Forever Changed: Education Predictions for 2021
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 01/12/21
2020 packed a wallop unlike any other period in living memory. The
pain is still with us — and will continue to be for a long time. But
the start of this new year brings an opportunity for us to renew our
hope and energy. How will that play out for K-12 education,
especially in the area of technology? We turned to a number of
education leaders to find out what they expect — or look forward
to — in 2021. Here's what they told us.
Teachers Will
Become Massive Social Media Influencers
Teachers will be
subject-matter experts who other teachers feature in video mixtapes
and that parents will follow to support their students. Expect
teachers to go live in Twitch-style "going live"
environments. What can we expect in video?
-
Low-stakes
feedback will be everyone's focus in live video. A quarter of live
video classes will be gamified, and half of all time spent on live
videos will be round-robin style check-ins.
-
Recorded
video will move onto the main stage. We're seeing that two-thirds of
teacher video is recorded, which allows teachers to manage the
one-to-many ratio.
-
Video
lessons will become serialized and broken down into predictable
chunks. The maximum length student videos should be tracks by grade
level: one minute for first graders, 12 minutes for seniors.
-
Camera-off
will be OK for students; audio-off will be OK for teachers. Teachers
will learn that it's OK for students to have their cameras off. The
goal is building a connection and getting them to engage in the
lesson. Teachers will focus on going beyond speaking presence and
creating lots of movement and visuals in their videos.
-
The
wall of text will come down. We'll see heavier use of images in
videos for retention and accessibility. This is key for English
Language Learners, special education students and kids with
attention difficulties.
— Jim Szafranski, CEO, Prezi
Data Privacy
Concerns Will Draw Greater Interest
Alongside the
herculean and mostly successful efforts to connect students and
teachers in digital spaces during the pandemic, the past year has
also brought stories of zoombombing, proctoring and surveillance
overreach, data breaches and inequitable student access to technology
and its benefits. These events have shined a light on the privacy
concerns related to educational data and technology use.
In 2021, we
anticipate seeing administrators take additional measures to promote
student data privacy, including greater attention to data governance
and security measures across the kindergarten-to-college continuum.
It is essential for these efforts to include actionable data privacy
policies and practices that safeguard student data collection,
storage, sharing and use and that ensure students have equitable
access to the benefits of data and technology.
We also expect a
greater interest by students and their families in understanding what
data is collected about them, how their data is used, and what their
privacy rights are related to that data collection and use. Schools
and their third-party educational technology vendors will need to
work to provide greater transparency and engender trust by clearly
and regularly communicating when, how and for how long data are used.
Moreover, schools and vendors should follow through on their promises
to protect the data and information that students and families have
entrusted to them.
2020 was a
challenging year for education, but, if well-applied, the lessons
learned can strengthen the protection of student data privacy as we
move into 2021.
— Carrie Klein, Senior Fellow, Youth & Education Policy, Future
of Privacy Forum
STEM Will Gain Amplified Appreciation
For 2021, we'll
begin to see students re-learn how to learn and teach themselves
effectively. As students continue to online learn, they will need to
focus on how to help adapt to circumstances and be creative in their
approaches — which will lead them to a different style of learning
than they're used to.
There will also be an amplified appreciation for STEM education and
literacy. Whether it's evaluating the science behind the virus,
understanding what it takes to bring a vaccine into the world,
understanding the tech that enables you to have a remote learning
environment or applying technical thinking to any challenge. The only
way to ensure that STEM literacy becomes engrained in society is
through early education. In the same way we emphasize reading
comprehension, we need to introduce STEM concepts early on that build
year over year. I believe we'll see an increase in young students
getting involved in STEM in the upcoming year.
— Erica Fessia, VP, Global Field Operations, FIRST
Districts Will
Grapple with IT Sustainability
There are a
considerable number of families who would have never considered
virtual learning were it not for the pandemic. They discovered that
they enjoyed the experience and would like to continue learning
online. Schools will need to continue their virtual learning
academies in 2021-2022 and beyond to meet this new demand.
