from several sources, including the PBS LearningMedia national

survey from Dec 2011, released Jan 2012

• Studies reinforce and confirm each other – rapid K12 change

The interactive white board – which is comfortable & familiar – near top

• And getting everything wirelessly connected is a top priority

Lots of online and blended classes, in part due to budget cuts, in part due

to credit recovery/remediation

• FL, ID, MI, GA, AL now mandate at least some online courses

• (Speak Up: 30% of grade 9-12 students took an online class in

2010, up from 18% in 2009)

Finally, BYOD still in infancy – represents any student-owned device that

can connect to the wireless network

• Helps with device budgets, gets schools closer to 1:1

• Speak Up: 70% of grade 9-12 parents likely to buy a mobile

device for their child to use at school

Lots of progress in past few years, but still many gaps

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What would Jen like to do with mobile and personal tech at school?

From Speak Up 2011 National Research Project

Top priorities for high school students not a surprise:

Checking grades is similar to what college students rate highly

Internet research is anytime/anywhere with WiFi/3G/4G

Collaborate is working with peers, teachers, and subject content experts

on schoolwork using social networks, messaging

All factors that play into her college desires and expectations in 3 years

So what’s driving all this expectation and even K12 adoption?

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We’re seeing an unprecedented convergence of higher ed, K-12 and

consumer tech – some would say “collision” (three-way socket)

Much less separate than they used to be, and much more immediate

influence

It’s the consumerization of edtech

Finally at a point where consumer tech IS so compelling its forcing its way

into the classroom

• Young instructors,

• Cheaper tech,

• Better tech,

• Consumer-led expectations about tech in education among

influencers, policy makers,

• Cool to be a nerd

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As recently as a decade ago:

1. Cool technology would start in the consumer market

2. Might be adopted by higher education, where older students and

parents are purchasers

3. Then might work its way down, after being validated, into K12

classrooms

Many large barriers to adoption

• Technology was expensive

• Technology was unfamiliar

• Infrastructure was challenging, especially in old buildings, and wired

• “NetDay” in the mid-1990s, just wired schools for Internet

You could expect the entire cycle to take a decade, and it might stall out

For example:

• Worked: Higher Ed to K-12 for online classes/distance learning, digital

textbooks, LMS

• Stalled: LaserDiscs in schools instead of CD-ROM among consumers

(libraries were tech repositories)

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In the past handful of years:

1. Cool technology might start in any market

2. It might spread to any market

The traditional barriers to use are dropping

• Technology is increasingly cheap

• Technology is familiar, even expected

• Both students and instructors, plus administrators and policy

makers, are “digital natives”

• Infrastructure is battery-operated and wireless and cloud-based

You can expect the entire cycle to take two to three years

None – consumer, college, K12 – exist in a void anymore

For example:

• iPads from consumer to higher ed and K12

• Online courses from higher ed to consumer as “informal learning”

• IWBs K12 to HE (38% college students use “to a large extent,” BISG

Feb 2012)

• Lots of direct-to-parent startup focus – which is consumer

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This sums it up nicely

I’d add anyone who brings an outside device to a school or college is a

digital scout … and they tend to be mobile, wireless devices

That’s the three-way cross-pollination

What external forces are fueling the bees?

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A few final external drivers, all within last couple of years:

Need for ed reform – and tech is seen as a vehicle

Perceived huge market; Common Core in K12 leveling field, tie to HE

• Drew VC and technologist interest

• Drew Foundation dollars from Gates, Hewlett, Kauffman, others

Both provoked startup incubation activity

• Startup Weekend created Startup Weekend EDU with a specific

education focus in fall 2011; now up to one or two a month

worldwide (Kauffman)

• Teachers, techies explore ideas over 54 hours

• LAUNCHedu was created by SXSW inside new SXSWedu

• Six K12 and six Higher Ed early-stage companies

• SIIA is the “granddaddy” with Innovation Incubator

• Twice a year to highlight ten companies, since 2009

Many of the newer external players don’t clearly distinguish between five

segments of education (K12, higher ed, continuing/professional ed,

lifelong ed and direct to parent)

But that is breaking down the walls even further and leading to…

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… something new – hard to say what

It will reflect three characteristics:

• Reduced time to adoption from tech introduction

• whether it begins in K12, Higher Ed or consumer

• Reduced new physical infrastructure requirements

• due to wireless and cloud architectures

• Reduced prices

• due to cheaper hardware, cloud-based software and far more

non-traditional competition

So what’s coming … relentlessly?

