Welcome to 2024,. Listeners of the TechEd Podcast, hard to believe that we are at the dawn of a new year, but it will be another year where the TechEd podcast talks to people who are innovating and disrupting technical education. We could not be more excited about the beginning of this new year in the world of TechEd. So thank you so much for joining us. Every single year, we do this episode where we make predictions about what is going to happen in the world of technical education in the coming year. Our goal for this episode is that we provide information, we provide thoughts and we provide inspiration for everybody working in the world of technical education, as you think about your programs, as you think about innovating new products, new technologies and forging ahead into the year 2024. So we're excited about this episode. We're excited to get started and we always begin with the same topic, and that is how do we do on our predictions from last year. It's hard to believe that we are now going into the fourth year of the TechEd podcast and, for those of you who have been with us for the entire journey, or if you're just joining the TechEd podcast family, thank you so much for being with us those of you that have been longtime. Listeners know that we like to grade ourselves and how we did last year before we get into the predictions for 2024. So I'm going to walk through the predictions we made last year the 10 predictions we made last year and give ourselves a grade on how we did 2023.
Matt Kirchner:Prediction number one was that there would be one more year of good funding in technical education. I would like to say that we did a phenomenal job on projecting this. Five stars out of a possible five for this prediction, whether it's a combination of legacy COVID relief funds, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Chips and Sciences Act, the record real estate values leading to incredible budgets in states rich in cash and much of that funding, by the way, is finding its way into education. As Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota, who joined us on the podcast last year, noted to me about mid-year. He said it used to be a question of inputs in technical education and in education in general. Where were we going to find the funding? Now, in so many states, teched is being funded in ways we've never seen before. The question is, where are we going to find the teachers and what outputs are we expecting from technical education? So, five stars on prediction number one.
Matt Kirchner:Prediction number two we projected a pause in innovation in TechEd learning systems because of the huge number of companies that, during COVID and during the supply chain crisis, had their engineering teams working on supply chain challenges rather than innovation. Anecdotally, we say four stars on this particular prediction. Spending time at the ACTE show in Phoenix late last year, one of the things that we realized was that the number of new products, the number of new solutions on market and technical education was a smaller number than what we had seen in prior years. Now there were certainly some great innovations and I can tell you firsthand from our episode that we did on what we saw, that there are still people innovating in the world of technical education. However, the rate of innovation in 2023 slowed a bit as engineers and innovation teams were working on solving other problems in their business. Look for that to change in 2024. We're looking forward to all the innovation in TechEd.
Matt Kirchner:The third prediction we had for 2023 was that excess inventory in the second half of the year would plague companies around the United States, both inside and outside technical education. Five stars on this prediction. Reuters recently reported the US retailers were stuck with a huge amount of excess inventory and were offering bargains as the holiday season neared. According to the Harvard Business Review in September of last year, the next supply chain challenge isn't the shortage, it is the glut. While consumer demand has remained stronger than what we thought it would be going into 2023, the truth of the matter is that that inventory glut that we had projected is absolutely upon us. In many cases, suppliers are swimming in inventory. That may be good news for educators who are looking to equip their classrooms as suppliers try to find ways to draw down that inventory.
Matt Kirchner:Prediction number four was that inflation would ease in the year 2023. That is absolutely true. As of a year ago, we were looking at consumer prices rising at about a rate of 7.11% year over year. In November of 2022. According to Ernst Young, headline CPI inflation fell 0.1 percentage points in November of 2023 to 3.1% year over year. It literally dropped from 7.11% to 3.1%. Inflation is under control, at least way more under control than it was a year ago. Of course, cpi inflation was steady at 4% year over year. It's slowest pace since 2021. Five stars on prediction number four.
