Edtech: What is Educational Technology and How Is it Used?

There’s been a lot of evolution in the global education sector over the past few decades, especially as remote learning and educational technology have taken over the scene.

From wall paintings, blackboards, the abacus, calculators, then computers, and now, some of the most advanced software technologies to enhance learning, education continues to be revolutionized. 

That makes us want to ask the question below:

Table of Contents

1. What is Edtech- Education Technology?
2. Scope of Educational Technology
3. Problems Addressed By EdTech
4. Benefits of Educational Technology
5. Educational Technology Examples
6. Educational Technology Companies
7. Conclusion

What is Edtech- Educational Technology?

EdTech is the short form for Educational Technology. It refers to any aspect of technology dedicated to creating and applying tools—both software and hardware—and processes for enhancing education.

It comprises studies and practices that facilitate learning and improve teachers’ and learners’ performance by developing, applying, and managing relevant technologies.

Its abbreviated form (EdTech) usually refers to every company that develops or provides educational technology resources.

EdTech is a broad field—touching every field of education and a good percentage of the human population. 

It garners theoretical knowledge from different disciplines—AI, sociology, communication, computer science, and education. 

It also touches various mobile technology-enhanced fields such as computer-based training, machine learning, online learning, and learning theory.

Among the chief ideologies motivating EdTech is that people learn and interact differently, and there is no single general catch-them-all formula for learning. Besides, every individual does not share the same level of motivation and interest for all learning disciplines.

With these ethical considerations, Edtech has created tools to bypass age and natural learning abilities and help educators to draft more inclusive learning strategies that enhance students’ learning capabilities.

It has gone way beyond what was obtainable as Edtech experts are always looking to see how they can integrate the most recent solutions into education. 

Students now take courses from anywhere through electronic devices, optimized bots can take notes, digital classrooms can be automated, teachers are using machine learning tools in their administrative activities—and these are but a tip of the Edtech iceberg.

Scope Of Education Technology

Educational Technology is far-reaching, and defining it in terms of one of its domains will not bring out the full import of the subject. 

Now, let’s look at the various aspects of educational technology to understand the topic better.

• Educational technology as technological software, media, and resources, for instance, extensive online courses that enhance learning, is what people refer to when they mention “EdTech.”
• Educational technology as a scholarly discipline—comprising courses collectively called ICT (Information and Communications Technology) or Computer Studies.
• Educational technology for internal company/office management. For example, logistic and budget management training for management systems and LRS (Learning Record Store) for storage and analysis of learning data.
• Educational Technology is a theoretical and practical approach aimed at enhancing learning.
• EMIS (Education Management Information System) and LMS (Learning Management Systems), educational technology comprises student and curriculum management resources.

Educational technology is not limited to just high technology, but it means anything that facilitates classroom learning using face-to-face, online or blended learning. 

It also seeks to solve various problems in the educational system using technology, which will be explained in greater detail below:

Problems Addressed by EdTech

1. Costly Education

Student loans and scholarships are very familiar terms all around the globe. If the average cost of education were very affordable, there would be no need for those. 

According to Forbes, the cost of college has increased about eight times faster than wages. Unlike older generations, it is not that easy for today’s college students to work their way through college and graduate without debts.

Droves of students are having a hard time learning because they can’t afford their fees. Others drop out while others don’t even give education a try because of the cost, which educational technology seeks to address.

2. Waste of Resources

In the U.S. alone, close to 68 million trees are felled annually to manufacture paper and paper products. About 1 billion trees’ worth of paper is disposed of in the garage every year.

The conventional paper-and-pencil educational system is a very expensive and wasteful one because as space to store the paper keeps diminishing, most of that paper gets thrown away.

That said, felling trees to make paper is a non-sustainable process, and though the average person may not perceive this cost component, it manifests itself in global warming and climate change.

As the educational technology wave surges ahead, the number of resources consumed on printing paper and making stationery will undoubtedly experience a massive drop.

3. Bullying and General Student Wellness

According to 20 the 19 National Canter for Education Statistics, 20.2%—an equivalent of one out of every five students reported being bullied, and 41% of those students reported that being bullied at school makes them afraid they would be bullied again.

If that wasn’t touching enough: the Centre for Disease Control statistic reveals that bullied students are most susceptible to anxiety, increased risk of depression, dropping out, lower academic achievement, and sleeping difficulties.

With the above statistics, it is very clear that the adverse mental health implications of bullying and unethical, voluminous, and often overwhelming educational curricula can make learning practically impossible. 

The rise in technology as a means of communication and learning has also increased the rate of cyberbullying.

A cyberbullying report showed that among cyberbullied tweens, 69.1%  said it negatively affected how they felt about themselves, 31.9% said it negatively impacted their friendships, 13.1%, their physical wellbeing, and 6.5%, their schoolwork.

The implications of cyberbullying are anti-learning—as much as physical bullying. Educational technology integrates learning systems, solutions, and resources to learn effectively without going through it.

4. Poor Standards of Education and Remote Accessibility

Even within similar disciplines, students from areas of the world with low educational standards fail to measure up to their contemporaries in high-standard regions.

