Choosing between LMS, Zoom, and Edtech
Covid-19 shook the education sector in the middle of the academic year causing a huge and sudden shift from traditional teaching to online learning. Budgets were already allocated and spent by then - the only lingering budget was the technology budget. The only small budget available due to the misconceptions surrounding it prior to 2020.
With schools' sudden closure, the physical presence of people posed the biggest challenge to all educational institutions, the panic overcame all schools, teachers, and parents alike on the kind of mitigation efforts needed to make sure students do not fall behind in their learning cycles.
Schools needed to adapt fast with very tight technology budgets. They were faced with the dilemma of where to spend that money during these unprecedented times. There were three options:
1 - Communication platforms - and these are a must.
2 - Learning Management Systems (LMS) - most schools already integrated these into their systems.
3 - Educational technology platforms - now, this is new territory for schools and teachers alike, especially Arabic teachers.
Naturally, due to the impending risk of losing a school year, most priorities landed on communication platforms.
Fast forward, a year later, teachers are still struggling. Most schools know that the traditional teaching methods need upskilling and are now re-thinking the whole teaching experience. Let's delve a little bit into each to explore how these three important tools are needed to complete a successful online teaching experience along with the best human element, the teachers!
Starting with communication platforms, online communication tools became a necessity and everyone integrated platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams within their institutions. Most schools opted to spend that budget to create space for communication, however, that was only half the problem.
LMSs luckily were already integrated into most schools, which helped in the administration, documentation, tracking, and reporting of their teachers’ and students’ work. It provided the needed structure for distance learning, but that was not nearly enough to sustain a classroom that is 100% virtual.
To better understand Edtechs available we need to take a look at the MENA's educational sector. The world is a little different in the MENA region as most curriculums are not digitized, and teachers are not well-trained for the use of technology, and budgets are still spent on traditional educational tools. Technology was shyly revolving around the educational sphere for a while, yet schools were reluctant to adopt them fearing it might replace teachers or the sector itself. These unfounded beliefs were proven wrong by the pandemic itself. Edtech provided the right support for teachers during these unprecedented times. Most of them were aware of the budgetary constraints and opened their platforms for free usage to any school or teacher in need. Tech tools training and professional development workshops were initiated to upskill and support. So how is Edtech different from both Communication tools and LMSs?
Edtechs are holistic platforms supporting the learning journey with the teachers spearheading the experience for a more personalized, engaging, and adaptive learning journey. By lessening the burden of preparation of lesson plans, correction tools, and analytics of student performance, teachers are finding the value of Edtech on their side.
One does not cancel the other, many schools are mindful of this now and have quickly adapted their systems to the persisting needs to upgrade and innovate.
It is now a fact that Communication tools, LMSs, and Edtechs with teachers in their core pave the way to the present and future of education. So what are you waiting for?