When the pandemic broke, educational institutes all across the globe halted for weeks. A breakthrough arrived when the same institutes saw a ray of hope in the online medium of education. As a result, schools, colleges and even coaching centres all across the globe started their operations online temporarily, until things seemed to be falling back into place the way they were before the pandemic. However, even with all the buzz going on, it is not easy to keep the kids engaged through online classes. Hence, a lot of e learning trends surfaced on the internet to make online classes more interesting and engaging for children of all age groups, and make online education more effective. The medium of online education, though, seemed to fit into the jigsaw puzzle and solve a lot of common problems that parents and students faced worldwide. Hence, it was assured that these e learning trends and online classes, in general, were here to stay, and would continue to educate students worldwide even if the pandemic situation comes clear. With the advancement of time, teachers and institutes are developing more types of e-learning trends to make online education more relevant and engaging.
Let’s see some of these interesting and innovative new trends in e-learning that have been keeping online education alive.
Top Universities opening doors to Online Education
While it’s true that all the major universities throughout the world prefer the offline mode of education, slowly but steadily they have come to realise the importance of online education and its benefits for students. Nonetheless, opening their doors to online education and offering online courses to students for distance learning have helped them to revive the revenues that plummeted during the pandemic. As a result, most of the major degrees, diplomas and certifications with some of the best institutions worldwide can now be pursued online.
Use of AI-driven data to enhance the learning experience
Understanding the importance of data and using high-end technology in the education domain, institutes can now track micro-data from every student to see how they are performing on their course. Similarly, they can use AI algorithms on this data to offer a super personalised curriculum to help students utilise their learning skills for the maximum learning impact.
Courses designed with Gamification
Even when the courses come online, the never-ending competition to sell the best course doesn’t stop. This comes with an obligation to make these courses as effective as possible on the internet where distractions are just a click away. To make learning more fun and engaging, gamification of learning material has turned out to be a game-changing experience for students. Learning resources are provided over platforms that offer reward points for finishing their daily activities or milestones in the curriculum they are currently pursuing. Every child likes to play games, and more so to win at what he’s playing, isn’t that right?
Niche-based learning
The boon of online education opens doorways of niche-based learning for students worldwide. Numerous online universities now offer majors, certifications and diploma courses with niche-based learning where students can learn basics to advanced topics in their preferred career field. These specific courses are curated to help students and professionals build specific skill sets that guarantee them placement opportunities along with interview prep, interpersonal skills, boot camps, and many more.
Micro and Macro learning opportunities
For individuals who prefer to learn on the go or feel a shortage of time, entire curriculums are now available in fragments of bite-sized resources in various categories, such as videos, text resources, micro-charts and even tabloid forms. This is popularly known as a micro-learning experience. Similarly, for people who would prefer to have all things condensed into one single resource, hours-long singular videos that contain A to Z knowledge on specific topics are now available over the online mode of learning. This sort of learning module is labelled as macro learning and is designed to allow students to gain more detailed knowledge in just one day’s sitting.
Extended Reality Experience
To cope with the lack of human interaction and face-to-face learning, extended reality programs that include Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality classrooms have flooded the internet. These offer a more in-depth engaging experience to students who seek to interact with their fellow learners. Such classrooms offer a near-to-learning experience for those who cannot attend these classes or move outside their homes due to personal limitations.
Blended or Hybrid Learning
Even when the world is going back to the supposedly normal operations, the way things used to be before the pandemic, we can safely say that some of these changes have turned out to be for the better. Hence, many universities have decided to shift their teaching modules permanently to a hybrid mode. This means that all the students will continue to receive education through a dual mode of learning that includes online as well as offline sessions, tests, resources, and many more.
Changing the face of education for the better
While most of these latest elearning trends have revolutionised the way people see education on a larger scale, stereotypical education is bound to change. It is safe to say that a lot of us have gotten used to these new modules of learning and find them rather convenient than the regular learning modules, whether it is about schools, colleges, universities, or even coaching centres.
These new online learning trends have come to the aid of not just the students but even the parents and guardians who find it hard to maintain a balance between their work life and family time. Moreover, the benefits of online education are helping more and more students to continue learning while making the most of their time. It helps them to cut down on commute time, but it’s a boon for those who could not find quality education in the physical territories of their homeland. On the other hand, now that we are all threatened by a potential financial global recession, these trends of online learning might help to reduce the impact. It can act like a bubble wrap to make our children’s education free from the effect of upcoming global recession.
In addition, we can say that education has now prevailed to make itself available to everyone shunning all bias. Today, anybody who is willing to learn can enrol for one of these online courses regardless of who they are, where they live, and what race, ethnicity or culture they belong to. There is equal opportunity for everyone. If we talk in the purest sense, isn’t this what the real purpose and face of education should have always been?