Teachers
experimented with a number of new technology tools and resources as
they switched to remote learning, and the tools they found success
with will continue to be used. More teachers have embraced learning
management systems than ever before, and their use will likely
continue. We've also seen some of the gaps and deficits in
accessibility of our tools for populations of students, so we are
likely going to reevaluate some of the tools we use.
Simultaneously,
we're all a little screen-fatigued this year, and we're likely to see
less screen time in-person as a result. I definitely see devices
taking a back seat to more socially interactive learning, with ed
tech more as a resource than the star.
Many schools have
been thrust into 1-to-1 programs without the systematic planning that
typically precedes these types of initiatives. Schools across the
country have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into new devices
for students but may not have done the professional learning or
developed the Wi-Fi infrastructure to handle these devices. Schools
and policymakers will begin to grapple with sustainability, including
purchasing devices, maintaining subscriptions and upgrading school
networks to handle the increased device load.
— Mark Samberg, Director of
Technology Programs, Friday
Institute for Educational innovation at North Carolina State
University
Existing Tools
Will See Better Use
There is a wealth of
resources available to educators that surpass their basic needs for
instruction, but teachers lack the time and training to really
explore the use of trending tech programs and software. I believe
administrators will be prepared to invest in training and support
initiatives to maximize use of current programs. From G Suite for
Education to Zoom to social media, the possibilities are endless for
increasing student engagement, classroom management and
collaboration; but teachers need models for implementing these tools,
and administrators should consider setting accountability goals for
leveraging tech resources in education.
— April Willis, Director of
Operations & Business Development, National
Virtual Teacher Association
Ed Tech Seeds
Will Take Root and Flourish
Teachers have never
faced such acute challenges layered on top of the day-to-day demands
of being an educator: These unique circumstances laid bare some
critical inequities and cracked the boundaries of traditional
education. As we move forward, there is a new level of attention on
making sure all kids have access to educational technology, which
will, hopefully, bear fruit. In terms of overall use of educational
technology, it seems likely that teachers will continue to use some
of the tools they adopted during distance learning.
As for the tools
themselves, 2021 should be a year of pushing the envelope both in
terms of equity and innovation: We've seen how tools can rise to the
top when they serve a specific need — even tools not designed
specifically for education, like Zoom. Perhaps this wider-ranging
field will stay open for exploration. Also, it feels possible that ed
tech companies can renew a focus on programs that go beyond rote
learning and encourage critical thinking, creativity, student-led
experiences and relevance that helps students see how learning core
concepts is meaningful for them and not just a means to getting a
grade.
Within that
framework there has to be continued attention on representation,
inclusion and access in the world of ed tech. We hope developers will
maintain vigilance around ensuring all student audiences can see
themselves in ed tech and use it effectively with fewer obstacles.
Ultimately, there is optimism that through shifting ground we
stumbled across this year, some exciting seeds will take root, and
flourish.
— Christine
Elgersma, Senior Editor of
Social Media and Learning Resources, Common
Sense Education
Connectivity Will
Become as Important as Textbooks
If we really think
equal access to a high-quality K-12 education in this country is a
right, not a privilege, we need to start investing in the
technological infrastructure needed to bridge the digital divide. We
have the technology. We just need to start using it. For example, we
can immediately equip idle school buses with multiple Wi-Fi access
points, and drive them to areas where students need broadband
connectivity. As a longer-term solution, we can help school districts
build private CBRS cellular networks that allow them to deliver
internet service to most, if not all, of the students in their
communities. Finally, in areas where it's feasible, fiber networks
can continue to expand to serve more of our communities in need.
No one would say it
is fair — let alone smart for our nation's economic growth — for some
of our K-12 students to have math, science or other textbooks, while
other students go without. I predict that in 2021 our nation will
finally realize that connectivity is becoming as important to
students' education as their textbooks, and that we make sure that no
student finds themselves without it ever again.
— Erik Heinrich, Education IT
leader, CommScope and Former Director
of Technology Infrastructure, San
Francisco Unified School District
Web Conferencing
Will Blend Classroom/At-home Learning
Two big issues that
will be addressed in the coming year are access and accessibility.
With some students at home and others in the classroom, it will be
important that all students receive the same experience and quality.
