IT in the field of education

2

October

2018

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Information technology (IT) is reforming many industries, one of them is education. Education is often referred to as one of the basic needs of human beings. So it would be a big step if education could be made more effective with the use of IT. In this blog I want to talk about two of the opportunities IT brings within the field of education.

The first opportunity is the personalisation of the education experience. IT makes it possible to adjust education to the personal needs of the students. We can for example think of the pace with which information is introduced to the student or the form in which new material is showed. Blended learning is a trend which combines technology with face-to-face interaction. The student is allowed to make their own decisions about direction and pace. Adaptive learning is largely similar to blended learning, but it goes one step further. It also modifies the presentation of material in response to the student’s performance.

Another opportunity IT brings is the automated teacher. Anthony Seldon, a British education expert, said that robots will replace teachers by 2027. This is a very attractive opportunity, because of the shortage in qualified teachers. But there is a lot of criticism to this opportunity. Critical people state we first have to look at the role of a teacher. A teacher does more than just the one-way task of instructing a student. Teachers perform tasks a robot is not able to. Examples are identifying social cues or roadblocks, often personal or emotional in nature, taking on a caring role in a parent’s stead and advocate for students which might otherwise be forgotten. They state that we should focus on building technology that aid teachers in these tasks, instead of building technology that replaces the teacher. With regard to this opportunity the future has to indicate if robots can be developed to the extend they can perform the mentioned tasks as well.

Sources

  1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/03/28/cutting-edge-education-13-ways-to-leverage-technology-for-learning/#53a0facc3919
  1. https://fedena.com/blog/2015/05/technology-in-schools-what-are-the-opportunities-and-challenges.html
  1. https://fedena.com/blog/2018/05/teachers-vs-technology-can-technology-replace-teachers.html
  1. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/12/why-robots-could-replace-teachers-as-soon-as-2027
  1. http://blog.screenbeam.com/2018/01/17/6-digital-transformation-trends-edu/

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Ways In Which Big Data Can Improve Business

8

September

2018

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We often read that big data has the potential to influence every business, both Fortune 500 enterprises as well as small local firms. There are several ways in which it is possible to improve business by using big data.

First of all, big data will enable companies improve customer intelligence and customer experience. It is possible to get insight in what the market wants, but also what a single customer wants, what channels he or se uses to buy and so on. This makes it possible to provide the right message to the right person at the right time. This personalization can also be applied to apps or websites. Take for example Amazon and Netflix, they suggest books, films and series that perfectly fit their users tastes. This improves user satisfaction and in the long term also their loyalty. This would not be possible without big data and data analytics.

Secondly, it is possible to use data to improve operational efficiency. This can be done by equipping machines with sensors to track their performance. Also employee performance can be tracked. Sociometric Solutions has put sensors into employee name badges. These sensors report how the employees move around the workplace and with whom they speak. The bank of America noticed that their top performing employees always took breaks together. With this knowledge they instituted group break policies and the performance improved with 23 percent.

This are only two of the numerous ways in which data can improve business. However, research done by Forrester shows that between 60 percent and 73 percent of data in enterprises is untouched. Often companies are not intentionally not using their data, but they often do not understand the opportunities data has. So if managers become aware of the opportunities, incredible gains could be realised.

Sources:

1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2015/05/11/the-nanny-state-meets-the-quantified-workplace/#3fbeb71c69fa

2. https://www.simplilearn.com/how-big-data-can-influence-decision-making-article

3. https://www.ft.com/content/d56004b0-9581-11e3-9fd6-00144feab7de#axzz3XzFqixjB

4. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2017/04/04/improving-customer-experience-through-customer-data/#6b9f5fda4e64

5. https://www.inc.com/jeff-barrett/misusing-data-could-be-costing-your-business-heres-how.html

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