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In business, ROI (return on investments) is key. Having worked in the finance field in project management no less for several years prior to my career change into education, this mentality still has a firm hold on me. So for me, the Ambient Insight report makes a lot of sense from a business point of view. Their Learning Technology Research Taxonomy is at once simple and thorough. I believe that any companies, serving any clients, delivering any products will find a mix of categories that describes their unique niche. I really enjoy its logical, number-driven approach to research. The fact that they track over 120 countries across 7 international regions, for 6 different buyer segments gives this report a well-rounded view of how education technology will fare in the global scheme of things. This report gives strong credence by clearly stating its methodology for research. For example, indicating exactly which leading and lagging indicators they looked at to form their prediction is a great way to support the predictions that they make. While traditionally, many people shy away from looking at education as a business, I think that this mentality is what causes education to lag so much in using technology compared to other fields. The Ambient Insight report does the opposite, it precisely looks at education technology trends as a business. What is the competitive landscape? How do the supply and demand look like? This no-nonsense business approach creates a strong case for their predictions because business will go where there is money to be made and this is the case even with education, Although the report doesn't go into too much detail about each of their prediction, what they do provide is a great summary to get an overall idea of the future landscape of education technology. It also serves as a great launching point to further investigate any predictions that a reader finds interesting. This report is particularly useful for venturers, but also gives educators and learning technology specialist a glimpse and/or confirmation of trends to come. I would definitely recommend this report to others and seek out future versions of this report for myself.

As an information professional, I am blown away by Ambient Insight's market report. Their organization has taken a thoughtful, evidence-based approach to qualifying educational technologies into requisite sectors to assist their clients, the developers of educational technologies, in best marketing their services. I am particularly impressed with their leading (forecasting) and lagging indicators helping to predict trends and market shifts that have already occurred in their various markets/sectors, providing suppliers and producers with much-needed credible data to support further production or, if necessary, revision. This product is useful to educators, learning technologies specialists and venturers in that it allows all of those parties to learn more about trends, to identify past directions, and to position themselves (either as a market or as a supplier) in various niche areas as is suitable. I can see this information being particularly useful in K-12 school divisions where either individual teachers or high-level administrators are looking to adopt new technologies, or to identify which technologies/tools they will need to prepare for based on their region. Many school divisions do not have the resources to readily investigate a variety of tools, but rather are limited to whatever may be offered on free trial or a single product available after lengthy negotiation. The Ambient Insight reports allow instructors and administrators the ability to focus their attentions on technologies that are anticipated to be most useful in the coming year. As to those pursuing the business/venture side of education, this report is invaluable. This report provides an enormous amount of actionable, data-based market research allowing those in development to avoid reproducing existing products, to gain insight as to the markets who will be most receptive, in the sectors that will be most receptive, and allows them to identify gaps in services to create new-to-them market-spaces. I am intimately involved in curriculum design for UBC's undergraduate medical program, yet am frequently told that there is "no time" in daily classes for face-to-face instruction. With that in mind I have focused my energies on developing workshops, lunch & learn sessions, and hope to begin developing online modules for use at point-of-need by our students. For this reason I do anticipate seeking out future versions of this report, to identify trends in higher education, particularly as regards student use and preference in the online learning space. I anticipate other teachers will find this report useful in a variety of ways. do you expect to seek out future versions of this report to help drive your own professional success, and also to recommend it to others in this regard?

One word to describe this pdf is WOW. Anyone that is interested to sell into the educational marketplace digital products, this is the hole in one, or one stop shopping for information. It defines the 7 international regions, 6 buyer segments, types of digital products and types of suppliers. If you want to step into this marketplace, this company does a great job researching the trends for you. I also was pleasantly surprised that when you clicked on their website link, it even provided you a link with all the newsworthy stories to follow within the educational marketplace framework, such as "Focus on cutting-edge technology: Edugames a hot topic in education-Guanyun News (China) - July 29, 2015", "Ed tech investment tops $2.5B in first half of 2015 Education Dive - July 26, 2015", "Ed Tech's Funding Frenzy-Inside Higher Ed - July 24, ". It really does a great job following the market, predicting possible outcomes. But the bottom line, it's telling you that there is a buyer's market and a very strong one. It won't give you the magic key or magic answer, but it does tell you who is interested and that the mobile learning industry it waiting for your pitch for digital learning materials. I strongly recommend to read this pdf. In fact, I personally know that a Toronto company is working on the $1,000,000 contract for Columbia to educate the population on the English language. So someone here is making monies! close to home.

This taxonomy is a reference for categorizing learning technology. The definitions of each of the learning technologies are adequate as a reference although I do not entirely agree with each of the definitions. For example, the definition for collaborative based learning as “human to human”, and that the transfer of knowledge requires “interaction between two or more people” does not seem to preclude asynchronous collaboration, since there is no clear restriction on time in the definition and interaction can be defined as between two or more human actors. To constrain Collaboration-based Learning to synchronous collaboration, based on this definition, is unfounded. It also seems strange that one of the definitions, “Cognitive Learning”, started with a Webster’s Dictionary definition of “Learning”, stating that it is the “modification of a behavioural tendency by experience”. This is a definition of the Behaviourism Theory of Learning, but not a definition of “Cognitive Learning”. This makes me question the depth and breadth of understanding that the researchers have on the topic. The idea of having a common framework to reference when conducting market research and conversing with investing customers and stakeholders is appealing; however, this taxonomy seems incomplete. Besides some suspect definitions, the taxonomy is primarily focused on software and does not include hardware devices other than mobile platforms. The scope of this taxonomy is limited in its applicability. There are many products that are available that do not fit the criteria outlined in this taxonomy but have similar fidelity and serve the same market segments. For example, interactive wall displays and virtually reality. Also, some products will fit more than one definition because of the extent of the products scope. Although the data resulting from the research conducted by Ambient Insight may have value when starting an educational technology venture, I would likely not pay for their service and search else ware for the information needed; unless it was a last resort, or the information was required in a timely manner.

