Among the biggest beneficiaries of technology has been the education sector.
Indeed, the last couple of years have witnessed dramatic changes in the way students are taught and how educational interactions take place. The bulk of these have been a win for students and, to a certain degree, a challenge for educational institutions.
With the field becoming more competitive, schools must stay abreast of these innovations and trends and implement them to attract learners to their institutions.
What are the top trends for 2021? Read all about that here.
eLearning
eLearning is training or education carried out online. If anything, this was the star of the 2020 Covid-19 year, and its popularity has bled into 2021.
While online classes have been alive and well over the past few years, 2020 and 2021 saw an explosion of these on all levels of learning. These have taken a variety of forms, from Microsoft Teams to Zoom and live group meetings.
This concept also provides a variation in how lessons are delivered. Students can learn through animation, videos, and podcasts. These are great for reducing monotony and keeping students engaged.
Online Tutoring
Individual students learn at different paces. Unfortunately, education institutions cannot keep up with this demand and tailor-make lessons to suit each student.
This can disadvantage students that understand concepts slower than others. Classroom learning does not account for the different learning personalities either.
For this reason, some students might need extra help outside of school. Hiring tutors online is another way that technology supports education. For students that require extra support, hiring tutors can be of great help. Today, one can do that on their laptop with a few clicks. All correspondence and learning also happens online, which reduces costs and increases convenience.
Collaborative Learning
Collaboration is a term we increasingly hear in a school setting and the workplace.
The premise of collaboration is to bring together different ideas and knowledge to enhance learning.
Technology makes it possible for people to link up, discuss concepts and act on situations as a team. In the classroom, teachers encourage this by giving group assignments and projects.
Through technology, students can complete group projects seamlessly through collaborative working tools.
In the form of apps, group communication tools have also made teacher-student and student-teacher communication much easier. Booking an appointment is no longer necessary. Communication can be done effectively via instant communication channels.
AR and VR
Classroom experiences will not be the same again, with augmented reality and virtual reality taking center stage.
Traditional learning involved text and explicit pictures and lectures that can get quite monotonous. It’s not uncommon for students to zone off in class, missing huge chunks of a lecture.
Through AR and VR, technology increases levels of engagement as they provide more enhanced and highly interactive learning platforms.
Virtual Reality (VR) provides false perceptions of reality while Augmented Reality (AR) enhances actual images and realities. Together, VR and AR have taken digital learning to new dimensions by delivering more compelling learning experiences.
These have been proven to be extremely useful in explaining complex concepts.
Data Analytics and Management
Most things in today’s world are data-driven. This is true for education.
Through tech tools, teachers can now have analytics of their student’s progress in real-time. Everything from tests done to chapters covered to assignment grades can be accessed at the click of a button.
This information can be ploughed back to enable teachers to provide better guidance and develop or augment existing lesson plans to increase student engagement and performance.
