The modern way of learning has transitioned from traditional textbooks to online learning. Students are no longer restricted to using books alone for research and classes.
These days, institutions find new ways to introduce new learning concepts to make them more interesting for students. This is where EdTech for research and learning becomes a thing.
Using EdTech, online learning can be transformed from something students do without doing anything to something they do while doing something that helps them understand and motivates them.
As you read through this blog, you’ll learn more about using EdTech for interactive online learning and how it has impacted today’s learning strategy for students.
Let’s begin.
The rise of EdTech
According to Statista, spending on EdTech (educational technology) will likely rise sharply in several critical areas worldwide in 2025. Spending on augmented and virtual reality is expected to rise from $1.6 billion in 2018 to $12.6 billion in 2025.
Educational technology, or EdTech, creatively uses tools, software, and educational theory to improve learning and teaching. Aside from excellent tools, it’s about using technology to make learning more exciting and valuable.
EdTech has many educational uses, and these are just a few of the most important ones:
- Interactive Learning Platforms: These websites let teachers create live lessons that include polls, quizzes, and ways for students to talk with each other.
- Gamification: This method adds game elements like points, badges, and leaderboards to learning tasks to make them more fun and interesting.
- Simulations and Virtual Reality (VR): EdTech lets students become fully immersed in simulated settings, which helps them understand complicated ideas better. Imagine being able to dissect a frog in a virtual biology class or being there at a historical event!
- Personalized Learning Paths: EdTech tools can determine what students are good and bad at and then ensure they learn in a way that fits their needs. This ensures students are pushed correctly and can move at their own pace.
- Assessment and Feedback: EdTech can give students instant feedback on their quizzes and assignments, which helps them see where they need to improve and keep track of their progress.
These contribute to different benefits that make EdTech an interactive online learning platform.
- Engaging: EdTech replaces the passive reading of textbooks with tasks you can do with others. Imagine dissecting a virtual frog in biology class or using VR to learn about old Rome in history class. Tools like points, badges, and leaderboards that add a game-like element make learning fun and less like a job.
- Accessibility: EdTech removes hurdles based on location and size. Students can learn anywhere and anytime, even if they are sick at home or in a small town. This is especially useful for groups living in different places or having trouble attending regular classes in person.
- Personalized Learning: There is no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to EdTech. Innovative programs determine what each student is good and bad at and then make learning paths that fit their needs.
Interactive learning with EdTech tools
Most of the time, traditional materials don’t make learning enjoyable. Here’s where EdTech comes in, giving us a wide range of tools to make online learning more fun and interactive:
Gamification: Learning becomes a game
Using the power of games, gamification makes learning fun and exciting. How it works:
Mechanics: Learning activities reward students for their growth and accomplishments using points, badges, and leaderboards. Imagine getting points for quizzes or badges that show you know a lot about a subject.
Benefits: In addition to creating a healthy sense of competition, gamification also increases student engagement and gives them a sense of success, motivating them to keep learning.
Here are some examples of gamification in education technology:
Kahoot!: A famous site that turns quizzes into games students can play together and compete in real time.
Quizlet Live: Let students work in teams to answer questions and look up meanings. This makes learning vocabulary more fun and competitive.
Blooket: Turns reviewing material into an exciting adventure game where students answer questions to get power-ups and beat other players.
Simulations and virtual reality (VR): Stepping into the subject
VR and simulations make learning more engaging, which lets students:
Practice skills in a safe place: For example, you could do virtual studies in a science lab or practice surgery before entering an operating room.
Journey through time and space: In history class, learn about ancient cultures, and in biology class, you can visit the Great Barrier Reef without leaving your house.
Some examples of how VR can be used in education:
Google Expeditions: This lets you go on virtual field trips to museums, nature sights, and even inside the human body.
Labster: You can do biology, chemistry, and other science projects in a virtual lab that you can interact with.
Collaborative learning platforms: Learning together, online
Even when students are not in the same room, online tools can help them work together and talk to each other, which is also best for when taking some of the affordable online colleges.
These sites have things like:
- Discussion boards: Let students share their thoughts, answer each other’s questions, and have chats without being in the same room at the same time.
- Group Projects: Work on projects online and develop new ideas by sharing documents, whiteboards, and chat.
Some examples of platforms for collaborative learning are:
- Moodle is an open-source learning management system that lets teachers create interactive classes by adding quizzes, discussion boards, and group activities.
- Padlet is a virtual bulletin board where students can work together to share notes, ideas, and videos.
Based on another Statista report, K–12 school districts in the US used an average of 2,591 education technology (EdTech) tools during the 2022–23 school year. This is a considerable increase from the 2016–17 school year when each school district only used 300 EdTech tools.
Enhancing online learning with EdTech
EdTech tools offer fun tasks, but there are other ways to make online learning even more powerful through strategic implementation:
Customized learning paths: Making the journey fit your needs
EdTech lets us go beyond the idea that standard education is one size fits all. How to do it:
- Adaptive learning: These innovative tools figure out what a student is good and bad at, then change the difficulty level of the material and suggest other resources that can help them specifically. Having trouble with an idea? The platform gives you more practice tasks. Quickly getting good at something? It lets you access more complex information to keep you guessing.
- Choice and Agency for Students: EdTech can give students some say over how they learn. This could mean picking things to learn more about or picking preferred learning methods (like videos, simulations, and quizzes).
Pros of personalized learning:
- Students are more driven to learn when they think their actions are related to their interests and needs.
- Customized learning paths ensure students are pushed correctly and progress steadily.
Evaluation and feedback: Keeping track of progress to get better
EdTech does more than just deliver information; it also gives students valuable comments to help them learn better. How to do it:
- Instant feedback: Quizzes and assignments can be marked immediately, so students can see where to improve and change their study.
- Tracking progress: EdTech systems can track how well a student is doing over time, which is helpful for both the student and the teacher. Students can see how far they’ve come and be proud of their accomplishments, and teachers can see where the class might need more help.
Some examples of EdTech tools for testing:
- Socrative lets teachers make polls, quizzes, and exit tickets showing how well students learn in real time.
- Edmodo is a platform that lets you grade and give comments on a variety of assessment tools, such as quizzes, discussions, and assignments.
- Online education can be an empowering and enriching experience for students if they use EdTech to create personalized learning paths and good evaluation tools.
Reimagining online learning with EdTech
Textbooks have been helpful for hundreds of years, but now that we live in the digital age, we need a more exciting and valuable way to learn online. EdTech is a big deal because it gives us many tools to turn online learning from a passive activity into an exciting adventure where we can connect. EdTech helps people understand things better, motivates them, and makes learning fun through game-like experiences, immersive models, and collaborative platforms.
Source: Pexels
But EdTech can be used for more than just fun. EdTech lets students take charge of their learning and teachers adapt lessons to meet the needs of each student by using personalized learning paths and useful evaluation tools. With this mix of interest, customization, and helpful feedback, online learning will not only be possible in the future, but it will also be enriching and powerful for everyone.
