Dear Commons Community,

Educational technology after a bit of a hiatus in the early part of this decade and then struggling during the Great Recession, is making a major comeback.  Samantha Faire referred me to an article she wrote that provides lots of advice on  How to Make it in the Ed Tech Startup Sector .  Essentially she explores opportunities that are available in what many are predicting is a major growth industry.  She catches the reader’s attention with:

“If you’re in business school, wondering which industry is ripe for innovation and rife with investment and consumer dollars, just take a look around and you’ll have your answer. Education, that bastion of methods, materials, and mediums from yesteryear, is being rebooted. The educational technology, or edtech, market could be looking down on the trillion-dollar mark by 2015, and now is the time to jump in with a new business idea.”

She goes on to refer to the MOOC startups such as Udacity and Coursera.  She also provides info on  new entries into the LMS and lecture capture market.

For those of us who have been involved with ed tech for a while, we have seen  boom and bust cycles in the 1980s and again in the late 1990s/early 2000s.  However, we have surely now entered another boom period.  Whether it lasts or not is another question.  I do think that regardless of how the private sector develops, there will definitely be a large demand for ed tech professionals who will be readily employed by the private sector or by colleges and K-12 schools who decide to develop technology services on their own.

Tony