Since the early 2000’s not only e-commerce but e-learning has also gained sky-rocketing popularity. Digitisation in education has totally changed learning as well as the teaching techniques. E-books, e-journals, PDFs, different digital learning and teaching platforms like Coursera.com and Tutorialspoint.com have converted education into e-education. In 2010, the global self-paced eLearning market reached $32.1 billion in revenue, with an annual growth rate of approximately 9.2%. India having 55% growth rate tops the list of self-paced e-learning followed by China (52%), Malaysia (41%) and Romania (38%).
Here are few reasons behind exponential growth of digital education:
Digital education aids in accessing any study material at any point of time across the world. With different digital learning platforms at fingertips students can nurture their skills, clear their doubts and have access to standard study materials at any instant. It also opens up collections that cannot always be accessed physically by users.
Financial conditions of students are no more a barrier to high-class education. A digital education platform providing e-books and video lectures not only saves funds but simultaneously provides improved learning.
Digitized study materials can be easily updated or altered with minimum investments, making it more flexible and student friendly. Students always get to avail the most current information in the process.
Teachers can also update their teaching methods by accessing apps like Teachability which helps them to prepare and develop their teaching skills based on the growing and changing needs of students.
Digital education increases interactivity and engagement of students by the personalization of learning resources. Specialized search engines have been incorporated which refines learning system by modifying results according to previous searches and interests expressed. There are apps which speak for children having speech difficulty assisting them to thrive in educational institutes.
With increasing participation of people all across the world in social media forums the pace of collaborative learning is going higher. Edmodo for example, a social learning platform helps teachers to conduct a disciplined way of teaching ruling out the options of noise of students.
Digital learning platforms conduct constant assessments on student performance and efficiency with the help of software. Students can get the track of their progress from these feedbacks, in turn, increases their motivation and competency.
In this digital era, crowdsourcing has been established as a key feature of digitisation. It acts a very important platform where students can enhance their writing skills by publishing their articles, journals in the digital market. The tough competition not only inspires them but also brings the best out of them.
Digital learning is also being adopted in corporate training. Presently, 77% of USA companies conduct online corporate training to increase professional skills of employees. 30% of e-learning product buyers are large companies. The demand of learning management system is ever growing and presently 74% of companies have included web casting and video broad casting in their training portals. 21% of companies use online performance support or knowledge management system where as 18% use mobile applications. Learners and companies are choosing e-learning methods for effective training courses and to achieve professional goals. The continuous advancements in technology, and expansion of digital education in every corner of the world is making it more successful and acceptable with time. Printed story books or text books will never go out of fashion or lose its charm, but digital education with its expanding wings is the wise and apt choice for present education evolving situation.