Ambient Insight has developed a report that is valuable across many segments of education technology. Figure 1 does an excellent job of illustrating just how extensive the education technology market is and anyone is would like to see a high-level global perspective would do well to review this report. That’s where the strength of this report is and where it would be valuable for anyone interested in the field, including the broader community of educators. However, that is where much of the value ends. The report does little to project future growth or indicate the direction of the field. As a taxonomy guide, it does the job well. As a projection of future direction, this report is lacking. This document does the intended job it demonstrates the research capability of Ambient Insight. At the very least I would recommend keeping an eye out for future updates of this report if only to identify new segments of the marketplace. To figure out just how impactful those new segments will be, I think you’ll have to keep looking for supporting information.

Ambient Insight is a great resource for anyone wanting to enter the technology start up market. Not only does it provide a new lens for how to categorize and position your emerging technology but it provides insight into the variances between countries and the role policy plays. For example, the report points out a "country's educational policies are often more important than a country's technical readiness." Also, with regards to the variability between countries on adoption of educational technology, it notes "government-mandated educational policies act as either catalysts or inhibitors." Working in higher education, the report reveals the real energy and innovation is not in the traditional academic realm but in national virtual universities (outside the US and Canada) funded by their governments. Commercial and industrial training programs, as well as all levels of government are also consumers with a burgeoning demand for educational technology products and processes.

Ambient Insight’s 2014 Learning Technology Research Taxonomy provides broad and easy to understand insights into revenue opportunities for learning technologies, geared towards venturers. Ambient Insight is an International market research firm which collects quantitative data internationally and compiles country-by-country (0ver 150 countries) data that can provide insight on trends within that region as well as demand for various technologies. Through target reports, the firm looks at buying behavior in various fields and show the direction of the market in each region. For example, there was an interesting section on Africa which showed that although only 12.6% of Africans are connected to the internet through computers, 63.1% of people are connected through their mobile phones. This data can be highly useful as it could highlight potential for mobile technologies unique to the region. Ambient Insight’s report does cover a broad spectrum of data, however, it seems to just ‘cover a bit of everything’. My overall feeling was that this firm wants to present itself as a comprehensive research firm which essentially has ‘data on everything’. There were no ratings, correlations or evaluations made on the report (granted, it is quantitative data). I also found some of the information given a bit misleading. For example, they state that “The South Korean government subsidizes a great deal of online learning. For example, the government's Cyber Home Learning System is essentially a national virtual school” (p.13). I live in South Korea and have taught in the public school system. The Cyber Home Learning System is widely used, however, it is not being utilized as a ‘virtual school’ by any means. While I do think that the report does cover quite a bit of data spanning across the globe, I do question the accuracy of the data presented. I feel like the areas of focus are too broad and generalized. I would recommend this report as a starting point but would suggest looking further at more comprehensive, detailed reports.

Ambient Insight’s research methodology as described in this report is a valuable analytic structure for those new to ventures in e-Learning. The core of the Ambient Insight market research process is its five-point Evidence-based Research Methodology (ERM) which describes how buyers, products, and suppliers interact in a triangular relationship based on quantitative evidence derived from international market research. The report briefly illustrates the tangibility of Ambient Insight’s research methodology with a few specific examples of market revelations. For instance, the parameters of Ambient Insight’s ERM enables competitive intelligent experts to establish “consistent intelligent pattern(s)” regarding how actors operate within the e-Learning market. For instance, it interests me that Ambient Insight’s ERM reveals that federal governments which have large English-Second Language initiatives like Brazil will likely employ e-Learning ESL ventures more when preparing for increasing levels of tourism (Brazil will host the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics). I recommend others to take advantage of Ambient Insight’s ERM because it is a well-designed framework needed for effectively understanding relationships within the e-Learning market.

Ambient Insight provides the global marketing research side of learning technologies. While I found the concept of market analysis interesting for businesses, it lacked examples of their findings, as they do not "evaluate, compare or rank products". The brief description and overview of each of the learning technologies such as social learning and collaboration-based learning was useful and the insight into each of the buyer descriptions was also helpful to understand the educational global market. I would recommend this report as a resource for general background knowledge for educational markets but would not seek out future versions of this report.

This report provides a good overview of the learning technology market as viewed through the lens of the analysts at Ambient Insight. It does not provide any specific recommendations as it focuses more on describing how their analysts generate reports and services for purchase. In this description the authors cover a lot of ground through discussions of seven international regions, eight buyer segments, eight types of digital learning products and six types of suppliers. As someone new to this area of study I found the report useful as it described a number of interesting areas I am not very familiar with (ex. MoSoLo, location-based learning) and defined key terms. The report also helped to inspire some additional research and brainstorming for potential assignment topics for this course. Overall, I would recommend a quick read through this report to anyone new to the field or interested in general market information. I would not seek out future versions of this specific report since it is more of a backgrounder but I would seek out other publications from Ambient Insight.