Introduction
Technology has been taking over ever since the pandemic hit the world, which, with a lot of change, brought a dramatic change in education and the concept it has been following. As technology advances and grows globally, the digitalization of education becomes a huge topic of discussion.
With the technological and digital growth in the education sector, there’s no doubt that there will be more advances in the concept of education.
This is an era of rapidly evolving technology. Technology has become an inevitable part of our lives. Technologies like AI-ML, hybrid learning, technology for assessment, and auto-subjective evaluations are reshaping the education sector.
81% of US educators believe and say that EdTech has improved their ability to handle technology and make learning faster and easier. 81% of college students say that learning digitally and the use of technology in learning has helped them boost their grades, especially with the help of virtual chatbots.
Highlights on how the Education Sector will see technology-driven growth in 2024
Education is getting disrupted
The year 2023 was filled with many ups and downs. It also witnessed a lot of changes related to the acceptance and adoption of technology in many different sectors, especially in the education sector.
There is a high chance of these changes getting accelerated across schools, colleges, universities, etc. in the year 2024. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak in the year 2020, the norms of social distancing were made mandatory in the entire world. The lockdown situation made the students and the teachers stay at home forcefully and manage all the aspects of education remotely by conducting live classes and online proctored exams.
The year 2024 will help to expedite the adoption of online modes for the delivery of education. There will also be some drastic changes in the degrees being offered by various universities. This will result in altering the traditional ways of education and accepting online education with optimism. Thus, in this article, we are going to see how EdTech is likely to change the educational scenario in 2024.
Upcoming Trends in Education Technology
1. Gamification will find its application across the education sector for better learning
Gamification of different subjects can be a fun and interactive way of learning introduced to students. Games are something people from different age groups like and find fun. Ready-made games which are interactive and fun can make learning easier for students.
The games can not only be integrated with fun learning sessions but can also be used to have fun quizzes which will make participation in the classroom and students will be more attentive towards what is being taught in the class.
Gamification of learning and education will be made a lot more fun and faster to grasp the students and will grow in the markets and the concept of education. Gamification has proven to have improved the outcome in learning by 45.45% and 60.67% recently when combined with reading.
Especially if challenge-based learning is being integrated into the curriculum, the improvement in the outcome in educational institutes would be around 89%.
2. Blockchain technology will play a vital role
Blockchain technology provides vast cloud storage in order to store and recover or review anything whenever necessary. Block chain technology continues to grow as a trusty virtual storage system with the records of anything an institute may need to be kept safely together.
For example, an institute can save the records of a teacher with the feedback given to her by the students and the skills and courses that she may have taken and specialized in. In this case, it becomes easier for anyone to get the information whenever it is necessary and provides safe and secure cloud storage for the records to be kept.
3. Virtual reality will contribute to better learning
Virtual reality might be one of the biggest advances in technology incorporated into education systems. VR might be a huge change in the education system. It will not only make it easier for the teachers to teach a class by showing them virtually and in theory, but it will also make the classes more interesting instead of the teachers just talking about a single subject for hours.
Virtual reality may bring a lot of progress to the education sector in terms of interactive and efficient learning. For example, if the teacher is teaching a lesson on Niagara Falls, she can use the benefits of VR to show the students a virtual experience of being at Niagara Falls. This will help the students get an individual and independent exploration of the place to understand it even better while looking at it.
4. Hybrid learning will be a preferred way of learning
As hybrid learning has now been approved it will soon become a norm. In hybrid learning, a student can study two different subjects at the same time. This will help students experience the in-campus classes while simultaneously taking online classes for a different degree. Hybrid learning will make learning completely online and convenient for students who may not want to move away from their families.
5. Online Guest Lectures
In the case of higher education, colleges and universities can organize guest lectures online mode. The management can invite guests who could be faculty from other institutes, someone from industry, or someone working in the corporate sector to deliver lectures to the students.
Both the students and the guest lecturers can attend or deliver these lectures online from any remote location worldwide and can also interact and discuss with each other. The students can discuss the latest trends in technology or acquire knowledge about the things they are not completely aware of with the help of technology.
6. Tech companies to Enter the Education sector
In the year 2022, the possibilities of companies working in the field of technology to enter the education sector, have tie-ups with reputed educational institutions or even establish their universities.
A reputable multinational company might come up with its curriculum which will be completely focused on providing practical knowledge. These courses would provide knowledge customized as per the industry requirements and provide emphasis on the employability aspect.
7. Remote Proctored Exams
The exams which will be conducted online will be monitored using remote proctoring techniques. Various algorithms which will be developed using advanced technology such as Artificial Intelligence will help educational institutes to conduct online exams in an environment that is free of cheating.
