Technology is picking a rapid pace to enter our lifestyle changing the way we live and interact. It is enhancing every sector in the best possible ways. But as compared to other fields, the educational field is lagging behind in terms of technology adoption. The introduction of technology has become essential considering it the most crucial area of our lives.
The new technological wave of 2021 contains Big Data, Machine Learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT) and distance learning has become one most admired trends that rules them all. After the COVID-19 pandemic, the education system has drastically changed the way we learn and teach. Students now have to get used to this new method of learning via digital platforms due to social distancing. The latest Education Technology trends in 2021 are going to give a revolutionary change and it will strongly focus on versatility, connectivity, and student-centered learning.
Impact of COVID-19 on Education Technology:
The recent COVID19 pandemic outbreak has badly impacted the world especially the education sector. Due to strict measures like social distancing, no gathering, etc to prevent the spread of the virus, our education system had to adopt some new trends involving live classes, digital learning, etc. These new trends have helped the education system to start its journey towards digitization and the new era of technology. Thus, it is expected that the education sector will change drastically in the coming few years due to the large scale adoption of technology in schools, colleges, and universities.
Let's have a look at the latest trends in the educational sector.
Online Education:
Just like booking tickets, watching TV shows, and ordering food have become online, education is stepping out to the digital platform now. Due to the wide availability of the internet, it has become easy to learn and teach digitally at one’s own pace and place. The increasing number of Smartphone users is also an advantage of providing a good opportunity for the students to get an education online. Online education includes online courses along with online examinations which have acquired a lot of popularity among the working professionals to learn new things and expand the aperture of their knowledge.
It is also predicted that in the coming year, the world will witness considerable growth in online education. Our government is now focused on Internet penetration in rural India as it will give online education a lift. Mobile app services like WhatsApp, Telegram, YouTube, and many more connecting apps are becoming popular in the rural areas as a via media of educational contents.
Online Assessment:
As the classes are taken online, the evaluation and assessment of students have become online too. The success of education is dependent on proper evaluation. Traditionally, the evaluation of the students was held on the basis of theory examinations, but now the question papers will be available online and the students will be given the examinations online too. The students will be analyzed based on their theoretical knowledge and the pass or fail will be completely dependent on their knowledge.
Artificial Intelligence-Driven Assessments
For the students using AI-powered online examination systems, personalized assessments can be created for them. AI-based systems can provide useful features for online examinations, insights into student performance, group analysis, and individual analysis for each topic, and many more. In the coming few years the assessment of knowledge will be based on some factors as listed below:
- Practical Implementation
- Problem Solving using knowledge
- Ability of innovation
- Conceptual Application of the knowledge
Another plus point of the digital assessment is, it can ensure unbiased and error-free analysis of the performance of individuals. And from another financial corner, we can say that it will help us to save the costs invested on exams, centers, etc. the provision of personalized feedback for each student is available in this trend and such feedback will able to set the right path for the progress of the student.
Virtual Reality (VR) in Education Technology
Virtual reality is a new educational trend that involves computer technology for creating a virtual environment that is immersive and interactive just like the traditional education system. It can make you feel like you are in a world that is similar to the real world. Just like in the gaming industry, virtual reality (VR) has gained tremendous popularity in the educational field.The concept of VR a bit cost-effective. Besides the gaming and education industry, many other sectors have also started using VR for many purposes.
It is scientifically proven that, when a human mind is able to see something in action, he/she will be able to grasp it better. VR provides the opportunity to see something as if it is real. To experience this new trend, a pair of 3D glasses or a VR headset is required. Trendy technology like VR can increase knowledge retention to a significant level, where the traditional classroom based lectures harvested lessknowledge retention rate in past.
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