Governor Kim Reynolds, through ACTNext’s Education Technology and Computational Psychometrics Symposium recently at the Coralville Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, explained the document as a road map for combining EdTech into Iowa’s economic development.
“This EdTech approach is about using that advantage to create jobs in this thriving and vibrant sector,” Reynolds stated. “It’s a natural next step that additional complements efforts already in place throughout the STEM Council’s STEM Best program and the Future Ready Iowa enterprise.”
Among the EdTech activity that contains promise for economic development in Iowa are evaluation and testing providers, STEM content in courseware, textbooks, content visualization, and virtual-reality practices, the report stated.
Iowa also has “robust assets” for strengthening adaptive learning systems, which improve teaching methods and how students are presented material by observing their performance in real-time. Adaptive learning is projected to mature into a $2.85 billion market in North America by 2022.
The report’s broad “focus spaces” for getting the technology developed include cluster networking, collaboration facilitation, intensifying Iowa’s piloting and adoption environment, entrepreneurial ecosystem improvement and workforce development, and passage.
Iowa has the potential to convert into a world leader in addressing K-12 and higher education difficulties that transcend state boundaries, stated Adam Keune, co-founder of Higher Learning Technologies, and co-chairman of the Iowa Innovation Council’s EdTech workgroup.
“From the increasing costs of further education to the ever-growing sizes of our K-12 classrooms, the education arrangement has a clear need for new ways to prepare and learn,” he replied.
