How Technology Is Reviving Education's Future

Schools worldwide are adopting remote learning and cutting-edge education technologies, from global online education institutions to local secondary schools, even as lockdowns fade into memory.

During the epidemic, students in hundreds of nations were introduced to online learning, with teachers remotely taking the register and giving courses via video and cloud-sharing technologies.

Such technology was critical in assisting children in the early months of the pandemic in the United Kingdom and in dozens of other nations worldwide.

Although education technology had been increasing and developing before the pandemic, hybrid learning styles are currently gaining the lead in future education.

Teachers, in particular, think that educational technology may provide additional benefits.

Teachers who spoke with the researchers remarked that remote teaching might provide flexibility regarding staffing, such as decreasing the need for agency employees. They also emphasized the benefits of a blended teaching approach, in which training is given in-person and online simultaneously.

Teachers contacted for the study saw that students with health issues perform better while studying at home.

A Welcoming Classroom

Classrooms can also be made more accessible using hybrid teaching and video technologies.

This year, a British granddad aged 92 achieved a GCSE owing to remote learning technology.

Derek Skipper received the highest possible grade on his foundation paper, a grade of five, with all his lessons taking place via video conferencing. Despite being an extreme case, it demonstrates how technology is tearing down barriers.

Throughout the epidemic, we worked closely with schools worldwide, learning a lot about what works and doesn't to deliver remote learning through technology.

Experts considered feedback from parents to ensure that lessons could be delivered even over slow internet connections and to older devices. Toward the end of the epidemic, we also assisted instructors in figuring out how to give education in a hybrid setting, with some students in the classroom and some at home.

The advantages of remote learning and technology, such as video conferencing for schools, continue beyond small and hybrid classes.

Remote staff meetings across several schools and virtual mentoring are also possible with video technology, resulting in studying experiences that would not have been possible without it.

Video technology and remote learning also allow parents to become more active in their children's education.

Video Learning Is Not the Second-best Option

Video learning is not always the "second best" option. Indeed, the higher education sector is already striving to rate universities according to the quality of their video-learning courses.

Experts from the Open University collaborated with Italy's Institute for Educational Technology researchers to develop a university rating system based on the quality of their digital courses.

According to the researchers, the new criteria could be used to analyze face-to-face and online learning at universities.

Other global universities have shifted their focus to video-based learning.

OneSchool Global, which has 23 locations throughout England, serving students from Year 3 to Year 12, and which embraced online learning provided via video with enthusiasm during the epidemic, is one success story for online learning around the world.

Online learning helps to remove the gap between different institutions in different countries, with 130 campuses in 20 countries. Before the epidemic, OneSchool Global had eagerly embraced online and hybrid classes.

When lockdowns occurred, the organization switched to complete video and interactive learning for all primary and secondary students, clocking millions of minutes in video conferencing and custom-designed security safeguards to protect kids' online safety.

Providing Feedback on Schools' Video Lessons

In the epidemic's early stages, famous institutions such as Oxford University's Sad Business School turned exclusively to video conferencing to provide courses without missing a minute of instructional time.

Executives at the institution attributed their ability to transition to being early adopters and looking ahead to the possibilities of the technology.

Teachers and academics increasingly recognize that video technology is vital in twenty-first-century education. For example, Dr. Charles Hodges of Georgia Southern University has urged institutions to stop viewing technology as a "nice-to-have" or "add-on" and instead to ensure that technology is integrated into their organizations to determine what is essential when it comes to delivering online and hybrid learning.

Tools for Maximizing the Effectiveness of Educational Technology

Video education technology has also evolved to meet the education sector's needs. Video learning now provides far more than just a teacher speaking in front of a blackboard. That allows students to interact with the course at their speed. In addition, because of session recording and automated transcription, digital-native young people who have grown up with video streaming may re-watch classes as needed and absorb knowledge at their own pace.

Teachers can also deliver 'microlearning,' cutting courses down into bite-sized spurts of three to five minutes, which can be attractive to elementary and secondary school students.

The ability for students to 'talk back' via chat functionality and the addition of classroom-style digital whiteboards where children can directly interact with information dramatically enhances the power of video learning.

Whiteboards, in particular, are ideal for the hybrid classroom because they allow students in the school to draw on the board while distant students annotate live.

Teachers can also provide engaging opportunities for students to participate in video classes, such as live polls and multiple-choice quizzes.

Teachers can use video conference rooms to talk with students directly and privately, using private chats, not just to replicate the classroom experience.

With the appropriate technology, remote learning can recreate everything from the personal meetings with instructors that make school meaningful to the joyful and collaborative classroom interactions that encourage students. We already deal with generations that learn how to reset an iPad at the same age as reading or counting. Technologies already surround them, and the education process has to keep up with this tendency.

The epidemic may be fading, but the value of educational technology is not.

In the United Kingdom, schools continue to use technology for online staff training, meetings, and parent evenings. In addition, many institutions allow students to self-serve with video lessons in non-primary courses or offer courses delivered via video online. As this technology grows, adding the capability for asynchronous learning and tools like polls and quizzes, it should become an essential component of children's education, providing a new forward-thinking approach for instructors and students to collaborate.