Our partner, Bob Austrian, has long helped investors understand and invest in long-cycle trends, and watch the secular themes promptly unfold. Or not! Timing is everything — An investment made too early in an eventual “overnight success” is doubly problematic. You lose your initial investment and credibility– and, worse, lose the conviction to invest when the chasm is finally crossed. So today, after years of watching the promise of digital learning go almost entirely unfulfilled, Bob’s declaring it time to place our bets. The eLearning train is finally leaving the station; better late than never: all aboard!
55 million American children attend kindergarten through 12th grade taught by seven million professional educators. This translates into well over $500 billion in annual spending, with frankly dubious educational outcomes. University and post-graduate education adds another layer and continuing education and government and corporate training frost this trillion-dollar cake.
Certainly, computerized filing systems and administration platforms do help organize many educational institutions from an operational perspective. Yet these learning “management systems” deliver roughly zero innovation around actual teaching methods that educators use either in the classroom or beyond. Despite Moore’s Law, not much has changed regarding the methods of instruction and learning, not in 6th grade math or in sales training for multinational corporations. Recently, at lunch with one of the top professors in the U.S., recollections of overhead transparencies and grease pencils only underscored the fact that smart boards and PowerPoint haven’t really changed much of teachers’ craft. Ditto the video recording and broadcast of the lecture: same content, new channel.
However, against this backdrop, the brute force of innovation seems finally to be breaking through, enabling an entirely new methodology that leverages what technology can bring to the table in terms of improved educational outcomes. The value of “tools” ranging from online game competitions to programmable e-books has simply become too compelling. Headway in (i) wireless bandwidth fused with effective data synchronization, (ii) students’ demand for learning methods more compatible with their social media oriented upbringing, and (iii) administrators’ urgent requirements for less costly, more scalable educational systems are just three of a multitude of contributors breaking us free of an antiquated, staid approach.
This is simply a preamble to additional thoughts and observations which may become a digital learning centerpiece with a 10-year shelf life. The 10-year window starts now: the eLearning train is finally leaving the station.