6 Emerging Technologies to Change Education in 2021

6 Emerging Technologies That Will Reshape The Way We Learn in 2021

How will advances in technology change education in the foreseeable future?

Firstly, new tech will boost the audio-visual presentation of study material, contributing to better student engagement. Secondly, the teaching approaches will change as well.

A student of tomorrow can expect more freedom, more tech, and more changes. Not all specialists are 100% optimistic about the changes calling for more experiments, research supervision, and finally, the balance between technology advances and trusted and proven study techniques.

In this article, we approach the questions of the future of tech and education. You’ll discover:

• Technologies that will shape the future of education
• Change of teaching techniques
• Discussions on how to implement tech in education effectively

Let’s get straight to the point. 
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Emerging Technologies be Used in the Future

Today, students have access to video-conferencing and chatting, and the augmented reality applications let us get deeper insights into scientific subjects.

A situation where a person or an educational establishment hires a software development company that creates a custom eLearning platform or an EdTech tool is not a rarity anymore. There are a lot of companies like MLSDev that already have experience in creating digital solutions for educational needs.

We may predict that in the foreseeable future use of these technologies will continue.

1. Video-conferencing

In the future, video-conferencing will be used to organize lessons, forums, and allow people from different locales to be present on webinars. Also, it simplifies student-teacher and peer-to-peer communication by enabling lessons and conferences at any time.

2. Virtual Reality

It is predicted that in the nearest future, there will be more VR tools in the classroom. For example, VR solutions will be used to study matters like atom structure, positions of astronomical objects, or the build of botanicals.

Some experts predict that virtual reality will help students create historical reconstructions or live the subjects from literature.

3. Artificial Intelligence

AI solutions are streamlining the way we work and study. It will be possible to have personal virtual assistants for planning and schedule reminding in the short-term perspective. Any language learner may benefit from training with a virtual native speaker.

In the long-term perspective, AI may substitute teachers in the classrooms and give students access to deeper information pools.

4. Augmented Reality

Today, we have maps, hand-out cards, book illustrations, presentations, and other visual materials adapted for AR devices. For example, a learning platform spARK offers solutions to transform a usual presentation into an AR game by giving students chances to interact (zoom in, spin, rotate, etc.) with objects illustrated in the presentation, like molecules.
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5. 3D Printing

3D printing allows every student to build a copy of a human organ to understand anatomy better, not to mention the wide application of this technology in art and design.

6. Online Courses

Online courses expand the possibilities for information and experience interchange, evaluating and implementing the best practices for learning. Today, universities merge online courses into conventional study plans.

Alongside the new technical means for education

The Change of Teaching Techniques

Digitalization today is causing a civilization shift; no wonder the educational demands are changing. The skill and drill methods are not suiting for new generations.

Richard Gerver, the author of “Creating Tomorrow’s Schools Today,” has mentioned that today’s learners are “the first generation of truly active consumers, who want interactive involvement in everything they do and experience.”

This means that the teacher is the main speaker, and the students are just listeners changes drastically.

In this situation, teachers are forced to experiment with new methods and techniques of organizing the educational process, and these experiments will continue in the coming years.

The upcoming educational trends are as follows:

Collaborative Classrooms

This trend requires classrooms to adapt to the demand for openness, collaboration, and flexibility. This will be reflected both in the design of classrooms. Some schools decorate classroom walls with student creativity, allow students to move around the classroom during the study process, and encourage peer-2-peer learning.

Although, the British scholar Daisy Christodoulou mentions the danger of distraction since students having access to too many devices and freedom of communication with peers in the classroom may quickly get distracted.
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Student-led Learning

There is a trend to give students more freedom in choosing their educational plans. The role of a teacher will be that of a coordinator. This is connected with the fact that student-led learning is believed to prepare students for independent life.  

Although, this approach may not be suitable in some cases. According to Forbes, some students are not competent enough in the study fields to direct their learning. Thus teachers should introduce the personalized student-led approach with great care.

Innovation Pedagogy

Technology inspires teachers to search for new ideas for creative materials and lesson plans. Since with EdTech, finding new information is faster, there will be more space for innovation.

Workforce Preparation

A new trend tells students they should be more prepared for adult life. This calls for introducing the classes teaching students to pay bills or make a vote on the election.

Developing Critical Thinking

Since today, the development of technology is merging the edges of professions. Since today we have hundreds of resources for information at hand, many educators believe that there is no more need to study factual information. Rather they recommend developing critical thinking.

Although, top scientists like Daisy Christodoulou argue that there is no critical thinking without information in memory. Cognitive capacity depends on the amount of information in the long-term memory. Christodoulou recommends to edTech to make the transition of information to memory simpler.
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Conclusion: Emerging Technology in Education

Our time has a place for numerous experiments in forms and methods of studying. New tech like virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence will provide students with new tools to memorize information.

As the student preferences are also changing, there will be more experiments in teaching methods, presupposing giving students more freedom. However, a teacher’s role will be to provide a rigorous assessment of the effectiveness of new tools. 

Ana Lastovetska

Ana is a technology writer @ MLSDev, a web & mobile app development company. She researches the area of technology to create great content about app development, UX/UI design, tech & business consulting.

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