New Technology In Education: Digital Trends Of 2021

We are fortunate enough to be in the midst of technological progress, which is fundamentally changing the way we live, our perception of the world, and the way we study it. “Knowledge delivery” wherever you want through a variety of digital inventions (such as lecture transcription software) – this is the reality of education in 2021.

Digital trends in education are changing from day to day, transformation education is getting faster. Let’s figure out what are current trends in educational technology in learning society and what digital novelties to follow for a better education process. 

Before the advent of the Internet, the process of education had changed little over the years. New scientific research slowly accumulated without the possibility of dissemination and study outside countries.

These most impressive and fastest-growing online education trends in the world have fundamentally changed the way we approach learning and teaching.

No one is required to meet in one classroom at a specific time or physically attend a lecture. Remote interviews from your smartphone, online seminars in Zoom, and scientific materials in open-access 24/7 – this is a current trend in education. 

What is the main current trend in education?

Transforming education starts in the classroom. For more than a year, remote learning has been shifting face-to-face classes due to the coronavirus pandemic. This means that lectures, workshops, quizzes, and even exams were run remotely in online classrooms and formed as online education trends. Sending online assignments, video tutorials, and audio lectures are more effective and more accessible than paper materials. This is clearly reported by the U.S. Census Bureau:

Despite the lack of social communication, more than 60% of students noted that the use of new technologies in education has improved the process of preparing for exams online.

The previous popularization of online learning has played into the hands of universities during the pandemic in 2020. 

Online learning is the current trend in education as it gives students the flexibility to study at their own pace, and professors have the opportunity to gather target audiences in an online classroom and visually present the latest scientific facts. 

The StuDocu educational sharing platform becomes more popular for students and professors where they can find or upload different learning materials.

As you can see on the chart, educational institutions around the world are following the trends in higher education and are introducing online degrees along with face-to-face student visits.

This transformation of education provides an opportunity not only for young people to gain foreign experience. Online education also helps part-time workers, the elderly, and parents on maternity leave to study from their homes in comfort. 

The availability of scientific materials online allows professors of higher educational institutions to prepare for their advanced training at a convenient time, and distribute their research to others. Which digital trends in higher education are waiting for us tomorrow and how will they transform learning in the coming years? Read on.

The main technological trends in education in 2021 

How digital trends in higher education have changed during the last year? Well, the world of higher education is in the deep process of adapting to the realities of Covid-19. Many, but not all educational institutions have been managed to establish barrier-free access to their online resources.

So the next issue then: how should schools and universities follow the technological trends in education in 2021?

Remote learning with artificial intelligence. As noted earlier in this article, the digital adoption of education began several years before the coronavirus pandemic. Students and teachers have become gadget lovers, and Internet technologies have taken root in the field of transformation education. And this trend will continue to grow:

While schools are closed, students continue their distance learning. New technology in education encourages teachers to schedule video-lectures, use cloud-based academic journals, and prepare visual material instead of printed textbooks.

Technological trends in education have significantly expanded the set of available tools, paving the way for AI to check students’ essays for plagiarism, help with 3D visualization of projects, transcribe lectures from audio file to text, or put foreign speech to text converter.

Digital personalization of the universities. The first and obvious thing applicants see while searching for a university – is their website. Personalization of the online resources that can lead people to the desired place is a technological novelty any institution must apply.  

Make sure to make a good first impression on prospective students. Tech-savvy youth will appreciate the modern design, clear navigation on the site, and the chatbot that will provide online support for typical questions.

In 2021 the number of smartphone users expected to rise to 3.8 billion, so the school or university management better have their websites mobile-optimized. As it becomes a new trend in higher education, see how university website could look like:

Supplement your website with content that will be of interest to both: the student community and teachers. A search engine optimization will help your college blog to be found by the reader. Websites with video integration look standing out among others.

Campus virtual tour will help the applicant to learn more about a particular university. But the biggest personalization in studying is performed by social media. So transformation education is one of the new trends in higher education explained next.

In this particular example, we see like funny videos and challenges hosting become a popularizer of educational content and setting new digital trends. So, in 2020, TikTok launched a charity program called #LearnOnTikTok. Any educational content creator – from various physical experiments to short foreign language tutorials – will receive grants to develop their academic activities.

Bill Nye, an American scientist and CEO of the advanced space science and exploration organization – The Planetary Society, admitted that:

So over 1.1 billion TikTok users will be able to catch additional skills just by swapping their recommendations. We see how TikTok, a giant trendsetter, meets educational needs and helps encourage people to study. 

