Why International School Systems Were More Digitally Prepared

Celebrating the leaders and experts that are powering education into the future, host JW Marshall sets out to ask the “right questions” in EdTech to understand the changes in policy and technology that will power our universities, tradeschools, and companies – and drive growth in upskilling certifications.

JW Marshall, the host of Voices of eLearning, spoke with Michael Spencer, Founder, and CEO of Global Expansion Strategies, an international investment and strategic growth consulting firm that helps early and mid-size education technology companies expand internationally.

Marshall and Spencer started their conversation about the worldwide education system over the past year. The learning model for private institutions has been a blend of hybrid learning, with some being in-person and the rest being online.

“When we last spoke, the going model was a combination of blended and hybrid learning,” Spencer said. He noted that many countries where they have clients have struggled to continue to provide education. “We’ve been advising customers to shift the blended learning model to go fully virtual,” he said. “It allows the schools to sprinkle in brick-and-mortar, face-to-face learning when needed.”

A lot of the operators are starting to see the cost benefits of virtual learning. Schools have experimented with these models, which has given them the chance to explore these options. They’ve found that it’s not only cheaper, but in some instances, it even works better than in-person learning. Schools are not adding resources to online knowledge, which is helping to improve the online system.

“It’s because these schools have been able to transition to blended learning,” he said. “They’ve been able to iron a lot of the issues they had.”

They ended the show with a story of success. Spencer talked about a project that’s midway through, where the school operators have seen better student outcomes for students that they have put the resources into localizing the content, making it available for the public school system.

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