The digital transformation of teaching
The rapid evolution of digital is having a
significant impact on corporate industries and is serving to provide exciting
new opportunities, maximize efficiencies, increase collaboration and reduce
costs.
As the educational sector becomes more competitive,
digital transformation is now becoming a necessary means of survival as this
new digital world requires educators to adapt and adopt digital technologies,
methodologies and mindsets.
Educators at a grade or compulsory educational
level have embraced technology, with a rise in US Title 1 school funding to
bring devices such as Google Chromebooks into the classroom. And with forms of
edtech becoming increasingly valuable, the adoption of technology in learning
is likely to pick up more momentum.
But what does this mean for professional or
work-based learning? In this article, we explore the potential challenges and
solutions to digital transformation in the educational sector to outline its
importance as well the enormous potential of adopting new, forward-thinking
processes and mindsets.
Digital
transformation in education: The challenges
“The biggest
impediment to a company’s future success is its past success.” - Dan Schulman, CEO of PayPal
To understand how a full and sustainable digital
transformation can take place, it's important to examine the potential
challenges or roadblocks an institution might face. By understanding such
issues it will be possible to overcome them.
1. A reluctance to
adapt
At present. almost 70% of those operating in the
public sector feel their digital capabilities fall behind the private sector.
Despite this, many key decision-makers are reluctant to take those next
all-important steps towards digital maturity.
Essentially, people tend to get used to doing
things in a particular way and are reluctant to step outside their comfort
zone, resulting in stunted growth and progress. When adapting to a new
technology, culture or mindset, many in the education sector fear failure and
seem reluctant to acquire new skill sets or processes.
Takeaway: To prevent this from happening, it's
important to understand the benefits of digital transformation in education and
communicate this to key stakeholders within the business. Understanding and
communicating value is the key to success, so prioritizing this is essential.
2. Inferior
knowledge or skills
To drive innovation, an adequate level of
organization-wide confidence, knowledge and skills are essential. Currently, UK
employers are struggling to fill 43% of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering
and Mathematics) vacancies due to a widening digital skills gap in digital transformation
of teaching.
To ensure a smooth and effective digital
transformation, educational institutions must compete for a narrow pool of
talent or adopt new approaches to upskilling current stakeholders in areas from
UX and CX to cloud computing.
Takeaway: There is a digital skills gap and to
benefit from the skills you need to drive your institution forward, fostering a
culture of continuous learning within the business, upskilling your current
staff will help you make the most of available talent.
3. Data silos
In this age rich in digital data there is a wealth
of metrics that can offer colleges, universities and training providers insight
into prospective learners, internal efficiencies, user interactions, and more.
Put simply, this level of information is invaluable.
The problem is, in the educational sector
especially, this data is siloed, often making it inaccurate and unreliable. To
understand the most usable and information data, education leaders need to make
informed predictions, integral business decisions and adopt new educational
initiatives that matter, being able to receive fluid, timely, precise and
organized data is vital.
Takeaway: By understanding the data that will
benefit your data the most, you will be able to drill down into the insights
that really matter, filtering out metrics that are redundant or lack value,
while choosing the tools that will help you organize and analyze it correctly.
4. A lack of
direction or strategy
With digital transformation in any sector or
industry, one of the major roadblocks to success is knowing where to start. As
the prospect of mass change can be daunting, understanding which direction to
take or how to form a solid strategy can prove difficult.
Takeaway: To gain the direction and clarity needed
to forge a strategy, identifying business models or processes that are not too
simple or too convoluted, as well as the key efforts you'll need to make to
transform them digitally, is a good place to start.
In today's world, the vast majority of businesses
and institutions run on technology-driven systems and infrastructures to ensure
a smooth and effective day to day operation.
An inherent challenge with digital transformation
is that many systems that educational institutes adopt are not compatible with
the new digital innovations required to drive them forward. This level of
incompatibility results in a necessity to upgrade, customize or replace a
current system to achieve integration, which ultimately costs time and money.
Upon realizing the necessity of digital
transformation, Staffordshire University, based in Stoke-on-Trent upgraded the
majority of its internal data infrastructure to the cloud, marking a
significant milestone in the institution’s digital maturity. Not only has this
significant shift made the University far more efficient, but this cloud
transformation saved it a total of £4 million in tech-based avoidance costs.
Takeaway: Work in collaboration with all key
stakeholders within the institution to decide on software and infrastructure
budgets and make decisions on changes, replacements, customizations and
upgrades that will drive the best long-term value.
Digital
transformation in education: The solutions
“When digital transformation is done right, it’s
like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, but when done wrong, all you have
is a really fast caterpillar.” - George Westerman, Principal Research
Scientist, MIT Sloan Initiative on the Digital Economy
Having identified the challenges associated with
digital transformation within the sector, we will now explore the solutions
available to educators.
1. Develop a strategy
Any significant change or internal innovation
starts with the development of a strategy that not only works in principle, but
everyone within the organization understands and can work towards.
