5 Technologies That Will Revolutionize Education
Cally is currently learning data science in Nigeria and his lecturer is miles away in the US. It's been almost 6 months now, and he has never met his lecturer physically. There isn't a single hope that he will ever see him, even after he has become a certified data scientist. It's funny to think that this would have been impossible some 10-11 years ago. So what has changed?
Technology has changed the way we learn. It will still continue to transform the way that we consume information. Gone are the days when we had to agree on a time and place where knowledge had to be impacted. Now, all we have to do is to have someone who records themselves teaching the knowledge and puts it on an online platform. Anyone can then access it from any part of the world through an online learning platform. Having entered some access codes or downloaded the necessary application, you can access a whole world of learning from your smartphone or computer.
Technology is not done transforming education. There will still be further improvements that would happen in the field of education through technology. In this article, we highlight a number of ways through which technology is still going to transform education.
Gamification
One of the problems of the 21st century is that a lot of kids are addicted to games. From PlayStation to Xbox, students now prefer to play games rather than study. However, the advent of gamification means that this addiction can be channelled into education, and used to develop a system that students can actually enjoy learning from.
The US is blazing the trail in the adoption of games as learning tools for students in grade schools. Learning materials are created around games, and while students play the games on one end, they can pick up valuable information that helps them in the academic world on the other end. While not a direct example, the Mavis Beacon typing game is one of the earliest adoptions of games for learning. A contemporary example is Duolingo, which has used a gamified experience to teach various languages. It currently ranks as the top language learning application in the world.
E-learning
In the year 2020, e-learning was the number-one educational trend all around the world. It’s not difficult to see why when you consider the effect of the pandemic. With the global lockdown, many had so much time on their hands, without knowing what to do with it. And since the human mind hates to be idle, they used that opportunity to develop and learn skills they wouldn’t have learned if they waited for a physical class.
E-Learning made distance learning possible, and it also crashed the high cost of education. Instead of paying $6000 for a project management course that would have taken around six months to learn, you could easily pay $60 and learn the same project management course at your own pace, with the same syllabus.
E-learning still has a long way to go, and as the years go by, we will witness its continuous evolution.
Video-Assisted Learning
Cally struggled Physics in secondary school. In retrospect, it wasn't because those concepts were difficult to understand, it was simply because asking a 13-year-old kid to understand an abstract term was never going to help them in any way.
While we made use of textbooks and illustrations, it would have helped if there were easy-to-understand formats to gain a better understanding of the concepts. Technology, however, now makes this possible.
A kid does not have to do the heavy lifting of understanding an abstract term; they could easily search for a YouTube video that explains a concept like the duality of matter. Also, instead of laboriously explaining a concept, a teacher could curate video content to illustrate the subject,
Blockchain Technology
Blockchain technology has come a long way from the technology behind Bitcoin in 2009. Every single day, someone finds a new use for Blockchain technology.
If you have ever done an online class, then you will know what a Massive Open Online Course is. It is abbreviated as MOOC. You would have experienced one of the simplest uses of blockchain in education.
Blockchain technology provides an easy way to establish trust during transactions, without the presence of a third party. Therefore, in education, it will help to better verify certificates and reduce the amount of paper documentation needed. People can now easily publish their skills on their platforms and those skills can be verified in the blockchain. Blockchain technology can also solve the problems of cost, expansion, and growth for various online educational platforms.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
One technology still being explored in education is the use of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence helps automate repeated tasks that are necessary for the educational system. By automating these tasks (such as grading, monitoring students' progress, assigning tasks and assignments), students and teachers alike can spend more time learning and imparting knowledge rather than doing mundane tasks.
Artificial intelligence systems can also learn to give feedback to students. All teachers need to do is to understand the students and help to design an AI system that is best suited for a particular group of students.
Closing words
We are at an interesting period where education meets technology. As technology interacts with education, the efficiency of learning will increase. This will reduce the amount of work that teachers need to do while teaching and enable them to concentrate on vital aspects of learning.