EdTech: What makes it the Biggest Trend in the Education Sector?

The modern day students are tech-savvy and require new methods of learning to comprehend complex concepts as the education sector becomes complex as well.

FREMONT, CA: The education industry has evolved and has adopted a lot of new technologies. Conventional methods are no longer relevant as the education sector is quickly digitizing. By 2020, the EdTech industry is expected to reach 252 billion USD and will grow annually at 17 percent. Among several trends in EdTech, augmented reality (AR) is on the top. EdTech opens up a lot of opportunities for educational institutions and businesses as there are more than 1 billion expected users to join the trend by 2020. 

Augmented reality can enhance the education sector in several ways. AR can make the students understand better and process more information effectively. Also, AR makes learning engaging and fun. AR is not limited to a level of education. It can be used equally in all levels of schooling and at work as well. Augmented reality can replace paper textbooks, printed manuals, physical models, and posters to make education more accessible and mobile. As a result, it makes learning materials available anytime and anywhere.

AR doesn’t require specialized or expensive hardware, unlike VR. Besides, 73 percent of teens own a smartphone, which makes AR technologies immediately available to them. AR provides interactive and gamified learning, which can make the understanding process more accessible, creating higher student engagement and interest. With AR apps, the learning process and boring classes can be diversified. In an interactive lesson where all the students work, collaboratively enhances their team working skills. By immersing themselves in the subject matter and visualization, students can achieve better results. For instance, students can see a story instead of reading it in theory, which makes the learning process more comfortable.

AR can benefit professionals by reproducing in-field conditions that help them master the practical skills required for a specific job. Moreover, beginners can practice heart surgery and learn to operate a space shuttle without putting other people in danger and raising the skill level of the learner at the same time.  It can also save millions of dollars if something goes wrong. Hence, it is universally applicable to any level of education and training.

Along with benefits, AR has certain pitfalls. Without necessary training, few teachers might struggle using these technologies in practical situations. Only the most tech-savvy and open-minded teachers are ready to apply AR in education. Using augmented reality also means that the users are dependent on the hardware and a specific resource base. For instance, all the students might not have smartphones that can support AR applications. Lastly, the AR app needs to perform well on all devices, and it is practically impossible to provide the same quality AR content on all devices.

Tech giants such as Apple and Google are pushing AR technologies, which makes it a perfect time to join the trend. Furthermore, it also shows that AR in education has a lot of potentials, which is still untapped. AR is becoming more accessible and broadly used due to the increasing adoption rates of mobile technologies and recent advances in hardware. Thus, the education sector must wake up to augmented reality.

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