‘Education is the only sector that hasn’t truly embraced technology.’
This is a remarkable statement by the famous Dutch researcher Jeroen Krouwels in one of his TEDx Talks.
What does this statement mean in a broader context?
This means that the education sector has yet to embrace and fully be powered by the ever-evolving digital transformation.
Now, what is digital transformation?
Digital transformation or digitalization is the process of staying current with the latest technologies and applying them in every aspect of business.
Almost every sector utilizes digitalization, such as healthcare, manufacturing, AI, and the software industry. Recently, digital transformation has been seen in the education sector. And its boom is enormous.
Its significance became high when over 1.5 billion students switched to online education during the pandemic.
Intrigued by how digital transformation in education is engaging students like never before?
We covered it all in this blog.
Let’s find it out!!
Importance of Digital Transformation in Education
The need for digital transformation in education is higher than ever before.
Let’s understand why so, with proper statistics, enlisting the importance of digital transformation in education:
- New World = New Vade Mecum
No, Vade Mecum isn’t any spell!!
It’s a handbook or guide kept constantly at hand for consultation. In this new world, the digital revolution has been seen in almost every part of one’s life.
So, to fit right in this digital world, we must have knowledge that aligns with the digital revolution and this new world.
This world comprises social media, artificial intelligence, robots, and more.
Living with these high-end technologies and taking the most out of them requires in-depth knowledge of digital transformation and its components.
This knowledge is gained through education. Digital education is the Vade Mecum of this new world.
Digital education, which includes everything from simple to complex facets, needs to be comprehended by every generation. But primarily by younger generations, the ‘Gen Z and Gen X,’ as they will be the trailblazers and leaders of the digital era ahead.
- Crucial for Contemporary Education
Digital transformation is vital in contemporary education since it helps deliver learning materials, allows learning from anywhere, and brings about innovation in learning delivery.
The following are the advantages of integrating the use of information technology for students:
- Prepares the student with generic skills required in today’s job market
- Ensures that the student can advance his or her learning through the use of online sources
- Enables students, teachers, and parents to communicate more often with the use of digital devices.
- Generates prospects of improvement and development and fosters a chance for educational institutions to reinvent their teaching and learning models.
- Vital for Streamlined Operations and Tasks
Digital transformation for education can be very beneficial and signifies several ways and methods that streamline operations and tasks easily. It consolidates operations by optimizing outcomes using accurate data analytics. 24*7 learning assistance reduces human involvement and increases the role of AI’s great power to automate tasks and reduce human errors.
- Innovative Systems and Processes
The unprecedented explosion of technologies offers innovative systems and processes in the educational sector. Some examples are inquiry-based learning (science experiments and field trips), virtual learning environments (Zoom and Microsoft Teams), and more. These lower the cost of education and make education feasible for students who don’t live near schools and have low educational conditions and surroundings due to poverty, poor infrastructure, and low awareness.
Key Components of Digital Transformation in the Education Sector
Since digital transformation is seen in almost every industry, how can it miss one of the largest: Education, which makes up nearly 6% of the world GDP.
It cannot.
So, let’s look at how digital transformation impacts the different facets of the education industry and how its components and tools help the education sector become more advanced.
Interactive Learning Tools
Smartboards: Smartboards are touch-sensitive boards that display educational videos, media, and study content. They help in easy and smart learning with interactive animations.
For example, Educomp Solutions and SMART Technologies offer smartboard facilities.
Educational Software/Apps: These apps and software contain the entire syllabus, including e-books, question papers, videos, study exercises and tests, and much more. They help students attain knowledge from anywhere, dissipating the need to attend classroom lectures.
For example, BYJU’s, Edmingle, SchoolCanvas.com, etc.
VR/AR: Virtual and Augmented reality can provide a practical-like experience, which is costly for educational institutes. AR can replace the need for physical and expensive learning materials by providing portable and accessible education.
Personalized Learning
Adaptive Learning: Adaptive learning technologies can provide customized education to meet each student’s unique needs through just-in-time feedback, pathways, and resources.
Data Analytics: Data Analytics helps gain invaluable insights by analyzing data to understand patterns, preferences, and strengths in assessments, online lectures, and exams. It facilitates how students learn and can perform best with suitable and tailored learning models.
Communication and Collaboration
Learning Management Systems: These digital platforms help facilitate collaboration by creating, managing, and organizing online courses for students.
They can be used for K-12, extensive/higher education, and corporate training.
For example, Google Classroom, Blackboard, etc.