Matt Kirchner:Prediction number five was a huge growth in eSports. Five stars on this one Over the summer in one of our companies, we employed three students whose job it was to analyze the global eSports market by every measure market size, the number of schools with eSports teams, the number of students participating, the number of events. This market is growing. When leveraged properly, this can become a great way to get students excited about careers in programming, coding, data science, event management, in leadership and so many other endeavors. Five stars on the growth in eSports Prediction number five. Prediction number six industrial training and incumbent worker training will continue its growth. I give myself three stars on this particular one. We certainly saw growth in the interest in upskilling and training the next generation of manufacturing and STEM talent. What we are going to talk about when we get into our predictions for 2024 is why, maybe in some ways, this didn't proliferate quite the way we expected it to in 2023 and how we are expecting that to change in the year 2024.
Matt Kirchner:Last year's prediction number seven was a growth in the HVAC market. We gave ourselves four stars for this one. We tracked several companies that are doing business in the tech ed space really, really closely. What I can tell you is that, of the companies pulled their quote, activity in HVAC learning systems was up 11% year over year. That's decent growth. It wasn't the huge growth that we expected, but it's still great growth. We gave ourselves four stars on that particular projection. Number eight more technical and community colleges adding five access machining. Absolutely five stars on this prediction. One tool providers that we pulled these are people doing business in education, providing machining centers and machine tools to the world of education saw a get this 250% increase in quote activity for five access machining. That means for every one quote they did in 2022, they did two and a half quotes in 2023. Interest in five access machining absolutely exploding. We were right on with that prediction.
Matt Kirchner:Question number nine was an increase in renewable energy training. As we look more toward funding renewable energy, as the cost of producing energy through, for instance, photovoltaic cells and solar, drops exponentially, we were expecting schools to exhibit much more interest in teaching renewable energy. We did see an increase. We gave ourselves four stars for this particular projection. In one company that I advise, quote activity for alternate energy programs increased by more than a third over 2022 and more than triple over 2021. The reason for the four stars is we actually saw a bigger increase between 21 and 22, as we did between 22 and 23,. But still a significant increase in renewable energy interest by more than one third in that particular market.
Matt Kirchner:The final prediction that we made last year was that electric and hybrid vehicles, including charging stations, would be huge in the world of education, training and upskilling the next generation of talent for EV manufacturing, for installation of EV charging stations, for servicing EV vehicles. We gave ourselves four stars. The interest in education has been absolutely huge in this particular space. We're going to talk about that as we get into 2024. However, the implementation of these programs is lagging a little bit, I believe due to one of our other predictions, which is that engineering teams were busy solving supply chain challenges rather than innovating new solutions for the EV space. Expect all of that to change in 2024. 10 predictions, 50 total stars was our potential. We ended up at 44. For an average of 4.4 stars per prediction, that is our best result ever. I'm going to give the TechEd podcast team a tremendous amount of appreciation for figuring out what was going to happen in 2023. Very impressive. Based on that track record, we can now get into what we expect to happen here in the year 2024. What does the future hold? What is the next 12 months? What does the next 52 weeks hold for technical education? This time around, we are making nine predictions that we should have our eyes on in the world of TechEd for the year 2024. We begin 24 where we ended 2023, and that is on the topic of electric vehicles, ev curriculum, e-learning and hands-on training in the hands of educators in front of students. That is all going to happen here in 2024.
Matt Kirchner:A few short weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend some time in Detroit, michigan. We had employers from all over the United States who were talking about what are the competencies that we need to teach at every level of education, including incumbent workers, when it comes to electric vehicle manufacturing. The interest in that topic was overwhelming. More than 100 people from the automotive industry signed up for that particular event. We're going to tell you a little bit more about that event a little bit later, but I can tell you that companies in the EV space certification bodies in the EV space are actively innovating in terms of bringing learning systems to the education market. Just a couple short weeks ago, if you were listening to the TechEd podcast, we talked with Chris Rowe, the managing director of LJ Create in Norwich, uk, who is absolutely coming up with great training programs to teach students about EV. His company is just one example that is leading in this space. Look for many, many others to be on the bandwagon as well. It is going to be a great year for EV learning.
