5 impactful edtech trends in 2017

Education technology is evolving, and this is a magnificent thing. It manages to provide us with that power and experience that everyone wanted to have as a young child. But integrating various new education technology trends to the table does seem to be quite challenging, especially with so many unique ideas offered on the market.

That being said, you do have five different and very impactful trends that are shaking up the educational world. The focus here is on helping students learn easier and faster, all while focusing on offering them a stellar new way of understanding the tasks ahead of them with little to no effort. This works great, and it brings in front a unique set of values for everyone to explore.

1. Virtual reality is a key component of edtech

Whether we like it or not, VR also comes in the educational world too. Usually, VR tends to be used mostly for entertainment purposes, but it does have some educational value as well. It basically manages to offer a visual element that makes learning a lot more interactive. Being able to see things rather than just read about them can indeed bring in front a new perspective when it comes to education.

Moreover, there are inexpensive VR solutions like Google Cardboard for example which can still deliver tremendous results without costing a lot.The idea here is to bring in front as much quality and value as possible, all while bringing a unique and insightful experience to the table. The focus here is on making sure that students get to learn everything without having to rely solely on text and old images.

2. The ability to study on mobile devices at any time

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People always tend to be on the go and very busy. That’s why it can be very hard for someone to acquire a new skill. But with mobile apps that help you learn stuff on the go, you have a wealth of information right under your fingertips. You can easily choose when to study and how to do it, and you can easily study as much as you want. Basically, this places the control in your hands, and it’s a wonderful way to learn new stuff online.

3. Gamification helps bring video game ideas to education

Adding gaming elements to learning is great, because not only do they offer a sense of progression, but they can also come in the form of hardware and deliver great interactivity with any concept. Finding the right way to explore gaming ideas can be tricky, but using something like this is actually very insightful, helpful and rewarding in the long run.

Gamification is growing into a market behemoth. M2 Research predicts gamification will be worth $2.8 billion by next year. Now, many companies and institutions are merging gamification with eLearning in an effort to improve the way their students and employees learn.

4. The increased number of online education sites

There are more and more sites that offer online learning capabilities. This makes it easier for the consumer to find a good website for him/her. Plus, online learning is available 24/7 and it offers a great sense of convenience that can’t be found anywhere else! That alone, combined with the huge variety of skills and ideas you can explore and use does make online learning one of the pivotal edtech trends in 2017. Today the most innovative companies in education recognize that the very substance of what we need to know has undergone a fundamental shift.

Companies like Pluralsight and 2U, give you professionals a way to keep up to date on content and advance their careers without leaving the comforts of their sofa. NEWSELA helping kids make sense of the news — at their own reading level. And then you also have a platform like Unibuddy that offers smart student recruitment which helps universities inform, as well as engage and even convert prospects simply by taking their student ambassadors to the online world. According to Kimeshan Naidoo, CTO of Unibuddy:

Universities tend to lag the private sector by more than half a decade when it comes to using the cloud and technology for admissions and inbound marketing. With our unique software built using bleeding edge technologies like GraphQL and NoSQL data structures, we have an unfair advantage over competitors who are stuck using legacy and suboptimal architectures.

My main goal is to build software that reflects where technology is going to be in the future, not where it currently is. Moving faster than everyone else is absolutely paramount to maintaining our dominant position in the market.

5. The maker movement

Basically, this encourages students to make and create new stuff based on their ideas and creativity. Platforms like Arduino, for example, are actively supporting this, and they tend to bring in front some of the best possible results and experiences for every customer. Adding this sort of tools is very helpful because children can be very creative and invent whatever they want. It also encourages them to move onward and become inventors and creators in the long term.

One thing is certain, this type of approach is generating a huge impact, and it can bring in front a tremendous set of results in the long term. At the end of the day, we have to realize that the educational world is always changing, and adding in more technology to it can be an advantage. After all, our society is indeed focused on growth and using this type of approach may even be the best experience that we can expect from something like this!