As technology has entrenched its ways and impacts in our day to day life, the educational industry is no exception to it. The days of rifling through the pages are long gone. With a massive amount of data and information available at our fingertips, learning and researching are illimitable. However, one cannot deny that technology has influenced student’s learning adversely because of all the digital distractions that surround us which in turn has reduced the attention spans of students and learners.
On the other hand, e-learning and edTech are some of the most powerful educational tools. Improving the quality and standards of education is one of the major concerns many educationist and academic experts. If utilized properly, technology can be used to improve traditional teaching and learning methods. Despite all the negative impacts and digital distractions, technology is facilitating the educational industry with innovative tools, encouraging learners to gain more knowledge through improved solutions and providing a better environment through engaging virtual classrooms.
Now with millions of digital tools and solutions at your disposal, the need for integrating technology in your learning process is the demand and dire need of today’s advanced world. Here are some of the ways and changes that technological disruption has brought in the educational industry:
• Virtual models and simulations:
In the conventional learning process, grasping a concept is no easy job for the students. To ease the complexities of concepts and difficult ideas, digital models and simulations are used for students’ comprehensibility. With these digital models, the students are not just able to understand the concepts, but they also get an opportunity to acquaint themselves with the wonders of technology and its changes in the educational industry.
On the other hand, these digital models are not just benefiting the students but the teachers as well. At times it becomes difficult for the teacher to explain certain concepts within a classroom. With the integration of technology in education and teaching methods, the teachers can prepare better and interactive lectures and lessons by including multiple activity models and controls for the learners.
• Improved communication:
Communication is the key factor for better understandability. In education, without effective and active communication among the students and teachers accomplishment of teaching goals is almost implausible. It a well-known fact that technology abridges the communication gap and in the education sector this rapid growth of technology has fastened the flow of knowledge.
Whether it’s a traditional physical classroom or a virtual classroom, through collaboration tools and applications one can easily build a virtual education community where students and teachers can interact in real-time, assign and submit projects, ask queries without being in the same room.
• Improved research:
The research was one of the most tedious tasks of every project. Going through tons of books and encyclopedia to get a piece of information but with the emergence and incorporation of technology in the education industry, one can easily get done with the research process in a few hours. With the addition of cloud storage in the research process, one can easily edit and improve his assignments and project. Since research is now just a few hours job, students can invest more time on improving the projects and can actually incorporate all the gained knowledge in the projects and assignments.
With tools like Wikipedia, students don’t have to go through multiple sites and sources to get credible information. Since these pages are edited and written by some of the highly-qualified Wikipedia writers and editors who convert complex concepts and ideas easier to understand. Moreover, these Wikipedia writers and contributors work in collaboration with businesses and companies to assist them in getting successful wiki pages.
• Effective assessments:
With technologically advanced tools and digital models, not only teachers are able to explain complex concepts but these tools are a great help in progress assessments of students. These software packages and tools allow the teachers and student to give and receive progress assessments in real-time. These tools help the teachers in maintaining the records and tracking the performance of the student throughout the year.
It also helps the teachers in having a better understanding of the difficulties faced by students and to make relevant efforts in solving the problems and difficulties.
• Self-paced learning:
Every student has his own pace; some are quick learners they don’t need much explanation to grasp a concept whereas some need time to understand every single concept and idea. For such students, technology is a huge blessing because now with digital tools and apps they can easily understand every concept through developed online lessons and curriculum.
• Online collaboration:
The idea of group studies made a shift to the online world as well. Now with online groups, the students don’t have to be in the same room or even the same countries to discuss and complete their assignments and group projects. Not the students can chat and talk about their projects, but they can also share their notes, lectures, and documents on these groups.
