The ed-tech conference season in the U.S. kicks off at the start of each year with a strong event, the Future of Education Technology Conference, which rotates its venue from Orlando to Miami, Florida. FETC always sets the tone for the year, showcasing what’s up and coming for educational technology in the U.S. market.
This year’s conference, which now in its 41st year and gathering in January in Orlando, will represent the first major ed-tech conference in the U.S. that is returning to a completely face-to-face format. No more virtual conferencing, hopefully. At least in Florida.
Sadly, ed-tech conferences during the Rona have not led us in particularly novel directions, but rather focused their attention on pandemic painkillers, like remote learning, social-emotional learning, and equity. (One exception was the unique remote learning display solution, eGlass, which I covered in past articles.) This year, however, a few interesting sightings (only a few) may prove harbingers of new opportunity in the ed-tech space These include:
The Coaching Market
Here’s something new. Did you know that the largest number of conference sessions at FETC are dedicated to the topic of coaching? Coaching is referenced in a whopping thirty-three sessions at the upcoming FETC. Why is this topic important? It’s important because it represents a whole new market segment of educators: instructional coaches, or in this specific case, technology coaches. Up to now, you thought your customers were teachers, principals, and IT leaders. Now we see the emergence of an entirely unique and highly influential customer class, the tech coach. These folks are typically teachers who have been released from the classroom to provide pedagogical support to teachers in the arena of instructional technology. Do you know who they are and how to reach them?
The Cyber Security Market.
More than 20 conference sessions at FETC will be focusing on Cybercrime and cybersecurity issues in education. This is the first time that this topic has creased the mindshare of educational conferences in such substantial numbers.
The Veative / Lenovo Pairing
In an interesting move, it looks like two power players, Veative and Lenovo, are pairing up for a joint VR conference presentation. (Lenovo provides the hardware, while Veative offers other components of the educational VR ecosystem, such as content and management tools.) We will have to see if this partnership continues to thrive through subsequent conferences.
The VR Career Counseling Market
Every year at FETC a new company tries to test their product’s viability in the American educational market, to see if their use case resonates with the first conference of the new year. Usually it’s a software, but sometimes the newcomer features an innovative hardware solution. This year’s entrant is the UK-based Dev Clever, which is trying to promote their VR-delivered career education platform, which seems to offer compelling graphics and several other advantages over competitors. (There are at least three major competitors in this field in the U.S., but Dev’s offering still looks promising.)
In the next month’s article in this two-part series, we will anticipate some of the key education trends taking shape at FETC 2022 using a conference session analysis approach. Stay tuned for that article. —Len Scrogan
