Hi and welcome to this second episode of Education and Educators.
TOday we will briefly discuss emerging education technology.

Education is in the midst of fundamental change - to state the obvious. Never before has there been such intense change in such a short time.

For a very long long time, the system of education remained unchanged. From the Universities of Nalanda, Takshashila, Valabhi and Pushpagiri, till this very day, the conventional education system provided for a physical campus where students and teachers come together to teach, learn and grow the body of knowledge through research.
Today, this long established system is changing. As does everything else.
But it is not just ordinary change, but rapid change. We call it disruption.

Disruptions are destructive to the status-quo. When the age of dinosaurs dai-nuh-saws was ended by a... cata-clys-mic asteroid, a new class of animals - the mammals, who at that time, were no bigger than squirrels, got the opportunity to not just survive, but thrive and eventually take over the entire planet. Disruptions are moments of huge opportunity.

The rise of eLearning allows institutions to grow beyond geographical boundaries. The marketplace of learning is being disrupted. In some areas of learning, online education makes more sense than campus based education. There is now, new competition - One that has no boundaries.


Let us now quicky review the top issues and trends in EdTech for this month.

One. Learner Centricity.
learner centricity is now the evolved key facet of the knowledge economy which is in turn, characterised by learning organisations, learning management systems and e-Learning. The learner now controls what, when, where and how they will learn. The leaner is no longer constrained by time, place or choice. The implications are huge. While campuses are built around the university and college sytem, edtech is now free from such paradigms.  

Two. Mediocrity during change.
As education evolves into eLearning, a phase of mediocrity is all but unavoidable. As teachers learn new skills to teach online and institutions acquire new technologies to enable elearning, the focus on quality takes a backseat. For a while, till we figure out and master the new media of the internet, remote proctored examinations, video conferencing, software settings, quality of education will see a dip. Educators are now trying to flatten the dip and Shorten the duration.

Three. Rapid Evolution under pressure.
In India, Byjus, an educational technology company has quitely entered the Unicorn club, crossing 1 billion US dollars in estimated worth. Education Technology or EdTech is still in its infancy and has not yet been subjected to the pressures of the marketplace, but, like equally under-prepared healthcare system, it has been called to solve the momentous problem of education during this pandemic.  EdTech is now rapidly changing under this new pressure and is undergoing a rebirth of sorts with new ideas, new pedagogy, new technologies and even new achitectures, algorithms and coding languages.

Four. Instructional Design.
Instructional Design lies at the heart of eLearning, a product of systems approach and driven by user experience. Apple perfected the art of placing user experience at the center of all its products. Functionality took a small step back while allowing for the experience to direct how products and services are consumed. In education, the systemic process of putting together educational materials for optimal learning experiences has now evolved into this new science of Instructional Design. The experience of learning through presentation of educational material is now important. At least as important as the educational material itself.  

Five. Virtual, Simulated, augumented and Immersive Realities.
The classroom and the laboratory experiences are vital to education. Irreplacable even. However, new technologies of virtual reality, simulations, immersive realities are slowly gaining a foothold, in part due to the ongoing pandemic. The digital natives are already living in make believe worlds like PUBG. eLearning will soon try to replicate the social experience of classrooms, the skills acquisitions experience of laboratories and practical class, all through virtual and alternative reality. However, these are a few years away from dependable use.

Six. Attention Span
The Digital Natives have shorter attention spans - this is no news. Edtech is now trying to help students plan their studies and overcome competing distractions. Pomodoro timers are one such example of time management techniques now adapted into edtech to help students cope. Incremental reading is an additional software assistend method for learning and retaining information that replaces old flashcards for spaced repitation and recall.

Seven. Intrisic Motivation
Gamification was a trending a few years ago. Now, gamification is passe. The focus has shifted from badges as a form of extrinsic motivation to exploring reaffirmative intrinsic motivation as an important factor for students to succeed. Edtech now allows for students to 'explore' knowledge and enjoy the process of learning new information, thereby deriving intristic satisfaction instead of trying to compete and 'win' badges and credentials.

Eight. Authentic Assessment.
Edtech is now being used to push towards authentic assessments that mimic industry requirements and real life experiences. Technology like neural networks are being used to design assessments that test deep learning, and abilities to apply knowledge and skills in real-life or realistic settings.

Nine. Learning Record Store
Learning Record Stores are now well established within Edtech to collect, store and retrieve student's learning experiences, which in turn measure the effectiveness and impact of the educational programs. LRS also provide rich source for big data analytics.

Ten. Real Time Messaging Systems
Whatsapp and such are very poor educational tools. However, there is a great need for real time instant messaging systems. Apps like Slack, Discord, Mattermost and Rocket.chat are now being coopted by Edtech to provide for instant messaging and communication needs of students, outside of video conferencing systems.

These ten are the top issues and trends for this month.
We need to understand that the rapid change in education brings new trends on weekly basis. What used to take years to evolve, now take mere weeks to appear, trend and either establish or dissapear.

We are indeed in interesting times. May we all cope, adopt, adapt, learn and succeed.
Have a great day! and thank you for lisening!