Technology is everywhere, and education is one of the major areas where the use of technology is incredibly changing the ways of teaching and learning.
Using technology and its applications, greater educational efficiency and better learning experience can be achieved. But with new technologies, new challenges also arise, like unequal resources and inadequate professional training.
With various benefits that ed-tech offers, the demand for technology in education is evolving day-by-day. Additionally, it’s a necessary step for all to prepare for the emerging challenges in the tech-savvy world.
What is the importance of technology in education? Why is it necessary for you to adopt new technologies as a learner or educator? And what are the benefits of using technology in an educational environment?
In this blog, we will look at all these questions covering educational technology, its importance, and its significant advantages.
A Brief About Educational Technology
Educational technology (ET) is a broader term which essentially means the use of technology in any educational environment including schools, colleges, corporate training institutes, and homes.
According to Wikipedia, Educational technology (EduTech, or EdTech) is the combined use of computer hardware and software, along with educational theory and practice to facilitate learning.
It’s an important platform to offer enhanced learning experiences using various digital tools and applications. With its evolving nature, this technology allows for better and faster learning.
Simply put, ET is the use of technology to improve education. It’s a systematic and evolving process that optimizes teaching and learning, both.
How Technology is Important in Education
We interact with technology in our day-to-day life, and it is playing an important role in the education landscape. The integration of modern tools and systems in educational environments makes things easier while offering increased efficiency, easy access, and flexibility.
With the increasing use of technological devices such as tablets and smartphones, it becomes simple to ask questions and get an immediate reply. Most importantly, it’s a great practice to prepare for future challenges.
Technology not only simplifies the process of teaching and learning but creates effective ways for better relationships between educators and scholars. Moreover, it empowers pupils and helps ensure better engagement as well as participation.
Nowadays, the accessibility of education has increased with many educational tools available online. You can also get a fully-accredited degree or diploma online at no cost.
In this digitally evolving world, many students and professionals prefer online learning courses from various trusted platforms, such as Udemy and Coursera. Such online learning platforms can be an ideal solution for people who are eager to advance their knowledge and education.
Top 6 Benefits of Technology in Education
Technology and its applications including artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), creates amazing opportunities for educational institutes, students, and professionals.
As we all are using some forms of technology, integrating technological tools in educational environments can offer various useful advantages that make teaching and learning more impressive.
Here we discuss some of the key benefits of using technology in an educational environment:
1. Easy Access to Educational Resources
Everyone uses a smartphone, tablet, or laptop in their everyday lives. And students are more curious about new technology. Hence, it’s truly great to integrate it into the academic.
Technological tools are ideal for academic learning as they provide easy access to educational resources and ensure an effective learning environment.
Apart from easy access to information and knowledge, technology can also improve the quality of education while increasing learning opportunities. You can use online resources to prepare study materials and improve the scope of education.
2. Enhanced Learning Experience and More Engagement
With evolving technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud, it becomes easier to create an enhanced learning experience for one and all.
Using modern technologies and tools, you can develop innovative lesson plans that exceed the expectations of learners by providing a unique experience to them.
As a result, technology has been a crucial part of enhanced educational experiences. Schools, colleges, and other important establishments are adopting new technologies to educate today’s digital learners in a more effective way.
What’s more, technological tools help make learning more interactive and fun while encouraging active participation in your educational process.
3. Increased Knowledge Retention
When students are engaged and interested in learning, it helps in better knowledge retention. From the abovementioned factors, it’s already clear that technology is helpful in improving experience and engagement.
Using technological tools and applications, it’s now easy to create interesting lessons for students that help in retaining their knowledge.
4. Useful to Develop Future Skills
Technology has been transforming the way we work and live in this modern world. If you want to prepare for future challenges then it becomes essential to adopt the latest technologies.
With the growing use of technology in the educational vertical, both teachers and students are striving to adopt the latest technological tools and applications.
And it’s a great thing for them as they are getting prepared for what is needed in the future. Through technology, you can develop new skills essential to meet the demand of the future.
5. Build Better Relationships and Collaboration
If you’re in the field of teaching or a part of any educational activity, then technology can greatly help you to establish better relationships with your students and colleagues.
You can find and develop better content for your students using technology. Also, modern technological tools help you make it more engaging and easy to understand. It creates a huge difference and makes learning more effective for everyone. Moreover, technology helps you to meet different learning styles in an effective way.
With different online activities, students can work on their collaboration skills. Technology helps encourage collaboration with students in any environment, be it a classroom or home.
6. Personalized Learning
Technology offers a great level of personalization too, which is beneficial for mentors as well as learners. Concepts like online courses and e-books are common examples when we talk about personalized learning.
Tools such as mobile apps and websites provide a greater level of flexibility for students to learn in their own way. They can discover new things using online digital materials. Another example of personalized learning is audio-visual presentations, which creates a better understanding of any subject or topic.
Conclusion
From the above-described factors, we can say that modern learning is all about making things easier, collaborating with others, developing better communication, solving complex problems, and improving efficiency.
When used effectively technology is a great tool to empower and motivate both teachers and students. Moreover, one can develop different practical skills essential for the future such as finding and creating study material, maintaining online etiquette, effective online communication, and more.
Adopting and using technology effectively is the need of the hour. It plays a positive role in the educational environments when used rightly. In today’s world, it’s necessary for all from policymakers to teachers and from students to parents.
