Education is undergoing massive changes as emerging technology reshapes and redefines the ways students are learning.
As large tech companies have learned, the best people to manage their systems are those who started learning at a young age. The tech field has continued to grow companies are taking a vested interest in the education system.
While reeducation is so prominent due to constantly evolving systems and processes, the reimagining of classrooms and how education is conducted could not have come at a better time.
Is this day and age of virtual learning, which has been thrust upon the world due to the pandemic, we need to think about what we want our classrooms to look like when educators and students return to schools. If we don’t, we need to know how learning might look in a truly virtual environment.
But with the world expanding so quickly, how can we prepare our students for what the world might look like a decade from now?
Virtual Reality Field Trips
Imagine – you have to teach a 10th grade astronomy lesson, but you’re students have just come back from lunch and are already napping at their desks. What do you do? How about sending them into space?
With technologies like VR goggles used for gaming, students can experience the solar system like never before. Students could potentially fly to the moon, pass by the sun, pop on over to the next galaxy, all from the (relative) comfort of their desks.
Augmented reality allows students to gain insights into places and events like never before. Why not have them stand on the front lines of Gettysburg? Or travel inside a human body. Let them see what a volcanic explosion looks like up close.
Not only does this allow for deeper insights for historical events or otherwise unexplorable habitats, but it can also provide them with opportunities to visit current sites.
Virtual field trips will add to the experience of a student’s learning as well as keeping them engaged and entertained. Already we’ve seen remarkable endeavors from Google Earth and their street view mechanics; they even allow some interior shots of certain buildings.
But with augmented reality, students will be able to walk through the White House, or visit the Louvre, and maybe even attend Broadway shows. It will be experienced in high definition with surround sound.
Deeper Analysis, Deeper Knowing
The introduction of many digital tools in both the teachers and students’ hands has provided educators with an astounding amount of data which can be used to direct and individualize learning for students.
With deeper learning experiences, students are more frequently emerging with ideas about their own learning and the paths they want to be on to achieve their goals.
Because of the transition in philosophies from a teacher-centric perspective to a more student-centered curriculum, teachers are learning about unique tools such as data and analytics and what they bring to a new technological culture.
Predictive analytics offers insight to educators on how a student might progress through a specific learning path based on past performance and other relative conditions, such as learning disabilities.
This also allows for educators to step in and offer some preventive care before students start experiencing too many difficulties and begin to fall behind in their performance.
Using analytics tools like these allows educators the freedom to perform a minimal amount of administrative tasks, something that every educator knows can be time consuming. This leaves them available to assist students as needed and be more focused on tasks at hand rather than fretting about the progress of certain students who would otherwise be left behind.
Project-Based Learning
The culture of teaching for the test is well on it’s way out, despite its dogged, hound-toothed grip on schools everywhere. Because of this, educators require better, more effective ways to evaluate student progress.
Remember those virtual reality expeditions? Well, what if it were a student’s responsibility to create one of those sessions?
That may be a little extreme, but the principle still stands. Technology is uniquely and foundationally project-based to the core, in both the virtual and real world.
On one hand, elements such as programming, low-code app development, data and analytics, cloud technology, and network administration all offer environments in which students will have to perform project-based assessments. These can be accurately monitored and detailed with feedback.
Coding is a great example, because of how prevalent it will be to future learning and the digitization of the classroom. With coding, students can be tasked with an assignment to complete, and the success of that assignment can be easily integrated into the analysis environment.
Additionally, skills like network technician, building computers, robotics, and mechanical engineering continuously provide students with additional tasks that are just as easily evaluated and assessed.
This method provides students with useful and meaningful learning and skills rather than preparing them for a test that covers topics so broadly that one wonders if anyone really learned anything at all.
Tools of the Trade
A big part of this digital transformation in education will be the tools that students interact with on a daily basis. Some of these things we have already discussed, like virtual reality goggles, but how else can we expect classrooms to transform?
Already now we have seen classrooms prepped with electronic whiteboards. These boards allow students to interact with them in unique and engaging ways.
One example is how chemistry students are given the ability to mix certain “chemicals” on screen for a science project. Should they combine the wrong mixture, billowing plumes of smoke and fire will animate the board? Conveniently, students will have no need to wear safety goggles as they learn.
Tablets and phones are an emerging trend in the ways students interact with their campus. From providing daily schedules to note taking to location monitoring, these are sure to become more prevalent in the day to day student life.
Additionally, fingerprint locks for lockers, interactive displays throughout the campus, and educational gaming systems are all things we can expect to see in future campuses.
The Real Transformation
Aside from the digital transformation taking place, the lasting changes that are guaranteed to be made are the people you hire to get the job done right.
Especially with the demands of COVID-19 and what is required from employees and teams today, you need to be sure you’ve hired the right person for the job.
Let Newman’s International Associates (NIA) connect you with the right candidate for your needs.
