The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital transformation in education as nearly 1.5 billion students worldwide became distanced from their classrooms. However, online education is not the only way digital technologies transform the teaching and learning experience. We explore how digital transformation affects education with key technologies and trends.
What does digital transformation mean for education?
Digital transformation in education means digitalizing processes and products to improve everyone involved’s teaching and learning experience.
Digital transformation in education focuses on:
- Accessibility: Digital technologies enable learners (e.g., students, employees) to access learning resources more easily and less expensively than traditional education. People across the world, of all ages, with different socioeconomic statuses, have access to classes and resources through the internet. Technologies such as text-to-speech remove the barriers for students with disabilities.
- Increased engagement:
- Interactive learning: Micro lessons, videos, interactive tests, gamification, etc., are all different learning formats that are transforming education with a more interactive learning environment. For example, interactive language teaching apps like Duolingo claim to reach more US learners interested in foreign languages than the school system.
- Customized learning: Computer technology and AI enable educational methods such as adaptive learning, in which each learner can learn in a way appropriate to them.
Why is it important?
School shutdowns and distance education are some of the most profound effects of COVID-19, demonstrating the importance and urgency of incorporating digital technologies into education. Even before the pandemic, the education industry was in the process of digital transformation. The image below from research by HolonIQ shows that global EdTech (education technology) venture capital funding had increased from $500 million to $7 billion between 2010 and 2019. The effect of the pandemic is also staggering, as the investments almost tripled in 2021.
What are the key technologies and trends enabling digital transformation in education?
1- Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence applications can undertake simple but time-consuming educational tasks to ease the workload of educators or school staff. They can also be used to deliver students an improved and custom learning experience. The applications include:
Improving student performance
- Voice-to-text technologies transforming classes to notes are helpful to students with hearing impairment
- Text-to-voice technologies help dyslexic students learn more effectively by listening instead of reading.
- Personalized learning can involve diverse technologies, including AI, to elicit how a student learns best and tailor the education accordingly. Blended and adaptive learning are examples of methods that combine face-to-face instruction with digital learning tools that encourage students to learn by discovery.
Increasing the effectiveness of staff
- Intelligent FAQ chatbots to answer questions about class, homework, campus, etc. Chatbots can act as virtual advisors for college students, freeing up professors’ time.
- Domain-specific chatbots: College admission is a complex and stressful process for high school students. College counsellors have limited time to support hundreds of students. Chatbots focused on the admission process can help students in this challenging and important process
- Educational businesses also have back-office functions like finance. Process mining can help identify inefficiencies in the back office functions. Read our article on educational process mining to learn more about the applications of process mining in education.
- Individual automation technologies like RPA or combining multiple automation technologies (also called hyperautomation) can help save the time of support staff.
Explore the top 20 use cases of RPA in education in more detail.
2- Analytics
Digital technologies enable schools to collect and analyze a wealth of student data to monitor and enhance their performance. They can use traditional and advanced analytics to determine where students struggle and succeed, develop new methods, and test whether these methods yield expected results.
3- Augmented reality/Virtual reality
Augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) technologies can create interactive and virtual environments for students and help them better engage with the subject. These technologies can enable virtual field trips to historical locations or facilitate learning-by-doing for applied sciences and medicine. The distance learning experience can also be improved with AR/VR technologies.
4- Internet of Things (IoT)
The increasing use of smartphones and other edge devices improves the connectivity between students and their educational institutions by enabling real-time communication and data transfer. IoT devices can also be used to track young children’s absence or presence in class and alert teachers and parents to their security.
5- Online learning
Distance learning (or remote learning) through Zoom or Skype was an emergency response from schools and colleges to the pandemic. Educational institutions can also build their own online class systems, commonly called learning management systems (LMS), and integrate them into their websites or platforms. This will allow them to customize the online learning experience according to learners’ needs or the course’s subject.
6- Smart classes
Digital technologies have also improved face-to-face learning. Smart classes equipped with smart boards, computers, internet connections, projectors, etc., unlock the ways of delivering learning resources to students that were impossible with a blackboard and chalk.
7- Generative AI (GenAI) & Large Language Models (LLMs)
GenAI and LLMs are transforming education through automation and personalization:
Improving learning experiences
- AI tutors: Provide instant homework help and explanations (e.g., solving math problems step-by-step).
- Personalized content: Generates adaptive study materials (e.g., simplified texts for struggling students).
- Language learning: Creates conversational practice scenarios with instant feedback.
Enhancing teaching efficiency
- Automated grading: Scores essays and short-answer questions with detailed feedback.
- Lesson planning: Generates ready-to-use lesson outlines and activities based on curriculum standards.
- 24/7 student support: Chatbots answer FAQs about assignments, schedules, and campus resources.
Administrative applications
- Document automation: Drafts reports, permission slips, and policy updates.
- Data analysis: Identifies at-risk students by analyzing engagement patterns.
Accessibility
- Real-time translation: Converts lectures/texts to other languages.
- Dyslexia support: Reads aloud and rephrases complex texts.
What are some case studies?
- Google Expedition is an education app that contains 1000 VR and 100 AR tours. It helps teachers and students explore art galleries, museums, underwater, and outer space. Google is now sunsetting the Expedition app and migrating the tours to Google Arts & Culture, making them available to everyone.
- Arizona State University has leveraged Amazon Echo Dot devices on their campus and student residential halls as voice assistants that provide information about the university for students, faculty, staff, and alumni.
- EdTech company Carnegie Learning provides technology solutions to K-12 schools. Their math learning platform, MATHia, uses artificial intelligence to act as a personal tutor that continually adjusts to each student and delivers a personalized learning experience.
How can educational institutions transform digitally?
We outlined the steps to achieve digital transformation and AI transformation. These steps are similar across industries. These involve understanding the challenges of your business and buying or building solutions to resolve these challenges. When it comes to building custom solutions, working with agencies that have done it before can help.
For more on digital transformation:
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