Gamification of learning. Although TikTok is one of the leaders of trends in educational technology, it was not the first resource that made the educational process more entertaining.

Game-based learning allows students to relieve stress and develop their creativity. At the same time, the teacher stands on the same step with the audience, allowing them to solve the assigned tasks together.

BreakoutEDU is one of the most popular platforms which suggests the transformation of education into the critical thinking game format. This approach to learning the new allows students to stir up, forces them to think from different angles, and teaches them to work together on scientific puzzles.

Over the past six months, the number of visitors to the BreakoutEDU training platform has more than doubled and now makes 320 thousand users. Digital games in education provide a lot of tools for better memorization, assimilation, and generation of students’ thoughts, so teachers willingly use this new technology in education.

Virtual classes. VR has changed from a realistic gaming tool to the only option of seeing other people next to you during the pandemic. In February 2020, more than 76 Purdue University Global graduates decided to attend their graduation ceremony in virtual reality wearing a VR-headset. Virtual reality trends in education technology are taking the educational experience to the next level.

According to EdWeek Market Brief forecast, more than 70 million students in the United States will have access to VR in their schools in 2021. Digital adaptation of the classes is a current trend in education, which is expected to result in a $0.7 billion purchase of VR-sets for schools by 2025.

VR is not only an obvious new technology in education for distance meeting. This invention may help students make a huge step in learning natural disciplines, like biology and anatomy, plunge into the history of the peoples of the world, or build 3D models for the hard sciences.

Digital tools you need for the better educational performance

All of the above digital trends in education have changed the things that are familiar to students and teachers:

Below you will find a list of the most useful technologies to improve your learning experience.

• ThingLink – a multifunctional toolkit for creating visual educational materials for the next level. The app allows students and teachers to work on a cloud project in the classroom and remotely; apply visual effects and audio comments to the presentation.

• Duolingo game-based learning platform. The real go-to guy for learning foreign languages remotely. There are many online learning platforms on the market, but Duolingo offers a user-friendly interface, personal progress control and is already used in schools around the world.

• Lingvist is a language learning platform that uses AI and data science to provide personalized language instruction to its users. The platform offers courses in several languages including French, Spanish, German, and Russian, among others. Lingvist’s technology adapts to each user’s learning style and pace to provide a personalized study experience, making language learning more efficient and effective.

• How Zoom is now leading the online education trends? Here is what the students were told for the whole of 2020 – let’s Zoom! But in fact, video calls are popular not only thanks to the pandemic. Zoom makes professors’ life easier when they record their live lectures or prepare a lesson in advance. It gives the opportunity to pre-write a lesson or chat with students online, arrange a survey, and even change the background to a scenic view.

• Access to better listening with Lightspeed. When students and teachers meet at school, they will most likely be forced to wear masks for an indefinite time. The company offers comfortable microphones and audio systems for classrooms so that the teacher is heard by every student. Audio and video recording are available for greater lecture productivity and are forming new technological trends in education.

• Easy lecture handling with Audext. This service will help you to transcribe audio to text and then save your time when analyzing audio and video recordings of lessons.

Just transcribe your Zoom lecture audio file to text and work with the converted text in seconds. Here are a few tips on how to succeed in online education:

• Make a literal record of what happened.

It is certainly commendable to be present at the video call with your professor, but the result of the lecture was to gain some new knowledge and be able to apply it.

The handwriting of what has been heard is hardly the best solution. Just download the MP4 video file of your call to Audext and transcribe a speech to text converter. Use the video transcription to prep your further presentation. 

• Give students comprehensive material.

If you are a teacher, you sort a lot of information while preparing for the lesson. Audio-visual material can be supported by a detailed explanation using Audext. Simply record a voice memo and then transcribe audio to text to give students as much useful information as possible.

• Ensure the lecture is accessible to everyone.

Sooner or later, people will return to face-to-face studies. Being able to transcribe audio to text notes is life-vital for those who do not want to miss a word, who like to be late for classes, or are simply distracted.

Also, do not forget to offer lecture transcription to hearing-impaired classmates. Have a voice record of the presentation? Apply Audext to transcribe your audio file to text.

Postscript

Transformation education has become more applicable to an everyday learning process. New technology in education allows students to learn the way they want, boosts their motivation, and helps to perform incredible results. 

And inspired teachers can entrap the audience by using digital magic right during the lesson. Start reaching the next level of learning and being more productive with the latest educational trends, and especially trends in educational technology, right now!