Ensuring personalization will help you to design effective EdTech for disadvantaged learners in India

Education technology (EdTech) has the potential to improve outcomes for everyone, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. With the right focus on design and implementation, education technology (EdTech) can enhance the experience through data insights, online assessment and learning, and artificial intelligence (AI), and help engage parents in their child’s education, to stop people from being left behind. Since 2020, India has seen four EdTech start-ups turn into unicorns (Unacademy, UpGrad, and Eruditus and Vedantu) and one into a decacorn (Byju’s). A unicorn is a company valued at over US$1 billion and a decacorn is valued at>US$10 billion. The important question is how can we design EdTech for disadvantaged learners in India?

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Personalization

Personalized learning also leads to increased productivity. By understanding the needs of each student, you can target the areas that require focus. This means material that is already familiar can be skipped and more time is spent on those topics and areas that are proving to be challenging.

Studies have shown that a personalized learning approach yields better learning results. This approach elevates learning and provides content that is relevant, engaging, actionable, and memorable. The end result is a learner who is pleased with their interaction with the material and is better at their job. Ensuring personalization will help you to design effective EdTech for disadvantaged learners in India.

Flexibility

It is critically important to choose a flexible program that can accommodate change since there is no guarantee of an immutable school year. The program ultimately serves only a small portion of the population if it only works in one specific framework. Infusing our traditional education system with freedom, flexibility, and accountability would allow technology to aid our educational progress in meaningful ways.

There are a number of other reasons why schools may want to modify or only use part of a program. Students who speak English as a second language may need additional help, for example. Design research can help us identify many of these cases, but designing for overall flexibility lets educators use our programs in a way that works for their students — edge cases or not.

Collaboration

Research shows that educational experiences that are active, social, contextual, engaging, and student-owned lead to deeper learning. The benefits of collaborative learning include the Development of higher-level thinking, oral communication, self-management, and leadership skills. Collaboration is one of the ways to design EdTech for disadvantaged learners in India.

Accessibility

EdTech accessibility is an essential prerequisite for people with disabilities and the provision of accessible content benefits all learners. In this way, the curriculum can serve students with different disabilities and students with different socio-economic backgrounds. EdTech accessibility makes sense from legal and business standpoints, it also helps to promote a more inclusive society that benefits all. The lack of accessibility denies full digital experiences to people with disabilities, reinforcing societal inequity.

Teachers are at the heart of learning

Educational technology (EdTech) should always support and amplify the role of the teacher. For all the hype about artificial intelligence replacing humans, the best results come from collaboration: humans working with technology to find the best solutions. A computer can process millions of data points to find relevant patterns, but it can’t diagnose the why’s beneath it. Computers still can’t assess posture and facial expressions to figure out which students are getting a concept and which aren’t. Nor can they make personal connections with students, uncovering their passions and parlaying them into a lifelong love of learning. Only a caring human can do that.

Keep in mind the importance of setting an adequate goal if you are considering new EdTech for disadvantaged learners in India. Remember the importance of planning, goal setting, and clear communication to ensure your implementation is as successful as possible.