As author and educator George Couros put it, "Technology will never replace great teachers, but technology in the hands of great teachers is transformational."
The 21st century is regarded as an era of technology. Technology is playing a prominent role and its impact can be felt in every sector and one of the sectors that is profoundly benefitted by the development of technology is the Education Sector. The Education sector is embracing emerging technologies and innovations to transform the existing practices of learning, teaching and management at schools, colleges and universities across the world. It cannot be ignored that the role of technology in the field of education has many facets and has made education to move from its passive and reactive mode to interactive and aggressive mode of learning.
In the present situation of COVID-19 pandemic times, technology is playing a crucial role. Beginning from Online classes for schools and colleges to Webinars and Meetings through various platforms such as Zoom, Google meet, Google classrooms, WebEx etc., we come across various digital platforms today. The pandemic has taught us that there should be a clear roadmap in implementing or promoting digital enabled teaching-learning platforms and to embrace technology in the classrooms..
Even before the pandemic began, EdTechs were rendering their service beginning from pre-schooling to higher education, vocational training, and also corporate training sectors. They have also extended their wings in the financial management, teacher lifecycle management, curriculum development, parent engagement, learning analytics, language tools, soft skills development, digital libraries etc. Though there exist issues of digital divide and lack of ICT skills among teachers and students, Conventional educational systems seem to take the back seats, as the students and teachers both, are trying to embrace all the comfort, convenience, and efficiency that is offered by the Edu-Tech learning platforms.
With National Educational Policy also laying a special emphasis on integrating technology at all levels of education by proposing National Educational technology forum to provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas on the use of technology to improve learning, assessment, planning, administration etc., and its emphasis on creativity and innovation at all levels of education and also proposes the induction of new-age technologies such as online learning platforms, AI-driven customized learning solutions, video-based learning, peer-peer learning etc., the need to develop well-defined technological infrastructure in our educational institutions has gained utmost importance.
Though Covid-19 has created disarray in the education system and its delivery, it has also uncovered the ground reality of the existing issues with respect to digital infrastructure. At present times, while the world is driven by data and speed, Universities/Institutes can be hugely benefitted by the use of technology. The best practices adopted by the prestigious institutions across the world could be adopted and implicated. Universities can focus more on knowledge delivery, knowledge sharing, collaboration in research and many more. The present teaching learning methodology demands an alternative and technology driven methodology could be a right choice.
