- On EdTech Newsletter
- Posts
- 2024 Year in Review
Was this forwarded to you by a friend? Sign up, and get your own copy of the news that matters sent to your inbox every week. Sign up for the On EdTech newsletter. Interested in additional analysis? Try with our 30-day free trial and Upgrade to the On EdTech+ newsletter.
It has been another momentous year in EdTech and for our On EdTech coverage. Let’s look back at a numerical summary, the key themes covered, and the top and bottom posts.
By the Numbers
We published 182 posts with a combined 155 thousand words.
Of these, 80 posts were free and 102 were premium (On EdTech+).
There were a combined 1.3 million impressions of these posts, combining email views and web views.
Key Themes
The most common themes in our 2024 coverage:
The Evolution of Educational Technology: Many posts discussed the integration of digital tools and platforms into education, highlighting trends such as the use of artificial intelligence, online learning solutions, and technology's role in enhancing student engagement and institutional efficiency.
The Learning Management System (LMS) market: We highlighted our year-end state of the market and leveraging users conferences to describe Instructure, D2L, Anthology (Blackboard), Moodle, and PowerSchool. We also covered general EdTech conferences for ASU+GSV, Educause, WCET, and OEB Global.
Generative AI: On this topic, we continued to have a somewhat light touch, as there is just so much coverage and conjecture across the board. And because we feel that we still have not yet seen the significant use cases develop.
Growth and Challenges in Online Program Management: The posts frequently explored the dynamics of outsourcing online education operations, covering topics like market growth, revenue-sharing models, and debates about the reliance on external service providers.
Impact of Policy and Regulation: Discussions centered on the influence of government policies and legal requirements on education, including financial aid reforms, compliance standards, and the effect of regulatory changes on institutions and students.
Trends in Student Enrollment: The content addressed issues such as declining traditional enrollments, the rise of online and non-traditional students, and institutional strategies for attracting and retaining learners, particularly in a post-pandemic environment.
Top Posts
Given all of the changes listed above, and given the roughly 41% growth in subscribers this year, it is a little difficult to state simply “these are the most read articles”. Should we look at unique email opens, total opens (that include forwarding), website page views, open rates, etc? I created a metric based on a normalized open rate for the newsletter plus unique web views to give a rough measure of the most read posts.
Top Free Posts
State of Higher Ed LMS Market for US and Canada: Year-End 2023 Edition - This is our annual coverage of the LMS market, centered on the infamous squid graphic.
Visualizing FAFSA Fiasco by Geography - This post put the emerging FAFSA completion crisis into a visual, showing state-by-state status.
2U's Potential End Days Becoming More Clear - While I would rewrite that headline, this post described how 2U publicly acknowledge in February what we had covered in November, that the company was likely to file for bankruptcy.
Breaking: 2U files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in Prepackaged Deal - Speaking of that topic, this post from late July described 2U entering bankruptcy, which it exited two months later.
What Students Want When It Comes To AI - This post looked at recent survey data to give a more objective view into student perceptions.
This category was dominated by Morgan’s Saturday series “Interesting Reads This Week,” with eight of the top 10 spots. In this series, she explores a wide variety of news, analysis, and survey results.
It Appears the Die is Cast - This post was a February follow-up to the classic January “Online Is the Target,” describing what the US regulatory efforts would look like in terms of increased oversight of online eduction.
Interesting Reads This Week (Nov 23) - Looking at community college success metrics, an Urban Institute report on college graduates’ earnings over time, and a report on the impact of Texas policy on tuition freezes on institutional health.
Coursera’s Content Strategy Change - This post looked at signs that the company might be shifting its strategic emphasis towards homegrown course content instead of university partnership content and degrees.
Interesting Reads This Week (Sep 7) - The need to keep trying new things, looking at survey data on OER and US government reports on AI in K-12 education.
Interesting Reads This Week (Aug 31) - Life is full of surprises, looking at dual enrollment data, rankings data on student retention, a success story from Maine despite demographic shifts, and disappointing survey results in terms of sample size and presentation.
Bottom Posts
Rather than listing the lowest readership, let’s have some fun and list the posts that led to the highest number of unsubscribes.
Painful Wednesday Follow Up - This post from March looked at the FAFSA Fiasco’s likely impact on institutional reporting for Gainful Employment & Financial Value Transparency (since delayed from July to January with the potential for further delay). It then looked at flat out deceit from the University of Arizona leadership around UAGC.
Underreported Data on Enrollment Gains and Friday Follow-up - Deeper look into where the enrollment gains came from plus college ROI and FVT/GE follow up.
Tuesday Follow Up (Feb 27) - Listing of posts, UAGC to be fully integrated, and UC system changes (again) plans for online. Hmm, I’m noticing that not everyone liked our UAGC coverage.
OPM Status Quo - Insights from CHLOE on institution plans with OPMs: wait-and-see, renegotiate, or start anew.
LMS Conference Lookout: Anthology and Instructure - Maybe some people didn’t like me comparing InstructureCon in Vegas with the infamous 2011 BbWorld in Vegas that startup Instructure crashed.
Thanks to all of our readers, and we look forward to 2025!
The main On EdTech newsletter is free to share in part or in whole. All we ask is attribution.
Thanks for being a subscriber.