Introduction to EdTech - Education meets technology to make business
What is EdTech?
This is my 3rd year providing services for the education sector and my 1st year in an Edtech company, having some thoughts to share about what is Edtech.
Business speaking, it’s a market that is globally worth 106bn USD (2021) and is expected to keep on growing. Now, what edtech companies do that they are worth so much?
EdTech is the application of technology in hardware and software, to improve educational efforts.
The goal of EdTech is to improve the outcomes of those who learn and deal with the important work of educating others.
While the education sector is mainly focused concerned with schools and universities. EdTech goes beyond teachers and students in a classroom and affects also: online platforms, job training, re-skilling and upskilling efforts, employee training, customer success, and even the education of customers.
Here’s a short list of trends of what EdTech companies are focusing on nowadays:
Increase access to learning
Cloud services, increased internet speed allowing larger data bandwidth allows multiple participants to video stream, online courses from anywhere at any time. A Spanish teacher from Mexico can now teach students in Israel without too much effort using simple solutions and companies that are dedicated just like the guys from e-teacher.
Streamline complicated processes
Turn manual multi-stepped processes such as managing a course, tracking the learning process, providing certificates, answering questions, review assignments that once required a whole faculty complex now replaced by software, when the most comprehensive ones in ed-tech are the learning management systems (LMS) and learning experience systems (LXP).
Collaborate more effectively
Meaning exploring how can children make a school assignment together remotely, teachers and students draw a whiteboard, participate in a game/quiz together mainly through cloud SaaS services.
I personally use a Miro as a digital whiteboard and mentimeter for quizzes.
Self-Paced Learning
Unlike traditional education where the teacher speaks and students struggle to stay focused. Self-paced learning allows better personalization for participants since they are able to decide WHEN learning happens, at which speed, and intensity.
My 5 Udemy courses that none were completed are evidence that I’m, like most of the population, not the best self-paced learner. Because of that, we see in the past years an increase in hybrid models that include live sessions, study groups, and even a mix of offline and online education.
Enhancing learning content
Implementing gamification of learning process, interactivity, and channeling attention through audio and video and games gives a richer experience allowing increased levels of attention and decreased retention.
In 2021, I used genial.ly as a no-code tool to make apps for the education sector. One of the most interesting attempts was increasing teenagers’ engagement with local municipality services.
I created an interactive ‘Netflix-like’ course menu for teenagers (13-18) featuring 10 options for vocational after-school courses.
The result? From a total audience of 14,000 teenagers registered in the city, a total of 4,576 unique entries got on the menu. Meaning 32% of the total amount of teenagers CHOSE to enter the menu and interact with it in just one month.
It created a demand for additional courses.
This effort allowed a window of opportunity to learn what teenagers in that city are interested in the most by looking at the genial.ly statistics option.
Top 3 offers among teenagers (all genders): female empowerment, design, and financial education
Interactivity here was used as a way to reassure that teenagers are actually interested in the local municipality value propositions for them and validate their interests.
Personalized experience
‘You may also be interested in…’
We got used to recommendation systems. When we listen to music on Spotify, we get recommendation playlists based on previous preferences, when we finish a video on Youtube, recommendations on what to watch next.
What it has to do with learning?
Machine learning allows personalized suggestions for specific activities based on your behavior. Imagine that you just finish a data analyst course online and after a short while you get recommendations on events and podcasts about data science for beginners, leading you towards a quite common and desirable career path.
Data-driven decisions
An example that impressed me about how data helps us to learn about people is the rise of digital assessment tools. I’m not talking about online fun quizzes but actual behavioral science meeting machine learning.
It may be used for assessing student quality of learning and also to assess potential employees.
Assessments are with us for a long time, but ed-tech made them more accurate, scalable, with a recuded price per use, and immediate results.
In my opinion, assessments cannot replace actual talking with humans, BUT it can provide interesting talking points for interviewers and insights for the candidates about themselves.
I tested AssessFirst at found it insightful for learning and comparing different candidates.
EdTech won’t replace educators, and it’s here to stay
Ed-Tech is surely a helping hand for educators of all kinds, reducing administrative issues, enhancing learning experiences, allow more clarity in order to focus on what matters.
