How Can We Improve Education With Technology Enhancement ?

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Can EdTech tools actually help students to learn better? Can they prove effective without investing excessive time and money? If yes, then the Request for Proposal (RFP), which consists of a total 36 pages, issued by the Office of Educational Technology under the US Department of Education sounds logical.

The RFP aims “to find support services to evaluate educational software applications purchased with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) program funds.”

EdTech for better education

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The mission of the initiative is to develop a set of tools to carry out “rapid-cycle technology evaluations” that comprise of building guidelines, evaluations strategies and methods, protocols for establishing the experiments & documenting results. The proposal is set to close on 3rd September, 2015.

@tonywan ,Managing Editor at educational technology information resource EdSurge, recently wrote “Eliminating tools that are unproductive is important. Given how the US has drilled into trying to evaluate and assess teacher performance over the past five years, it seems like more than poetic justice that edtech tools should be put under the same kind of scrutiny.”

He added “That said, products face a challenge similar to evaluations of teacher performance: What makes a tool or a process “work” in education - particularly in K-12—is subject to a host of factors, some of which are entirely outside the realm of the design of the tool.”

EdTech analyst Phil Hill believes that the RFP is “almost a good idea.” He thinks that every effective assessment of education tools needs to consider the importance of the support structures and the staff and within the institutes.

He said “Edtech apps by themselves do not ‘work’ in terms of improving academic performance.”

Value of motivation

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However, the analysis of educators and technology tools somehow ignore the need for motivation. When a teacher is motivated, he can teach and inspire students in a way that goes beyond the chalkboard and the classroom. Still there are some teachers and parents who are satisfied simply by putting the kids before a computer or even a tablet and allow software programmes do all the work.

Director of the Office of Educational Technology, Richard Culatta, says that the conventional way to EdTech effectiveness “does not work well in the rapidly changing world of educational technology.”

He believes that conducting research is a time consuming practice, while businesses, particularly, startups, are keen on moving at a rapid pace.

Wan wrote “The idea of doing short-cycle efficacy studies is by no means new. The iZone, a unit within the New York City Department of Education, hosts its own “Short-Cycle Evaluation Challenge” to bring teachers and developers together to pilot edtech tools for one semester. In California, two nonprofits- the Silicon Valley Education Foundation and New Schools Venture Fund- have teamed up to run three-month efficacy trials involving educators and entrepreneurs. And this summer, Chicago-based LEAP Innovations received a $5.1 million Gates Foundation grant for similar efforts.”

Need for alignment

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Wan concluded that research projects should keep pace with how businesses operate. Aligning these processes will surely be a major challenge for this project. Devising a feasible medium is critical not just for the industry, but also for the millions of students and teachers who shouldn’t have to wait years before finding out what works.

A recent report published , confirms a huge investment had been made for promoting education technology. This would surely be a boost for the research process to bring up new educational softwares.

Education Technology Deals Reach $1.6 Billion in First Half of 2015 https://t.co/RWhjzqNd8k pic.twitter.com/PAweEDa79i

— Tony Wan (@tonywan) August 12, 2015

What do you think? Feel free to add to the discussion by sharing your personal opinions and views with us. We would like to hear from you.

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The Importance Of Students’ Control On Online Education

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What does the modern technology mean to the students of the present generation? It means the producer of a healthy and effective educational system to them known as online education. Online education offers interesting learning tools to students which is one of the main reasons of the willing engagement of the student’s mind to it.

Online education in the UK is obviously different than that of the offline or traditional education. But if online education becomes the imitation of the offline form, then it does not prove itself to be a more effective form than the traditional education.

The interactive tools used by offline education are different than that of online education. It includes personalised learning experience; digital platform for learning; interactive course designs; a healthy social interaction and many more.

But students will not gain proper access to an effective socialisation that has the power to boost up their studies in order to get a fruitful result. If students need to socialise more, then they must be enabled with having more access to their control in their online learning platform. It will guide them to a better mode of interaction which will be aiming to create a network of them ultimately bringing support.

So, how can the students’ control over their online education be increased? Let’s take a look:

A healthy communication

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Technology has made communication possible and it has also the power to implement the interactive communicative system to enhance the online learning’s anticipated effectiveness. The teachers’ availability is possible anytime and anywhere with such an efficient tool of it. Now this online communication will be able to expand the power of learning among students if it transfers itself into interesting form of communication enabling students to effectively share and learn through their interaction through the online media assisting them to have a better control over their online learning. The students can use the online social platforms while studying in an online school.

Freedom

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If the learning module takes projects made by the students as the curriculum, it makes the learning environment more acceptable to the learners as they become interested for studying because it appeals to them more than usual. Learning will be followed by the students themselves as it turns out to them as an exploration that they are willing to experience. The teachers guide the students in such willing educational journey of them.

Students’ interest

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If learning becomes interesting, then students automatically develop an inclination towards learning. It allows them to study without being tired. Interesting learning modules based on the particular students’ interest can effectively educate them while they are studying in an online degree school from UK. The flexible way of the selection of the content basically for the students’ purpose is highly important if 100% educational success is expected. Following the students’ choice of studies actually mean following the effort to reach the efficiency of online education as well as trying to provide the learners with more control over their education.

A personalised learning pace

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It is one of the examples of the interactive tools of the online education as well as the instance of benefiting students through increase their control over education. The students in online education are not the same always. They can be employed; they can be parents or they can be students who are learning in an online school while travelling. So, each and every one of them cannot follow education at the same pace. They need to study when they want to. It will allow them to learn at their own pace and will also target to offer them more control over the online education.

Students’ likable education with increased control

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The control in online education as a vital factor while studying in an online degree school from UK. Students will obviously like education if it resembles to their way by which they want to learn. A more controlled online education leads them to be more organised as well as to be socialised learners inculcating education in a personal and innovative way. The increased control of them over online education points to the education they want to learn, and not the education they have to get.

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