The difference in educational standards across various parts of the world produces incompetent students and makes it hard to unify and accept professionalism across various disciplines.

Unfortunately, because of limited access to information and relevant and latest resources,  third world nations and remote areas of the world fall behind in educational standards compared to the more developed nations like the US and several European countries. 

Educational technology, through global connectivity, is helping to make the necessary educational resources available to unify learning and help remote teachers and students come up to speed with the most recent developments and standards.

5. Learning Style

The downside of physical learning tools is that they don’t allow remote access whenever needed for study or reference purposes. Such a limitation can hamper learning by discouraging responsiveness, proactivity, and research.

6. Lack of Consistent Educational Content

Differences in educational standards have resulted in inconsistent content among learning institutions and systems around the globe.

Uniform schemes, aside from enhancing students’ abilities concerning others in different locations, also helps to reduce excesses in the form of exclusive content that’s only accessible to certain learning institutions or systems.

7. Teacher Education

Teachers are the pivot people in the learning process, but they need to undergo frequent training relevant to the current educational trends in different disciplines.

However, in actual practice, teachers are only trained periodically—and that is usually yearly. And, when they undergo frequent training, the contents are stale and hamper innovation, responsiveness, and scalability in learning practices.

8. Inadequate Supervision and Involvement

It’s often not a piece of cake to supervise students. Often, students need to be monitored on a real-time basis, but many educators still use manual supervision—which takes its toll on their health and productivity.

The resultant effect is that teachers begin to invest most of their time, energy, and resources in student monitoring instead of forging ahead to plan their lessons properly.

EdTech solutions can help teachers streamline some time-intensive processes like record keeping, reporting, and planning in general. 

They can also enhance teacher-student communication and make learning institutions’ communication systems more comprehensive.

Manual supervision also handicaps parents in monitoring their children’s learning activities in detail. 

There are very few educational systems and solutions that allow for frequent and consistent in-depth interaction between parents, children, and teachers regarding the students’ progress, and this changes with EdTech.

Benefits of Educational Technology

1. Educational Technology Helps to Individualize Learning

Educational technology helps educators and learning institutions individualize learning for each student to differentiate them better and encourage each of them to master their work at their pace.

Technology can be maximized to produce a simultaneous hybrid of learning solutions and processes like adaptive content, regular testing, instant feedback, etc., just like the most effective of teachers.

The use of computers or other types of technology can help the students to practice essential content and skills while the educator uses that time to helps others, carry out assessments, or look into other tasks.

2. Remote Learning and Enhanced Teacher-Student Interaction

Most recent improvements in education technology have improved access to education and even allow students to run full degree programs.

Researchers from Harvard, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Nation Bureau of Economic Research found out that online education allows more people to pursue degrees.

An inclusive advantage for non-full-time and remote students, educational technology helps to improve student-instructor interactions.

As of 2020, over half of the world’s population is connected to the internet. And though some regions lack the necessary infrastructure to provide an adequate supply of online coverage, some others are witnessing internet penetration rates of approximately 100%.

Currently, over 85 percent of Americans have internet access—many of whom can no more imagine a life without it.

Looking at the massive population with internet access in the US and worldwide, E-learning activities have a very solid foundation upon which to thrive. 

Learning resources can now be used for remote learning and can be accessed by a larger audience. Students can access and interact with loads of online resources from the comfort of their homes.

Students can also increase proactivity by learning their courses before educators teach them. They can also collaborate to tackle certain aspects of what they didn’t grasp through face-to-face learning remotely.

3. Reduction of Cost

Educational technology solutions remove the need to pay for transport to learning facilities.

Also, think about it—how much can be saved on writing paper, stationery, and hardcopy reading materials if learning goes paperless. Imagine how many trees will be saved when educational technology takes its full course.

And though many learners miss several aspects of the classroom learning environment, the pros of education technology far outweigh what conventional classroom learning offers.

4. Enhanced Learning Across All Age Groups

Here are several statistics according to various resources to help you see how educational technology, through e-learning, enhances learning processes:

• A staggering 96% of students, mostly children, say e-learning resources are fun to use and enhance their learning.
• Students, through e-learning, can learn about five times more material per hour of the session.
• E-learning can cut down the learning time for material by 25% to 60% compared to traditional learning methods.
• Most students are satisfied with online learning courses, with 95 percent willing to recommend online learning to others.

It is now evident that students tend to learn better and in less time with computer-based learning. They also enjoy the classes more and become more positive in their attitudes towards computers in e-learning classes.

EdTech helps students develop a sense of independence in tackling their problems, plus they study at their pace, breaking the perceived age and learning ability limitations.

5. Convenient Engagement

With WEB 2.0 technologies and the inclusion of key educational mentors, EdTech tools can improve student engagement and make it as convenient as interactions in face-to-face classes. 

6. Inclusivity in Learning

Many educational applications produce positive results on students’ learning. Learning apps on mobile devices have blurred or erased the line between average students and highflyers.