To create a solid digital transformation strategy
for your organization, you must work collaboratively, identifying your core
business aims and goals, as well as the technologies, methodologies and
innovations you will need to achieve them.
Once you've done so, you will need to create a step
by step plan of action and communicate this with all key stakeholders within
the organization. For inspiration, consult our ultimate guide to IT &
digital transformation.
2. Hire, train and
invest in skills
As mentioned earlier, the digital skills gap is
still quite significant the world over which means at present, the talent pool
is scarce.
As an educational institution, it's your primary
business goal to educate and upskill others so that they can thrive and succeed
professionally. By adopting this approach internally, you will be able to
implement a digitally-driven learning programme that will provide your staff
with the skills to evolve their roles within the business and catalyze your
digital transformation.
Also, investing in upskilling internally across
departments, helping each team member to develop their confidence and knowledge
while fostering departmental leaders will help drive the business in the best
possible direction.
3. Integrate and
leverage digital data
To extract maximum value from the enormous strands
and silos of data collected in the educational sector, it's essential to be
able to integrate and leverage your data sources seamlessly - understanding
where each insight comes from and how it can benefit your institution.
To ensure the seamless flow and understanding of
the colossal amounts of student-led data available to educational
organizations, the x API and IMS Caliper standards have been implemented to
ensure all data is processed in a standardized format in transformation of teaching..
And this year in particular, a growing number of
data platforms have adopted such standards and are developing edtech tools that
wrap intelligence around these insights - helping educational institutions to
segment data and understand existing student behaviors to improve curriculums,
processes and offer a greater level of personalization.
By taking the time to understand the areas of data
that will prove most valuable to your institution and implementing the best
tools in which to analyze these metrics, you will benefit from a wealth of
insights that will help the ongoing evolution of your digital transformation.
4. Automate
On average, around 49% of companies across sectors
are currently using automation, with more than half of B2B companies adopting
the technology as part of their strategy.
In education especially, automation could improve
invaluable to institutions looking to enhance their digital maturity. Notable
time constraints and limited budgets can put a great deal of strain on the
modern educational institution.
But, by implementing automated systems and
technologies to assist with operational tasks from administration workflow
management to computing and data collection, it will be possible to increase
productivity exponentially with minimal infrastructure, driving down long-term
costs and allowing you to place focus on more valuable efforts or activities.
5. Embrace the
power of mobile
The millennial generation is hugely mobile focused,
with 98% of 17 to 24-year-olds and 97% 25 to 34-year-olds said to own a
smartphone.
To attract and inspire this important cohort,
adopting a mobile mindset is critical or you will get left behind. Mobility is
a necessity of the modern age, and if your prospective students cannot access
the information or material they need in a flexible, portal format, your
chances of offering them value will be minimized.
Mobile learning is an incredibly effective way to
deliver value, but mobile-based developments don’t have to be limited to course
material. Take the Michigan State University, for instance. Understanding that
mental health affects a notable proportion of their student body, the
institution developed a mobile application called iSee.
This innovative development helps the campus’
stretched student councillors prioritize those in need and help offer better
overall assistance and solutions to alumni in need of help by collecting
critical data from the app.
As this is a relatively new app, precise data on
its progress is yet to be divulged - but the cutting-edge initiative has been
incredibly well received and is a testament to the power of mobile tech in the
educational sector.
6. Experiment with
emerging technologies
Most emerging technologies offer educators a wealth
of potential opportunities - and by embracing new outlets, your institution and
faculty stand to gain an huge amount from experimentation and adoption.
For example, cloud computing is one of the
linchpins of digital transformation as cloud-delivered processes offer
institutions increased mobility, insights, delivery speeds, process efficiency
and cost optimization.
In the same vein as mobile, emerging trends
including voice technology, artificial intelligence, VR, chatbots and machine
learning are worth exploring as they will not only significantly enhance your
marketing and user experience efforts, but also serve to make your organization
more functional, efficient and cutting-edge.
To give prospective students a tangible taste of
what life will be like on campus, Trinity University uses VR technology to take
them on an immersive tour - an initiative that is being widely adopted in the
educational sector:
7. Focus on
digital citizenship
The notion of digital citizenship can be defined as
'the quality of an individual’s response to membership in a community.'
By placing a strong focus on fostering digital
citizenship amongst faculty and students by making it a core part of your
internal culture, you will ensure that everyone is onboard, possessing the
skills, tools and approach to drive your institution into the digital age.
In turn, this will help your college, university or
training company to remain relevant and value-driven while offering your target
audience the level and style of learning they want or need to succeed.
Encouraging digital citizenship will foster a
culture where people are empowered to enjoy their roles collaboratively and
autonomously, working as one cohesive entity to achieve the desired result -
digital transformation.
By harnessing the power of technology to understand
the needs of your institution as well as the needs, wants and preferences of
your target audience - prospective students or learners - you will steer
yourself on the right path towards digital maturity.
While it still may seem like a daunting prospect,
digital transformation comes with a seemingly endless host of benefits,
evolving with the zeitgeist, and if you want to thrive in tomorrow’s world,
making changes today is crucial.