Matt Kirchner:Prediction number two more what we call co-opetition between big organizations and companies. At the TechEd podcast, we talk with people who are in all different spaces within technical education. Many of those people compete with each other in the marketplace. Maybe they compete in terms of designing training systems. Maybe they compete in terms of delivering learning looking for the same student to come to their institution of higher education, for instance, as they pursue a STEM career or they pursue a technical career. We see a lot of competition in many cases in the world of technical education, but we are seeing more co-opetition. As we say here at the TechEd podcast, we don't care who you voted for in the last election, who you voted for in the next election, who you work for, what products you're innovating, what products you're bringing to market. We don't care about any of that. If you share our dream to secure the American dream for the next generation of STEM and workforce talent, we are on the same team, whether it is nonprofit organizations, whether it is trade associations, whether it is companies in the education space, all of whom, in some cases, might see each other as competitors. I predict that we are going to see more co-opetition, more of those organizations working together for the betterment of students and for the betterment of technical education here in 2024. We all share that same goal of securing the American dream. Let's pull as many resources together on behalf of the students as we possibly can.
Matt Kirchner:The next prediction is the dawn of major disruption in higher education. This is prediction number three. The enrollment cliff is real, folks. We talk on the TechEd podcast about how the number of students that are going to be available to enter higher education the next several years, the next five to 10 years that number is a much smaller number than what we had in the past Enrollment in higher education is going to drop. We have seen the tip of the iceberg of some institutions of higher education having to close their doors over the course of 2023, in one case, an institution that was very, very close and near and dear to my heart. That is just the start. Those higher educators who do not disrupt the model are going to find themselves on the outside looking in. They're going to find themselves without enough students, without enough enrollment to support their budgets.
Matt Kirchner:It's those organizations in higher ed who are innovating that are going to find incredible opportunities in the future. The bachelor's degree in automation leadership at the University of Wisconsin-Stell is a perfect example. We had Chancellor Dr Catherine Frank, we had the associate dean, dr David Ding, on the TechEd podcast to talk about a degree program where students can literally be 88 credits into a 120 credit degree before they ever enroll in a single university course. By the way, by the time they enroll in those university courses, they can do all that remotely. They stay back in their own hometown working for a hometown employer as they earn that bachelor's degree in automation leadership. This is a one-of-a-kind degree program, but it is exactly the kind of innovation and disruption that we at the TechEd podcast love to see. It is the future of higher education as we look out onto 2024,.
Matt Kirchner:The truth of the matter is that those institutions of higher education, be they technical colleges, community colleges, universities and so on, the ones that are figuring out a way to create a really creative solution for students, are the ones that are going to end up way ahead I mean way ahead of everybody else, look for more and more disruption in that space. All right. Predictions 4, 5, and 6 all relate to the topic that everybody is talking about, not just in education but across the entire economy, that is, artificial intelligence. So we have three predictions, all relating to AI. In the world of technical education Now, before the TechEd podcast, I've invested tons and tons of time trying to see what's coming, whether it's in manufacturing, whether it's in education, looking out into the future, talking to people that have tremendous amounts of wisdom and trying to get a handle on what the world is going to look like one, five and 10 years out.
Matt Kirchner:One example would be the industry 4.0 wave in manufacturing and education, where we advise businesses, with which we were associated, to get on the industry 4.0 bandwagon early and start thinking about how smart technology was going to disrupt their space. In a way, artificial intelligence has been similar. I've had my eyes on that space for literally more than a decade. In the days in which I used to present on what we called the exponential economy at business conferences and for senior management teams, I was encouraging business leaders to use what we called predictive analytics, sharing stories of how Ian J Gallo and how Harris, casino, zappos, itunes, lambs Plus the Houston Rockets and so on were accumulating huge data sets. Now this goes back 10, 15 years ago and they were using that data sets to predict their future of their businesses and get there before their competition. Now I would say I'm not right on every single prediction we know that from listening to this episode but I was right on that one.
