Top 5 Post-Coronavirus Trends in Education

One of the first consequences of the pandemic was a wave of layoffs and an unemployment rate increase. For most people starting a new career or learning new skills, online became the only alternative. It turns out that the most popular online programs are in business and financial management, IT technology, psychology, healthcare, and HR. According to a Techjury prediction, the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) market will continue to grow and will increase by 32% by 2025.

The transition to remote work has increased the number of downloads of audio and video call applications by 90% compared to the previous year. Specialized video platforms for education and virtual classrooms are also gaining popularity. Their main feature is a unified ecosystem that enables individual and group video tutorials. It allows the student and teachers to work in a single mode. In contrast, the teacher can demonstrate presentations and educational materials, open homework assignments, and even use a virtual whiteboard.

The market for virtual and augmented reality technologies (AR and VR) remains practically unaffected by the coronavirus. According to forecasts of the analytical company IDC, it is growing rapidly, and, by 2023, it will reach $94 billion. Teachers and students are already actively studying various disciplines using AR- and VR-enabled devices.

For example, students from the Mendel Grammar School in the Czech Republic conduct biological and chemical experiments using VR technologies. They study the virtual human eye from the inside and can even manipulate different parts of it. One Irish school, Gaelscoil Eoghain Ui Thuairisc, reconstructs historical sites with 3D modeling software. And, in the UK, the University of Westminster is creating a virtual space for forensic science students where they look for evidence and upgrade their other practical skills.

According to analysts, the distance education market will reach $10 trillion by 2030. In the USA, for example, even before the coronavirus, students could connect to a live broadcast of a lecture and instead of attending it physically. Because of the pandemic, this remote form of education is increasingly integrated into the education system.

However, the hard part of this approach is that it is difficult for people to concentrate and discipline themselves to reach the end of their courses. And the younger the audience, the more difficult it is to motivate them. According to a study by Keith Jordan, on average, only 15% of students complete online courses. To solve this problem, some companies mix online and offline classes. Many experts are inclined to believe that, despite the pandemic, a complete transition to distance education is impossible, and the most common way will be a combination of online and offline classes, or so-called “blended learning.”

Due to this online work mode, many educational institutions have faced the problem of monitoring the learning process, as it has become almost impossible to track how students attend classes at home and whether they cheat on online exams. In the coronavirus crisis, the problem had to be solved as soon as possible, and proctoring systems stepped up to meet this challenge. Even without the influence of a pandemic, this area has excellent development prospects due to the broad functionality of the software.

For example, Examus proctoring systems can track the presence of cheat sheets and other people in the room, monitor the desktop (switching between browser tabs and opening third-party files and programs), and even analyze how much the examinee is involved in the process. To improve AI proctor accuracy, a specially trained person (proctor) works in symbiosis with the program. Examus can be successfully used during verbal exams, as well as the entire learning process.

November 23, 2020.

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