How EduTech can make teaching more impactful

Online learning, Artificial Intelligence, Gaming Platforms: technology offers many solutions to improve the teaching method of educators, making it more impactful. Students have the chance to learn in a brand new way, helping their teachers to build a new concept of school and exploring new teaching methods. Here are 5 of the most important.

Online learning for accessible education

Today teachers and educators are able to reach a larger audience of students, thanks to online learning. Non-traditional students, such as disabled students who can’t leave their homes or parents and those fully employed, now have access to education thanks to advances in e-learning, no matter what the scheduling issues are.
The innovations in the pedagogical strategies applied to online learning made it even more engaging, enhancing the level of interaction and making it seems more and more human. Video communication technology, for example, now allows educators to teach from the comfort of their homes and offices, working more closely together with the student they are assisting in a stress-free condition.

The Internet of Things: power to higher education

The Internet of Things is one of the most interesting innovations in technology for education, above all for the higher one. Thanks to its introduction, in fact, a whole new world of possibilities emerged changing forever the communication methods between students, professors and schools, improving it. Students can access learning materials when, where and how they want, while teachers work in a more flexible environment.
The connectivity between devices and “everyday things” allows a powerful data tracking and analytics, providing additional insight into students’ learning process, both in the classroom and on campus or at home. Professors can respond immediately solving critical moments before that learners’ performances begin to suffer.

Mixed reality: science fiction meets education

Mixed Reality (MR) – a mix of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) – allows students to literally immerse themselves in their learning experience, making them explore also new situations, never lived before because considered too dangerous, expensive, or just impossible (let’s think about the possibility, for example, to visit the Ancient Rome society).
Thanks to MR technologies, children can now walk next to dinosaurs or tigers or take virtual tours of the ancient cities they’re discovering, while, thanks to AR devices, medical students are now able to perform complex procedure without putting their patients at risk.
 

Artificial Intelligence: a personalized support

The introduction of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) in education means to use big data and machine learning to provide a supplemental, and above all tailor-made, guidance to students. The A.I. tutoring systems are able to monitor learners, analyzing their feedback to create the best path to follow toward the success of their studies.
A personalized learning experience offered to students produces more productive learning behaviours in themselves, such as self-regulation and self-explanation.
Not only a tailor-made support, but also new customized educational contents. Thanks to Artificial Intelligence, teachers and schools are now able to create their own textbooks and exercises keeping in mind the specific needs of their students. Educators can import their own syllabus and material into content technologies systems which then read and master them, finding new patterns. The algorithms of these systems finally use the gained knowledge to create customized textbooks and classroom materials.

Computer games: a safe, positive competition

Computer games used in education can be distinguished in “serious games” and “play and learn games”. The first ones, in particular, act as a highly efficient booster in the teaching, because they do not necessarily seek to entertain students (their primary purpose is learning), introducing two powerful elements: competition and challenge. While in “real life” competition can be difficult to manage for the most vulnerable students, in a “virtual reality” it becomes amusing and less strenuous, a positive stimulus in a protected environment, which ends when the computer is turned off.
Computer games are particularly effective in language learning. Students improve their ability to structure sentences and grasp the subtitles of the language they use while they’re playing.