Matt Kirchner:The practice of predictive analytics, which is really a subset of what we call artificial intelligence, is endemic in the world of manufacturing, in sports, in energy, in hospitality, in retail every single space in our economy. We were way out in front on artificial intelligence. Now artificial intelligence is going to disrupt education in 2024 in three ways. I want to talk about those three ways as we talk about predictions numbers 4, 5, and 6. So prediction number 4, by the end of 2024, at least one-third of school districts, 50 percent of technical colleges and 50 percent of engineering programs will have concrete plans to implement AI learning and curriculum in their programs, teaching students about the applications of artificial intelligence. They'll do that using what we call Edge to Cloud.
Matt Kirchner:We did an entire episode of the TechEd podcast on how we teach AI and how we can teach Edge to Cloud learning in every single market space. This whole idea is that we take smart sensors and smart devices, gather data, discern that data on the applicable data to a program, a logic controller or other control system. Then to the fog, then to the Cloud, where we're using Cloud-based analytics platforms to analyze those data sets, find patterns, find anomalies, predict the future. I suggest that, as we talked about, one-third of school districts and 50 percent of those in higher education will have AI curriculum embedded in their programs looking into 2025, so that we will have active programs that have been planned for 2025 by the end of 2024. It is going to be an incredibly exciting time when it comes to AI and education. Now this prediction seems bold. Education doesn't always move as fast as we'd like it to, whereas I like to say, in some cases education changes one retirement at a time but more and more educators are realizing that they don't have a choice but to teach artificial intelligence applications if their students are going to be ready for a world that is changing in ways that we have never seen before. Prediction number four is by the end of 2024, a third of school districts, 50% of technical colleges, 50% of engineering programs will be implementing AI learning. Our next prediction, number five, stays on the same topic of artificial intelligence, and that prediction is that by the end of 2024, more than 50% of educators and that means teachers, that means instructors, that means deans, that means staff will actively use artificial intelligence in their day-to-day jobs.
Matt Kirchner:There was a recent study it was performed in the spring of 2023 that was absolutely fascinating and it was two students from MIT and they interviewed 444 professionals. These are people that were doing things like marketing and grant writing and consultants and data analysts and HR managers and so on. They gave each of them a 20 to 30 minute assignment and they asked half of their group half of the 444 participants to perform the assignment as they always had, and the other half they asked to use chat GPT for the completion of that assignment. And then they went back and they reviewed the output and they reviewed the time taken and they reviewed the job satisfaction of the individuals in both groups. What they found for the group that used chat GPT was a 10 minute. That is, a 37% decrease in the time to complete the task they were asked to complete. They found that the quality of work actually improved for most of the workers and, believe it or not, they found that it improved the use of chat GPT, that is, improved the job satisfaction of the workers. The truth is that using artificial intelligence makes us faster at doing the work we're doing. The truth is, it improves the quality of work and, believe it or not, it improves the job satisfaction of the people doing their work.
Matt Kirchner:So in 2024, more than half of educators will be using artificial intelligence to create coursework, to outline lectures, to build syllabi, to draft letters to students and parents. As a college president told me recently, the faculty in his institution are not knocking down the door, coming into his room and saying we just have way too much time on our hands. Can you help us fill this extra time? If anything? They're saying we are overworked, our days are too full, we're putting in too many hours. Please help. Artificial intelligence can be the solution to that problem and I'm just going to give you an example, and we're going to do this live here on the TechEd podcast and I am opening up on my iPhone chat GPT and I'm going to ask chat GPT in real time create a lesson plan on delivering AI learning. I have this chat GPT request create a lesson plan on delivering AI learning and I'm sending that off. And, sure enough, one 1000, two 1000,. Three 1000, four 1000, five 1000, six 1000,. It's done Six seconds.