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Here are five trends to consider, that cross K12 and higher ed

They transcend any particular level and have potential to transform

Will focus on what’s surprising or new

Examples of how they tie to K12/HE/consumer, no matter where began

Identified from research and studies from K-12 and higher ed, as well as

other sources

Some of those sources include the well-regarded Horizon Report, from

the New Media Consortium, which released its tenth annual higher ed

report last month, and does a parallel K-12 report

Also the Speak Up National Research Project I mentioned earlier

Others include mainstream sources such as Pew, Nielsen, the Book

Industry Study Group and education-specific ones such as EDUCAUSE

Layered on my own analysis and conclusions

Each of these trends will have a significant impact over the next three

years – when Jennifer arrives at your college

Let’s start with the first trend

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May be the most obvious of the five trends

This isn’t an iPad-only story … or even US only

Possible drivers:

• Cost (in US as low as $199, even cheaper elsewhere)

• Form factor (familiar, book or clipboard sized), same screen size as a

netbook and some laptops and more portable for field (Horizon)

• Less disruptive and bigger screen than smartphones, which are

growing in parallel (can’t be used for calls) (Horizon 2011 K-12, 2012

Higher Ed)

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Stunning tablet growth

• College student ownership tripled in past year (Harris/Pearson

Fnd national study); high school seniors quadrupled to 17%

Drive to digital textbooks is only part of it

• It’s as much about apps that add information and functions

• App download stats are of Mar 2012/Dec 2011

• More functions than just textbooks or even iBooks

• Percent of public universities with mobile apps doubled in one

year (2011 Campus Computing Survey of senior IT officials, Fall

2011)

Horizon puts mobile apps and tablets in one-year “mainstream”

And it’s not just Apple fanboys … or just a U.S. trend….

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For international students, tablets are an global trend – under $100

India’s Aaskash Android tablet

• $50 tablet ($35 subsidized for students), designed in India, built by UK firm DataWind

• 7” screen, 3 hour battery, 32GB storage, Android

• Durability, speed issues in first 10K of 100K planned, but still trying

• Also drawing competitors in India: $100 tablet with more features just started shipping

OLPC XO-3

• Prototype at Consumer Electronics Show in January

• Designed for children in developing countries

• $100, 8”, 4GB storage, Sugar OS or Android, DC/crank

• Production “in 2012”

UK’s Raspberry Pi

• $35 credit-card sized circuit board, UK non-profit Raspberry Pi Foundation to spur student computer science

• Released Feb 29, first version

• Runs on Linux – add touchscreen display, could turn it into tablet

Now combine , with huge international tablet adoptions

• Thailand: Ministry of Education: 900K tablets for all first grade students

• Australia: tablets, laptops now outnumber students in grades 9-12 in 2012 school year due to opting for lower-cost tablets

• South Korea: Replace all K-12 textbooks with tablets in primary 2014

Tablets, and mobile apps, are a K-20 trend

Of course, now you need content for these tablets…talk about two kinds

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Second transformative K-20 trend is chunked digital content

Moving from creamy to chunky … like peanut butter

Digital content has a long history in higher ed

• Online courses

• MIT’s OpenCourseware is a decade old

Much designed generally linearly– a monolith

But now digital education content is shifting to chunky…

• …build it yourself, using digital pieces

This is the second K-20 spanning trend

• Goes far beyond digital textbooks and online courses

• Content that is designed, from the start, to be used built up from

chunks …

• Instead of start digitally as a monolith, and be broken down into

pieces

Chunking creates more work for instructors to get the flexibility

But has more benefits…

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Digital chunked content is designed to be mixed, modified and shared

• Combine elements from different sources to create course

• Like buying a song instead of an album

In K-12, this includes Open Educational Resources

• Generally free, may be paid at some level (subscription)

• But are supposed to be mixed, modified and shared

What are some chunks?

• Khan Academy videos

• NASA and Smithsonian materials

• Educator-created lesson plans or syllabi

• Anything granular

Driven by financial pressures (Horizon 2011 K-12 Report)

• Karen Cator, Director of Office of Education Technology for US Dept

of Ed, says taxpayer funding of educational materials means OER

Enabled by Creative Commons licensing; requires only attribution

• Working with US ED and others to allow legal sharing and remixing

Foundation funding and association efforts spurring initiatives

• Prominent: AEP, CCSSO, Gates, Hewlett, Carnegie

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One example of enabling shared digital chunked content…

Learning Registry launched in beta Nov 2011 by US ED and DOD, K-20

through adult

Example of Learning Registry entries from National Archives

Provides links to digital resources (lesson plans, content) from a wide

variety of government, state, district and private sources

• PBS, Smithsonian, many more

Allow educators to quickly find content specific to their unique needs

Not a repository, but more of a directory that can be embedded in other

sites

• So it’s not a specific destination, portal or engine that educators

will “go to”

