COVID-19 pandemic and the social distancing requirements have forced the students to stay at home. However, the development of technology has provided an excellent assistance to the students with continuing with their education. Following are some of the best examples available to show how technology is providing support and assistance to the students with continuing their education during the time of the pandemic.
· Educational Mobile Apps
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A large number of mobile apps are available for the students to continue with their studies. These mobile apps are providing the best support for kindergarten and elementary level students. That’s mainly because the mobile apps offer interesting user interfaces, which can attract students who are aged under 10 years. Moreover, the highly interactive experiences offered by these mobile apps are in a position to keep the students closer to the mobile apps at all times. Since there is a possibility to use a drag and drop app builder and develop such apps with ease, they are gaining more attention in the recent past.
Feed the Monster is a perfect mobile app to prove the above-mentioned fact. This is a digital literary gaming app. It has the ability to teach the basics of writing and reading to the kids. The app is available in over 50 different languages as well.
· Online Libraries
Students no longer have the chance to visit libraries located at their schools and universities to continue with studying. However, they are provided with the chance to continue with the studies through online libraries. There are numerous open source libraries available on the internet to help the students with it. Global Digital Library is a perfect example to prove the above-mentioned fact.
The online libraries provide assistance for the students to get eBooks with ease. Those eBooks can be opened on the web or mobile. On the other hand, it is also possible to download and print the eBooks as well. Hence, students who prefer to go through the books as if they are going through traditional paper based books are also provided with the opportunity to get their work done.
· Learning Management Systems
Learning Management Systems have been there for quite some time. Universities were the earliest to implement learning management systems. As of now, almost all the universities around the world have implemented learning management systems. They are in a position to provide a great assistance to the students with continuing with their learning. Students will need to enter their digital credentials and access the learning management system.
Learning management systems provide an environment for the teachers to collaborate along with the students. The teachers can upload learning materials into the learning management system. They can either be videos, PDF documents, presentations, word documents or audio files. Students are provided with the chance to go through the uploaded educational content at the comfort of home.
There are numerous exciting features available in the learning management systems to keep the students motivated to continue with learning as well. Digital badges are a perfect example for it. Earning such digital badges will be the ultimate goal of the student, which is quite similar to completing a curriculum at the school.
Assignments can also be provided to the students like this. Then the students can complete assignments and upload into the system. Teachers can grade those assignments and publish the results in learning management system as well.
Due to the creation of a highly collaborative environment in between students and teachers, even the high schools have thought about implementing learning management systems during the times of the pandemic. You can now see how the students access learning management systems from home and continue with their education, similar to how they did while attending school or university.
· Video Conferencing Tool
Along with the implementation of social distancing measures, we can see how a demand for video conferencing tools has created. Students and teachers are getting the most out of these video conferencing tools as well. The teachers will be able to conduct their lectures over the video conferencing tools. The ability of these tools to share both audio and video will provide them with the opportunity to conduct classes or lectures without facing any major issues.
The video conferencing tools such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams are in a position to create a collaborative environment as well. For example, if a student wants to ask a question, it is possible to go ahead and directly ask it from the teachers via the online conferencing tool. Likewise, real time collaboration is available through the online conferencing tools at all times. The students will be able to attend their lectures or classes on time from home with the use of digital credentials.
COVID-19 pandemic will transform the way how students will continue with their studies
The COVID-19 pandemic is in a position to transform the way how the students will be able to continue with their studies as well. For example, many educational institutions have now discovered that remote learning is an effective method for teaching the students. It is providing numerous benefits for the students as well as educators.
For example, the students are now provided with the chance to save a considerable amount of time, which they spend on their daily commute. On the other hand, the students also have the opportunity to gain access to the educational materials in a better and an interactive way. The educators have also found it as an easy task to proceed with content delivery.
We are still not aware on when the pandemic will end. Therefore, remote learning will continue for quite some time. After the end of the pandemic, we will be able to see how the schools and universities will come up with a hybrid approach, where they combine traditional teaching techniques along with the newly implemented remote learning techniques. The pandemic has created an excellent environment to test the remote learning techniques and understand the success associated with them. This can deliver a bunch of benefits to both students and educators.