Matt Kirchner:It took chat GPT to create a lesson and its title is exploring AI fundamentals in high school and it goes through the objectives and then lesson one, introduction to AI. Lesson two types of AI. Lesson three, machine learning basics. Lesson four, neural networks and deep learning, and it gives me bullet points under every one of these basics of neural networks and their inspiration from the human brain. Introduction to deep learning and its applications, visualizing a simple neural network and its layers. That wrote an entire lesson plan for me on artificial intelligence in a high school program in a series or in a period of six seconds. That's absolutely incredible. Now, is it perfect? Of course it isn't perfect. Can I, as a teacher or an instructor or a dean, make that better? Absolutely I can. Am I going to take some things out of that lesson plan and put other things in? Yes, but what a huge head start that gave me. That's how chat, gpt and other platforms in artificial intelligence can save us 37% of our time. So, as we look to innovate in education, expect educators more than half of them to be actively using artificial intelligence to do their day to day jobs in technical education and beyond.
Matt Kirchner:Our sixth prediction and this again relates to artificial intelligence is that forward thinking educational institutions will make major changes in how students experience their learning in the age of artificial intelligence. So, in other words, in many districts right now and many institutions of higher education we are talking about, how do we prohibit the use of chat, gpt? How do we prohibit the use of artificial intelligence in the way that our students do their work? The question is going to change, and that is rather than how do we prohibit students from using AI, how do we mandate them to use AI in their coursework and how do we make sure that they're using it in a way that they're learning Folks? For those of you that think we can police the use of artificial intelligence in education, it's almost impossible Spend five seconds on TikTok looking at all the different ways that students have to take content from a generative, pre-trained transformer like chat, gpt and convert it into their own voice in ways that a teacher or an educator or even other AI platforms will never be able to detect. If we think we can police this in the classroom. We are wasting our time. That is a fool's errand. The thing we need to figure out is how do we augment learning in the age of artificial intelligence and how do we assess competencies, and there are all kinds of ways that we can do that. We're going to have way more applied learning in education, less memorization, way more hands-on assessments, more project work and more group work, testing of critical thinking, more problem solving and more focus on the meaning of what students are learning, not just the memorization and regurgitating what it is that they learn. I think this is a really exciting time for education. As someone who struggled in a typical classroom anyway bring it. I think this is awesome, but we are going to have to change the way we look at education, and we expect that to happen here in the year 2024. All right, so those were our three predictions in the world of education as it relates to AI predictions 4, 5, and 6. We now move to prediction number 7 for TechEd in 2024.
Matt Kirchner:This is precision agriculture. This is a topic in the world of edge to cloud, which we talked about a moment ago, that deserves its own prediction. Now, I didn't grew up on a farm, but I grew up around farming. Both of my parents grew up on dairy farms. All of my cousins, all of my aunts and uncles seemingly grew up on farms, and I used to love nothing more than spending time riding around on a combine, on a tractor, getting up early to milk cows. I will tell you, all my cousins thought I was crazy, but when I visited the farm, as we did every single year, I absolutely loved my time there. Well, the truth of the matter is that that world of farming that I grew up around is different, totally different, and changing because of what we call precision agriculture or what some call smart connected farming.
Matt Kirchner:In precision agriculture, we measure things like livestock health, we measure things like livestock behavior, soil conditions like moisture and temperature and pH, agricultural equipment like tractors and cedars and harvesters and combines, and even silos and slurry stories, using smart technology. In the same way, in smart manufacturing, where we use sensors on robots and conveyors and processing equipment in order to gather data and predict the future, in precision agriculture we use smart sensors on soil, livestock equipment and so on. So the way that works is that the data travels from a sensor, including those on the ground and aerial drones, and just on equipment and livestock and in the soil. That information travels from sensors to control systems like PLCs, to a cell tower or Wi-Fi, to an ISP and then to the cloud, where software like FarmWorks and Smart Farm analyze the resulting huge, huge data sets to optimize productivity and production by changing variables for the whole farm or literally an individual animal, plant, geographic location or implement. So if you travel states like Wisconsin, minnesota and North Dakota the way I have, you understand how absolutely endemic farming is to the way of life for so many students, future Farmers of America, 4-h State Fairs and so on. As just one example, the flagship university in my home state, the University of Wisconsin in Madison, has an entire college dedicated to animal and dairy sciences and, for instance, coursework in precision livestock farming.
