The future of education shaped by digital transformation
The Digital Revolution is happening before our very eyes, and each business needs to find a way to respond to it. Digital transformation is not an option anymore; it’s a necessity and a matter of survival.
What is digital transformation
Digital transformation is the process of integrating digital technology into all areas of a business, profoundly changing how it operates by creating new – or modifying existing – business processes, customer experiences, and organizational culture. It is not only enhancing traditional methods, but reimaging them for a digital age to meet changing market expectations.
Digital business transformation is the transformation of business activities, processes, products, and models with the aim to fully leverage the opportunities of digital technologies. It brings people, business, and technology together and creates new customer experiences.
Digital transformation in the education sector
Determining the goals of digital transformation in education
An effective digital transformation strategy should start with the end in mind. Winning in education today starts with education companies and public institutions defining clear goals. What will digital transformation change for their users, their engagement, and their experience? After establishing the objectives, leaders should choose and adopt technologies with a clear focus on improving the overall business.
The benefits of digital transformation in education
Digital transformation is having a significant impact on various industries by providing exciting new opportunities, maximizing efficiencies, increasing collaboration, and reducing costs.
With the education sector becoming more competitive, digital transformation is now becoming a necessary tool for survival, requiring educators to adapt to digital technologies, methodologies, and mindsets.
Technology challenges facing education
Professional development
New technologies are winning consumers’ hearts while changing their behavior, expectations, and needs. On the other hand, almost 70% of those operating in the public sector feel their digital capabilities fall behind the private sector. Many key decision-makers are reluctant to take those all-important next steps towards digital maturity. When adapting to a new technology, culture, or mindset, many in the education sector fear failure and seem reluctant to acquire new skill sets or adopt new processes.
To prevent this from happening, it's important to understand the benefits of digital transformation in education and communicate this to key stakeholders within the business. Understanding and communicating value is the key to success, so prioritizing this is essential to give users a unique experience.
Inferior knowledge or skills
An adequate level of organization-wide knowledge and skills are essential to successfully drive innovation in education. To ensure a smooth and effective digital transformation, educational institutions and businesses must compete for a narrow pool of talent or adopt new approaches to upskilling current stakeholders. Fostering a culture of continuous learning within the business and upskilling staff allows organizations to make the most of available talent.
A lack of direction or strategy
Giving an idea a shape, as well as planning and evaluating the essential features of a product to accomplish business goals and eliminate possible mistakes – these are big challenges in planning a digital transformation process for education.
To create a solid digital transformation strategy, it is crucial to identify the core business aims and goals, as well as the technologies, methodologies, and innovations needed to achieve them.
Inaccurate and unreliable data
In this digital age filled with data, there is a wealth of metrics that can offer colleges, universities, and training providers insight into prospective learners, internal efficiencies, user interactions, and more. The problem is, this data is often inaccurate and unreliable. To understand what is the most usable and informative data, education leaders need to make predictions, integrate business decisions, and adopt meaningful new educational initiatives.
Understanding what data will benefit a business the most allows it to drill down into the insights that really matter, filtering out metrics that are redundant or lack value, while choosing the tools that help with organizing and analyzing it correctly. Fluid, timely, precise, and organized data is vital for business.
System-based compatibility
In today's world, the vast majority of businesses and institutions run on technology-driven systems and infrastructures to ensure a smooth and effective day-to-day operation. Many systems that educational institutions adopt are not compatible with the new digital innovations required to drive them forward. This level of incompatibility results in a necessity to upgrade, customize, or replace the current system to achieve integration, which ultimately costs time and money.
It’s important to work in collaboration with all key stakeholders within the institution to decide on software and infrastructure budgets and make decisions on changes, replacements, customizations, and upgrades that will drive the best long-term value.
Digital transformation in education: trends and solutions
Skills training
The primary business goal of educational institutions is to educate and upskill others so that they can thrive and succeed professionally. By adopting this approach internally, businesses are able to implement a digitally-driven learning program that provides their staff with the skills needed to evolve their roles within the business while driving the business forward.
Integrate and leverage digital data
It's crucial to integrate and leverage business data sources seamlessly to be able to understand where each insight comes from and how it can benefit the organization.
It can’t be done without taking the time to understand which areas of data bring the biggest business value. It is a necessary first step to implement the best tools that allow leaders to analyze these metrics in an ongoing way.
Automation
On average, around 49% of companies across sectors are currently using automation, with more than half of B2B companies adopting the technology as part of their strategy.
In the education sector, implementing automated systems and technologies to assist with operational tasks can lead to exponential productivity increases, even with minimal infrastructure. Such solutions can drive down long-term costs and allow businesses to place focus on more valuable efforts or activities.
The power of mobile
The millennial generation is hugely mobile-focused, with 98% of 17 to 24-year-olds and 97% of 25 to 34-year-olds owning a smartphone.
Mobility is a necessity of the modern age, allowing potential users to access the information or material they need much faster. Mobile learning is an incredibly effective way to deliver value, but mobile-based developments don’t have to be limited only to course materials.
Emerging technologies
Emerging trends, including voice technology, artificial intelligence, VR, chatbots, and machine learning are worth exploring as they not only significantly enhance marketing and user experience efforts, but also serve to make organizations more functional, efficient, and cutting-edge.
How machine learning is transforming the future of education
Machine learning is a cross-industry trend that’s expected to continue rising for the next few years. It’s a revolution happening right before our eyes, and those late to the party might find themselves outpaced by their competitors.
Using ML for a more customized learning experience
Machine learning has the potential to develop detailed logs for each student, delivering concepts, and establishing goals that fit their strengths and learning backgrounds.
On the other side, the technology can also help lecturers gain an understanding of which methods are working the best with their students and which aren’t, offering adjustments that may help students understand the course materials better.
Predicting career paths
Advanced ML platforms can gather information from a student’s college application, their essays, standardized tests, and recommendations from teachers in order to determine what they are likely to excel in. These solutions can ultimately help students maximize their potential in their areas of strength and interest while decreasing their weaknesses in order to transform them into better-prepared professionals in the future. The technology can also look at a student’s grades and activities to identify their potential career paths.
Improving the grading system
Machine learning will soon be able to assist teachers in examining students’ assignments and detecting whether or not there is any plagiarism or other infractions. ML has great potential in ensuring that grades will not be affected by the attitude an educator has towards a particular student, essentially offering grades based solely on students’ performances.