Most of the teaching has gone remote. Because of COVID-19 pandemic, most professors and students suddenly find themselves forced to use blended technology as they teach and learn. Colleges and universities have shuttered their physical campuses in the face of the spread of COVID-19, they have moved their courses to remote and online formats in rapid fashion.
How is the education sector responding to COVID-19?
The primary reason that universities and schools have been able to do online learning classes is that the technology stack has evolved a good bit in the last four years.
In many respects, the education industry's move to remote instruction rhymes with the work-from-home move in enterprises. Video conferencing platforms such as Zoom and WebEx are being used heavily as are learning management systems like Instructure's Canvas, Blackboard, and Google Classroom. In addition, there are enabling software such as Proctorio, a Google Chrome extension that monitors students taking exams online.
Many online learning platforms are offering free access to their services. Think and Learn app, BYJU’s has seen a 200% increase in the number of new students using its products. In future, we will be witnessing a lot of website and mobile app development specifically made for educational purpose. There have been already different types of Edtech software booming providing effective
A Cultural Change in Education Industry
Like all technology shifts and transformation efforts the biggest challenges usually involve cultural change – studying from textbooks and notebooks and switching it to.
There are few things to ponder:
- Taking online learning class requires discipline. Education requires discipline too, but with less awareness of blended learning, one has to accept the fact that online learning is going to favor a certain type of student over ones that are trying to find their bearings on their own timetable.
- Learning will be digitized. Paper is somewhat comforting, as are overpriced textbooks. Both are not going away; however, this process change will mean the faculty has to go digital and change their teaching styles.
- Analytics will become more prevalent. All you need to do is see some of the analytic capabilities in learning management systems to know that there will be a barrage of new learning metrics to ponder for students' and faculty's effectiveness.
Corona Virus has accelerated changes in the educational system
The spread of COVID-19 has led to the closure of educational institutions all over the world. Such closure accelerated the development of the online learning environments within those institutions so that learning would not be disrupted.
Many were not prepared, but it is important to review the reasons for offering students online classes, which go beyond periods of confinement:
Reasons why online classes learning is gaining popularity:
- It offers highly effective learning environments
- It offers interactive supports that allow students to study 24/7 and work at their own pace
- Flexible scheduling
- Available in any location, with an internet connection; students can attend using their devices computers, tablets, etc.
- Gets you direct teacher feedback
- Real-time student monitoring and corresponding reports
- Allow franchises to share schedules and classes online using Cloud services
- Improve the image of your center by offering technological solutions that solve real problems
Online education becomes a strategic priority for all
Online learning will be recognized as core to every school's plan for institutional resilience and academic continuity. This post-pandemic there will be a huge digital transformation the way how schools used to plan, manage education. Gone will be the days when individual schools within a university will be able to go their own way with online education.
If there is one big thing that COVID-19 has taught us, it is that it is a mistake to outsource core educational capabilities. Teaching and learning are core capabilities of every single institution in education industry. Schools that invested in their learning design resources, by both hiring instructional designers and by reorganizing campus learning organizations into integrated units, were able to manage relatively efficiently the transition to COVID-19-required remote teaching and learning.
What will happen more and more is that campus instructional design capabilities will be centralized and augmented. Schools will move away from all-inclusive revenue-share models for partnering with OPM (Online program management) in developing and running online programs.