Featured article by Amanda Taylor, Independent Technology Author
Edtech is a growing market with new products and services emerging every day. Some technological advances are so deeply rooted in the educational ecosystem that we can hardly imagine our life without them. This includes presentation programs, paperless textbooks, open educational resources, and online communication tools, to name a few. These are the things we are pretty used to, but there are more roaring trends that are shaping the educational industry right now.
E-learning
Although online education has been around for a long time, 2020 has marked a surge in its popularity. The spread of COVID-19 and campus closures forced schools around the globe to take learning outside the classroom. Despite the breakaway speed at which the transition had to happen, online platforms proved to be a convenient method of delivering and receiving educational content.
Virtual learning allows instructors to interact with their students during live sessions. They can use video conferencing tools like Zoom or Microsoft Teams. This makes online meetings very similar to the traditional classroom experience, except everyone can participate from the comfort of their own home. However, online streaming is not the only option. The asynchronous learning model allows students to go through course materials at their own pace and time.
This approach helps to create an enriched learning environment. Teachers can enhance their lessons with media files, animation, podcasts, or YouTube clips. With these multimodal additions, students can gain more when they work on their online assignments. Plus, a wide range of digital features and additional study materials, including access to write essays for me services, encourage young people to decide what they want to learn next.
E-learning provides the same outcome and consistency in learning as conventional instructions. Yet, it requires less time to plan the course, deliver the materials, and evaluate student performance. With such indisputable advantages, this trend is likely to stay green even after the pandemic.
Cybersecurity
As everything moved online, data protection and digital privacy became the top concerns of educational institutions. Today schools rely on web applications for testing, data collection, and analytics more than ever before. This has created a need for additional measures that can help safely process and store sensitive information.
Many universities have already introduced digital credentialing through two-factor authentication to protect student records from breaching. This data can sell for $250-300 on the black market. Such a handsome reward stimulates hackers to take advantage of any infrastructure vulnerabilities. So in 2021, the educational industry will continue to seek tech tools to help address and avert potential threats.
Extended Reality
Immersive technologies seem to be the next step in the evolution of education. Advancements in virtual, augmented, and mixed reality are already transforming the way educational content is delivered. The growing demand for experiential learning will further accelerate the development of these technologies.
Virtual reality (VR) can replicate a real environment or create an imaginary world. It offers an immersive 3D experience that allows students to learn about subjects by living them. Users can take virtual field trips to get a better sense of place. It’s especially useful for topics related to geography, history, or literature. One small VR device can also act as a fully equipped science lab or clinical skills training room. So learners can practice the hands-on skills they need for their future careers in a low-risk simulated environment.
Augmented reality (AR) gives a live view of a real-world setting enhanced by computer-generated sensory input. It brings students an enriched version of their immediate surroundings by layering digital content on top of a real image. The elements of the physical world can be supplemented by text, sound effects, video, graphics, or GPS information. Thus, AR can improve the student learning experience through increased engagement and interactivity.
Artificial Intelligence
AI has been a booming trend in the tech industry for many years. It has found various applications across multiple sectors, including finance, healthcare, transportation, law, and e-commerce. The educational system is also among those benefiting from AI-based machinery. Here are just a few use cases of this technology:
– Facial recognition can track students’ attendance and protect campus infrastructure from unauthorized access. In a virtual setting, this feature can be used to verify the identity of a person taking the exam or joining an online class.
– Video proctoring allows remote supervisors to invigilate students during their exams. Technology can also help to organize testing without any physical human intervention.
– Data collection tools help to monitor young people’s performance and target at-risk students. AI systems can provide valuable insights into user’s learning and generate helpful feedback for both learners and their instructors.
– Automated grading programs eliminate human errors during the evaluation process. AI systems can already assist with multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank tests. In the future, they can potentially deal with open-ended tasks as well.
– AI-driven educational apps can customize course content to the user’s current skill level and learning style. Thus, they provide a tailored educational experience for each student, which is hard to achieve in a traditional classroom environment.
Takeaway
Online learning seems to be the force that will push forward the implementation of new technologies in the educational process. In the coming years, we will see more applications of big data, social media, machine learning, chatbots, immersive technologies, and wearable devices both on and off-campus. So colleges and universities that want to promote their brand reputation will have to adapt to impending tech expansion quickly.
