Talking 2022: Digital tools taking students into the future
The education field is highly cyclical. During each designated, seasonal break, educators and administrators have the opportunity to assess what’s working and what classrooms need to keep learners ahead of the curve.
Though aspects like parental preference, student-teacher motivations and even government spending play a role, EdTech is the real change driver. Between Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain Technology, most education trends lists read more like something out of Silicon Valley than the school ground.
Wondering which digital tools and devices will reshape learning in 2022? This EdTech forecast is a good roadmap.
Where is classroom technology headed in 2022?
Adaptable, digital and future-focused, ahead are EdTech trends experts foresee as essential to the modern classroom.
Personalised learning:
As the centre of the learning day, the student experience continues to be a major focus going forward. EdTech makes it possible for educators to tailor their teaching and share information while keeping with the pace and methodology that best matches the individual learner.
Big data:
The more data an educator has about their classroom, the more effectively they can teach. Of course, simply collecting mountains of student attendance records, engagement with online coursework or graded assignments throughout one’s educational career won’t do teachers much good if they don’t have an efficient way to analyse it. That’s where big data comes in. It can help schools plan and personalise better lessons for the year ahead and spot potential outcomes for individual learners.
Artificial intelligence:
AI benefits both learner and educator in different ways. On the student side, it can take hard to grasp lessons in difficult subjects like trigonometry and transform them into a tangible experience that engages all their senses. Teachers can say goodbye to remedial, time-consuming tasks like grading and other administrative activities, something they spend approximately 31% of their time doing according to one Telegraph survey.
Learning analytics:
Whether teachers are looking for a tool to help them give more targeted feedback or want to empower students to keep track of their own class prep, learning analytics is a deeply resourced tool used for a wide range of class activities and educational stakeholders. The goal is to optimise learning from every angle, be it testing an individual lesson’s efficacy or evaluating an institution’s org-wide approach to lesson planning.
Digital classrooms and e-learning:
Over the last two years, all schools and students have had some brush with e-learning. While it may have initially come with its fair share of challenges, the benefits are ensuring it persists. Whether learning a foreign language with native speakers in another country or attending a professional development seminar across the country, there will likely always be a place for digital classrooms, at least part time.
Video content:
Between the TV and the internet, students are video natives. Primed from a young age, it’s a reliable way to engage learners and let them set the pace. Educational videos can be re-watched again and again to gain new insights. They can also be paused or rewound, unlike lectures. Reinforcing key concepts through video can be a highly strategic way for educators to break up the learning day or assign homework that actually gets done.
Blockchain technology:
In the classroom, this decentralised method of sharing information has more to do with storing data safely than transferring currency. Content can also be shared transparently with anyone in the world, making educational resources more widely available without compromising their security.
Gamification:
Throughout time, educators have been attempting to make learning fun while ensuring it sticks. With gamification, the fun and immersive qualities are built-in, rewarding student actions with digital incentives that encourage concept mastery.
Nano learning:
The pressure to learn can be huge for students. With this bite-sized approach to education, mini lessons and modules are used to teach complex concepts in an immersive environment by breaking them down and building on one another.
STEAM approaches:
Learning and understanding aren’t always interchangeable. By balancing lessons from each core subject and helping students make an emotional connection, it encourages exploration and experimentation of new material.
Social learning:
Creating social networks is one way educators can prioritise social learning, a phenomenon where peers can learn from one another in an organic way through avenues like discussion forums or document sharing.
Smart campuses:
Using IoT (Internet of Things) technologies, institutions are making learning and teaching a more seamless experience. CoxBlue explains that, “It joins people, devices, and applications and allows universities to make insight-driven decisions to improve security and maximise resources.”
Not only do these EdTech trends encourage a genuine love of learning, they also prepare students for their tech-focused career tracks, a goal all school stakeholders need to prioritise.