Addressing this gap will require innovative new features and
solutions from video communications services. Those tools that
deliver on a high-quality, accessible experience will be poised to
succeed. One example: Large-screen monitors that connect to web
conferencing systems; everything written on the panel populates on
the web software as an annotation, allowing the in-class and remote
students to have the same view. Students can also use the annotation
tool in their web conferencing program to share their work with
in-class students, ensuring everyone sees the same thing.
Accessibility also
means making sure students have access to the same resources, whether
they are attending in-person, remotely or some combination of the
two.
— Anne Keehn, Global Education
Lead, Zoom
Seat Time Will
Make Way for Purpose-driven Learning
Now that learning
from home has become the norm for millions of families, it may be
time for educators to shift their perspective to the future of
learning — rather than scrambling to return to the traditional model
of the past. As educators across the country reimagine what school
looks like for their students moving forward, I implore them to focus
on one core concept: flexibility. As schools incorporate more online
learning into their models, tracking seat-time and attendance should
be traded in for an environment where students are able to "do
school" when it works best for them and reap the benefits:
independence, confidence and genuine engagement with course material.
Students and parents
should consider enrolling in an accredited online K-12 school with
proven experience in distance education. Many of these schools know
that the definition of "school" no longer needs to be seven
hours in the classroom, five days per week. With an online education,
students trade "sit-and-get" learning for an asynchronous,
mastery-based model that drives engagement and purpose-driven
learning.
— Megan O'Reilly
Palevich, Head of School,
Laurel
Springs School
Tech Will Help
Teachers Gain Insight into Student Needs
What is needed most
now are technologies that help educators better understand student
wellbeing as well as the specific ways in which students learn. We'll
see more interest and discussion around the incorporation of
technologies that provide educators with passive analytics. These
analytics are gathered without teachers having to do anything to get
insight into student learning behaviors. We'll see an uptick in
social and emotional technology that helps provide support to
students. This is extremely important now given what students have
gone through as a result of the pandemic and will only increase in
importance over the coming years.
— Martin McKay, Founder and CEO,
Texthelp
Parent-Educator
Collaboration Will Be Strengthened by Necessity
As we sift through
the consequences of the pandemic for our children, educators and
education researchers are going to be learning lessons about our
school system for years to come. One truth has already been made
clear: learning doesn't just happen in the classroom. Although this
has always been true, never before have we been confronted with the
importance of school/home communication. Parents were forced to
engage with and oversee the learning process to an unprecedented
extent. Teachers experienced the home environment and the struggles
that parents had juggling jobs, children and life — not just thanks to
Zoom but also because many teachers themselves were parents going
through the exact same thing.
Looking to the
future, I'm hopeful that we will have the wisdom to continue to build
upon the partnerships that were forged during this difficult time as
teachers and parents worked in greater unity on behalf of their
students and children. When parents understand the curriculum and the
expectations for their children, they are empowered to more fully
engage and support that process, and they derive greater satisfaction
from doing so. When the school better understands the dreams parents
have for their children and the circumstances in the home, they can
better support the individual needs of each child and gain deeper
trust and engagement from the parents.
To the extent we
take advantage of this hard-won empathy moving forward, we will be
well on our way towards building a stronger and more equitable
schooling system.
— Benjamin
Heuston, CEO,
Waterford.org
Students Will See
More Immersive Tech and Esports
With hybrid learning
becoming more of the norm in education, we will see an increase in
the use of voice and computer vision for customized, immersive
experiences that reflect students' individual goals, strengths and
weaknesses. Additionally, sensory interaction and spatial positioning
tech will enable teachers to engage remotely, allowing them to
interact with 3D models in real-time through sensory devices.
Beyond that, the
education space will accelerate the adoption of virtual reality (VR)
in the classroom. VR is an incredibly powerful tool for engaging
students in distance learning and immersing them in unforgettable
educational experiences, such as virtual field trips.
Lastly, esports in
education will continue to grow in popularity. Research has shown the
role of esports for the enhancement of STEM skills, the development
of soft skills such as collaboration, problem-solving and leadership
and its promotion of social inclusion and diversity. This will only
grow more pervasive in 2021 as more schools start to implement
dedicated esports programs, both virtual and in-person — when allowed.
