Digital education (E-learning)
This is indeed the number 1 trend, as COVID-19 has completely changed the world, the way we communicate, work and study. We all had to learn online tools and resources for video conferencing in a short time to communicate with students remotely during the quarantine.
Digital pedagogy is education and training involving computers. Anything that helps you learn online: online courses, digital resources, web services, mobile applications.
This will significantly change the profession of a teacher, the structure, content, and quality of all education.
Having received educational materials, a student can master knowledge at home, at the workplace, even on the street. Such a concept as a computer classroom should disappear in the near future, because every classroom is now a computer classroom. Every teacher and student has a smartphone that they can use.
Blended learning
In the meantime, we use blended learning, a modern educational technology based on the concept of combining classroom and e-learning technologies.
That is, what you do in your classroom is mixed with online learning.
What is the most interesting thing about it?
No one knows yet how much e-learning you need to implement in your classroom system to make it blended learning.
AR/VR technologies: virtual and augmented reality in the classroom and in extracurricular activities
This is what creates a beautiful, amazing world in the learning process. For example, in a history lesson, students can use tablets and phones to see real dinosaurs. The gadget’s camera is pointed at a picture, and a three-dimensional model appears on the screen.
Medical students in university classrooms create models of the human body by studying anatomy in depth and practicing.
In literature classes, this is an opportunity to “walk” in a virtual museum of a writer.
The purpose of these technologies is to expand the physical space of human life with objects created with the help of digital devices and programs.
The devices currently used are virtual and augmented reality glasses, controllers, headphones, smartphones, and tablets. These devices allow people to see and hear digital objects. In the near future, we expect to see the emergence of feedback gloves that will allow people to tactilely feel digital objects.
Gamification, gaming technologies
Gamification in education is the application of approaches used in computer games to increase the involvement of players in non-game processes:
- rewards;
- badges;
- skill levels;
- creating a unified story.
It is also training with the use of games (role-playing, business, motor, board, etc.).
For example, there is a game that simulates the process of climate change. There are economic games on how to start your own business, for example. Or games where you can compete in the arena of international diplomacy.
Of course, the teacher should approach the elements of gamification critically and clearly understand why he or she is incorporating a particular game into the learning process.
STEM education
In recent years, more and more attention has been paid to the development of STEM. This technology is in such demand that a separate “STEM Education Department” was established at the Institute for Modernization of Education Content six months ago.
The well-known abbreviation of English words means: Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics.
In today’s environment, there is a need for a more balanced curriculum that combines creative disciplines such as art, design, and the humanities with the natural and exact sciences.
Features of STEM education:
- It is based on the application of an interdisciplinary and applied approach, as well as on the integration of natural sciences, technologies, engineering, creativity, and mathematics into a single learning scheme;
- In the distant future, we will have professions related to technology and high-tech production at the interface with the natural sciences, and there will be a great demand for specialists in bio- and nanotechnology;
- Specialists will need comprehensive training and knowledge in a variety of fields.