Thus, the location constraint will be eliminated and the students can appear for the exam from any remote location in a secure environment.
We at Splashgain Technology have built a platform known as Eklavvya which is being used in more than 15 countries in the world to conduct remotely proctored online exams. Right from schools to universities, all the educational institutions are choosing Eklavvya’s platform.
Such platforms will be aggressively adopted by educational institutions in the current year. Thus, remote proctoring has helped to digitize the old traditional way of conducting exams.
8. AI adoption across the AI industry will reach peak
The growth of AI has become a massive topic of discussion so far and so has the potential for all the things it can do. In that case, AI would be one of the best ways to implement technology in the education process. AI can take over the positions of proctors in online exams and keep an oversight of the students online.
Considering how AI is built, it will be easier to check for any sort of rules being broken or any cheating can be caught quickly. It will also make its way into the classrooms to identify students through face recognition which will help teachers keep track of attendance of the class and make sure all students are in the class and attentive.
9. Niche learning with Videos on the internet:
Video learning is already proving to be the smartest way to incorporate technology into classes. Video classes or videos shown about the lessons can be very efficient and help students to learn visually while watching related videos and discussing them with each other to get a full understanding of the subject.
Video Learning might become even bigger with hands-on the VR world in classes. Visual classes which help students to imagine, understand and interact with have proven to be very efficient as a learning tool.
10. Chatbots will turn daily part of students’ lives
Chatbots have been continuing to grow and stay relevant in the education sector and classes. Especially in online classes, chatbots have been a massive help in student and teacher interaction and efficient communication. Chatbots have now become a source of connecting with the class and communicating with the students to give full attention to every student’s query.
Chatbots have been used throughout the online classes in Zoom and Google Meets and continue to grow as efficient tools. Chatbots have proven to have brought a 30% increase in operational costs. Chatbots soon will also take over as the default way of communication which will handle most of the communication between students and teachers by 85%.
Advantages of Education Technology
1. Cost-effective
Online learning is also going to prove cost-effective as the costs invested in infrastructure will be eliminated. For example, a candidate enrols on a full-time offline MBA course for which he/she needs to pay 50,000 USD. The cost of the same course can be reduced to as low as 10,000 USD or 15000 USD if it is taken online mode.
The guest lecturers need not travel to the college or university to share their knowledge with curious young minds which also helps to save some bucks. The technology is thus going to save you from burning a hole in your pockets.
2. Flexible Education
Due to hybrid education, a smaller number of students will be allowed to visit the campus to attend physical classes. Hence, the management will be able to accommodate a greater number of students in a class. All the barriers related to physical classes will be removed and education can thus become flexible with the help of technology.
3. Time flexibility
As the online exams are conducted remotely, students belonging to any geographical area or any time zone will be able to appear for the online exam. Thus, the location barriers are eliminated.
4. Voice-based assessments and programming tests
Voice-based assessments and programming tests are some examples of how education technology is proving advantageous to the education sector. Both of these assessments can be conducted online with the help of education technology.
Voice-based assessments come with an option to record the answers which are orally said by the candidates while in the case of the programming tests, options are provided to compile and run the code to check the output after the program code is written by the candidate.
The answers recorded while giving voice-based assessment are later listened to and evaluated by the examiners but in the case of programming tests, the evaluation is automated. The system itself checks the code and evaluates it. Voice-based assessments can be used to conduct oral or viva exams and programming tests can prove useful to conduct online exams to assess candidates’ knowledge related to any computer languages.
Conclusion
As our education only grows and progresses with more and more advances it, it is about time we start implementing even more technology into the classes and the concept of learning to make education even more efficient and convenient. The digitalization of the concept of education will not only bring more learners wanting to learn more things but also a sense of flexibility and efficiency in the education sector.
In 2024, education will be all about creative thinking, critical analysis, and innovative technologies rather than just the growth of student memorizing capacity. Technologies like Digital Answer Sheet Evaluation, LMS, AI integrated online proctored exams will change the face of education; whether AI will prove to be a threat or a boon to the education sector is debatable, but one thing is certain, AI will be a game changer in this sector.
About the Author
Swapnil has experience of more than 15 years in the Information Technology sector. He has been working on digital platforms in the education sector. Swapnil is an avid reader and writes articles on technology and leading developments in the education and IT sectors.
Swapnil is the founder of Splashgain, an Education Technology company from India working on various innovative EdTech platforms for examinations, proctoring solutions, digital admission processes, and more. Splashgain has been working with many educational institutes and universities for AI-powered innovations and solutions to transform the education sector.
Splashgain has also filed a patent for an innovative product based on AI.