— Rich Henderson, Director of
Global Education Solutions, Lenovo
Augmented and
Virtual Reality Will Lead to Better Comprehension
The challenges of
maintaining a student's attention and ensuring they're comprehending
complex subjects grow significantly in a remote learning setting. In
order to keep students engaged, online lessons will likely become
more interactive with the help of augmented reality and virtual
reality curriculum integration. Having students not just see but
experience the subject under study will help them more fully
comprehend the concepts. Use of this technology gives instructors the
option to explain more challenging and complicated concepts. These
technology-based learning experiences will enhance comprehension of
important concepts, for example, by allowing students to virtually
travel to space for physics lessons or be in a rainforest to collect
samples for a biology course.
Also, the days where
the only assessment paths to check for understanding — boring and
tedious pen-and-paper tests — will soon be gone. The significance of
learning outcomes is increasingly becoming more and more important,
which is why formative assessment solutions are being adopted. These
rely on presentation, projects, activities, and more to check on the
students' progress. These various methods deliver the goals of the
curriculum in a more dynamic project-based manner, which benefits all
the students. With these adaptive techniques and modern methods,
cookie-cutter methods that barely produce results and only add undue
stress to the students will soon be a thing of the past.
— Patrick Quinn, Parenting expert,
Brainly
Schools and
Parents Will Invest More in Tutoring
I predict that
parents and schools in the U.S. will invest more in tutoring,
mirroring the trend of parents overseas (in Asia) investing as much
as 15 percent of their income to give their children an academic
advantage. I believe we'll see more districts offering online
tutoring services to students, and students will see the value in
taking responsibility for their academic success.
— Myles Hunter, Co-Founder and
CEO,
TutorMe
Early Learners
Will Return to Hands-on
Developmentally
appropriate learning for young children means concrete experiences
with hands-on manipulatives, social-emotional development through
engagement with peers, and — of course — less screen time. As the
pandemic lifts in 2021, and educators have a chance to re-focus on
what works best for each age group, early childhood education will
re-center on these important benefits of hands-on learning for young
children. In ed tech, a focus on in-person learning will mean
choosing tools that support these proven learning styles for young
children.
Standards for
computer science education have been steadily expanding into pre-K–5,
and this move will continue in 2021. Robotics — especially screen-free
robotics — will see a resurgence in the early childhood classroom, as
robots provide a concrete, hands-on foundation to build upon for
early learning.
— Jason Innes, Director of
curriculum, training and product management, KinderLab
Robotics
Ed Tech Will
Tackle Academic Needs at Multiple Levels of Performance
Achievement gaps
have been a perennial concern, and many have feared that the
"COVID-19 Slide" would exacerbate them. The last month has
brought the release of a series of reports documenting the nature of
the slide which has, indeed, made a bad situation worse. Even a
cursory survey of the research reveals that: 1) achievement gaps are
huge; 2) COVID-19 learning loss made them worse; and 3) we generally
don't do a great job closing them. Gagne (2005) analyzed Iowa Test of
Basic Skills (ITBS) data and found the shocking reality that "the
achievement gap widens by about 145 percent between grades 1 and 9."
Let that one sink in.
2021 will likely be
a year where the ability to respond to wide and varied instructional
needs on the part of students will be paramount. Schools will be
looking for technology that makes this doable at scale. Instruction
and assessment resources integrated across multiple providers through
single sign-on and full reporting will be the desire.
— Gene Kerns, Chief Academic
Officer, Renaissance and Former teacher
and adjunct faculty member
First Responders
Will Get AI Help
Artificial
intelligence will make inroads in the emergency notification space.
AI has the ability to help manage the barrage of information coming
in via phone, text, and social media that bombard first responders
during an emergency event. It can segment communities based on their
responses or other factors such as their current location to deliver
messages that are contextual and relevant to people based on their
specific situation. For example, if there is a potential threat in a
specific area of campus, modern emergency mass notification systems
can quickly deliver detailed evacuation instructions to those in
buildings that are immediately impacted, while alerting those in
other locations around campus to stay away from the endangered area
until the situation is clear.
