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Distance learning companies must face the challenges of selling their wares into the K-12 market and overcoming the lack of teacher training to use their new products, but there is still a lot for them to be excited about-the increased emphasis on school accountability and the forthcoming increase in student enrollment.
Industry experts discussed these trends during a panel at Fulcrum’s Third Annual Education Technology Finance & Investment Institute in Arlington, VA this month. Demographics show that by the time the echo baby boom reaches school age, a large number of teachers will be coming up on retirement.
U.S. Department of Education figures indicate that K-12 enrollments will continue to increase by less than 1% per year through 2006, when the trend will reverse itself and enrollments will begin to decline. At the highest point of the curve, the nation will have a projected 54,457,000 students enrolled in grades K-12, an overall increase of 3.3% from 1998.
“These factors will be a huge driving force in requiring schools to look for new solutions,” said Sally Narodick, CEO of online advanced placement content provider Apex Learning. Narodick and others said they believed technology would become an increasingly important part of helping schools cope with teacher shortages.
The education industry is also counting on the movement toward increased school accountability to drive sales of electronic offerings.
There is Still a Lot to Overcome
The technology and content developers have admitted they might not have all the right programs that prove technology is needed in schools. “The industry is in a painful and early emerging stage, but is in fact learning a lot,” Narodick said.
Part of the pain in this emerging stage comes from selling cutting-edge technology to a less than tech-savvy customer. Companies have little choice but to provide some form of teacher training. NetSchools provides on-site teacher training for one year to every school that purchases its hardware and networking solution that provides a laptop computer to every student and faculty member in a school, said Thomas Greaves, vice chairman of NetSchools.
Lightspan also provides support to its customers through its staff of 100, which does not come without costs. “It’s an expensive proposition for companies and schools,” said Winnie Wechsler, executive vice president and general manager, Internet and broadband services for Lightspan. At Lightspan, the training budget is spread across the Internet and CD-based segments of the company.
Merely getting the product to an audience is also a difficulty distance learning companies are overcoming by partnering with established businesses. “Partnering is the only way to get to market in the timeframe it needs to be reached,” Roches said.
A marketing and selling partnership can include listing products in another company’s catalog, posting click throughs between Web sites and installing programs on hardware prior to shipping.
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Source by Mathew Simond
