Online education trends: TED, LinguaLeo, Knewton and other experiences

The fact that today has become a large and mature digital technology market has been built by the hands of self-taught enthusiasts. Fifteen to twenty years ago, no one taught website design, and universities did not graduate from programmers with a specialization on the web. Today, the entry threshold is significantly lower, largely due to the availability of education: the Internet is full of online courses. And this is good (if you don’t have any “become a C ++ programmer in three days and get 200K”).

We have collected our top 5 trends in online education (and in education in general), which seem to us especially important. At the end of the article is a survey, we hope that you will agree to participate and note which trends seem most relevant to you.

Adaptive learning

The main task of adaptive learning is the development of an individual educational program for everyone. In drawing up such a program, the learner’s desire to improve certain knowledge is taken into account. Also, adaptive learning continuously monitors factors that influence learning success. The author of the program selects the optimal format of materials, tries to keep the student's interest throughout the course.
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Examples of platforms that specialize in learning personalization are Knewton, CogBooks, Acrobatiq and McGraw Hill Education.

The latest company has one of the tools for adaptive learning - Smart Books. These are electronic books, the content of which may change as the student moves through the program. Successes and failures are recorded, and the neural network analyzes the collected information. Over time, the textbook begins to pay maximum attention to those moments where the student needs to “push”. Interestingly, the monitoring is conducted not only in relation to the individual listener: experts and relevant software can evaluate the success of the whole group or class. If the majority of students at some point in the program causes difficulties, then Smart Books addresses this topic in more detail.



In general, adaptive learning makes it possible to find the golden mean between the way of teaching and the needs of each student in obtaining the knowledge and experience they need.

Virtual and Augmented Reality

Most often, VR and AR are used for entertainment (of course, even the VR strawberry appeared), but the possibilities of virtual and augmented realities are much wider: they can and should be used in work and education.


Source: Affinity VR

Take VR. Somehow at TED they showed the developers of a virtual biochemical laboratory, which allowed students in video glasses to work with equipment that they could only touch in a few years. These are expensive professional systems that are used to conduct biochemical reactions or to study bacterial strains.


In most cases, an ordinary student is simply told about modern working methods, from time to time conducting simple practical exercises. At best, such a student will get acquainted with the equipment by photo, scheme or video. In the virtual laboratory, he has the opportunity to work with virtual components completely immersed in the conditions in which professionals work: you can set up experiments, keep a laboratory journal, share information with colleagues.

Augmented reality (AR) is another component of learning that allows you to see tips, tips, descriptions of objects that get into the camera lens of a smartphone or video glasses. An example is the training of a young information security specialist in a data center or the practical training of medical students in a clinic.


Study of dinosaurs using AR. Source: Derek E. Baird

AR can be used both at school and at the institute, in advanced training courses.

Social and competitive factors

It is difficult to specify some basic principles of work, everything can change. But the fact that the social factor helps to learn is proven long ago. Some of us (the vast majority) are stimulated by the successes of others. Understanding this principle, the developers of various kinds of trackers, including Fitbit Flex 2 and Garmin VivoSmart, introduce social “competitions” into their software.



We in Skillbox actively use the competitive factor. For example, at the recent intensive design, the author of the best thesis received an iMac, and three more students received an internship opportunity at AIC.


Thesis Work of the Intensive Skillbox Listener

In addition, according to experts, about 70% of people get new knowledge and experience through social connections and informal relationships. Training can occur through forums, wiki pages, chat rooms. Why is that? Perhaps joint training helps to reduce the feeling of isolation, improves the efficiency of information transfer.

Another social component is gamification. All the same learning processes go much better in a playful way. Developers of software for learning foreign languages ​​often incorporate such elements into their applications - getting game currency, the ability to compare their results with the results of training of other system participants, etc.


Lingua Leo app

This technique uses LinguaLeo in its application for learning English. The user sees how well he has advanced compared to other participants in the system.

We also try to experiment with game mechanics: for example, our PhotoshopBattle runs in several rounds on the principles of the knockout game. 8 country designers take part in it, fighting with each other for the title of the best.

Microtraining

Another modern approach that allows you to master a small amount of material in a short period of time. A certain program is taken, and the process of obtaining knowledge is divided into short classes, the duration of which is literally just a few minutes. An example is the same foreign languages. Many online language services recommends practicing a little, at intervals of 5-10 minutes several times a day.

Mobile applications, short videos, animation (including text), infographics are ideal for micro-learning.

Thanks to the breakdown into small portions of knowledge digested better :. the person does not have time to get tired and remembers everything that is read and viewed. The advantages of micro-learning are increased concentration of attention, accessibility (you can learn anything at any time almost anywhere), modularity and flexibility.

Another example of micro-learning is Coursmos courses, users of which study various topics on the example of clips lasting 1-3 minutes. An example of hybrid micro-learning (i.e., micro-learning is combined with another method) is the Tinycards service for children from Duolingo: it offers the opportunity to study, for example, astronomy using cards. Each card shows an object for study and its description.

Mentoring

One of the ways to convey practical experience is mentoring.
The mentor transmits his knowledge to the beneficiary, guides, prompts and, importantly, motivates - that is, performs the role of not just a lecturer, but also a teacher in the true sense of the word.

Today, information technology and telecommunications allow the learner to find a mentor thousands of kilometers away from him - and that's great.

There is no limit to perfection

In general, the trends mentioned above are by no means all: modern education is much deeper and more complex. For effective learning, you can use both different methods separately, or a combination of several of them.

In the following articles we will explain how we make our own courses - it is not always as easy as we would like.