The coronavirus
hasn't stifled gun violence — despite the fact that many Americans are
largely sheltering at home, the total number of gun deaths in 2020 is
at 38,000 and counting, surpassing previous years by wide margins
before we've even reached December. Heading into next year, major
advancements in technology that syncs with existing surveillance
camera systems will see wider adoption among education organizations.
Modern recognition software enables mass notifications to be sent as
soon as a gun is visible, providing administrators with advance
warning before a shot is fired. Once a firearm is validated, the
administrator can inform all relevant stakeholders by initiating
pre-defined safety protocols, an extremely valuable capability in
situations where every second matters.
— Dave Fraser, CEO, Omnilert
K-12 Will See
More High-Profile School Breaches
2019 was a
historically challenging year for school district cybersecurity-wise.
Dozens of school districts were compromised by ransomware, while
others were scammed out of millions of dollars by criminals. To add
insult to injury, ed tech vendors were also implicated in massive
student data breaches. Thanks in part to COVID, 2020 looks to have
been an even worse year for school districts. Indeed, with the
embrace of technology for use in the classroom and district
operations, school districts have introduced a host of new digital
threats and vulnerabilities to their day-to-day operations, including
to student safety and well-being.
While recent K-12
cyber incident trends are already cause for concern, 2021 will likely
up the ante yet again. With cyber criminals increasingly targeting
school districts, there is every reason to believe that over the
course of 2021 there will be more and more high-profile breaches and
compromises of school district and vendor information technology
systems than in past years.
The silver lining is
that help is finally on the way. In late 2020, a new information
sharing and analysis center (ISAC) launched — the first national,
nonprofit dedicated solely to supporting school district
cybersecurity defenses. Coupled with increasing interest from state
and federal policymakers seeking to help cash-strapped school
districts better manage the cyber risks they are facing, 2021 may be
the year that we can start to turn the tide on this disturbing trend.
— Doug Levin, National
Director, K12
SIX and Founder and
President EdTech
Strategies and K-12
Cybersecurity Resource Center
Attackers Will
Capitalize on Distance Learning
As remote education
continues into 2021, we'll see adversaries take advantage and
capitalize on an industry that is ripe for attack. The reality is
distance learning technology is not configured to be secure. With
little to no funding, schools will be unable to lock down their
technology and attackers will jump on the opportunity to create
digital footprints for young children that previously had privacy
protections put in place by their parents. This exposure will have
lasting implications on the emotional, financial and digital
well-being of the next generation.
— Gianna Price, Xacta Solutions
Architect, Telos
Automation Will
Drive a Wave of Spear Phishing
Spear phishing is an
attack technique that involves highly targeted and convincing
malicious emails that include specific and accurate details about a
particular individual or role at a company. Historically, spear
fishing is a high-investment and potentially high-return activity for
hackers that has required manual and time-consuming processes. That
will change in 2021. Cyber criminals have already started to create
tools that can automate the manual aspects of spear phishing. By
combining such tools with programs that scan data from social media
networks and company websites, phishers can send thousands of
detailed, believable spear phishing emails, with content customized
to each victim. This will dramatically increase the volume of spear
phishing emails attackers can send at once, which will improve their
success rate. On the bright side, these automated, volumetric spear
phishing campaigns will likely be less sophisticated and easier to
spot than the traditional, manually-generated variety.
Regardless, you
should expect a major increase in spear phishing attacks in 2021 due
to automation. What's more, bad actors know that anxiety and
uncertainty make victims easier to exploit. As society continues to
grapple with the impact of COVID-19, global political strife, and
general financial insecurity in 2021, we anticipate that many of
these automated spear phishing attacks will prey on fears around the
pandemic, politics and the economy.
— Threat Lab
Research Team, WatchGuard
Technologies
Chatbots Will
Become Critical to Student Engagement
Post COVID-19,
education institutions will have to adjust to the "new
normal" — one that is not 100 percent remote or 100 percent
analog, but one that takes the best of both worlds to deliver a
superior education experience for students. In the 2021 landscape
schools will rely on technology like chatbots and automation more
than ever. Once implemented, these tools will help institutions
improve teaching models, produce better outcomes for students and
ultimately reduce the cost of servicing and teaching students.
