The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly altered the way we teach and learn. Students and teachers alike now have to get used to distance learning via digital platforms due to social distancing. Even as the effects of the pandemic are slowly but surely subsiding, the fact that more and more members of the education community are willingly or unwillingly exposed to the technology platform has brought about this collective realization that the influence of technology in the education system shall only increase going forward.

Currently, educators are being mainly exposed to the technological benefits of connectivity, versatility and student-centric learning. Where, technology is viewed as transforming traditional book teaching and learning to digital form to make teaching more effective. In short, e-education is simply a process of integrating technology into education to build better teaching/learning experiences that result in higher learning outcomes. However, there are several more key aspects of education where technology shall play the role of positive disruptor going ahead.

Some key areas where technology can further influence the education system are as follows:

1.      Innovative Teaching Methods

In the conventional education system, the implementation of technology has been mainly in the imparting of the curriculum by the teachers. Conversely, teachers now can innovate in the way they impart their teachings by bringing in more visual content (videos, animations etc.). So teachers have opportunities to introduce various new methods to better engage with their students.

Also, as we know technology is a great way to network. Using various technology platforms, teachers can connect with their counterparts and discuss various issues and/or share best practices among each other to make the teacher-student interactions more fruitful.

2.      Encourage collaborative teaching

As we all know, in the conventional education system the opportunities for student-teacher interactions are limited. Even though in the past decade concepts like “collaborative learning”,” brain-storming” etc. have been introduced in the conventional system to various levels, their effectiveness is highly debated by various researchers.

Technology could provide a plausible solution that could settle this debate and usher in a new era of student-teacher interactions-based learning (collaborative learning). Various technologies today help to make the teaching collaborative with equal if not more participation from the students. This can be done using both audio/video mode or using applications. In the case of collaborative teaching the role of a teacher shifts mainly from that of a teacher to that of a moderator/mentor who will guide the discussion or provide strategic inputs at various intervals.

3.      Customization for everyone

As rightly said, “Every child is unique; therefore, their education should be also”. Our conventional education system due to its legacy of the past was not centered around this thought process. However, just like any other fields of humanity like science, economics or medicine the education field also requires evolution. Technology is an enabler to this evolution and provides a platform that can address the needs of each student or teacher.

With the concepts of assessment/evaluation, a unique profile of students can be created to identify the key areas of focus or strengths of each student. Using the evaluations, teachers can provide specific assistance to the particular student. Similarly, teachers can also be evaluated and their areas of strengths and improvements are mapped. This can help teachers for self-evaluation and seek for additional assistance to tackle their areas of improvement. Features that easily help students revisit certain key areas of a topic become key to providing an additional opportunity for the student to go through specific topics again; thus reinforcing the student’s understanding.

4.      Insightful assessment

Technology can play a major role in changing the dimension of how assessments are looked at in the education sector. Using the technologies like Artificial intelligence(AI), Big Data, Data analytic , etc. the way in which assessment process is conducted, evaluated and analyzed has completely changed. AI has helped to automate so much of the assessment process like grading, question creation etc.; while, Optical character recognition(OCR) technology is used today to convert the assessment texts into digital form and grading done through AI using the pattern recognition techniques.

Likewise, technology insures that assessments can be more frequent and analysis of these assessments helps the teachers to monitor the progress of the students and ideally forecast the areas where the students might have issues in the future.

5.      Learning Analytics

Technology is proving to be a powerful assistant as an in-house teaching tool. Learning analytics are tools that can help educators measure and report students learning online. This help educator to better understand the student’s issues and optimize their teaching to counter the issues faced by the students. These concepts are found to be especially useful in the higher education scenario.

The insights provided help the teachers to maximize their teaching capabilities and model their teaching in ways that create the right impact in the minds of the students. Teachers can analyze their own performances and find the areas of improvement for future lectures while also identifying students who have certain learning challenges.

6.      Engagement in learning

The challenge in any classroom is that the conventional mode of teaching is not necessarily the most effective way for the students. Thus, various ways have to be tried to better engage the students while ensuring that the teaching content is as per standards. Gamification, immersive learning tools like Augment Reality(AR) & Virtual Reality(VR), STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) are all technology driven methods to make the learning more engaging for the students.

While techniques like gamification & STEAM involve students taking up tasks as a mode to learn and understand various topics. These platforms provide the students the chance to participate while also increasing their curiosity for the outside world.  Technologies like AR & VR help to explain complex concepts and theories using virtual imagery which provided a completely different idea to the students about a topic.

The teachers using these technologies are better equipped to express and share their ideas in a new experience while also thinking out of the box.

As they say “Change is the only constant”, today the integration of technology in various aspects of education is the new normal albeit its use has been hastened by this current pandemic scenario. So, for all the members of the education community, the behavioral change to accepting technology as a true enable of change in the present status quo is very essential. With these new changes, the roles of the teachers and students alike are slightly changing. Teachers are seen more as facilitators or mentors rather than the center of the classrooms. Similarly, student’s roles have also become that of a participating partner in the classroom.

Embracing technology for its usage as well as mindset is not quite a simple task. With so many solutions in the market and little technological expertise in most educational institutions, educators find it hard to assess the effectiveness and cost of these solutions. But, with SIBIN Group there certainly is a competent and trustworthy partner to guide educators in their journey to truly transforming into an “Edu-Tech” institution. SIBIN’s unique approach of mapping the requirements as per the trends of the time and the capabilities of the client team help to design solutions that truly transform the client working environment.

“It’s not that we use technology, we live technology”- Godfrey Reggio.