Technology is fast reshaping the education landscape.
The Journal’s 2018 Teaching with Technology Survey reveals that 87% of educators, agree that technology has positively impacted their ability to teach. The survey also found that 96% of respondents say that technology will play a positive role in the future of education.
From using YouTube to learning platforms, technology is increasingly enmeshed with the modern classroom. As education institutions fully embrace integrating technology in their pedagogy, here are 5 EdTech trends educators need to watch this year:
Integrated Learning Solutions
Integrated learning solutions provide multi-platform opportunities for children to learn. While textbooks remain the most used educational tool especially in developing countries, the integration of digital links in books like sounds and videos associated with the topic are becoming more widespread. Platforms like Clutch Prep provide video textbooks for students as an in-depth auxiliary to textbooks.
Meanwhile, in developed countries, immersive integrated learning solutions like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality are being pioneered. A study by the University of New England shows how the use of VR can help teach medical students empathy for the elderly and other patients.
Learning Analytics
As the use of technologies progress, more data streams are being opened, and learning analytics can process this to provide invaluable insights to educators. An article by Yoss explains how today’s data-driven discovery methods can uncover hidden correlations, which can then be used to improve processes on a grand scale. They are already taking advantage of these methods in China, where the educational sector is the biggest in the world, and learning analytics is helping to develop a means of providing personalized feedback. This will be quite useful especially in developing countries where teacher to student ratio remains high.
Learning analytics is also being developed to help educators teach on a massive scale in non-traditional spaces like educational games, new media, and environmental education.
AI-based Proctoring and Chatbots
While distance learning is nothing new, technologies that use artificial intelligence are redesigning learning spaces. AI-based proctoring can help give students the flexibility of taking exams or doing classroom work outside of lecture halls without worrying about fairness. Online proctoring is just one of the latest implementations of AI in education as they monitor real-time internet use while taking exams, reading, and doing homework.
Other learning institutions are leveraging AI by using chatbots to amplify their workforce. By deploying chatbots, teachers can skip the FAQ sessions and focus on the important portions of the lessons.
Tech Training and Employment
With more and more technology being integrated into the educational sector, this can further aggravate technology gaps within countries and industries.
Fortune reports that the US government has been funding efforts to solve this phenomenon and train educators. Companies like Florida Power & Light and Pratt & Whitney partner with schools to train STEM instructors to teach them programming while working a paid internship. Another solution is to contend with the tech industry in employing talents. However, today’s highly skilled tech specialists are more in-demand than ever, and companies who need to fill technical roles have access to pools of pre-vetted talent to match their needs. As a result, the top technicians in their respective fields often undergo rigorous skills validation and qualification processes to ensure that they can actually provide what these companies or institutions need.
Digital Ethics and Privacy
While the education sector remains one of the most flexible industries when it comes to integrating technology, the concerns surrounding privacy and digital ethics are also a challenge.
With schools helping to shape an ever connected and all present generation, privacy will become a key trend this year. The adaptive learning paradigm that collects and learns from students’ data to improve teaching is a double-edged sword. Educators must create measures to protect students and institutional data from overstepping the bounds and necessities of teaching.
Who know what else the future holds?
EDTECH 4 BEGINNERS 