— Brad Benz,
Managing director of Benz
Capital and Education Advisor at Capacity
5G Will Spawn the
Next Tech Revolution
5G is the foundation
for the next revolution of technology. We will see a new ecosystem of
hardware and software to support this underlying technology, and more
5G-compatible devices in the marketplace as new applications and use
cases emerge.
The big prediction
for cybersecurity is that everything old is new again. With the 5G
ecosystem being built out, we should be prepared to see two big
cybersecurity issues: a shared responsibility model for 5G and the
security of attached network devices, applications and data, and
software applications as a target for adversaries through
un-remediated vulnerabilities.
Standalone 5G will
be more secure than any previous network generations. Yet, expanded
attack surfaces mean opportunity for new threats as well as
proliferation of unpatched existing threats. With 5G, a shared
security model, similar to that of the public cloud, is likely to
emerge. This should enable enterprises to shift certain functions to
carriers and ultimately heighten enterprise security.
From the application
perspective, there should be a focus on advanced software engineering
practices. This means an increased emphasis on software quality
should be a critical part of the pre-deployment development process.
Without a critical focus on software quality, we can expect to see
older software vulnerabilities such as cross-site scripting and SQL
injection re-emerge as favorite targets for adversaries.
— Theresa
Lanowitz, Head of
Evangelism, AT&T
Cybersecurity
Private LTE Will
Address Digital Divide...
District IT managers
and administrators will further address the digital divide and bring
broadband access to all their students and teachers through private
LTE networks. By doing so, school districts will be able to provide
students and teachers with reliable, lower latency and high-quality
connectivity, while simultaneously being able to keep all the data
traffic within their own secure IP networks. This will provide
enhanced connectivity for students and staff to complete work and
assignments at home — bridging the homework gap, as well as ensure a
safe virtual learning environment for all — without the possibility of
malicious outside network traffic such as Zoom meeting hacks or
ransomware.
— Ray Sabourin, Business
Development Private Wireless Networks US Enterprise, Nokia
...and Wi-Fi
Strain
Although the K-12
sector was originally an ideal candidate for fixed wireless
connectivity, the pandemic has evolved the sector into a larger, more
critical wireless connectivity market. District IT teams will look to
vendors and broadband solution providers to support other use cases
in 2021 that go beyond COVID-19, such as school bus security cameras
and indoor internet-of-things to help manage building operations such
as temperature and lighting.
In 2021, school
districts will look to improve the quality of Wi-Fi connectivity by
deploying and using private LTE networks within the 3.5 GHz frequency
of the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band. By deploying a
private network, school districts will be able to offload school
assets (i.e., security surveillance cameras, digital record keeping,
etc.) from Wi-Fi in order to free up more bandwidth and lower Wi-Fi
network latency for use by students and staff. In turn, this will
result in a more seamless virtual and in-person learning and teaching
experience and increase the efficiency of campus operations.
— Daniel Quant, Vice President of
Strategic Development, MultiTech
Expectations for
Flexibility, Assessment and Integration Will Expand
While we expect a
return to the physical classroom in 2021, some students or schools
may opt to extend remote and blended learning. Districts will choose
tools that provide the flexibility to serve all three learning
models, while also investing in professional development for teachers
and leaders to implement them with fidelity. Districts will promote
more consistency around tools and everyday usage of the learning
management system and other digital tools. Now that 1-to-1 rates are
higher than ever, the LMS will gain a more prominent role in the
brick-and-mortar classroom, supporting live instructional practice
and offering a smoother transition to remote learning if needed.
In order to meet
students where they are, teachers will need robust tools and content
offerings that make it simpler to identify what students have learned
and retained. States and districts will increase investment in
full-featured assessment management systems (AMS) with robust
formative and tools that offer the actionable data around student
mastery of standards that teachers need to close learning gaps and
adjust instruction in real time. At the district level, we will see
expanded investment in interim assessment and analytics tools as
administrators seek insights into learning across all schools,
especially in the absence of end-of-level data. To support these
assessment efforts, tightly-aligned digital content will continue to
be in high demand.
