EdTech Trends in Higher Education

Technology today by its existence has been influencing every aspect of life. It has become a significant part of education. The education system is being upgraded with all affordable educational technologies to meet its learning standards. Educators,

Administrators and Parents are finding many more technological approaches especially for higher education students as they are already having knowledge about computers and mobile devices.

During recent times, higher education institutions are implementing many useful educational technologies. And here we cover the following EdTech trends in higher education across the globe:

• MOOCs
• Gamification
• Big Data Analytics
• Social Networks in Education
• BYOD 
• OER

MOOCs:

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) have been introduced into the educational system because of their multiple advantages: designed for thousands of learners, allows anyone to access online and have concrete start and end dates, student assessments, online tests and quizzes, and proctored exams. Basically, MOOCs are a combination of audio and video, so it also helps learners with different learning styles. Educators and administrators find this very useful because MOOCs not only help them in providing their students with best learning tutorials but also help them grow professionally. The concept of MOOCs supports flipped classroom model too. This is how the introduction of MOOCs has helped our education system.

Many great universities namely, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, etc. offer thousands of MOOCs on Coursera, Udacity , Udemy, EdX, etc.  

Gamification:

Everyone loves to play games and the good thing is that many of its elements
can be used in improving education. Learning process becomes even more effective if we involve games in it. Games are really effective tools to provide students with simulated real–world experience. The higher education system all over the world is recognizing the importance of engaging students with educational games and has also made plans to implement game based learning.  

Big Data Analytics:

One more great trend in the educational system is the usage of student data. The concept is very old yet very special. Student data include student’s performance, learning rate, attendance, grades, abilities, progress, etc. Educators use students’ data to deliver personalized instructions as well as to design curriculum with individual focus. 21^st
century technology brings many educational tools to effectively use students’ data. Many EdTech companies are working on educational data to make its usage even more effective.  

According to William Morse, Chief Technology Officer at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA, Educational Institutions should implement tools which are much more effective than traditional tools in processing Big Data. “Big data is about collecting far more information on our students than we once did,” said Morse.

The idea of using Big Data will surely figure out what the student does & what educators need to do to make progress.

Social Networks in Education:

Higher education students find it interesting to work online as they can freely share their knowledge and collaborate with others. Nowadays, social networking sites provide a very good interactive learning environment. As students of higher education are already having the knowledge about online safety, it has become very easy for educators and administrators to use social networking sites in the classroom. Twitter, Edmodo, EduClipper, Pinterest , etc. are helping educators as well as students learn through effective interactions.

BYOD:

BYOD, Bring Your Own Device; means the policy of permitting students to bring their personal technological mobile devices such as smart phones, tablets and laptops to the classroom. As technology has become a need for education, there is a great necessity for schools to have technological devices for their students. For low budget schools
, BYOD policy is a boon. Many schools have implemented BYOD successfully. It not only overcomes budgetary problems but also makes students comfortable by learning with the same device at home as well as in school. BYOD involves students more than any other technological approach because they will have their own device and get assistance from parents and teachers while learning with it. Students can download many apps on their device, which support their own learning style.

OER:

OER (Open Educational Resources) are freely accessible, usually openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, educational assessment and research purposes i.e. they include learning content (course materials), tools (software to create and manage open learning content) and licenses. The main motto behind introducing OER is to lower the cost of educational materials. Many educational institutions are using OER to have good quality content in their classroom. OER develops innovative content and provides continuous improvement in the quality of education. With the growing number of tools to create OERs, need of OER search engines is a must for providing institutions with best educational content. 

As technology advances, it helps the education system to become much more effective. Educational Technologies make learning easy and interactive. We hope this information is useful for you to know about the trends in educational technologies which are making their mark in the field of education. You may share with us your personal views and your ways of using these EdTech trends in the Comment Box.

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