Emerging Trends and Performance Factors in the Online Learning Environment

There is a tectonic shift in the landscape of teaching-learning processes globally courtesy to the covid-19 pandemic. It has forced organizations across the spectrum to undergo severe disruptions. Academic systems and related businesses have come face to face with a reality that they can no longer ignore, the need to embrace change more than ever before. The e-learning tools are powered by data and user experiences more than ever before. Academic institutes and business organizations are having a tough time choosing the right tool kit for engaging students and other customers. The challenge is, therefore, to remodel the teaching-learning process aimed at the measurable transformation. So, academia and industry must consider how to shape and how they deliver, moving forward. One important area of change is to realign our academic skills to the changing needs of the students. We need to create students who are future-ready to face the challenges of the 21st century. In this context, any academic innovation tool kit should deliver smarter, well-connected, and sustainable solutions.

• Outcome-based teaching and learning

  Using various ICT tools and technologies the teacher should be able to deliver the academic content in a more effective and stimulating way leading to the total participation of students. Also, the students will be able to efficiently demonstrate the lesson objectives.

• Deployment of analytical tools

  Artificial intelligence and machine learning applications will be enablers in the delivery of sustainable academic content and the scope is enlarging and providing relentless and effective learning.

• Incremental continuous learning

  Students can always look up to the online content remotely and leisurely and engage the content repeatedly until he is proficient in the topic.

• Augmented and Virtual reality

  AVR can vastly improve classroom transactions by providing intriguing and immersive learning experiences. Such an environment may not exist in traditional classrooms. All the students will be engaged and empowered with the topic of discussion and the teachers can very easily monitor every student.

• Gamification

  In classroom teaching, the teachers can deliver the academic content in the form of a game by breaking down the learning content into gaming elements. The objective here is to have a focused engagement with the students.

• Learning Management System(LMS)

  As per India Today, in a poll conducted by the School of Education, 75% of educators believed that textbook learning will be superseded by digital content learning. To assuage the learners towards technology-driven methods, certain technology marvels are on-trend nowadays. A smart LMS should capture all the relevant academic modules from onboarding of students to certification and engaging all the stakeholders. It should offer collaborative tools, platforms, and storage for high-quality resources and choices for student learning.

• Student onboarding

  The ease of enrolling students and their attributes in the LMS significantly helps in aligning with various courses and assessment modules.

• Curriculum Management

  The teacher should be able to create individual lesson plans and upload the syllabus copy.

• Virtual Classroom

  Both teachers and students should be able to connect and exchange information using tools like the smart board, sharing of the screen, automatic recording which could be reused multiple times by the students for better absorption, provision to conduct quizzes and polling to take the feedback.

• Digital Library

  Provision should be made for a smart repository in the LMS wherein all the teachers can upload important lecture notes, case studies, case analyses, solved previous question papers, and other academic content of importance.

• Assessment module

  Provision to be made available to students and can take up online tests and examinations with results displayed in real-time. Based on the results, automatic display of student grading should be reflected in the student and parent window.

• Personalized learning

  Many people use the words like blended learning, microlearning, self-paced learning, and adaptive learning interchangeably. The AI-based tool allows students to learn the academic topics in their style, and pace and with lots of flexibility till the student absorbs the knowledge completely.

• Analytical Charts

  An academic administrators and teacher will love to have academic performance charts on their dashboard which will enable them to take critical decisions effectively.

• Virtual Labs

  Any LMS providing virtual labs as functionality will indeed significantly satisfy the e-learning life cycle and greatly enhance customer delight. This will also enable the student to up-skill and showcase his productivity.

If one considers the current academic disruptions and their negative impact, there is a general feeling of dissonance in the minds of parents, students, and educators. It is very easy to fall back on the time-tested offline mode of learning. But one should envision the following compelling reasons to deploy e-learning tools as soon as possible to sustain the business.

• To create future-ready students.
• To transform the academic systems into global standards with a competitive edge.
• Developed societies are marching ahead by embracing change.
• Digitization of the universities, Industries, and societies at large is gaining momentum.
• Getting ready for future disruptions.
• To enable outcome-based education.
• To align volume with velocity.
• To align with the futuristic policies of the government like NEP2020 and NDEAR.
• To add more value to academic services and thereby enhance customer delight.
• To create a smart campus.
• Save the total cost of ownership.
• Increase student engagement.
• Easily adapt to changes in education.
• learning tools are a necessary component of academic systems and business. It is a matter of time to get comfortable and relish the flexibility that the e-learning tools offer. You will be in a commanding position to take informed decisions and face the challenges and next important steps with maturity and confidence.

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