Project Management Tools: Tresso and Asana are popular project management tools used to organize and manage projects for the most efficient planning, maintenance, and execution.
Video Conferencing Platforms: Platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams allow video conferencing calls, which are used for collaborative learning over the Internet, reshaping traditional classrooms.
Cybersecurity and Data Privacy
Network Security: The digitalization in the education sector has improved the network security between students and teachers, hence increasing data privacy and connection.
Secure online assessments: Online assessments have been multi-factor authenticated, which makes them secure. Also, there is robust control over user access. Furthermore, not switching browser tabs while doing the assessment exterminates the chances of cheating and deceit.
Data Protection: With cybersecurity measures, apps or software that provide educational content protect the data of students, teachers, and staff with effective encryption methods. This helps comply with data protection regulations, such as GDPR and FERPA.
Mobile Learning Technologies
Downloadable Content: Digital transformation in education has allowed the feature of downloading educational content on several apps like Coursera for seamlessly offline access.
Microlearning Modules: These are tiny bite-sized yet highly-informative modules that can be seen on mobile devices or small screens.
Integration with GPS: Integration with GPS and camera is done, which offers geographically tailored suggestions and educational content according to the region’s current language.
Benefits of Digital Transformation in Education
$227B is spent on digital transformation in Education, with an estimated growth of a staggering $404B by 2025. With this much potential, digitization in education offers numerous benefits to teachers, students, and their parents.
Collaboration
Establishing new collaborative teaching methods, such as the jigsaw technique, peer teaching, think-peer-share, etc., encourages students to work and study together. Furthermore, cooperative learning can help teach similar segmented students or students with the same interests over extensive digital learning platforms like Zoom and Teams.
Improved Confidence for Parents
With digital transformation, the level of transparency increases. Parents or guardians can now watch how the curriculum or classes are going, as digital learning applications give them access to the student’s progress, assignments, and growth. Knowing their students’ academic status and clearly collaborating with teachers increases parents’ confidence.
Increased Accessibility and Engagement
With technological advancements, classrooms, and learning systems and processes have changed. This change became massive and mainstream when the pandemic happened. These new and improved systems encouraged remote learning.
This type of learning is primarily beneficial for students with disabilities, as they can now easily access education without physically being present in the classroom. Collaboration between specially-abled students and students with no disabilities enhances diversity and engagement.
Administrative Tasks on Automation
Budgeting, scheduling, curriculum design, and decision-making are some administrative tasks launched in automation with the help of robust AI and machine learning algorithms and systems. When these complex and highly manpower-consuming tasks are automated, the human resource can be invested in more strategic, creative, and high-impact decisions.
Comprehensive Learning with Personalization
As mentioned above, adaptive learning and data analytics benefit students, parents, and teachers. These technologies make complex subjects or concepts more understandable and tailor and customize each student’s learning module. AI has a massive role in personalizing education, as it helps give feedback by analyzing the students’ scores and overall performance. AI results in adaptive learning paths and task assignments in the digital transformation of the education sector.
Boundless Learning Assistance
Digital transformation isn’t limited or bound by boundaries in its revolutionary expansion. Digitalization offers high-tech solutions, such as AI, AR/VR, automation, adaptive learning, cloud computing, social media, mobile learning, and gamification. These solutions offer cutting-edge and pioneering learning solutions that assist students in learning faster and streamline their learning and education.
Challenges
Everything has its peaks and valleys!!
So, does digital transformation in education!!
Understand some valleys, a.k.a, ‘challenges’ in the education sector due to digital transformation technologies and the possible impacts.
267,000,000,000 Population is Not on the Internet
Yeah!! As of July 2024, only 67.1%, i.e., (5.45 bn) of the population, is on the Internet, and 32.9% of the global population doesn’t utilize the benefits of the Internet.
This huge gap in the Internet can lead to a massive digital technology divide. Between the people who take full advantage of modern technology and those who are still using traditional ways of teaching. Being unaware of how digital transformation is the future of education, shaping the lives of billions of people.
Not Everyone Has Digital Skills
A majority of teachers from underdeveloped or developing countries don’t know how to infuse digital technology into their classrooms and their way of teaching.
This happens due to societal and financial hurdles and unawareness of the latest trends in digital transformation, leading to a lack of a competitive edge. Almost a quarter of the world’s population is not internet users, so they lack digital skills.
This challenge can become drastic if countries and individuals don’t take the initiative and necessary steps to eradicate the concern of digital skills inefficiency.