Digital
Transformation In Higher Education: The Current Trends
Digital transformation in higher education has its
effect on 2 main business parts:
• Services
transformation focuses on creating new education products and transforming
existing products into digital ones. This usually means converting offline
lectures into video ones, creating digital texts and quizzes. Moreover, it
includes providing digital means for communication between students and
teachers.
• Operations
transformation would basically require a digitalization of all the common
operations educational institutions have such as students' admission,
registration for programs and courses, examination, program development, and
their quality assurance. In addition, supporting services as study planning,
facility management, teacher allocation, scheduling, etc.
Emerging Technologies In Higher Education
Internet Of Things (IoT)
Higher education managers are already making
serious investments in the Internet of Things (IoT).
We have plenty of smart things around us from smartphones
and watches to cars and houses. But what about a smart campus? IoT provides a
lot of advanced data and helps to automate a lot of useful processes in digital
transformation of teaching.Intelligent
thermostats can balance the temperature inside the building by adapting to the
outside and inside situation. This will save money for universities and
colleges and create a more comfortable environment for students and teachers.
• Smart
lightning. Replacement of traditional lighting to LED in their parking garage
saved the University of Michigan-Dearborn $21,000 per year. A smart lighting
system across the whole campus will save even more.
Future campuses can transform into mini smart
cities by installing smart informational kiosks, tracking vehicle and foot
traffic to optimize load and using smart electricity grids. IoT-based security
solutions including remote monitoring and biometric-based authentication can be
implemented too.
Blockchain
The blockchain is a modern technology that is used
to store and transmit information in a distributed, secure and effective way.
Educational facilities may use blockchain to store student data such as
personal data and learning performance. The benefit of such technology among
others is security. Moreover, blockchain is commonly used for authenticity check,
so it will hugely reduce cheating.
Security
With the growing implementation of IT technologies
and IoT devices, the need to secure the network from cyber threats emerged.
Higher education institutions must implement new tools that enhance
cybersecurity, such as user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA), which detects
suspicious activities in typical user behavior.
AR/VR
Other emerging technologies in education are
Augmented and Virtual Reality. They are already being used in classrooms to
create lessons more informative as these technologies can bring animals into
classrooms or move the whole class to the moon. Though VR still has blockers in
terms of costs and content, AR is a more accessible technology as requires
mobile phone only. In addition to enhancing knowledge in the medical,
engineering and science disciplines, AR can be used on campus to support
orientation for refreshments.
Big Data
Ten years ago, it was hard to manage data of tens
or even hundreds of thousands of students on paper. Luckily, in the modern
world where everything is digitalized, we can use Big Data for better Data
Management, analysis, and usage. Big Data in education is mostly information
about the performance and abilities of each individual students which can
improve their learning experience by personalizing it. Moreover, it is used for
better program analysis and is a base for machine learning and AI.
AI And Machine
Learning
Artificial Intelligence and it’s base, machine
learning, are a part of the global digital transformation and higher-ed
institutions aren’t left behind. These emerging technologies are used for AI
teaching assistants, advanced analysis of students performance, IoT data, and
much more. It is crucial to implement AI as Gen Z is used to it on platforms
like YouTube, Google, and Amazon, and they want learning experiences to be
adapted to them and be consumed whenever and wherever they want.
Artificial Intelligence can be used in content and
Learning Management Systems to create more AI-enabled learning tools that not
only generate an answer to students but provide them with a clear explanation
and step-by-step guide. Such learning approach will increase students
efficiency as they can learn anywhere and anytime.
Moreover, some schools, including Deakin
University, use AI like IBM’s Watson to assist students during their first year
on campus to create the most pleasant experience. Watson in Deakin University
can answer to more than 1,600 questions in real-time about admissions, parking
permits, dorm life, getting around town, financial aid, campus living and much
more.
Such a small part of campus digital transformation
in higher education helps students settle in and feel more like home. As a
result, retention rate increases and freshman stress reduces.
Increased Accessibility
Universities try to make education accessible to
people with disabilities in order to reach ADA compliance. Universities are
implementing modern technology like speech recognition and transcription for
students who are deaf or hard of hearing. Before-mentioned IT solutions in
campuses and classrooms provide equal and accessible education for every
student. Transcription of lectures not only helps students with disabilities
but also it can be used by other learners to search through lectures and review
them after classes.
Chatbots
We have already talked about artificial assistants
that can answer students questions. The commonplace of usage of this technology
is university customer service to help quickly handle some of the simpler
questions that students have and reduce the load of phone lines. Besides all
the benefits that chatbots offer, they also assist ADA compliance as they can
be used by those who are unable to chat on the phone.
Final Words
Any transformation is a challenge, it is quite hard
to ruin well-known, comfortable approaches and replace them with something new
and unknown. But the digital transformation is rather a need than an option.
You can start by taking small steps like creating an eLearning platform and
move to something more complex like IoT and AI. Read more details in Talibilm.
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