Technology Trends in the Education Sector

Today’s students are growing up in a digital world that utilizes a variety of hi-tech tools, from computers and video games to increasingly sophisticated mobile devices. Schools and universities are following suit, integrating a range of technologies both in and outside the classroom. Let us look at some exciting trends in today’s education sector.

Globalization

The demand for higher education globally has increased and will continue to grow. New campuses are being built and existing campuses are expanding. Universities are competing internationally for resources, faculty, the best students and education funding.

Overseas expansion creates opportunities for students and faculty in terms of exchange programs and expanded campus environments. China, India and the Middle East have quickly become key areas for widespread campus growth. The learning model varies by country and institution, ranging from replicating the home campus, to building local capacity, to participating in faculty exchanges.

These global learning environments give students an opportunity to expand their portfolios to include experience that is valued in today’s workforce. Universities, in turn, use their foreign campuses to attract top research talent and build international relationships, establishing a global presence and helping develop local capacity.

Information Literacy

Enhancing technical literacy and creating a culture that encourages faculty to use computers, smart devices and other innovative tools in their curricula is becoming a top priority for colleges. From the perspective of students, while they are device-savvy, they may not necessarily be information savvy. In spite of growing up with technology, many students have not learned how to use technology for academic purposes. Universities are addressing this through a variety of methods and are creating a technology culture through a variety of programs such as support desks and student employment programs. The bottom-line is to ensure that students are viable candidates and are competitive in the global workplace.

Internet branding today is a viable way to market academic programs to prospective students while enhancing the school’s brand. Universities are also establishing online parties and networking websites for newly-admitted freshmen, allowing them to interact virtually with campus services and the campus community before they start school. The presence of schools in virtual online communities such as Second Life helps enhance the brand. YouTube’s education channels and iTunes U are effective not only for teaching and learning, but also for marketing a university. To attract students, universities develop student-blogger programs, where current students blog about their life at the university. Some universities also have “fan pages” on Facebook to enable communications with incoming freshmen.

Mobility

Students depend heavily on their mobile phones and PDA s these days. With the proliferation of mobile phones on campus, colleges everywhere are compelled to capitalize on feature-rich phones that are capable of much more than just voice calls. Adoption of the BlackBerry, iPhone and other smart devices that have Internet access allows students and faculty to perform a wide range of assignments. Tasks like administration, sharing class notes, downloading lectures, instant messaging, etc., are possible anywhere cell phone service is available.

Mobile phones are also being used to access computer files from remote locations. With services like Soonr, students who have forgotten to bring an assignment to class can use their cell phone to access the completed work on their home computer and show it to the professor. Mobile applications such as Twitter and CitySense help students schedule meetings or study dates remotely. Mobile learning that uses PDA s and smartphones to deliver courseware, field data, short tutorials and classroom polls is also on the rise.

New Technology Adoption – A Trend in Itself

Some of the biggest trends of today include the emergence of Web 2.0 and social networking phenomena such as blogs and wikis, as well as new online video repository and delivery websites such as YouTube, iTunes U and Big Think. The emergence of smartphones such as the iPhone and other intelligent devices has enhanced mobile learning (referred to as m-learning). These technologies create new channels for content delivery, online video expansion and podcasting. Also, the adoption of virtual reality websites such as Second Life has provided higher-education institutions with new venues for class gatherings and learning.

Some popular Web 2.0 tools are:

Blogs: Short for ‘Web log,’ a blog is an online journal, which has a writer/creator and readers who serve as contributors and commentators that help shape the dialogue. A typical blog combines text, images and links to other blogs, web pages and other media related to its topic.

Wikis: The best way to describe a wiki is by giving the classic example of Wikipedia, which is an online encyclopedia that is generated, validated and maintained by users.

Podcasts: Series of digital media files, which can be both audio and/ or video.

Mashups: Similar to a portal, a mashup is a newer, loosely-defined Web 2.0 technique for content aggregation. Examples of popular consumer mashups are Google maps and Diggs.

Social networking and communities: Popular social networks like Facebook, orkut, LinkedIn, used to build an online community of users who share similar interests and/or activities.

A combination of these tools is transforming the traditional learning environment into something more social and personalized. While traditional Learning Management Systems (LMS) like Blackboard or Web CT are course-centered and driven by faculty, the new approach is to create a ‘learner-centric’ system.

Universities continue to examine ways in which they can integrate these tools to further enhance the campus and learning experience and improve productivity through flexible learning environments. Many universities view technology as a key asset that helps them create an intellectually vibrant and relevant campus to attract the best students and faculty.

Learning and collaboration

The education process has evolved over a period of time to collaborative learning. Web 2.0 and social networking tools such as blogs and wikis and online social gathering websites such as Flickr are enhancing and facilitating collaborative learning and are being used widely on many campuses. The delivery of content has evolved dramatically, as many professors opt to post all class material including complete audio and/or video recordings of lectures on sites like iTunes U and YouTube. Open source course-management systems such as Moodle and similar systems on Facebook are some applications to support more content and student collaboration.

Virtual meeting place tools like Webex, Dimdim and Gotomeeting are efficient web-based collaboration solutions that help improve productivity and decrease the need for face-to-face communication and travel. These tools simulate the visual communications that occur between students and teachers in the traditional classroom setting.

Education and entertainment

Higher-education content and entertainment (edutainment) are sharing a common footprint these days. Teachers are combining the two using various videos that contain both educational and entertainment value in podcasts and posting course content on education channels. Television broadcasting companies such as the BBC, MTV, NBC, and ABC are quickly developing methods to integrate broadcast media with higher education. This trend supports the marked increase in the use of multimedia devices on college campuses where content is accessible not only through computers, but also through TVs and smartphones.

In conclusion, technology will play an increasing role in higher education this century. The learning technology of today is being shaped with the help of tools to create a social, highly collaborative and personalized environment. Institutions will adopt innovative solutions that will change the way students learn, communicate, produce, collaborate and study both on and off campus. Creating innovative services from cur¬rent and future technologies requires a powerful, reliable, expandable and secure IT infrastructure that has adequate bandwidth, quality of service and storage. Many colleges and universities have already developed plans to ensure success in meeting their current and future needs. Educators, management and administrators who are proactive in embracing the trends with the help of the right technology partner are in a position to create significant competitive advantages.