As we close out 2014 and look ahead to the New Year, it’s customary to take a reflective look back as well as dust off our crystal ball and offer up a few predictions for the year ahead. 2014 was certainly a banner year for us at Echo360. In the past year, we

  • Passed the 8000 classroom milestone. Today, more than 2 million students in 8000 classrooms at 600 institutions worldwide use Echo360 to enhance their learning experience.
  • Launched the Active Learning Platform, the world’s first cloud-based academic technology platform designed to improve student outcomes through lecture / classroom capture, content management, student engagement tools, and comprehensive student analytics.
  • Moved to new offices in Reston, Virginia.
  • Closed a Series C growth equity round of investment to accelerate the deployment of the Active Learning Platform.

Having ended the year on these high notes, we see a very bright future ahead and offer up these predictions for 2015.

  • 2015: The Year of Blended / Hybrid Learning. MOOCs are definitely not going away, but 2015 will be the year when blended and hybrid learning will receive more emphasis from universities and from the media. We’ve already seen the research on the effectiveness of active learning in STEM education. Universities will leverage the efficiencies of the digital classroom and online learning by combining them with social interaction and a deeper connection to course content within the classroom. The result: higher grades, a better learning experience for students, a more satisfying teaching experience for instructors, and lower attrition rates. We have a solution that can help with that.
  • Active Learning Will Take Flight in the Cloud. While concerns about IT security in the cloud have slowed the pace of deployment of student information and financial systems, universities will begin to widely adopt cloud-based lecture capture, content management, and video management systems in 2015. Have we mentioned that we have a platform for that?
  • A flexible future. More universities will examine flexible curriculum models where students will not be evaluated by class attendance, in-person interaction or on-campus commitment. A key to this prediction coming true: students must have the ability to engage with course content, their peers, and instructors, anytime, anywhere, and on any device. Yes, we do that too.
  • Little Data Will Help Big Data. Big Data has a brother, Little Data. Within the world of Active Learning, Little Data can help us gain insight into specific student behavior: what questions are they asking? Are students participating? What do they understand? What is unclear? Instructors can tap into real-time data to identify patterns of success, customize course content and intervene with students before they fall behind. The importance of analytics in forecasting student success was the topic of a recent White House summit. Analytics like those found in the Active Learning Platform could be key to putting dwindling college graduation rates back on track.
  • 2015: The Rise of the Fearless Faculty. And finally, as more institutions adopt hybrid and blended models, the role of the instructor will shift. Universities will place greater emphasis on professional development to empower instructors with the tools and skills they will need in order to be successful. At Echo360 we are also committed to supporting the instructor. We are adding instructional designers to our training and implementation staff so that instructors receive the training they need to be able to fully meet their students’ individual learning needs.

So, here’s to a great New Year! May your teaching be meaningful, productive, and active!

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