EdTech

Trump's first five weeks in office saw sweeping changes to education policy, including major cuts to teacher training and research programs, reversal of diversity initiatives, restrictions on transgender students, and threats to withhold funding from institutions with race-conscious policies. He reiterated his desire to eliminate the Department of Education entirely.

The administration's focus on dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion programs extends beyond direct education policy into areas like military academies, government websites, and research funding - suggesting a comprehensive effort to reshape how identity and equity are addressed across all federally-connected educational institutions.

Educational institutions are grappling with ethical use of student data in AI and analytics, balancing the need for insights with privacy concerns. Guidelines focus on protecting data sovereignty, maintaining transparency with students, and ensuring AI tools don't reinforce biases while recognising data as more than just numbers.

The Māori perspective of data as 'taonga' (treasure) adds cultural depth to data ethics discussions. The emphasis on New Zealand-based cloud providers for data sovereignty, combined with machine-learning initiatives like UC's Analytics for Course Engagement, demonstrates practical applications of ethical AI principles.

"When the context of identity is taken away from a person to anonymise their data, it takes away what makes them, them. Additionally, in a Māori context, data is seen as a taonga (treasure) and when used, there must be mindful context."

rivate equity investment in K-12 edtech has seen dramatic fluctuations, dropping from $17.1 billion in 2021 to just $1.5 billion by May 2024. PE firms often misapply traditional growth strategies to edtech, overlooking the sector's unique characteristics of school-year budget cycles, complex decision-making processes, and trust-based relationships.

The disconnect between PE approaches and edtech success stems from fundamental misunderstandings of the education market. School purchasing decisions involve multiple stakeholders and depend on government funding cycles. Growth requires building trust over time rather than aggressive customer acquisition. When PE firms prioritise rapid returns, they often cut essential support services and development.

Global edtech funding increased from $5.6B to $6.3B between 2023-2024, with deal count rising from 915 to 1153. While European funding fell from $1.2B to $0.8B, Q4 showed strong recovery. Sweden and Italy joined the top 5 European markets, with 9 countries represented in the top 10 most active cities.

The emergence of 'Edtech 2.0' represents a significant shift, combining traditional education technology with workplace productivity tools. This expanded sector secured $15.4B globally in 2024 - 2.4 times more than traditional edtech. The integration of training, job placement and productivity platforms reflects evolving workplace demands.

"As the pace of innovation increased in a tight labor market, platforms have extended across training, job placement, and productivity to augment talent on a 'just-in-time' basis."

Instead of being used to replace old ways of completing tasks, the learning management systems were simply another thing on teachers’ plates.

A telling example was seen in lesson planning. Before the pandemic, teachers typically submitted hard copies of lesson plans to administrators. However, once school systems introduced learning management systems, some teachers were expected to not only continue submitting paper plans but to also upload digital versions to the learning management system using a completely different format.

A 30-year retrospective of educational technology, tracking the evolution from early multimedia development through networks, learning objects, learning management systems, videoconferencing, to modern AI. The author describes their career progression from programmer to consultant to leadership roles, while examining how edtech has transformed teaching and learning.

"One thing I've noticed is that the sense of creativity, curiosity, exploration, and playfulness that defined the multimedia and early Web eras feels to have been subdued over the last decade or so. Part of that is due to the maturity of software and tools. Part of it is the neoliberal erosion of institutions."

Education leaders predict 2025 will require stronger teacher and state-level leadership in ed-tech implementation, improved data collection and usage, modernisation of college systems, and greater focus on AI ethics and literacy. Key areas include professional development, cybersecurity, data privacy, and addressing the end of emergency relief funding.

The global environmental impact of AI in education emerges as a critical consideration that extends beyond immediate classroom concerns. The shift from local to planetary implications raises questions about sustainability and resource consumption in educational technology deployment.

"We need to move past surface-level concerns like plagiarism," says Sean Michael Morris, vice president of academics at Course Hero, "and address the more pressing ethical dilemmas AI presents — its environmental costs, its cultural impact and how it reshapes our understanding of intelligence."