Our world has turned upside down this year. Spring 2020 is the greatest remobilization of the workforce since the Great Depression. Those who did not work online and had no experience had to quickly change the paradigm of thinking, configure services, and search for markets. The education market did not stand aside but accelerated online traffic. Our team took part in a large-scale online conference in the field of education EdTechX Global. According to experts, the online education market in 30 days of spring has grown more than 15 times and continues to grow. This is certainly a unique moment in time to develop an educational project. We are in a hurry to share the most relevant trends in the education market.

– LAS in education. LMS has already become a common educational solution. Together with LMS, LAS systems – learning augmented systems – are actively entering the market. LAS helps to improve training performance, engagement, and reduce costs through state-of-the-art augmented technology. LAS can be used in many fields of activity: in healthcare, in corporate training, in the military, in schools, universities, and for example in preparing for work in public safety.

The educational value of LAS is closely linked to the way in which it is designed, implemented, and integrated into formal and informal learning environments. LAS allows students to engage modern way thinking students in training and helps to focus on learning. It includes:

– creating short, interactive instructional content that is easy to understand and reinforces longer core learning materials;

– a separation from traditional “just in case” learning strategies that emphasize repetition and memorization;

– transition to on-demand, move forward training methods that help the student bridge specific skills gaps in real time.

LAS will satisfy the most demanding training needs:

–  reduce costs and save time with easily customizable dive scenarios.

– improved coordination of individuals and teams through access to performance indicators;

– co-training teams using telepresence;

– analysis of the emotional state of students using biometric IoT sensors.

– VR / AR in training. An important consideration is how AR technologies support and afford meaningful learning. The use of AR has become more accessible as it no longer requires specialized equipment and may easily be used on mobile devices. Most people now own mobile devices, and the use of these devices has increased, thereby enabling greater access to AR. The applications for mobile AR in education are increasing rapidly, and the feasibility of mobile AR has increased due to advances in mobile technology. The education related AR applications are now more commonly found on mobile devices.

– Artificial intelligence. The next major focus of digital learning will be the reconfiguration and optimization of delivery, powered by AI that is able to learn from experience and improve the efficacy of human and machine learning. We will not dwell on specific technologies for a long time; we have launched a series of articles on technologies in education “Education technologies: how to make your project useful and engaging?”, stay tuned for updates on our blog.

– Adaptive learning will receive another round of development and popularity. This is a learning process using special algorithms to build an individual learning path that meets the unique needs of the student. The number of students is constantly growing, and the world, which entered the pandemic, was forced to completely switch to distance learning. Therefore, educational technologies will receive intensive development, which will, on the one hand, adapt to each individual student, and on the other, will be scalable. Adaptive systems just allow you to adapt to the pace of different students. Or offer them teacher assistance when they need it, and not their classmates.

– Online schools are a way out for those who want to get an education in another country, live remotely, have limited opportunities, etc. Even “yesterday” mixed “classrooms” were in demand, where there is an opportunity for students to be in the audience, and the teacher may be from another country, or some students and the teacher in the audience, and some students online. There are lots of modern schools now fully operational online. These are ordinary schools, for ordinary children, with teachers, a blackboard, bells, diaries, assignments.

The student is assigned a specific value teacher who helps to build a learning plan for the child or helps the child determine the directions, further build a learning plan, and motivates to follow it. An individual approach to each student, taking into account his abilities and talents, which is ensured by various forms of individual consultations: online consultations on each subject weekly; video conferences, group consultations in the form of a daily advisory chat; full-time consultation with the teacher. Group work – during the lesson, children have the opportunity to gather in separate online rooms. A virtual imitation of campuses, group work, practice in unique emitted real conditions, holograms of teachers, and many other technologies that complement the educational process so much that the need for an offline component is rapidly declining.

Distance learning frees up more of your own time for visiting various interest groups, developing individual talents, completing various courses, or traveling.

One of the most important issues of online learning, which has not yet been fully resolved, is the assessment of knowledge on how to evaluate students, and the point is not so much in honesty as in getting real feedback, the lack of which makes learning ineffective. A child cannot compare his achievements with those of other children. It is as if locked in its own online space. The only criterion for its success is the result of the evaluation by the teacher. Sometimes it’s just the number of points scored in the test. But the child also needs a more detailed description of his response. Here, distance learning has significant advantages over a regular school, where the teacher and student are limited by the time of the lesson, and the teacher simply does not have time to give a qualitative assessment of the student’s efforts. In an online school, this is possible. Neither the teacher nor the student is limited in time. An important role is played by the dialogue between teacher and student. Both written and oral online communication. The student needs to receive quality feedback. This additionally stimulates him.

– Alternative to university education. School graduates are increasingly refusing to receive a classical diploma in favor of alternative education. The main reason was the changes that the labor market is experiencing. People need to spend less and less time on training and formalities like sitting in an audience. The historically formed educational system does not satisfy the demands of the modern economy, which has a need for personnel who have undergone quick training. Moreover, the further, the more universities will lose relevance, because modern teenagers are distinguished by dynamics and multitasking. For six traditional university years, they can master several professions and try a lot. For this generation, six years is a long time. And in connection with quarantine, the issue of alternative education has become more acute.

Demand is growing for a variety of platforms with educational courses and lectures, both paid and free. They have become one of the relevant alternatives to dusty university audiences. The student determines the goal for himself, selects the “path” and the algorithm, selects a set of courses and a project that needs to be completed. The training is accompanied by pear-to-pear components and people working in the industry who carry out mentoring functions and gradually integrate the future specialist into the industry.

In essence, as we see the educational process can become a people-less process. We can definitely note a niche where people have not yet come up with any solutions and robots, artificial intelligence and algorithms cannot completely replace a person in the near future, these are teachers for preschool children. There are a number of reasons and justification for this, but this is a separate topic for research.

Only flexibility will help survive and flourish. By removing some of the barriers that people around the world may face in accessing education, EdTech startups already offer a wide range of educational opportunities in both developed and developing countries. This makes the knowledge of the highest class available to an increasing number of people, finally, there are technologies that will allow you to educate different children in one group so that each will have their own unique learning path, according to the characteristics of the brain, perception of information and individual inclinations. 

No business succeeds when it stands still. The same goes for teachers, students, and entrepreneurs in the field of e-learning. It’s important to stay up to date with current facts and trends, study the data that shows how, when, and where your audience spends time on the Internet, and benefit from it. Due to the fact that the virus will not recede – school, universities, courses need to have time to develop an online learning process over the summer, summer has to be hot in every sense, there is no time to relax.