The Future of Digital Education: What Will Learning Look Like?

It’s no secret the landscape of learning has changed. More than ever, students of all ages are learning digitally, and looking to alternative methods of studying and seeking further education.

According to an article by the Independent, nine in every ten people would like to continue working from home once the COVID crisis has ended. With families spending more time together, learning becoming more integrated beyond the walls of schools and education centers, could we see the same sort of push for remote learning take place soon?

What does the future of learning look like in eighteen months? Several years? A decade?

The Evolution of Learning: What the World of Education Might Look Like In the Years to Come

Technology is a cornerstone of modern businesses, homes, and centers of education too. Technology will continue to evolve rapidly, and the way students learn along with it. Here are some predictions for how education will transform and evolve in the coming years.

Extended Realities Make Learning More Interactive and Visual

Virtual and augmented realities are already commonplace in our world; virtual reality headsets on PC and games consoles, and interactive augmented reality experiences on our smartphones aren’t anything new.

It’s likely we’ll see these technologies become more common in education, with scannable QR codes in textbooks and similar technologies bring words to life, transforming diagrams of dinosaurs into 3D models students can see and interact with, to name just one example.

Teaching Young Students to Program Becomes a Core Skill

With technology becoming so prevalent in our world, young students will need to know how to navigate such a technically complex world. Students may find coding part of their core curriculum in the near future. In 2014, students in the UK as young as five were being taught coding. This trend will likely continue, as understanding technology and the programming beneath it all is vital to the future of our tech-focused world.

Teachers Are Expected to Be Technology-Proficient Too

Gone are the days when the ICT teacher was the go-to person for technology issues and advise. In the future, teachers of all subjects will be expected to understand how to use everything from computers to interactive whiteboards, virtual reality systems, and more.

Learning Materials Go Digital

Particularly in a time where multiple people passing something physical around is a risk, digital learning materials are a boon. Go forward a few years however, and this becomes the norm. Education costs to source new textbooks and also replace damaged materials makes up a significant portion of their budget.

At some point, we may see schools and other learn centers make the switch to wholly digital learning materials, replacing textbooks, worksheets, and more with on-screen equivalents.

Rewind and Replay Lessons

Much of our learning over the past few months has taken place over platforms like Zoom, with students and teachers alike dialing into an online classroom to learn and teach. There’s a distinct possibility this could become the norm, or at least be an addition to current teaching methods.

Could we see a future where lessons are recorded and automatically sent to students once the lesson is over, so they can revisit lessons they missed, struggled with, or misunderstood the first time around? Quite possibly.

Add to this digital assignments and worksheets, and education can very well be something that goes beyond the classroom.

AI Becomes the Teacher’s Assistant

Machine learning and AI is a conversation piece that’s growing more and more prominent in our world. Assistants like Bixby and Google Assistant help us organize our lives, while smart AI systems beat chess grandmasters and esports professionals at their own game.

It’s not hard to imagine a time soon where marking student papers is a process aided by AI, enabling more consistent grades (a particularly relevant topic, given recent events) and swifter marking processes for teachers.

Teaching Becomes Personalized to Each Student

For the most part, curriculums apply the same body of knowledge to each student through the same method. Teachers may vary this delivery depending on their own teaching methods and styles, but the result is much the same; everyone in their class is taught via the same method.

With inclusions like AI and smart technology increasing its role in our world, we could see this integration enable teachers to understand who is struggling with their work, and make changes to content delivery to those students.

It can difficult for teachers to find adequate time to identify struggling students; technology will mean they don’t need to shoulder that responsibility alone. Soon, education could become much more inclusive.

Bigger Barriers to Entry

Technology isn’t cheap, particularly when it’s new. While much of what we’ve speculated on in this piece is just that – speculation – if it comes to pass, we could see even larger barriers for students who come from low-income households.

There are already barriers for such students, who may not have access to the internet at home. If our center of education push towards a digitally-focused future, there’s a distinct possibility many students will be left behind.

Whatever the future of education holds, it should mean more students are involved and invested in their own education, not less; education establishments should bear this in mind as we continue to progress how we teach future generations.

(Find the original article at ASUS Business Hub)

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