Education — especially higher education — was not hurrying to digitize, which is why pandemics hit it especially hard. Teachers, administrative staff, and, consequently, students weren’t ready to shift to remote learning — and the field had to make a technological jump and try to put about 10 years of technical development into just one. Not all of them made it, of course, — but those who did, those who embraced digital and got into what it has to offer for learning, are already exploring the benefits remote learning in general and EdTech apps, in particular, have to offer. This article will briefly talk about the positive changes digital tools for learning brought to education.
Top 5 Ways EdTech is Changing the Education Landscape
1. Students are more engaged
Teachers use EdTech apps to change the delivery of learning material to students. They present a topic that would seem a bit bland and boring through various methods of structuring information (in short, easy-to-cognitively-digest blocks; in the form of interviews or articles; in dialogue simulations) and different content forms (audio, video, text).
Through Edtech, teachers give lectures and talks and follow them with interactive quizzes right within the virtual conference room — such challenges keep students from zoning out. Gamification, that’s applied in a way that, instead of fostering an unhealthy competition and making students want to score more points just to win, introduces students to solving complex problems right after hearing the theory behind them. Within the gamified classrooms, group activities and discussions become more interesting and fun, too.
A curious thing about engagement digital technologies in learning is that their efficiency partially relies on them is familiar to students. Students spend a lot of time on their smartphones, and EdTech meets them right there and delivers knowledge in a format they are most used to.
2. Learning is more cost-efficient
After the pandemic forced everyone to learn from home, many challenges with remote learning occurred because schools left students to solve their issues with technology and connectivity by themselves — there’s no denying that. Students who have already had smartphones with high performance or laptops and students who received help from their schools, though, found that not having to go to the university gets them lots of free time and saves transportation costs.
Apart from that, EdTech cuts costs on paper and study materials (which simultaneously and nicely cuts the school’s paper waste) by using digital copies of textbooks and sharing them in the cloud or within the platform itself. That’s also good news for students who can’t afford textbooks or students who have just taken the course and don’t have any materials yet.
Automation that tracks students’ performance and helps to collect quantitative data for preliminary performance assessments in EdTech relieves teachers from administrative burden. That saves them time and can help prevent burnout if applied efficiently.
3. Learning got more available
EdTech makes education not only available to everyone but accessible from everywhere, 24/7, and it was obviously beneficial within the pandemic. But the fact that students engage with learning materials on their own terms is another advantage on its own.
One of the reasons students aren’t that engaged with learning is that often, they just — at the moment where they should learn — don’t have enough focus or volition to do so. It’s natural, and very few people can guide themselves into concentration on-call. Virtual learning is a chance for them to learn when they want to and when they have enough resources to do so productively. Plus, according to neuroscientists, an active choice to do something makes it more efficient — and people retain information better if they choose to do so for their goals and wants (and not because they have been told to).
Permanent availability of learning materials — and a chance to review their performance in the digital environment via quick tests, surveys, interactive exercises, or quizzes — again, brings learning and science closer to students, allowing them more opportunities to grasp it. EdTech is also helpful for students from rural areas, where it’s hard to get textbooks or talk to people from your field of study. Within learning apps, they can both find books and research they need and talk to their seniors.
4. Communication is easier
Along with the opportunity to talk to their seniors, with EdTech apps students can talk more productively with their teachers. Often, to connect with advisors or teachers, they use emails — and these do not offer many opportunities for fast communication. With EdTech chats, teachers give more attention to those who usually lack it (for instance, students who work and can’t be at school during office hours) or approach those who are shy or afraid of asking their questions publically.
In primary and secondary education, by the way, EdTech connects schools’ administrative staff and parents. It helps the school notify them about their children’s progress, upcoming events, deadlines, obligatory health checks, and other important announcements. In the app, teachers also tell parents about the ways to help their children in their studies — or even record instructional materials for doing so, encouraging them to get more involved with their kids’ life.
5. Students can focus better
The focus has already been mentioned in the context of learning availability — but there’s an additional point to be made about EdTech and the personalized learning it provides. With quick access to resources, an opportunity to connect to teachers, and multiple content forms, a student — with the help of teachers — can create a holistic environment that will allow them, in particular, to study better. EdTech apps can often help install study routines within the educational process — which are often of help for people with ADHD. Using their features, students set up notifications; create no-distraction environments; install daily writing metrics. EdTech features provide students with tools for organizing sources for writing and reading lists; notes and bookmarks.
Niche-focused EdTech apps allow students to learn various disciplines in the way that’s most comfortable for them. For instance, apps that focus on language learning give students customizable features on writing and reading, words etymology, dialogues within topics that students choose. Interactive examples of math applications in engineering, programming, space industry, or sports can brighten math classes. With the right instructional approach and execution — and enabled by EdTech’s new learning experiences — every discipline can become brighter and more interesting for students; that interest is what will help them focus.
COMMENTS