New technology continues to advance as time goes by. Nowadays, every industry is more or less affected by technology, education included. The main reason is that everyone has to adapt to new tech sooner or later because nothing is set in stone these days.
Technology adaptation is disruptive by nature. How disruptive it will be, depends on the industry it affects. The education sector has survived for years without relying on technology too much. Nowadays, even the education industry is being forced to adapt. That being said, here are a few tech trends for the education sector in 2019.
Personalized learning experience
One of the major issues that education faces even today is that not all students are able to follow classes and comprehend curriculums equally. That leads to some students advancing and progressing regularly while others fall behind. What’s more, teachers are unable to provide an equal amount of time and attention to each individual student, in order to help them catch up with the others. However, the solution can be found in technology, and not just any technology, but artificial intelligence (AI). AI has been in development for some time now but that didn’t stop this new tech from making its way into various industries, including education.
In order to combat common issues in education, AI technology provides students with a custom and personalized learning experience. That being said, a research and development company from California that specializes in AI technology called Content Technologies, Inc (CTI), is developing an AI-powered service that will help students with their learning process. The service analyzes information, such as curriculum and learning material to generate personalized content that suits each individual student’s needs. Students are provided with custom textbooks and learning material to help them manage their studies more efficiently.
Efficient lecturing
Everyone is well aware of how a student’s life looks like. If you’ve never been a student yourself you definitely know someone who has. Students today are torn between following the classes and enjoying their youthful days. In short, many students have difficulties following the lecture, which hinders their ability to learn and pass classes. It’s not always the life full of parting that prevents students from taking notes. Sometimes, students are simply overwhelmed by the amount of material they have to manage in order to succeed.
Nevertheless, technology once again provides the solution in form of reliable academic transcription services. This tech trend has the potential to revolutionize lectures as we know it. Students can easily follow lectures even if they can’t take notes, and they’ll always have a written version of lectures, seminars and other events with them. That way they can review the lecture whenever they need and go over important elements that will help them comprehend the lecture and learn the necessary material.
Virtual experience
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies have been around for years. However, it’s only recently that this technology has started to gain momentum. What’s more, this technology is slowly finding its way into the education industry as well. The fact of the matter is that VR and AR have the potential to take education to a whole new level. The thing is that VR can simulate a completely developed virtual environment while AR combines elements from real and virtual worlds. This new experiences can elevate student engagement and make them more interested in learning.
In addition, it can be implemented in various learning processes ranging from pre-schools to universities. As an example, VR is already helping medical students with their training, ranging from clinical to surgical training in real but simulated scenarios. It gives students practical experience without endangering anyone in the process. Furthermore, VR and AR technologies can vastly improve learning processes for many students. However, the technology itself is still quite expensive, which prevents it from becoming widely used in all educational institutions.
Learning analytics and metrics
Technological trends in education aren’t focused solely on helping students, but helping teachers as well. The rise of technological advancement and innovation has given birth to student learning metrics and learning analytics that will help teachers evaluate students, as well as help them prepare lectures more efficiently. This trend will most likely replace the old habit where teachers present the lecture to all students in the same way.
Instead, teachers will be able to evaluate each student’s performance, study habits, learning process and progress among other things, in order to adapt the lecture to individual classes and groups. It will also help teachers evaluate student performance based on viable data collected. That way, teachers can determine if the lectures are causing students to fall behind or advance to quickly. In other words, improvements can be made on the spot, instead of waiting for a new education program to kick in the next year.
The education industry will most likely be the most disrupted industry thanks to new technologies, mainly because this sector has never relied on tech too much. However, it’s difficult to ignore the benefits new technology can bring into the education, thus making the lives of both students and teachers that much easier.
