Technology Innovation

EDUA 7300 - Adv. App. of Media Tech

Innovation is here to stay, and it does belong in both the classroom and wherever training is being utilized as a professional development tool as inferred by Karan (2023), the use of educational technology is essential for the digitization of education for three reasons: technology is dominating the world, the jobs of the future will be linked to it. People can be job-ready by developing their digital skills. The next generation is a part of this technological revolution. It becomes crucial for them to remain relevant to their educational context. Technology democratizes access to content. It becomes the need of the hour to break down barriers like teacher shortages, high costs, or location. In other words, it enables learning anywhere and anytime. Technology encourages personalized and active learning. It facilitates learning outside formal contexts. You also get the opportunity to develop the skills and abilities suited for future jobs.

In the 2020 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report – Teaching and Learning Edition, Brown et al. (2020) cited in “Emerging Technologies and Practices what they believe will have a significant impact on the future of postsecondary teaching and learning, with a focus on those that are new, or for which there appear to be substantial new developments. The following six items rose to the top of a list that initially consisted of 130 technologies and practices:

• Adaptive Learning Technologies

• AI/Machine Learning Education Applications

• Analytics for Student Success

• Elevation of Instructional Design, Learning Engineering, and UX Design in Pedagogy

• Open Educational Resources

• XR (AR/VR/MR/Haptic) Technologies

As the Horizon Report further predicts, the areas of growing importance in higher education include equity and inclusion, learning outcomes, risks, faculty receptiveness, and cost. Furthermore, the Horizon report states that in the next decade, higher education will demonstrate significant progress, with growth coming from increases in adult and remote learners, expansion of online courses and curricula, and professional certification and micro-credentialing programs. I believe that we are living in an amazing period, at the cusp of seeing all the positive and innovative trends that we are already experiencing in the field of education. The growth in demand for online learning, thus creating further demand for creative and innovative approaches in the area of instructional design of eLearning courses and training, and with technology advances, with the help of integrated technologies, we can deliver more relevant and engaging pieces of training or eLearning courses to students at all levels and adults in the workplace.

Adaptive Learning Technologies

In the area of adaptive learning technologies, it is first important to consider the individual learning needs and abilities of the participants or students, therefore having prior knowledge of your participants is very important; I have utilized the concepts of reteaching content, i.e., rephrasing questions or content, to employees when they have not fully understood the concepts of the training; also, utilizing or adapting your language to ensure that all learners understand the content; providing a bevy of examples of ‘what a good one looks like’, so content if better clarified and an end product is provided; focus and refocus on key learning points so students or employee participants being intentionally flexible when setting up groupings as part of the learning strategy and, ultimately, being responsive to how pupils are learning, utilizing flexibility when grouping participants and/or students and then making sure that I am being responsible to student’s learning and needs. Anytime we utilize technology and integrate it into the lesson planning strategy, it is incumbent that we create ways to measure its effectiveness and not be afraid to pause, regroup, and restate objectives and instructions and move forward, in the manner that it is implemented or as to how participants are allowed to utilize these technologies; and finally, utilizing keywords, sound bites, visuals or other sensory stimuli as a strategy to prompt learners so they understand content, learning objectives, and complete the road map so students or participants can complete the intended tasks successfully.

I have utilized various forms of technology in my workplace including technologies such as authoring tools, multimedia tools such as AV, VR, videos, and animations to create more effective eLearning training for my employees. I have also done interactive presentations and software so that we are not just reading from PowerPoint slides, but instead incorporate the use of visuals and concise summaries. Interactive software uses various modalities that can allow you to individualize and adapt to different learning styles and emphasize spatial and temporal contiguity for improved comprehension by the participants. All these technology-enhanced tools refine cognitive load and thus improve how a teacher presents content to students or participants encouraging flexibility and engagement and focusing on the eLearning process rather than some rogue defined outcomes. I have also used storyboard apps such as StudioBinder to create video creative training and found it useful because of its seamless features that allow me to connect my storyboard to the script, breakdowns, scripted activities, and in what order to shoot them. Finally, as an IT junkie, I am always open to new opportunities to learn and test apps that will enhance my ability to do my work or in my classes. I am not in the group of educators who fear technology, but rather see this as the future and wholeheartedly embrace the challenges to learn and apply these new learnings to enhance my abilities to be more effective in the development of new training and teaching opportunities delivered to my participants.

I am a strong proponent of AI (artificial intelligence) in the areas of education, training, and eLearning opportunities. As communicated by Gururaj (2023), the “education industry still has some way to go before it has harnessed the full potential of AI, ideas that include the use of AI to make education more engaging and personalize, improve accessibility, complement individual learning styles, and enhance the learning experience for both the teacher and the student. She further states that AI could be used to help teachers save time and resources by automating tasks such as checking answer sheets and other administrative tasks.” The area of AI is my greatest love and challenge because of what Gururaj (2023) indicated above, and as a useful tool, it could assist in personalizing learning, i.e. evaluating, and knowing each participant’s learning style, thus you can adapt teaching to make it more individualized by the participant; create systems for assessment or grading of training outcomes; create and utilize AI for intelligent tutoring systems for participants; the use of AI for Smart content creating, an automation tool that enhances the generation of educational content; the use of AI for learning analytics or creating automated analytics, making it easier to analyze large amounts of student/participant data, freeing teacher time to focus on strategy, content, engagement, assessment, and results; using AI to create Virtual Assistants to assist teachers with administrative tasks; using AI as a natural language processor which is the ability of computer systems to understand and interpret human languages, i.e. apps such as ChatGPT, etc.; use of AI for Predictive modeling, analysis of large amounts of data used to predict various outcomes such as student performance; and finally, the use of augmented reality and virtual reality, and as an immersive technology, can overlay computer-generated content onto real-world objects, thus enhancing users perception of reality.

If I just take these ten examples developed by Gururaj (2023) and fully explore ways to effectively incorporate them as part of my content strategy and then implement them as part of my training and eLearning courses, will enhance any training I’ve done in the past. I want to become proficient in the use of AI as a primary tool for all my training and dedicate myself to learning as much about how and where to incorporate it for maximum impact and effectiveness. Furthermore, I want to investigate and learn more about corporate training, trends, and perspectives on the future of this industry about training and eLearning applications. Bailenson (2020) writes about VR as the future of corporate training and makes a compelling argument about the use of VR as a procedures training tool for what she refers to as soft skills. As an HR professional, I am intrigued to learn more about employee training, especially in the areas of efficiency and training retention.

Finally, I have not encountered something different than what is covered in this module, but what I have discovered that is new to me are the practical applications of technology in different industries. As I continue to grow my tool kit and the different fields and areas of application, this will certainly be useful as I consider which area(s) of instructional design I would be willing to dedicate to my professional career.

References

Bailenson, J. (2020, September 18). Is VR the future of corporate training? Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2020/09/is-vr-the-future-of-corporate-training

Brown, M., McCormack, M., Reeves, J., Brooks, D., & Grajek, S. (2020). 2020 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report: Teaching and Learning Edition. EDUCAUSE. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED607329

Gururaj, T. (2023, May 11). 10 examples of artificial intelligence improving education. Interesting Engineering. https://interestingengineering.com/lists/examples-how-artificial-intelligence-improving-education

Karan, R. (2023, November 16). Applications of AI and Machine learning in education - Shiksha online. Shiksha.com. https://www.shiksha.com/online-courses/articles/applications-of-ai-and-machine-learning-in-education/