TikTok and Instagram fight for every second of the user’s attention – if the material fails to captivate us at first sight, the video or post risks being lost forever in the stream, no matter how useful and informative it is.
In such circumstances, the format of education with long monotonous lectures and lengthy arguments is noticeably outdated.
It is increasingly difficult for today’s students and schoolchildren to focus on information and write my essay for long periods.
How can learning be adapted to the peculiarities of perception of a modern person?
What Is EdTech?
EdTech (Education Technology) is an interdisciplinary field that applies IT achievements to the sphere of education.
The goal of EdTech developments is to create an engaging, inclusive, and individualized educational experience.
Interactive whiteboards, note-taking applications, Zoom lessons, and interactive online courses – these are the EdTech we are used to and can hardly imagine learning without its achievements.
But the world is changing every day, and new directions in educational technology are appearing.
We will tell you about seven EdTech trends that are already creating the education of the future.
E-learning
E-learning is not really a trend, but rather a modern approach to the organization of the educational process.
You should not confuse eLearning with distance learning, even though there are many similarities between them.
E-learning involves the use of electronic technologies and tools (VR-simulators, video-conferencing platforms, cell phone applications).
Students and teachers do not have to be at a great distance from each other.
E-learning expands and completely erases boundaries in education.
Now lectures, seminars, and courses can be taken anywhere and anytime.
Universities are offering bachelor’s degrees completely online.
These programs are accredited, and the online bachelor’s degree is recognized worldwide in the same way as an in-person degree.
Educational platform Coursera, in partnership with top universities (including Stanford and Yale), offers online courses from various departments and even a degree through e-learning.
Adaptive Learning
Adaptive, or personalized, learning adapts to a student’s knowledge, abilities, and needs.
Courses using adaptive learning technologies analyze your behavior in real-time and build a unique learning trajectory.
Today’s technologies, primarily BigData and advances in artificial intelligence, are helping to build learning trajectories for adaptive learning more accurately, faster, and more efficiently.
For example, adaptive learning systems are already using artificial intelligence to prepare for the SAT.
Microlearning
We live in the era of hyper-attention. The modern person is constantly switching between different information flows and cannot concentrate on one thing for a long time.
While adults are still able to absorb long educational lectures, children and adolescents who have grown up in a hyper-attention culture become bored and distracted after only 6 minutes.
Dividing a lengthy topic into small modules and giving them through microlectures is an optimal solution to the problem and another educational trend of 2022.
A microlecture is a short educational video (less than 10 minutes) that covers one specific topic or skill.
It can also be in the form of an infographic, table, or diagram.
The information is presented in a concise, structured, and intensive manner, and it ends with a short test or task to reinforce what has been learned.
Microlectures break down a large amount of information into smaller portions, while active learning principles force students to constantly analyze information, look for connections and dependencies.
In this way, knowledge is better absorbed through immediate application immediately after learning.
Mobile Education
Traditional online education is no longer convenient for Generation Z – those born between 1995 and 2010.
They want education fast, fragmented, and interactive.
Online lectures and conferences cannot satisfy this need – it is inconvenient to attend a lecture in zoom in from your phone, they are often long, and even if you connect from your phone, the charge is hard enough until the end of the class.
More and more startups are trying to solve this problem by creating learning apps.
For example, there’s even a platform where you can watch short educational videos.
Doesn’t it remind you of anything? The mechanics of the app are indeed similar to TikTok, but with an emphasis on educational videos and user self-development.
Subscription-Based Learning
Online courses were considered a traditional format of education even before the pandemic.
People bought courses, listened to lectures at a convenient time, and completed assignments at their own pace to consolidate the material, received feedback and sometimes certificates of mastery.
But this system has one big disadvantage.
If you have ever bought an online course and in the middle of an introductory lecture you realized that the subject is uninteresting and the lecturer’s voice is boring, you know what I mean.
Often in such situations, educational platforms do not return the money spent, and at best the course is completed without interest, only out of regret for the money spent.
EdTech offers a solution to this problem with subscription-based learning.
A subscription gives you access to all the materials and courses that are available on the platform.
You can choose any course and then change it for another or quit studying altogether without overpaying for every course you decide to try.
Learning by subscription has already been implemented by the streaming platform Masterclass, which has a variety of courses – from design to cooking, and an educational platform for creative people – Domestica.
Immersive Learning
Studies show that students who actively interacted with materials in preparation fail exams 55% less often than those who studied only through traditional lectures.
Therefore, tools and techniques that can turn a student from a passive listener into an active participant in the educational process are popular and in demand.
The field of education is expected to invest $700 million in the development of virtual reality by 2025.
Simulators are widely used even now. For example, in the training of medical surgeons or for practical lessons in driving schools.
The British startup VirtualSpeech helps users to develop flexible skills, simulating in virtual reality the communication with a “problem” client or a performance on stage.
And the Mondly platform offers this way to learn a foreign language.
Users make friends in Barcelona, check into a hotel in Tokyo, and order tea in a cafe in London using virtual simulation, chatbots, and speech recognition tools.
Gamification
Elements of the game have been used in education for a long time – stickers instead of grades in elementary school or achievement rating as a realization of a competitive moment.
Gamification, like immersive learning, uses interactive tools.
Game mechanics allow us to motivate students and engage them in the educational process with what they are good at – playing.
Students are put into a familiar environment, so they don’t have to spend time and effort to maintain focus.
Learning is always difficult, but playing is easier, more fun, and more interesting.
Gamification is a very flexible tool; it can be adapted to any educational material.
A striking example of educational gamification is Minecraft: Education Edition.
The game beloved by many is successfully used for teaching architecture, chemistry, biology, geography, and other school subjects.
Duolingo also uses game mechanics for learning foreign languages: access to new levels for completing tasks, personal rating.
There is even an opportunity to compete with friends in knowledge.
