EdTech: Tech for Teachers Today
From AI to extended reality to interactive digital tools, discover the top trends in educational technology that will make learning more fun and immersive.
Classrooms around the world have gone digital. As we welcome another year of knowledge, find out the latest in EdTech--the combination of education and digital technology to facilitate and enhance learning. After more than a year of remote learning, what trends have emerged? And as we continue to find alternatives to face-to-face instructions, what tools can teachers use to keep their students engaged? Let’s find out.
Top edtech trends to watch out for
Artificial intelligence (AI)
With AI, students can have a hyper-personalized learning journey in real time and get quick feedback on their performance. Lessons and exercises are available 24/7 and can be customized based on a student’s learning style.
One example is Thinkster, a personalized math tutoring program that combines AI and machine learning to help tutors evaluate a student’s progress.
For younger children, there’s ROYBI, an AI-powered educational robot that was named one of TIME Magazine’s best inventions of 2019. It provides children with a personalized education based on their interests and learning pace. It offers hundreds of interactive lessons in science, technology, math, language learning, games, and songs.
Watch the video below to learn more about ROYBI.
Extended reality (XR)
Extended reality is a term that covers all combinations of real and virtual environments such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR).
With the price of VR headsets going down, XR can be a powerful educational tool to enhance the learning journey with interactive, immersive, and engaging content and experiences.
Labster is a Danish startup that provides virtual science labs to over 2,000 institutions and over three million students around the world. Educators can choose from over 200 simulations where students can perform lab experiments online. They can explore life science concepts at the molecular level with detailed animation.
Watch this video to see how Labster works.
Gamification
Nothing like a little friendly competition to get students amped up--especially with increasing Zoom fatigue and shrinking attention spans. In a fun, exciting learning environment, gamification can improve student motivation and engagement. Leaderboards and dashboards give students instant feedback, while data reports help teachers evaluate student comprehension.
According to tech market intelligence firm CB Insights, the global gamification education market is expected to increase to USD 1.8 billion by 2023, up from USD 450 million in 2018. Let the games begin!
Check out this video on how gamification is being used in education.
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC)
With massive open online courses, adult learners can upskill in the comfort of their homes. Because these courses are asynchronous, they can study at their own pace.
Coursera has partnered with universities like Caltech, INSEAD, and Imperial College London to provide online degrees. While Udemy doesn’t offer accredited degrees, it offers over 155,000 online video courses that can help you learn new skills and or advance your career.
Feel like beefing up your knowledge and skills? Check out these other MOOC options:
Learning Management Systems (LMS)
With remote learning going mainstream, a learning management system (LMS) is crucial. An LMS helps educators create and assign course content, track student progress, and evaluate student performance.
Educators have a lot on their plate, and LMS is coming to the rescue. Valued at USD 10.84 billion in 2020, the global learning management system market size grew by 23.8% in 2020 as compared to the average year-on-year growth from 2017 to 2019. The global LMS market is projected to grow from USD 13.38 billion in 2021 to USD 44.49 billion in 2028.
Three edtech tools to try now
Looking to make learning fun, customized, and collaborative for your students or children? Check out these digital tools!
What it is: Gimkit is an interactive digital quiz-style game that allows educators to create multiple choice questions for any topic. Teachers create a question set called a “kit,” which students can play live or assign a kit as homework. For the live learning game, teachers can choose from different game modes.
When students give a correct answer, they earn “money” that can be used to buy various power-ups. For example, they can earn more points per question, deflect harmful powerups from competitors, or execute actions to sabotage other teams.
What’s great about it: Teachers get real-time data of a student’s performance during a game. At the end of each game, they also receive a data report showing the overall class and individual student responses. This report is a helpful tool for providing students with feedback and getting a clearer picture of student comprehension.
What it is: Actively Learn is an online education platform that lets teachers and students interact with readings and digital texts. As students read the material, they must answer interactive questions to continue reading. They can take notes, ask questions of their own, share thoughts with their classmates, and respond to comments from other students. Teachers can add interactive notes with definitions or contextual information for a deeper reading experience.
What’s great about it: It’s a treasure trove of reading resources that are filtered by topic, grade, length, reading level, keyword, and academic standards. Actively Learn is not only effective but also inclusive. You can translate a word to over 100 languages and use text-to-speech. It’s compatible with any device and web browser. Plus, you can also make videos interactive.
What it is: Whiteboard.chat is a free and feature-rich virtual whiteboard designed by teachers. Teachers can monitor each of their student’s boards in real time, allowing them to give quick and personalized feedback. It’s accessible across multi-devices, and students can work on group collaborations.
What’s great about it: It’s 100% free, with no registration required. You can add various media types--from voice recordings to a calculator to even a dice you can roll to pick the next student.
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