Matt Kirchner:So in 2024, look for precision agriculture programs and related curriculum, e-learning and hands-on learning systems to begin pervading every level of education K-12, technical and community colleges and universities. As mentioned earlier, while innovation and STEM and tech and learning systems was a little lean in 2023, we are going to see tremendous innovation here in 2024 and precision agriculture is no exception. If you listened to our episode a couple weeks ago on the innovations we saw at ACTE, you know that Minds Eye Education has some phenomenal solutions and products in this space, including an autonomous self-driving farming system and a STEM robotics agriculture drone slab Just one example of how companies are innovating around the future of precision agriculture. Prediction number seven on our list of predictions here in 2024 is that precision agriculture and this version of Edge to Cloud is going to become incredibly pervasive in 2024. Addiction number eight on what is going to happen here in the year 2024 in technical education is the formalization of industrial training and a focus on execution. When I talked about our predictions for 2023, we talked about the fact that while we expected and we saw industrial training programs that are taking place at industrial facilities to explode in 2023 and we did see significant growth there I can also tell you that 2024 is going to be all about execution and delivering on expectations for those programs.
Matt Kirchner:So, anecdotally, the interest among private employers, large and small, in upskilling their current workers is absolutely at an all-time high. As we talk to manufacturers, as we talk to those that are facing this incredible skills gap and the shortage of talent, everyone is trying to figure out how they can allocate significant budgets and significant staffing to employee upskilling programs. In many ways, we're getting back to the world of the 1970s, where the average industrial employer received 100 hours a year of work-based training provided by their employer at work, and many companies have that goal. However, I will also suggest that while investments in on-prem training programs meaning the implementation of e-learning and hands-on equipment to upskill our current workforce around mechatronics, industrial controls, automation, predictive analytics, industry 4.0, and so on and have that training take place right at the workplace, and investments in the people to oversee these programs, those investments are unprecedented.
Matt Kirchner:But many companies are starting to realize that, while they're putting resources in terms of people and cash into these programs, that they're struggling on the execution. In other words, the company makes the investment, perhaps partnering with their regional, technical or community college or with a private training systems partner or, my favorite, combining the best practices from both of these, and the companies acquire e-learning licenses and equipment, put it on location in their manufacturing facilities, but they don't quite get it right when it comes to taking their people off the floor for an hour or two a week, or maybe a day or so a month, or whatever their model is In manufacturing. I know that due dates and downtime and quality issues and expedites will always trump training programs. I get it. When a customer needs a product, when the line is down, when we have a quality issue, it is all hands-on deck.
Matt Kirchner:But the truth of the matter is that, in spite of that, what's happening is that when we do have time available to do training, a lot of companies that have the programs in place are not executing on the training program. So while the biggest challenge facing most manufacturers is the lack of skilled workforce or the shortage of skill talent and they rightly determine that a huge part of the answer is to upskill their workforce even after making the investment in on-site learning systems, they fail when it comes to actually getting their team members into the training programs. It's as if someone in HR or operations got a mandate and a budget to start an employee training program. They build out the infrastructure, but the program dies there. This doesn't happen everywhere. Right here on the podcast we've talked with the leaders of companies like Kohler Company, husko, ashley Furniture and Rockwell Automation, and these companies have been substantially successful in both vision and execution when it comes to employee training. But for many others it's a little like someone was assigned the initiative to implement the training program but then no one received the assignment to get the learners into the program, see them through to completion, measure learning outcomes and drive continuous improvement. Look for that to change in 2024. As executive teams who demanded the programs begin to ask about status updates and results on participants, completers and learning outcomes, the human resources and ops managers who got execution right will have a great story to tell and those who didn't will, as we sometimes say, have some explaining to do when executive management starts asking the question. So we are going to see here in the year 2024, all of those industrial training programs that have gotten stood up here in the last several years start to execute on their promise to learners, and those that are standing up their programs here in 2024 will get to execution even more quickly. Our final prediction prediction number nine on our list of nine predictions here for what is going to happen in technical education in the year 2024 is that employers are going to begin actively recruiting and promoting individuals with third-party credentials and micro credentials.