Staying Up to Dated for Staying Ahead
There is only one constant about technology: it isn’t constant. It keeps evolving and advancing. Every business in the market keeps looking for loopholes in existing technology or new innovative ways that others are not doing. This creates rapid technological outbursts and revolutions.
With these fast revolutions and advancements, new and innovative tech comes to the market, and if teachers or educators want to stay in the market, they need to learn those technologies to sustain their jobs. This creates a constant need to stay up-to-date, sometimes making teachers tedious and causing burnout.
New Technology; New Threats
‘With new technologies come emerging cyberthreats advancements.’
Cybercriminals and hackers look for ways to disrupt individuals’ and organizations’ data. This is not the best when technology is new in the digital transformation. Sometimes, it comes in the beta version, sometimes in the testing phase, or sometimes in a full-fledged way, but it has some loopholes in its systems or processes. These loopholes are found out by criminals, and then they misuse the data.
To avoid this challenge, Edtech companies should conduct thorough security checks of their platforms or applications to ensure that cybercriminals do not unauthorized access students’ and users’ data.
Importance of Human Touch
Everyone has been scared of AI and whether it will eat everyone’s jobs. AI will surely replace people, but it will not replace people who know how to use AI.
Of course, machines, AI, and robots will enter the education sector, simplifying teaching methods and facilitating a more comprehensible learning environment. But digital technologies won’t replace one thing: ‘emotional touch.’
In educational learning, emotional touch includes listening to the student’s queries and issues, consoling him/her, and making him/her feel comfortable. As students spend most of their day studying, they must interact with humans, or they will forget how humans interact, leaving them isolated and with more serious concerns.
So, the importance of human interaction and touch will remain relatively high. A teacher who knows how to use technology will be ahead and will thrive in this ever-evolving technological landscape.
Future of Digital Transformation in Education
Sit in our time machine and look at the future of digital transformation in the world’s education sector.
A spike in Edtech Industry
Whether an enterprise (Edtech companies in this scenario) will lead to innovation or extinction is decided by digital transformation. When not aligned with the latest tech, companies can face unsustainability, hence not getting any competitive advantage. Understanding this, companies will gradually but increasingly collaborate with tech, and we will see a massive boom in the Edtech industry as all of the players in the market will try to hold their positions and achieve growth and significant market share.
AI and Machine Learning Taking Over
Over half of the teachers in Finland, Australia, Germany, Japan, and many other countries, such as the U.S.A. and the U.K., believe and are convinced that AI helps automate administrative tasks and reduce human errors by streamlining operations.
AI and machine learning tools and algorithms, such as chatbots, customized learning, AI-enabled assessments, teaching assistance, and prediction, will help enhance the user experience and introduce new ways of learning and teaching for students, teachers, and parents.
Launching AR and VR
AR = Augmented Reality. VR = Virtual Reality. These two technologies are and will be used in a significant way that the students will appreciate more than anything else. With this cutting-edge tech, students can examine phenomena closely, facilitating more enhanced learning experiences.
Furthermore, these virtual technologies can be used in courses that require hands-on experience, such as pilot courses or doctorate programs. This will help students get trained quickly with a real-time view at low costs and risks.
Blockchain: Unblocking the Privacy
With blockchain technology (a noteworthy part of digital transformation), companies will launch smart contracts. Smart contracts are contracts between educational institutions and students. These contracts are facilitated from the enrollment process to the end of the course. This includes admission, assessments, record keeping, feedback, etc., to and with the student, protected by blockchain technology, enhancing security and confidentiality.
This data can also be transferred to a parent or guardian, which is already specified in the smart contract. The smart contract also includes a segment that illustrates that the course session will only start when the payment is made. This ensures no threats of fraud and mitigates risks in an advanced way.
Conclusion
It’s inevitable!!; The inclusion of digital transformation in education.
So, adapting to it is the best we can all do. Consider its highs and lows, i.e., benefits and challenges. Understand its importance and key components to take advantage of its extraordinary features and stay safe from its probable challenges and limitations.
The future looks engaging and bright and will become even brighter than ever. Be ready for it!!
With the digital transformation, we must radically alter how and what we learn.
Digital skills are becoming the fourth key competency, with reading, writing, and arithmetic in the top three. Thus, digital skills learning gives students, teachers, and parents a competitive edge.
Who doesn’t want an edge over others? No one!! So take advantage of it ASAP.
Author Bio:
Anirudh is a content writer specializing in technical concepts related to the digital economy and finance, such as AI, SEO, cloud computing, and more. A curious learner who has been writing on Medium, LinkedIn, and other reputable writing platforms, aims for excellence and endeavors for personal and professional growth.
