科技重塑未来课堂

    由于学校和大学向这个潜在的业务投资了数十亿美元，教育公司现在有了很多动力参与其中。但这不仅仅是数字课本和应用程序。在很多教育公司看来，即将到来的教育行业之战将以学生数据为中心。

    理想的情况下，学生在数字课程中的每个变化都将被记录和分析。它不仅是为了修改课程以满足学生的当前需求，也是为了跟踪学生的学习进度，同时确定他们的教育需求。这不仅发生在特定的某个课程中，还发生在他们的整个人生中。

    “收集数据，获得学生从幼儿园到就业的情况，这就是我们想要投资的领域，”麦格劳-希尔高等教育集团（McGraw Hill Higher Education）数字产品部门总经理杰伊•查克拉帕尼说。因此，随着大学毕业等同于“完成学习”的观念逐渐没落，很多人把查克拉帕尼所说的那种数据收集项目视为教育行业的圣杯。

    在线教育创业公司Coursera 的联合CEO和共同创始人安德鲁•恩格说，“接受四年教育并在此后四十年里停止学习的旧模式”正在日益走向消亡。该公司提供斯坦福（Stanford）、普林斯顿（Princeton）和杜克（Duke）等大学的免费在线课程。“我们工作的四十年时间里，科技将使我们能够以前所未有的方式继续学习。”

    能够在学生们的整个人生中始终与他们保持同步（在人生的每一步都为他们提供合适的产品）的公司可能将拥有教育的未来。（财富中文网）

    译者：千牛絮

    With billions of dollars in potential business from schools and universities, education companies have plenty of incentive to get in now. But it goes beyond just digital textbooks and apps. For many of these companies, the educational business battle to come will center on student data.

    Ideally, every move a student makes in a digital course will be tracked and analyzed to not only change a program to meet a student's current needs, but to track a student's progress—and determine their educational needs—not just during a given course, but throughout their lives.

    "Collecting data, having a student profile that goes from kindergarten through professional [life] is where we want to invest," says Jay Chakrapani, general manager in charge of digital products at McGraw Hill Higher Education. So, as the concept of "finishing school" at college graduation goes by the wayside, many consider the kind of data collection project Chakrapani is talking about the holy grail for the education business.

    "The old model of getting educated in four years and coasting for the next 40 years" is growing increasingly less relevant, says Andrew Ng, co-CEO and co-founder of online education startup Coursera, which offers free online courses from universities like Stanford, Princeton, and Duke. "In the 40 years we continue to work, tech will allow us to continue to learn in a way that wasn't available."

    The companies that can keep pace with students throughout their lives—offering the right products to them each step of the way—will likely own the future of education.