Image by Hatice EROL from Pixabay
Covid-19 has not only changed education as we know it, but it has forced education technology (EdTech) to up its game. EdTech has been crucial since the start of this worldwide pandemic. Schools have used Google Classroom and other tools to teach their students and send them work. Parents and caregivers have used it throughout this time to help during homeschooling, and with new cases of Covid-19 ramping up, it seems EdTech is going nowhere soon.
Although there has been immense growth in this area in 2020, as EdTech companies competed for clients, there is still a lot more growth to come. Let’s have a good look at the four emerging EdTech trends in 2021.
1. Accessibility to Education
EdTech can improve access to education in several ways:
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Textbooks are expensive. Digital versions of textbooks can be accessed online at any time and are cheaper to purchase. This means that disadvantaged students get all the materials they need.
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Technology can be tailored to meet any need. This is revolutionary for those with disabilities, whether they be physical disabilities or learning disabilities.
2. Mobile Tech
The children of today are digital natives. Children know more about technology by seven years old than their parents do! Many four-year-old preschoolers can operate a cell phone and tablet. Students going to school expected technology to be available to them. Covid-19 has taken this a step further.
How do you teach a room of digital natives? Education has become more mobile throughout 2020 and will become even more so through 2021. Students have folders on their iPhones labeled “education” just keeping their Google Classroom, Google Docs, and Google Sheets in. This folder allows students to consume the necessary information wherever they are.
3. Online Assessments
Tests used to be rigid and strict. Today’s tests, the online assessments, are customizable, flexible, secure, interactive, and simple to deliver. As the heart of the learning process, online assessments are formative and adaptive.
The way schools test students’ knowledge, skills, and abilities must regularly be amended and improved if the schools are going to deliver fair and accurate assessments. This type of testing is the testing of tomorrow.
4. Data-Driven Insights
In the days of distance learning, students are taking tests at home rather than in a classroom with teacher supervision. At times, distance learning at home means little or no supervision in the room during schooling hours. This lack of oversight leaves room for “unhealthy levels of accountability, high-stakes testing and stress,” according to the National Education Union.
EdTech helps to solve this problem. Apps let teachers administer quizzes and generate immediate results. Due to automated technology like artificial intelligence and machine learning, they also allow the teacher to monitor the student effectively and evaluate the progress he or she is making.
Conclusion
These four emerging EdTech trends will soon be fully upon us, just as 2021 is almost here. These EdTech solutions are enormously valuable. They’ll work together with the EdTech of today to further deliver the educational content and resources that are the most relevant to the students’ education in a very digestible way.
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