Education Technology: The Potential to Change our World

Education Technology: The Potential to Change our World

When the world woke up to COVID during the spring of 2020, sending ripples through global economies and businesses, no other sector felt the shockwaves of the lockdowns as much as education.?Schooling as we knew it suddenly changed.??Yes, it was all so sudden.?Children were in class one morning and online the next.

Like most businesses, schools across the globe also scrambled to cope.?Cope they did... But barely.?

The flexibility and resilience of information technology was put to test during the pandemic.?
We managed.?But not without paying a price.

Compared to a normal year, US school students lost on average 30% of learning gains in reading and more than 50% in math during lockdown [1]. Many teachers found it hard to monitor attendance and check whether their students were understanding lessons [2] – 97% of US educators reported some level of learning loss [3]. UNICEF estimated that globally children lost more than 1.8 trillion hours of learning [4].

What we learnt – According to the?EdTech Evidence Exchange, educators say that 85% of EdTech tools are poor fits or poorly implemented [5]. Educational technology and applications are most in need of transformation.?Poorly integrated or standalone systems, disparate application architectures with siloed data structures, aged infrastructures and inability to evolve quickly to meet the demand – all lead to one conclusion – more investments in EdTech - in robust modern infrastructures and well integrated systems is the need of the hour.?To bring about a tectonic change in education through the use of information technology.?Technology that will deliver accurate, actionable insights from the data, synchronized systems to help teachers reduce administrative overheads, to help schools run more efficiently and above all, to help the students learn better.

EdTech is now showing its potential and institutions are eager to adopt.?With teaching models shifting from instructor-led to student self-paced learning; with students becoming digitally smarter, using the web, game-based learning and education apps to find information. All-in-one school management systems are revolutionizing schools’ operations, streamlining processes and enabling granular reporting for smarter decision making.

The best systems will integrate third-party applications seamlessly, evolving with a school and its users. They will also facilitate collaboration between students, parents and teachers – providing interactive ways to keep parents up-to-date with their child’s learning and contribute to the process. Throughout the pandemic, parents have been more engaged with their children’s education than ever before [6] – and it is likely that they will want to continue being involved.

A new generation of analytical tools is generating intelligent insights into students’ learning experiences. These will allow educators to guide students and personalize their learning in new ways. Because teachers will be able to easily review dashboards on what students know, what their strengths are and what they are failing to grasp, they will have the dials in the cockpit to help their students fly.

More importantly, EdTech holds the promise to bring societal change [7].?The ability to reach children in remote areas and take education to every corner of the world, protect public health, support teachers, and train young people for an online-dominated economy means that digital learning must become a central feature of education worldwide. But in order for this to happen, more needs to be done in EdTech.?And this must happen now.

As the pandemic finally shows signs of receding, we have the opportunity to?get EdTech right.?To play a role?in helping children everywhere enjoy a great education, seize opportunities, and begin creating solutions to the problems of our century.?


References:

[1] - Projecting the Potential Impact of COVID-19 School Closures on Academic Achievement

[2] - Learning Online: Problems and Solutions - UNICEF Macedonia

[3] - Virtual school resulted in ‘significant’ academic learning loss, study finds - CNBC

[4] - Schoolchildren worldwide have lost 1.8 trillion hours and counting of in-person learning due to COVID-19 lockdowns, says UNICEF

[5] - A Worthy Exchange: EdTech Evidence

[6] - Family and School Relationship during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review

[7] - The potential of using technology to support personalised learning in low- and middle-income countries

Manas Joshi

Connect | Unleash Talent | Drive High Performance | Dare to Lead | Create an Autonomous environment

2 年

As John Dewey said “If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.” tmrw is today..

Jose Varughese

Finance & IT Integration Specialist

2 年

Will absolutely change the learning pace, methods, and reach. Great beginning.

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