Digitizing Education: Challenges and Opportunities

Imagine the following scenario. It is a Monday morning. An undergraduate student in Iowa rolls out of bed, walks over to his Wi-Fi-enabled laptop, and logs on to the campus portal to check his schedule for the day and purchase tickets for the football game the following weekend. After e-mailing his teacher the Physics 201 homework and instant messaging his friends in Germany, he shuts the laptop, gathers his belongings, and runs to class.

This undergraduate is one of millions of digital students, the newest customers of the education industry. The digital student is as young as three years and as old as the hardest-working executive education student. Some of these students have grown up with technology since birth. They expect quick, easy digital processes and services, and factor technology into major decisions, such as where to apply to college.

In response to changing student expectations, the education industry, particularly in the United States, is going through a major transformation. Facing growing pressure from students, teachers, parents, and the government, educational institutions are desperately trying to transform themselves to meet the demands of next-generation digital students. In this industry report, we will look at the major issues reshaping twenty-first century education. In particular we will:

• Outline the most pressing issues in the education industry and describe their impact on teaching, learning, and technology requirements. These issues include the USA Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, the cost-containment and funding problems plaguing both public and private institutions, and the increased demands of digital students.
• Illustrate the lifecycle of the digital student, starting with preschool and concluding with lifelong learning. The learning experience is evolving at each phase, resulting in changing macro-industry dynamics, such as market size and revenue sources.
• Describe the seven mega-trends reshaping and digitizing education, which include 1) streamlining administrative processes, 2) implementing student portals and single sign-on,
  3) revolutionizing teaching through e-learning, 4) enabling large-scale collaborative research, 5) digitizing libraries, courses, and other information assets, 6) unwiring campuses with wireless technology, and 7) procuring operating supplies, equipment, and even financial aid electronically.
• Detail how three best-practice educational institutions are approaching the needs of modern education and digitization via online service platforms. We start with the Fairfax County, Virginia, K-12 public school system and move to a higher education digitization model at the Harvard Business School. We conclude with the University of Phoenix Online and its innovative business model.

Read the full report...