eLearning Trends And The Modern Classroom
Gone are the days of being corralled into having to learn from dull professors in stuffy classrooms. Modern advances in technology and educational techniques have opened up a variety of means by which people can continue their education. As a result, these modern classrooms, their technology, and ideas are changing the face of the eLearning industry.
What Modern Classrooms Look Like
The foundational components of a modern classroom are typically reduced to three factors: the type of space, the technology utilized, and the pedagogy employed. It is on these lines of thinking that modern classrooms work to find and maintain a balance between the various components utilized by the institution. When combining those foundational principles with activities that generate personal engagement, social collaboration, critique, self-led direction, and freedom of exploration, a classroom as a whole will be more successful.
eLearning in turn seeks to accomplish effective learning environments by adapting the principles and techniques found in more traditional methods and environments to include a host of new practices. These hybridizations, while new and still exploratory in many ways, are hoping to capitalize on the strengths of old and new ideologies to formulate and maintain the most effective educational systems.
Why eLearning?
Many of the adjustments that global economies were forced into out of desperation during the COVID-19 pandemic set new standards by which classrooms of any level or environment could operate. The resulting learning systems, in combination with a wide range of tools, helped schools to keep up with the educational instructions despite closures.
The prevalence of these methods, seeing both their efficiencies and adaptability, established a greater level of acceptance and reliance upon distance learning. eLearning is the teaching, training, and education of persons utilizing networks of interconnectivity, other collective knowledge bases, and distribution technologies.
It should be noted that there is a difference between eLearning and distance learning. A consistent difference between them is designated by the fact that in eLearning, the students and instructors can still be in the same place while the means of teaching are enhanced by technological tools. Distance learning, however, is categorized more by the use of technology to connect students to schools, teachers, and programs despite geographical distances.
Changes to eLearning In Modern Classrooms
The need for educational institutions to keep up with the latest learning trends, techniques, and pedagogy requires, at the very least, being aware of what new approaches have emerged or are being tested. The following is a list of some emerging trends in eLearning.
1. Game Learning
It is no secret that video games have become massively popular in the last few decades, but the gradual lessening of expenses has created a greater availability at many socio-economic levels. Considering this in tangent with the levels of engagement that come from and are consistently demonstrated by combining learning and various engagement techniques, the choice to implement games as an education method should not be a surprise.
Not only has this method demonstrated itself as a strong option for maintaining student engagement, but the point also that even the driest of subject matter can be made more enjoyable makes the use of games as a form of learning a strong option for success in education.
2. Mobile Apps
Nearly everyone in America (of a certain age) has a smartphone. Not just because they are cool, helpful, and fun to use, but because there is now a near necessity for use in order to maintain a basic level of social engagement. This wide availability of smartphone usage has been turned into educational apps. Perhaps not surprisingly, eLearning apps regularly rank among the most popular downloads.
The portability, engagement, and even to some degree, entertainment value that accompanies the use of mobile apps as an educational tool are all worth noting. However, when combining these factors with the fact that students are more likely and enabled to better pace themselves, the attractiveness of putting this technology in students’ hands becomes powerful.
3. Adaptive Learning
This is a type of educational style that makes a point of directing the use of resources, activities, projects, and assignments so that they are created to adapt to the individual students' needs. Where this approach tends to differ from the past is that, instead of being reliant upon the "biased" opinions of teachers with regard to a student's abilities, adaptive learning is tailored to the student based on personalized data from assessments.
4. Microlearning
It is difficult for most adults to pay full attention to a lesson or lecture that runs longer than 45 minutes, let alone asking that of a child. The thought behind microlearning is acknowledging that everyone has different attention spans.
In this way, by taking a lesson or project that requires hours’ worth of attention, and breaking it down into manageable pieces, the student is allowed to attend to the tasks in manageable sizes and at varying times. This way, they don't tune out part way into the information.
5. Learning Management Systems
This technique was adopted from a commonly used system in business called concept management systems. These systems are where employers store instructional information for their employees to access when training takes place.
The idea has been reallocated to educational spheres where teachers can develop, construct, archive, and share lessons and assignments. One of the other benefits of these Learning Management Systems (LMS) is that the content can be shared with peers, edited, and distributed almost instantaneously.