Learning agencies
now expect deep integrations and interoperability between their
foundational tech systems and supplementary tools. As a result, there
will be an increase in partnerships with ed tech vendors that provide
integrated solutions for analytics, learning management and
assessment, while also maintaining flexibility and openness to
connect with the district's existing tools.
— Jenn Mitchell, Director, K-12
Product Marketing, Instructure
Districts Will
Gain More Right-Sizing, Hybrid and Connectivity
Looking ahead,
districts will have the opportunity to take a step back and evaluate
the technology they've acquired during their rapid digital
transformations. to enable a cohesive teaching and learning
environment for what's next. This could occur in the form of buying
software that connects all the various tools they've acquired or
implementing stronger end-to-end security measures.
Educators will need
to take remote learning and incorporate it into their go forward
plans so it continues to be valuable - especially for students who
are in need of additional assistance.
Students, parents,
teachers and administrators will drive connectivity programs to
ensure every student has access to remote education when at home and
off campus. Public-private partnerships and internet delivery through
LTE will cover the last mile to reach students, regardless of if the
student is home, at a local recreation center or at the library.
— Diane Ashby, National Education Sales Manager,
Samsung Electronics America
Attendance Will
Drop, Engagement Will Grow
While 2020 was about
remote education, 2021 will focus on hybrid education. For high
schools, a big focus is encouraging student engagement and creating
an environment where the student is excited to learn. For colleges,
it's attracting and retaining students at a time where they may be
unsure of attending a big-name university and paying top dollar
without the on-campus experience. How can institutions tackle these
focuses? Meaningful online solutions.
It's important for
educators to have plug-and-play ed tech solutions that are easy to
use and integrate well into their curriculum. It will be very
important for teachers to see the student learning outcomes from the
tools they use. And ultimately, students have to like it. The tools
and solutions that are selected by schools in 2021 will likely stick
around with them for the next four or five years.
However, in the
future, teachers are not going to require attendance as much as
engagement. Instead, teachers are going to find different ways to
engage students to the point where you can be at home or you can be
there, where you can watch it online or you can come in to work on a
group project.
— Joe Ferraro, Head of Global
Sales, Labster
Display Use and
Functionality Will Morph
Interactive
smartboards will play a large role in the upcoming year by allowing
teachers to develop engaging lesson plans where they can directly
collaborate with their students — no matter if they are in the
classroom or living room. We will also see a rise in integrating
software into display technology and offering solutions that provide
a seamless experience when connecting to devices. Flexibility to
allow for more engagement is here to stay and will be part of the
education system of the future.
From live updates
displayed on digital signage at schools to more readily scheduled
one-to-one help sessions for students and teachers on virtual meeting
platform, there is going to be a higher level of consistent and more
engaging communication. Devices such as interactive displays, chrome
books and tablets, conferencing capabilities, and monitors are
playing a key role in the future of education.
There will be more
screens looking to sync up at one time to have students participate
in a lesson plan, so having a sophisticated software allows for a
seamless lesson plan. Educators will also take advantage of these
software solutions for a live classroom functionality, while also
being able to break out in side groups or one-on-one meetings.
— Mark Quiroz, Vice President,
Marketing, Display Division, Samsung
Electronics America
The "How"
of Teaching Will Forever Change
Maybe more than
anything else, the pandemic has shown us the value of face-to-face
time with our students. We didn't really know how valuable it was
until we lost it. So, when this pandemic ends, and it will end, we
will never take for granted the precious moments we have with our
students.
2021 and the years
following will be marked as the years where we fundamentally changed
"how" we teach. No longer will we waste our class time with
simple information transfer. Instead, students will interact with
content before they come to class. They will do this digitally, where
they can interact with their teachers and their peers. And then
face-to-face time will be transformed. It will be a place of learning
where students actively participate in their learning, connect with
their classmates and teachers and take ownership of their own
learning.
And make no mistake,
students won't put up with passive learning anymore. The pandemic has
shown them that they can learn anything from a YouTube video and need
schools for something much different than information transfer. They
want and will demand from schools: help with difficult concepts,
deeper connections, hands-on learning, minds-on learning and
launching pads to their dreams.
— Jon Bergmann, Chief Academic
Officer, Flipped
Learning Global Initiative