Did you know that, according to Statista, 3.36 billion dollars were spent on global technology!
It will be fair to say that in the past decade, we have witnessed a technological revolution.
Between the rise of smartphones and artificial intelligence, various sectors of the world have witnessed the impact of the rising use of technology. For instance, as per HubSpot, 37 percent of consumers use Siri, while 23 percent of users use Cortana.
Mainstream sectors aren’t the only ones who have witnessed disruption due to technological innovation. Technological devices like tablets have become quite common in educational institutes.
There has been a substantial amount of debate about the use of educational technology. Contrary to popular belief, technology has allowed the education sector to experience quite a lot of benefits. Here are some advantages of educational technology that people don’t know about.
- Boosting retention among students
A “learning” developed by the National Training Laboratory illustrates how students retain merely 5 percent of knowledge and concepts they learned from lectures and 10 percent of concepts learned from reading textbooks.
Compared to this, audio-visuals, demonstration, and class discussions have a knowledge retention rate of 20%, 30%, and 50%, respectively. This means that the basic hurdle that educational institutes face is the inability to ensure knowledge retention.
It is believed that improving engagement can help boost retention among students. And this is the correlation that educational technology strengthens. This is because educational technology, whether it be the use of tablets to teach others or gamified apps to make a game out of complex concepts, can help encourage active participation.
Compared to passive learning, active participation guarantees a higher recall rate of learning modules covered in classes. As an instructor, it is imperative to experiment with different forms of technology and choose ones that best yield results.
Remember, students of private schools in Cupertino will find a starkly different method of teaching engaging than students in other areas. You cannot ignore the role of prevalent academic culture and practices when introducing educational technology.
- Encouraging Individual Learning
No two people are the same. Each of us is born with different sets of capabilities and learning styles. This is one of the biggest reasons why there is a wide disparity in student performances in schools. After all, everyone learns at their own pace, and it is highly unpractical for instructors to outfit the learning needs of all students.
This is where educational technology comes in as a savior. Rather than reducing the role of students as mere passive learners, technology allows students to sit in the driving seat. It provides all the resources one needs to excel in their academic life.
How does technology encourage individual learners to be the best versions of themselves? Simple! By permitting them to learn at their own pace.
Let’s put things into perspective. Within the same class, you can have a student who intellectually outperforms others and another student who struggles with different concepts taught in the class. On a standard pace, the first student will feel unchallenged, and the other one would feel pressured.
You add technology to the mix, and suddenly both students can learn at their own pace. Student A can skip things he finds easy and moves onto to challenging tasks while Student B can revisit each concept that they find difficult until they get the hang of it.
- Teaching collaboration
Soft skills like teamwork and collaboration are just as important as technical skills. In fact, in some settings, they are more vital than hard skills! A study conducted in 2016 revealed that over 93 percent of employers dub soft skills to be an essential factor for success.
One thing a lot of people don’t know is that educational technology like online study forums and platforms help teach collaboration to students. The online world is starkly different from the offline one. Here, you can communicate with people from all over the world.
In fact, on some platforms, you might find yourself having to work with different people on various projects. For this, you must share documents and insights with one another, to achieve overall benefits. This helps in boosting collaboration among the masses, both within in-school and within the overall realm of educational institutes.
- A key to learning essential life skills
Sadly, no school teaches you how to think or solve complex problems critically. It might put you in situations where such skills are automatically learned, but owing to time constraints, the focus of most academic institutes is almost always conventional education.
But, technology has broken the restriction of time and place. Educational technology works in a different way. It focuses on creating presentations, taking the lead, learning practical skills, and solving real-life problems.
When you add classroom stimulations to the mix, such educational technology can further groom a person to have all essential life skills.
- A supplementary tool for teachers
Students aren’t the only ones who benefit from educational technology. Instead, its advantages can be experienced by teachers alike.
Rather than being limited to physical books and aids, educational technology opens a new world for teachers. They don’t just have to restrict themselves to diagrams and whiteboards. They can teach their students through apps, games, and tablets.
On snow-days, virtual classrooms can ensure timely completion of the syllabus. Grading software, as well as online assessment, can help instructors in saving time.
Ending Thoughts
The past decade has revamped the lives of both teachers and students. Considering the rapid pace with which technology is taking over our lives, it won’t be wrong to predict that further disruption is on its way.
This is surely good news for the educational sector. This is because it will open doors to opportunities. Rather than limiting yourself to a classroom, as a teacher, and as a student, you can explore the broader sector as per your interest.
Just because you are a science student doesn’t mean you can’t learn about supply and demand. Just because your library doesn’t have the latest books doesn’t mean your students won’t learn the newest concepts.
Educational technology is a blessing for all. And you are lucky to be surrounded by it.
