Jumping the digital bandwagon is the latest trend that is making the rounds, and the field of education is no exception either. In the fast-paced digitized era, the need to switch to smart learning modules along with digitized classrooms is the futuristic way of education that is able to provide the perfect blend of traditional pedagogy with modern technologies. Looking towards the days that lay ahead, the advancements in the technological sphere is all set to revolutionize the face of education forever. That, in turn, rings in the advancements of learning and teaching techniques all around the globe. However, the factors of risk-taking and the limitations of education-technology still remain a factor of concern for many leading educationists. Also, read An Insight into Educational Technology.
Here is a look at some of the limitations and risk-taking factors in education-technology that we should be wary of from the very beginning in order to have the smooth transition towards the education of the future from the almost-reminiscent stage of traditional pedagogy.
Primary limitations in Education-Technology in Schools
Technology is no exception when it comes to having limitations even in the education sphere. Embracing the newest advancements in education, this spread of technology plays its role in bringing about ease and speed in education. It is also influential in bringing about newer dimensions of teaching techniques to schools and other educational institutions all over the world. However, some of the primary limitations that the realm of education-technology in schools is as follow.
Efficiency
One of the first hurdles in the way of education-technology is efficiency in functional ability. The primary challenge that it has to overcome is that of efficiency. Fostering universal ties across networking chains in the cloud, education-technology taps into global learning resources for the advancement of education. However, the factor of efficiency remains a matter of concern as network faults, satellite issues and other technical glitches are not entirely avoidable. That makes efficiency one of the foremost challenges that education-technology in schools must overcome at the outset.
Cost-effectiveness
Establishing a digital setup in a school infrastructural model is something that not all regions of the globe can have access to. Updating the school infrastructural model to an entirely digital framework is quite a hefty cost that many schools dither to invest in due to the scarcity of funds or other issues. Global economies have recently gone through some major upheavals in recent years due to tumultuous political scenarios. That has led to cost-cutting actions coming into place in budgets and fund sanctioning activities in all sectors, including education. Investing in EdTech tools not being the way many schools are looking at now, the matter of affordability is a limitation of education-technology.
Data Security
As anyone who has been keeping up with the news can tell you, digitalization comes with it the inherent risks with data security. Any school hoping to digitalize education will have to consider how to prevent hacking, data theft, and potential malware issues. To prevent these problems, staff training in best practices and accuring the right tools are both essential. Staff should be trained to be wary of social engineering hacking tactics and ensure best practices such as the use of two-factor authentication in their devices. Obvious tools you need include a secure cloud server and antiviruses, although many tend to forget about the need of a Virtual Private Network (VPN) which is integral for encrypting your school’s network.
Outreach
The last half of the previous year saw more than half of the globe becoming digitized. While that is great news for all and sundry, it is true that the density of such digitization is concentrated on some particular areas of the globe. Due to such uneven distribution of digitized networks in the planet, the fact remains that outreach is a limitation of education-technology. The universal presence of the cloud still remains as one of the obstacles in the path of education-technology. While spreading its wings towards a better and more digitized future, education-technology still has a long way to go.
Credibility
With digital education slowly but steadily making its way through establishing strong educational chains over the cloud, there is no dearth of online courses on myriad technical and academic disciplines. However, it cannot be denied that since online courses are still a relatively new thing in education, the credibility issue is still a limitation in many countries. With reputed universities have their fair share of free and paid online courses, the same cannot be said of schools. That leads to the credibility of such online degrees to come under the lens. The credibility of online education is one such limitation that education-technology is yet to overcome.
Risk-taking Factors in Education-Technology in Schools
The risk-taking factors in education-technology are sometimes the factors that help overcome its challenges or limitations. The way to go for teachers worldwide is to introduce more and more risk-taking factors in classrooms that help in taking education-technology forward. The following are some of the ways that they can go about doing so to provide impetus to the new vistas that education-technology can bring to schools.
Know Your Strengths (and use them to power up)
Pause to test your limits by going experimental with all kinds of tech teaching tools available at your disposal. Get friendly with each of them and find the ones that you are most comfortable using. Next, establish a lesson plan that incorporates at least two to three of them in the same working week for students at different levels of study. That way, you can gain knowledge of your strengths and learn to grow in your profession.
Establish a Two-way Interaction
Know what your students have to say about the classroom experiments that you introduce in the classroom. Establish a frank channel of conversation between yourselves and use that to strategize your next lesson plans. Use the worksheets and practical lessons that they seem to love and cannot get enough of. That way, you will learn to devise new ways of introducing coursework using education tech tools. Your students, in turn, will get to take full advantage of being a part of the digital age.
Put YouTube to good use
Pick up an online lesson or two and get brushing up on those skills. Teaching techniques have a whole range of YouTube channels dedicated to them and you can ace up your sleeve with a few new cards. The influence of social media being an undeniable factor, it is high time to make good use of the plentiful resource that it is. Rely on YouTube to keep you updated about the latest trends in using tech gear and learning tools in smart classrooms in the era of digitized education.
Have a Go-to Person
Whether online or offline, having a person that you can rely upon is going to be a risk-taking factor that will help you reap many benefits in the future once it is time. However, this is not simple chatty friendships offline or online that we are talking about here, but the more enriching ones that you can actually have a fulfilling professional relationship with. Whether on LinkedIn or in your local teaching community, have a person with whom you can share your classroom experiences. Learning from their feedback will help you improvise your teaching techniques, thus gearing you up for the future for good.
Incorporating some of the risk-taking factors in schools, one can overcome the primary challenges of education-technology. The way a futuristic outlook towards education awaits at the end of overcoming many a struggle and walking many a mile before a fully digitized global education-technology is established.
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