Matt Kirchner:We've had a lot of credentialing leaders on our podcast, people like Jim Wall from the Smart Automation Certification Alliance and Ann Gilchick from Nocti and Neil Reddy of MSSC, and we've talked all about how third-party credentials in advanced manufacturing are changing the face of manufacturing, and now employers are full on jumping on the third-party certification movement. I'll acknowledge that we've talked about this before. When I was in manufacturing, all of these credentials that existed in education were unknown to me. I didn't even know that there was a world of third-party credentialing. And then I get to the world of education and there are over 900 credentials that our students and learners can learn. It was incredible. I looked at these 900 credentials and we realized that many of them were created so that somebody could qualify for a grant or maybe sell more training systems. And that was when I started talking about the three things that are so very important when we're analyzing a third-party credential. Our number one, that the competencies are actually defined by employers. Number two, that we don't make money on the backs of students. And number three, it has to lead to a career or a better job for the credential holder, or we have just ripped off that individual.
Matt Kirchner:Well, employers are starting to understand that there is a difference in certifications as well, and in 2024, because of that, certifications are going to go from something that educators and training programs are promoting to something that employers are demanding. I attended two technical work groups in the fourth quarter of 2023. Work credentialing bodies were determining competencies for their credentials. The types of companies that were at the table at those meetings Ford, stellantis, nissan, uaw, snap-on, rockwell, tesla, sc Johnson, us Cellular, ericsson, oshkosh Corporation, generac and BASF, just to name a few the largest and most prolific companies in advanced manufacturing, from automotive to chemical to contract manufacturing, every single space are starting to understand the value of third-party credentials. So we will expect here in 2024, for our employers to begin reacting accordingly, actively stating in their Indeed ads and on their ads in Zip Recruiter and so on, that they value specific certifications, actively expecting their employees and their incumbent workers to earn certifications as a condition to be advanced within that organization.
Matt Kirchner:In the year 2024,. This will be the year that third-party certifications proliferate in the world among private employers. So those are our nine predictions here in 2024. All of these great trends that are taking place in technical education. We can't wait for 2024 to move ahead. And oh, by the way, one other prediction, and it is, of course, a prediction that we make every single year along the way as we disrupt education, as we innovate in education, as we support the incredible people who have dedicated their lives to the future of technical education. In the same way that we have dedicated our lives here at the TechEd podcast to securing the American Dream for the next generation, here in 2024, the TechEd podcast will be with you every step of the way, talking about the latest innovations, talking about people and with people who are disrupting education, preparing you for the classroom, preparing you for the future of TechEd.
Matt Kirchner:Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of the TechEd podcast. It's going to be an incredible 2024. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the TechEd podcast. Our predictions episode is one of my favorites every single year and I'm so glad that we could spend this time together. To get all the show notes and links to the resources mentioned in this episode, head on over to techedpodcastcom slash 2024. We have the absolute best show notes in the entire industry and you'll find helpful information when you get there. Don't forget we are active on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Instagram and on TikTok. We post regularly about new episodes, featured insights and great content, so find us on your favorite social platform and say hello. We would love to connect. Thanks for being with us this week. Remember, new episodes drop every single Tuesday. We'll see you next week on the TechEd podcast.