More like a directory are other efforts …

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HippoCampus.org, from Monterey Institute for Technology and Education

Repository of OER for high school and college

• Funded by Gates, Hewlett, Google grants

Represents fine line between chunky and creamy

• Many players at this level, allowing chunking

• Flatworld Knowledge , CK-12 Flexbooks, Washington State

Open Course Library

Not just digital by the time student sees it – may be print

• Utah Open Textbook HS science curriculum from OER content

• Printed – at $5.35 per book each, versus about $80

Downside? Free like a puppy, not free like a beer

• Takes time to find, assemble

• Every student must have a device to scale, if not printed

• But reduces time when shared (Horizon 2011 K-12 Report)

That’s the second K-20 trend over the next three years

But does digital content have to be … traditional?

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Games are inescapable

But as a trend in K-20, more of a continuum

It is not all about Farmville taking over

• …though an estimated 28 million people harvest their FarmVille

crops every day

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Continuum is gamification to simulation to games

Gamification is adding game elements and mechanics

• “Reward, Recognition and Motivation programs”

• In edu, this is student leaderboards, badges for

accomplishments, levels of progression

• (Khan Academy does this)

Simulation is an internally consistent setting with rules

Games combine elements of both

Educators want to leverage this stat: average MMO gamer spends 10-15

hours per week researching information to help them

Many good examples at all levels of education

• Not just 1985’s Carmen Sandiego, 1989’s SimCity

• Massively multiplayer, web and mobile based

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Minecraft is digital LEGOs on steroids

• MMO game for collaboration, exploration, projects

Classic version is free

Features logic gates, other features that help with learning

Has led to many modifications for it to be used in classrooms

• Most interesting is MinecraftEDU

• Any classroom computer as a private Minecraft server

• Easier to organize and control students’ characters with more options

Integrated into course curriculum in K-12 and higher ed

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At other end of age spectrum:

Septris is a game developed by Stanford for doctors and nurses

• Recently released, play for free on mobile, tablet, web (HTML5)

Inspired by the classic Tetris

Teaches treating deadly complications of sepsis

How to play: Hospital patients “sink fast” with alarming vital signs

• It can take less than two minutes for a sepsis patient to die in

the game

• Only a few hours in real life

• Click on patient to get vital signs, click at bottom to apply tests

or treatments – which take time

Can take a post-game test and pay $20 to earn Continuing Medical

Education credits

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A number of business simulations for educational purposes

MIT Sloan School of Management created Platform Wars

Launched in Feb publicly; had been used internally before

Web-based management simulator, can be played for free or as part of a

class

Head up a video game company (Sony case study)

• Make strategic decisions to edge out competitor’s platform and

maximize profit over 10 years

• Being added to MIT’s OpenCourseWare program

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More consumer-like:

MediaSpark plans to launch GoVenture World this year

Created software for high schools for a number of years; this is teen to

adult

Web-based, MMORPG, for mobile devices or computers

Free for basic, pay for more features and options

Play role in manufacturing, law firms, ad agencies, retailer, investment

banks and sell to simulated consumers

One month in game play is one year in game time

So no matter how you play it, games, MMO games, are a K-20 trend

And now that you have all this digital content generating digital data….

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The fourth trend actually is tied to Farmville: how it uses data to

constantly refine gameplay and motivation for players

You may have heard it called “Big Data” or “Learning Analytics” or

“Paradata”

But at its core it’s the same thing:

• Taking mounds of digital data generated by every click and

interaction, and looking for the pony hidden in the steaming

mound to improve instruction and administration processes

• View the full elephant from its toenail or tusk

Paradata is taking usage data about interactions with learning resources

Metadata describes a resource

Paradata describes interaction with and application of a resource

• Time spent on task, whether it’s shared on social networks,

favorited, how it’s found through search even who searches or

uses it

• Can be in real time or over a range of time

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Had been considered four to five years or more out just last year by

Horizon Report

Now has momentum at the Federal level and big guns funding research

Let’s be clear that this concept is not entirely new,

But as more of the functions and processes of learning become digital,

it’s easier to generate and capture the data

• The challenge is drawing timely inferences and applying it

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Signals from Purdue University