For instance, a study of 266 kindergarten children in Auburn, Maine, revealed that iPad-using students make better grades in every literacy test than students who don’t.

Some learning applications also foster collaboration among students—allowing them to tackle problems and receive feedback.

Educational Technology Examples

EdTech has begun gaining application in many aspects of learning. Some of these areas of application include:

1. Tailor-Made Learning

The differences in people’s learning paces are a major factor that influences the design of resources by educational technology companies.

Certain data science tools have been created to help teachers track students’ learning habits and draft personalized content and lesson plans for them.

Educational technology resources provide different features that help customize or personalize learning processes and make learning more fun for different types of students of all ages.

2. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course)

A Massive Open Online Course gives students access to courses and resources from colleges that offer them from any part of the globe. 

It gives remote learners open access to filmed lectures, problem sets, readings, etc. Moreso, many MOOCs spice up learning with interactive courses on user platforms or social media interactions between students and important faculty members.

MOOC is a branch of EdTech that has greatly impacted remote learning through the convenient and affordable provision of learning resources, thereby helping to improve the quality and uniformity of education and promoting inclusiveness.

3. Multi-user Learning as In virtual classrooms

The virtual classroom is the foundation of a digital learning environment. Students and teachers can communicate with each other in real-time in virtual multi-user spaces.

Virtual classrooms help teachers interact with students one-on-one and engage them in webcasts and whiteboards instead of static presentations.

For example, Woodclap is a virtual classroom used by over 500,00 educators interacting with students on their smartphones with messages, votes, etc.—and in real-time.

By monitoring engagements, teachers can see the number of engaged or disengaged students and track the effectiveness of their teaching techniques and how responsive students are to lessons.

Through live collaboration, virtual learning classrooms make group work fun and effective by creating room for real-time document sharing and shared workspaces.

An outstanding part of virtual learning is that students get immediate support depending on their quiz and exam performances.

4. E-learning Analytics

Loads of data on student activity are gathered through e-learning. With such data, a teacher can gain good insight into a student’s performance and assess them properly.

Knowing a student’s performance can help the teacher make informed and relevant plans for them. It also enhances sharing students’ performance with parents or guardians.

E-learning uses a hybrid of artificial intelligence and big data to improve student retention, online learning effectiveness and create behavior-model solutions. That’s explained in better detail below:

• AI (Artificial Intelligence)

AI tools measure a student’s performance and give relevant practicable tips that help them perform better.

• Big Data

Considerable data resources help to track relevant student information—easily shareable with students and parents alike.

The hybrid of AI and Big Data is a powerful combo for EdTech growth and advancement, and future technologies promise to be more optimized 

5. Immersive Learning

Immersive Learning in this context virtually places students in an interactive learning space to recreate scenarios or teach certain techniques or skills.

Virtual learning generally, simulations, and role-play are classified under immersive learning.

Anyone can simulate real-life scenarios or situations with AR(Artificial Reality) and VR(Virtual Reality) tools—which is way beyond what’s obtainable in the traditional learning space.

In addition, Q&As, polls, competitive internet-based tasks, gamification, animation, and interactive quizzes help to induce learning and make it more adventurous.

That said, let’s look at some EdTech companies and have a peek into what they offer;

Educational Technology Companies

1. Spark 101

Spark 101 helps students solve real-life problems through well-crafted syllabus-based challenges, helping them connect what they learn to fast-growing STEM career choices.

They partner with industry professionals to design STEM video challenges that help students to gain mastery in solving real-life problems.

Teachers can gain access to diverse resources plus STEM lesson plans and video challenges agile students can be educated on real-life problems faced by top STEM employers.

2. Torsh

Torsh trains teachers and sharpens their teaching skills by the use of online platform resources and videos. It helps enhance the observation management and mentorship skills of teachers.

3. BYJU’s

Founded by Byju Raveendran, Byju’s is the highest-valued EdTech company in the world, currently valued at $16.5 billion. 

The application is a  hybrid of personalized learning and engaging video lessons. And helps students to grasp concepts in a deep yet easy-to-learn manner.

It features a far-reaching online tutoring program consisting of online classes, one-on-one mentorship, and real-time doubt-resolution.

4. Testive

An online tutor, Testive combines machine learning with human tutors to help SAT and ACT students score better through personalized teaching.

5. Piazza

Piazza provides students with online study rooms to connect with a teacher, interact, and ask anonymous questions.

6. Duolingo

Duolingo enhances learning a new language by making it look like you’re playing a game and currently has over 300 million active users. 

It uses machine and data learning to develop a statistic-based model of the amount of time it took users to remember new words they learned before forgetting and needing a refresher.

6. Cognii

Cognii, through its AI-enabled virtual learning assistant, provides virtual tutoring, study and review tools, and fast grading of open-ended replies. It uses machine learning to personalize and improve learning feedback.

Conclusion

The recent trends in the global educational system have proven beyond doubt that EdTech is the future of education.

Loads of educational technology examples and applications show several untapped aspects of learning to which EdTech can be integrated. That explains why we look forward to more terrific EdTech applications!