The covid disease outbreak is affecting all the industries in a disrupt way; the education sector is one of them. The covid effect on schooling systems is not for the short term but has long-term consequences.
However, connecting students and instructors with the technology in the middle of a crisis is the supporting element for the entire educational system. Teachers are creating virtual lessons, relying on e-learning apps, communicating with their students, and conducting exams. All in all, mobile app technology is revamping the education landscape by all means.
Let’s have a look at how the academic environment is changing with apps and innovations.
Mobile Phones – Humankind Survival
Needless to say, but mobile phones have all the things today’s human wants. Whatever your problem is, a mobile device can solve it. It is an entirely new world in which we are immersed and never want to look back or think about the exit from it.
Education technology (EdTech) affordability and flexibility are also basing on smartphones. The covid has made the schools, colleges, and universities to remain off, and disrupted the education. Lockdown and social distancing are sorts of barriers in the students’ learning process.
But among many bad experiences, one good is that it shifted the focus on developing an EdTech industry. While students and teachers are not allowed to contact physically, they are using online classrooms and learning applications instead to continue the learning.
Accessing the Resources
Internet is a world of digital content; you can find anything on it, from needle to airplane, everything, but with extensive research. People in a pandemic found the best free learning tools unknown previously, including digital libraries. These resources, today, are a valuable addition to the student’s learning stack.
Individuals who prefer self-learning, love reading or want to learn new skills can access such mediums to gain knowledge for free.
Now, people can use a screen and video capture tool to create their own digital resources. With screen recording, people can record anything happening on the webcam, computer screen, or both.
Once you’re finished recording, you can share the video message with your intended audience via email or chat. Now, you have a centralized library and workspace to access, save, and organize videos, simplifying your everyday tasks.
Effective Communication Between Teacher and Guardians
Schools these days are implementing learning technologies in various ways. These technological additions enable teachers to teach right from their residences and discuss the students’ progress with their guardians.
Parents can also send their queries and concerns to the teacher with an app to make better decisions for their child’s growth. Using a screen and video capture tool promotes better communication and collaboration. Teachers can deliver instructions easily. Parents and guardians can play the videos all over again if the student needs further guidance on a certain topic.
Developing a Rapport
It is pretty challenging to manage files, audiotapes, and screens. On the contrary, it is a lot easier to focus on the students if everything you need is in the same place; you don’t have to move here and there searching for files.
With innovative apps, developing trust and rapport is a lot easier nowadays. Educational apps are more interactive, and video conferencing mimics face-to-face interaction. Teachers can sing, dance, and perform activities online through video conferencing apps with two or more students involved. Also, teachers can still help students promote socialization and emotional skills by initiating meaningful and fun activities even during online sessions.
When needed, teachers and child psychologists can work together if a child seems to display maladaptive behavior as reported by parents. Children still receive holistic assistance from the educational and health sector like in pre-COVID times.
Lessons on Stream
Due to the coronavirus crisis, numerous students were left out of school. Adopting a streaming platform for conveying lectures was the priority for many educational institutions. It helped students carry on with their usual learning process on a new medium without losing any time. Pre-recorded lectures are also bringing convenience for the students who are in different time zones.
Zoom is the most demanding video conferencing platform in the whole online teaching journey, not only in teaching but also in virtual offices. This platform is free to use and mostly sought during this pandemic.
Engaging Students
Technology in the classroom makes studying more enjoyable and exciting, allowing students to participate in the activities.
Simulation tools, for instance, let the students visualize the inner side of the human body and its processes like how the digestion system work, the brain sends a signal through the nervous system, bones structure, and many more things. Alternatively, teachers can show students the world’s places via Google earth where we physically cannot be.
Explaining a complex topic with videos and animations are also a profound way to develop a clear understanding among students. Incorporating gamified concepts in traditional learning can also significantly increase the student’s engagement level. They will work hard to win the game while learning a subject in parallel.
Digital World Preparation
Today’s generation and even upcoming ones have encoded digitality in their genetics. Without any knowledge and training, children of this age are instinctive users of computers, smartphones, and tablets. We are close to the time when digital literacy will become the world’s prerequisite.
Today’s many jobs require some digital elements to leverage the work, making it essential for the students to use and ethically learn technology. For creating a productive society, classroom technology can help to develop the skills required for it. Small steps like preparing presentations, separating good and bad sources, learning online work etiquettes count big in the long run.
Gamification
Who doesn’t like gaming? No one for sure. The gaming industry has surpassed all the barriers and created a whole new gaming universe. Millennials prefer games over tedious study every time. But what if we fuse gaming into education? If we gamify the study process where students learn and play simultaneously, nothing can stop them from learning. Teachers also can create a reward system where students will receive the prize when they pass the specific level.
Avatars, scavenger hunts, gamified quizzes, role-play situations are some of the ways which can turn boring topics into exciting games.
While designing a game, it is vital to keep in mind that it is correctly synced with the course and topics.
Virtual Trips
Traveling from the classroom sounds fantastic. Students can virtually visit every place that exists on earth from their screens. Google Street View, Google Earth is there to assist you in the virtual journey. AR and VR, next to it, are also creating an immersive world where students can experience the things not possible to see in the actual physical world.
Whether you want to make a trip to a national park, museum, or art gallery, virtual trips will lead you to the desired destination without any hassle. So, now, along with books, students should start carrying a virtual headset to visit new places every day.
Response of Education Sector to COVID-19
As a response, many E-learning platforms like Udemy and Coursera provided free access to many of their courses to continue learning. These platforms’ significant steps led several students to gain industry-level skills for free while living in quarantine. Many virtual workshops and seminars took place to guide the students about using the best online resources for learning and gave them opportunities to grow in the covid crisis.
Future of E-Learning Apps
Moving on online platform for learning so fast was a hard step for many of us. Several still believe that this unplanned move will not bring any good; it’s just temporary and will be over with pandemic ease. On the coin’s other side, this hybrid learning model got countless benefits for several who always wanted such an education system.
However, it is a struggle for many instructors to adopt technology in their teaching pattern as they are not used to, and have no sufficient training over it. The change was sudden, no doubt; more than students, teaching professionals had a hard time becoming comfortable with the new methods. Nonetheless, mobile app development is playing a vital role in streamlining the education process on digital mediums.
Investors are not showing any sign of slowing down investing in education technology, but it is a two-way process. Schools and institutions need to embrace the latest developments. They must provide training to instructors for the efficient use of technology.
It’s not only about technology and innovation; a safe learning online environment is what we need for the future.