Data mines student information and learning management systems

Looks for time on task + points so far + past performance

Predicts red/green/yellow

• Generates email or text message to student

• Only run when instructor asks for it

As and Bs have increased by as much as 28% in some courses when it’s

been used

• Simple use of learning analytics, in use since September 2009

• In K12, a similar effort from ScholarCentric called Success

Highway, a LAUNCHedu finalist earlier this month

• Both used by several institutions

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Root-1’s Word Joust

• Former Google engineers, AlphaSmart founders

Vocabulary apps for iOS launched last June, starting with SAT

What the flashcard-like interface hides is the learning analytics happening

behind the scenes, enabling adaptive instruction

• Back end “intelligent hub”

• Offers new content based on what a student does or doesn’t

understand

• Monitors level of engagement , and changes presentation of content

Monitors both knowledge and behavior, solo or in competition

Now ramp it up a level

• In aggregate, Root-1 knows patterns of response

• Knows how your pattern is similar to others who have played

• Can apply the right pattern to improve your experience

Building a variety of apps using the same engine in different subjects

• Plans to make its adaptive engine API available to other developers

Scale? Ten thousand students, soon to be 40,000, playing another vocabulary

game called Word Kungfu

Paradata is the fourth K-20 trend

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Fifth and final trend wraps around the other four: informal learning

• Or, as some in higher education might call it, Uncollege

It is about structuring learning outside of traditional institutions, K-12 or

Higher Ed

1. Providing instruction

2. Assessing learning has taken place

3. Providing some kind of proof, or certification

Used alongside, or instead of, certain kinds of formal institutional learning

• Different than a Prior Learning Assessment for college credit

This is the most fuzzy of the five

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New Media Consortium noted this trend in January when it marked the

10th anniversary of its Horizon Project

One hundred experts from higher education, K-12 and museum education

met to discuss the most important tech trends for the future of education

• Informal learning’s rise was number nine of 28 “megatrends”

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Some have taken note

A year ago, 20 year old Dale Stephens created a site and is writing a

book for Penguin about what he calls the “uncollege movement”

• (Thiel Fellow, $100K)

Challenges notion college is the only path to success

Said to me, “Colleges and universities could become like gyms, where

you pay for things on a per-use basis”

• Perhaps a digital card

• (“There’s an opportunity cost of going to college in terms of time

and money.” )

Students need to leverage colleges for what colleges do best.

So what’s giving structure to informal learning?

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Mozilla Open Badge Infrastructure Project

• Started in Sep 2011

• To issue, share and combine digital learning badges on the web

A “badge” isn’t like a degree, though it could be

• It’s more likely proof of a chunked skill, like a programming language,

or tying knots, or marketing plan basics

• It could also be a reward, like Khan Academy, but that’s only one use

MacArthur Foundation launched a $2 million badges for llifelong learning

competition, winners announced Mar 1, 2012

• Winners included planned issuers of badges for robotics (4H,

NASA), military skills (Vet Admin), design (Smithsonian), nature

(Disney), manufacturing skills (BYU)

Elements are badges, assessments and an infrastructure for issuing,

collecting and sharing badges

Of course, you have to learn something….

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Since December, several initiatives designed for informal learning have

been announced

MITx courses, with certification from MIT

• Separate from MIT’s OpenCourseWare, which puts traditional

courses online

• MITx courses are all new, and delivered entirely online

• Will leverage emerging badge and points systems for

certification

• Prototype version launched this month

• Circuits and Electronics course, with certification

• 90K students signed up

Udacity, created by those who did the Stanford AI class that attracted

more than 190,000 online students

Additional Stanford courses just announced

Peer to Peer University, another winner of the Macarthur competition

Now how do you find what you want to informally learn, and organize it?

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LearningJar, winner of LAUNCHedu higher ed competition this month,

one of those startup events, is one of several sites are considering this

Starting with software industry

Helps you identify what you want to learn and options available

Then a place to “store” your badges or other certification from various

sources as you complete your learning path, and get recommendations

from others

April beta, June launch

Aimed at lifelong learners, professional development and those who need

to be re-skilled for the job market

Informal, or uncollege, learning is the fifth and final trend

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Let’s recap

Three year outlook?

• Jennifer and her class will carry consumer expectations and

technology with them as their baseline

K-12/Higher Ed tech no longer has the luxury of taking a few years to

evaluate and absorb consumer tech

• Wireless, cheap, cloud are driving all three to converge

• Cost of adoption, trial and even failure is much lower, in many

ways, except for time invested

So keep an eye on these five trends that span K-20:

• Tablets and mobile apps, chunked digital content, games and

simulations, paradata and big data, and informal learning

In short,

• What’s called digital learning & edtech will coalesce at all levels

• Responsibility for instruction and certification will blur

• Technology you see around you today – everywhere – will be a

core part of it

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Or visit http://intrinsicstrategy.com

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