Two Parallel Paths to Digitally Transform the Education Sector

July 11, 2018 | Data Analytics

The buzz of digital transformation in education sector may not be as loud as it is in finance and ecommerce but it doesn’t mean that educational institutions are immune to disruption.

Over the past few years, thousands of Asian, Latin American, and African students (for higher education) have switched to MOOCs instead of taking admissions in North American or European universities. This has certainly put educational institutions at risk whose business model is based on the recruitment of international students.

On the other hand, skyrocketing tuition fees, education material cost, and changing digital environment around students are imposing additional pressure on educational institutions to switch to edTech solution to bring agility, efficiency, and cost optimization to their operations, courses, and the overall learning experience.

To address these challenges, educational institutions need to adopt a two-pronged approach. They need to work from both inside (core administrative operations) and outside (classroom learning experience) to create a digital ecosystem that delivers a seamless experience to students and staff in whatever task they conduct.

Let’s further elaborate on this two-way approach for edTech implementation.

Classroom Learning Experience

Today’s digital savvy students interact with the world through gadgets and devices. The digital world is a part of who they are. So, delivering lessons through this digital world that make learning accessible anytime-anywhere makes obvious sense in the present day scenario. Here are some education technology implementations to enhance the learning experience.

Smart Classrooms

Smart classrooms – packed with digital devices – are no new concepts, but some new elements are always there. For instance, use of AR/VR technologies and ‘flipped classrooms’, which essentially take the learning beyond traditional lecture/assignment environment, allowing students to view digitally available lectures anywhere and use the classroom time for subject’s deeper analysis and collaboration. Such learning experiences automatically improve students’ understanding of key concepts and retention of information through new techniques and tools for collaboration.

Personalized Courses

“Best teachers always adapt their teaching to students’ requirements.” That’s the basic idea behind adaptive learning programs that personalize courses based on individual student’s preferences. Using data analytics, these education technology solutions continuously gather student’s performance and provide tailored educational content and feedback in real-time. At Harvard, it was found that through adaptive learning students move through course material faster and also demonstrate greater knowledge gain.

Suggested read: Leverage the Power of Data through Visualization

Core Administrative Processes

Virtual classrooms, collaborative learning, and other such edTech solutions are bringing unparalleled changes to the modern education system; however, the inefficiency of core administrative processes are still presenting hurdles in opening the pathways for cheaper, faster, and easily accessible learning for students. Below are some solutions in that direction.

Digitized Operations

Like we talk about transforming back office operations in any other industry, similarly, internal operations of education institutions can be made efficient through digitization, automation, and streamlining routine activities. These digital transformation implementations can bring multiple benefits such as increased efficiency, improved communication between students, teachers, and parents, and even resource friendliness with lesser and lesser use of paper.

Related read: 3 Steps to Successful Robotic Automation Implementation

Improved Mobility

As mentioned earlier, the digital world is an extension of what today’s students are. They are used to connecting and interacting with the entire world through their smartphones. So, it is imperative in the digital age that educational institutions offer such mobility that allow students to deal with the necessary administrative processes, management of courses and lectures, on the go. Here, the solution can be as simple as a cloud-backed mobile app with intuitive interface, which can eliminate all the paperwork that students (or staff) otherwise have to deal with for the aforementioned tasks.

Final Comments

The disruption in the education sector is not only making things cheaper, easier, and faster, it is also opening gateways to make learning accessible beyond geographic limitations. The technology has helped pave the platform for more education providers to come into play and reach even remote areas never explored before to catapult students through adversity and social class; in the process, also addressing the dearth of talent that many industries are facing in the digital age.

It is essential that universities and other educational institutions to keep up with these disruptions and embrace all the challenges and possibilities they bring to promise a better education for the present and next generation of students.

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