5 trends that impacted education in 2016

By Miguel García, Realinfluencers contributor Christmas – for that year is over – is traditionally the ideal time to review the past twelve months, look back and observe the path traveled and how far we have come. At BlinkEdTech we want to make our particular reading of 2016 in the field of education, in a year in which the technological evolution and the constant social changes that we have experienced have produced interesting innovations in the field of the school. Therefore, in this post we highlight the 5 trends that have marked the education in this year 2016 that will soon reach its end.

Personalized Learning

Each student is unique, but despite the difficulties faced by schools and teachers to respond to this reality and to personalize their education as much as possible, new technologies have made their work significantly easier. The possibility of carrying out a an approach to teaching adapted to the rhythm of each student through all the devices and applications available for it has caused that the teacher can be erected as a companion and an adviser of that process, always to the personal rhythm of the student. This trend, still timid, promises to continue taking weight during the next year.

Teachers have been encouraged, more and more, to carry out disruptive methodologies such as flipped classroom or project based learning

Relocation

These technological innovations have also allowed us to bring education to any place, with the sole need for a device and a WiFi connection as tools to teach and share knowledge from anywhere in the world. This has fostered the emergence of new working methodologies – such as bringing theoretical lessons home and practical work to class, commonly known as the flipped classroom methodology – which have been an important turning point in educational matters.

More connected than ever

Social networks, the cloud, virtual classrooms … More and more applications and systems allow us to maintain a connection 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This has fostered a more fluid teacher-student relationship, as well as simplified group work programs and internal cooperation among the students themselves.

Flexibility

All these elements have given to the teaching a greater flexibility, in front of the rigidity of the traditional classes and the conventional models. The possibility of undertaking a more personalized education, anywhere and anytime, has facilitated access to many people to a more complete and flexible education.

New methodologies

The new possibilities opened by technological innovations also have a direct impact on the way we teach. Teachers have felt encouraged, more and more, to carry out bolder methodologies: the reverse pedagogy we mentioned earlier; The learning by projects, boosted by the improvement of the communications; Gamification, which takes advantage of the potential of new technologies to make teaching more fun and spontaneous, etc. And looking back not only serves us to review what we have done so far, but also to lay the groundwork for what is to be done. That is why, from BlinkEdTech we invite all those centers and teachers to continue working on educational innovation and soaking up all these measures that left their mark in 2016 … and those that will come to mark 2017!