Adriene Hill

The Los Angeles Unified School District had plans to give every kid an iPad; a billion-dollar proposition. But it turns out the one-size-fits-all approach may not be the best strategy after all.

Broadening the choices makes sense, said Brandon Martinez from USC’s Rossier School of Education. “It allows students and teachers to see what works best for them. And then they can give feedback, they can swap devices, and give a more informed decision when they look to purchase at a larger scale.”

What's more, Mike Fisher, who studies the education technology market for Futuresource, thinks big tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon will start forging more partnerships with curriculum providers.

“You’ll see some of the publishers in the marketplace, people like Scholastic, Pearson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, partnering with hardware vendors,” he said. Schools are a $13 billion global battlefield for makers of educational technology. “It’s a green field,” said Stephen Baker, an analyst at the NPD group. “A place to sell that doesn’t have anything now, so it’s all new volume.”