Recent advances in technology present an opportunity to reach every student with the customized education they need in order to succeed in school, career, and life. We are in the middle of dramatic economic and technological shifts in which entrepreneurs are positioned to solve large, complex societal challenges, specifically within education. New personalized learning systems analyze student data in real-time and provide a customized list of activities and content to meet a student’s unique needs. Traditional educational services, from instruction to professional development to course delivery, are being run as online services.

The real breakthroughs are with new models of education that were designed around next generation tools and services that deliver a better education experience aligned to student success. New Classrooms’ founder Joel Rose suggests that, “Our collective change in K-12 innovation today should go beyond merely designing and producing new tools. Rather, our focus should primarily be to design new classroom models that take advantage of what these tools can do.”

The challenge is not to romanticize any one particular technology, tool, or service but instead to ask how these new technologies might be used together in new models to solve problems in smarter ways.

While the models are still emerging and the tools still evolving, one thing is clear. Education is no longer limited to a building. It is becoming accessible anywhere, anytime. This is the first generation of children who will experience education as an ondemand service. Education is available to them through the download of an app or a click to an online course. It is available to them from school, from home, from the car, or from anywhere they can be connected.

Read the whole paper here.