In today's digitally connected world, using technology to improve education institutions and processes is not a question of if, but of when and how. Education sector leaders are being constantly challenged to rethink their core models in the ongoing quest to reform the processes of teaching and learning.
Technology has always played a critical role in this quest, from systems designed to reduce the cost of administering education institutions to solutions for making teaching and learning more interactive and engaging. In fact education technology spending continues to rise, even with pressure being applied to education budgets across the world.
"An increasing number of technical innovations and technology trends are emerging...driven by major forces such as digital business and the consumerisation and industrialisation of IT," according to Jan-Martin Lowendahl, vice president at research firm Gartner.
Gartner has identified the top 10 strategic technologies for the education industry in 2015.
It is a list of strategic technologies that Gartner recommends education CIO should have a plan for in 2015...and beyond:
1. Adaptive learning
Adaptive learning is a type of crowdsourcing and big data collection. The value of adaptive learning lies in the metadata attached to each learning "morsel," which must then be combined with enough empirical data of students trying to master the topic to allow personalised learning. It is extremely valuable in designing the pedagogy of the future.
2. Adaptive e-textbooks
Unlike traditional print materials, e-textbooks can be edited to include up-to-date information, be assembled or disassembled, or include content from other sources and social interaction.
Adaptive e-textbooks add the element of tracking student interaction with the text, and adapting to the learning style. E-textbooks are the first key step of going from analog to digital education.
3. Customer relationship management (CRM)
Customer relationship management (CRM) is now a widely recognised tool for tracking and managing relationships with constituents, including prospective and current students, parents, alumni, corporations, benefactors and other friends of the institution. A main hurdle to implementation is the difficulty of standardising and integrating institutional data.
4. Big data
Big data in education is has the possibility to improve the whole education ecosystem. It is associated with collecting vast amounts of data from the digitised activities of students, parents, faculty and staff, transforming that into information, and producing or recommending actions aimed at improving institution outcomes.
5. Sourcing strategies
Not a technology in itself, sourcing strategies represent a collection of technologies and vendor services, from hosting to cloud, homegrown to open source, to subscription models for acquiring software/hardware capabilities. A sourcing strategy is a set of scenarios, plans, directives and decisions that dynamically define and integrate internal and external resources and services required to fulfill an enterprise's business objectives.
Strategic sourcing helps IT to focus from administrative transactions and operational support toward activities that enable differentiation and innovation for the institution.
6. Exostructure
Exostructure strategy is the critical capability of interoperability as a deliberate strategy to integrate the increasing numbers of partnerships, tools and services in the education ecosystem.
When done right, an exostructure approach enables institutions to leverage services from the cloud, rather than having to bring them inside the campus walls.
Enabled by standards, it can allow the institution to adapt faster. With the increasing interdependencies in the education ecosystem, Gartner sees it the future as belonging to exostructure rather than to infrastructure.
7. Open microcredentials
Microcredentials in the form of various badges or points have existed for some time in digital social environments in general, and in learning environments in particular. A key problem is that these environments are proprietary, which makes it difficult to display achievements outside of them. Open microcredentials aims to remedy that problem.
For education institutions, issuing open microcredentials is a low-cost, high-value, technology-based capability that will provide more value and motivation to students.
Gartner sees it as a clear strategic technology with a relatively small investment involved, thereby making it a low-hanging fruit with good ROI.
8. Digital assessment
Digital assessment is ultimately about being able to do any assessment digitally, to remove the need for physically tethered as well as human-proctored tests and improve modes of testing, grading and data analysis. The first-level application of digital assessments is to increase trust in online education by applying identification mechanisms, such as keystroke identification or cloud-based face recognition. Good digital assessment is a necessity for trustworthy and scalable online or hybrid (digitalised) education, and will remain a strategic technology until it is solved.
9. Mobile
Mobile is a popular term for pervasive access via many types of devices. Mobile is not simply a synonym for mobile smartphones or tablets. Mobile in education includes use in all aspects of the academy: administration, education and research. However, the domain is maturing surprisingly slowly.
Inhibitors still include smartphone cost, device limitations (such as battery life), the development of m-learning course materials, lack of skills and the wide diversity of mobile devices. Education CIOs will need to treat mobile as a strategic technology for several years
10. Social learning
Social learning gives learners the ability to establish a presence or social profile that reflects their expertise and interest; to create, discuss, share and capture learning content as learning objects; to organise and find learning objects from a variety of sources, such as search or peer ratings; to interact with peers in their social networks and be able to reach beyond their networks to other trusted sources of information; to engage in experience-based learning exercises; and to receive real-time online coaching and support.
Bevil Wooding is chief knowledge office at Congress WBN (C-WBN) an international non-profit organisation and executive director at the education technology non-profit, BrightPath Foundation, responsible for C-WBN's technology education and outreach initiatives. Follow on Twitter: @bevilwooding