Harry Dickens who is an Instructional Technology Education Consultant predicts Growth in Formative Assessment Tools.
With his experience in working with several school districts in my home state of Arkansas, they are looking at assessment tools that immolated any parts of the PARCC assessment. Harry says, “Of course we wanted these tools to be as free as possible. Well there are not to many inexpensive ways of getting what you want or need. I have been working with teacher to create their own, instead of buy something that will be sitting on à shelf in three years. My tools for making this happen are Edulastic, BookWidgets and iBooks. The only item with a cost beside the the device is BookWidgets at $50.00 yearly for an individual teacher. The group of developers have worked really hard to make this an amazing tool for formative assessment and summarize assessments. If you are an iBook creator please look into creating you own interactive book with Bookwidgets as part of the book. Only down fall the book can only be read and used with interactivity on iPads and MAC computers. If you have to use device like Personal computers and Chromebooks take a close look at Edulastics. Check out the reviews and start creating some amazing assessments that closely immolated practice PARCC assessment items. These assessments items work well on all devices. My goal this year is too really look more at two amazing tool. They are Hype and Activity Spot by Frolic.”
In order to get views from companies in the edtech space, we tried to find out what Justin Beck, VP of Global Education for Kaltura had in mind.
He was clear with his thoughts on MOOCs as a marketing strategy, adaptive learning platform consolidation and accessibility. Read the 3 points he shared in detail:
Re-Evaluating the Success Criteria of MOOCs
“While much of 2014 we heard that MOOCs were dying (or that it was all hype and promise unfulfilled), perhaps the real thing the industry missed was a shift in perspective. Instead of focusing on 5-10% completion rates of MOOCS as failure, what if in 2015 we view MOOCs as something universities integrate into their comprehensive marketing strategy, namely as one of the world’s greatest content marketing approaches in higher-ed history. If we view from this perspective, MOOCs become THE marketing success story in higher-ed in 2015 and/or the comeback story.”
Adaptive Learning Platform Consolidation in the Industry
“With over 50 firms developing “adaptive/personalized” learning platforms, the market is ripe in 2015 for consolidation, acquisition. Even though there are leaders in the field such as Knewton, Adapt Courseware and LoudCloud, there are too many options for institutions to evaluate, making the “tyranny of choice” a real issue for a campus CTO. Moreover, the VC/funding for ed-tech is still vibrant in the sector, so expect some of the larger adaptive firm companies to gobble up the smaller ones and/or some of them to no longer be in business.”
Accessibility
“2015 will be the year that all ed-tech companies and institutions need to start addressing accessibility issues head on. All will need to follow the mantra that Accessible Design is simply Great Design, as opening up opportunities for all learners makes for a more collaborative and impactful learning environment.”
How much do you agree with these Ed Leaders? Share your views with us in the comment box.
