Apps in EducationAn uncensored cash cow or bottomless

pit?

Carla AertsFrom a presentation at

Frankfurt Book Fair2014

Uncensored?

• Pausing a moment: Uncensored? Apps?

• App or Content Providers held to ecosystems

• ‘Approval’ to live in their eco-system (especially Apple)

• Users must be members to eco-system

• What is the meaning of ‘censored’ in App world

• Who owns the data and what are the data?

• Do we really know?

A little context

What about Education/Learning?

Predictions in US$ Predicted revenue in 2017 Compound growth 2012-17

Asia $6.8 billion 21.2%

North America $2.1 billion 7.6%

Latin America $1.4 billion 32.5%

Western Europe $885.1 million 9.0%

Africa $530.1 million 38.9%

Middle East $205.4 million 18.4%

Eastern Europe $193.1 million 14.7%

Source: http://www.ambientinsight.com/Reports/MobileLearning.aspx

• Projected compound annual growth rate of 18.2% between 2012 - 2017

• Resulting in a predicted worldwide revenue of $12.2 billion by 2017.

Growth in Mobile Learning?

Relying on partnership?

Growth in Education?

• No doubt, but Apps for schools market and content Apps’ growth are still difficult to measure or predict

• Dealing with institutional models vs individual purchaser and consumer-driven models and user-behaviours

• Distinction between Mobile and Tablet-based is observed and differs according to market

• Distinction between ‘Education’ vs ‘Edutainment’ Apps often blurred

• Publishers at the mercy of eco-systems to get sales and user-data

• Not enough data available to us, especially around user behaviour & learning outcomes

• Our relationship with institutions can get eroded

Cash Cow or …

Bottomless Pit?• Development requires specialist instructional & learning design to support

pedagogy and curriculum, assessment development

• On/offline synchronisation support required for low bandwidth & hardware capacity markets, increasing costs

• Bespoke Content, Learning Resource development & platform support increases cost soon moving into over 5 or 6 figure sums

• Educational Publishers still struggle with the ability to realise scalable App development models that enable rapid deployment to market

• Intensive marketing & ongoing support required, increasing cost

• Harware players’ push for tablets in schools will necessitate increased support for new learning delivery models and ‘classrooms without walls’

Cash Cow or …

Bottomless Pit?

• Trends & forecasts show the Cow has left the shed for the pasture

• Freemium & in App store purchase models rely heavily on low tier pricing

• Not many apps except for dictionary-type Apps tend to have traction

above $10.00 price band

• Perception of ‘content is free’ thus eroding the value of the publishers’ IP

• Over 80,000 Edu Apps in Apple App store for iPad alone

• Term Education is very loose, making it harder for Educational publishers

• Bookshelf-type Apps don’t provide best learning experience or outcomes

• In-App purchase often sees churn, especially in revision Apps

• Too early to have a ‘reliable’ picture

• ROI some time off for Educational publishers