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Technology integration in education

With latest trends in learning and teaching techniques, what does it take to venture into the world of education finds out Patricia Mascarenhas

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Integrating technology into the curriculum is slowing becoming a priority, if not a mandate in most educational institutions. Even entrepreneurs in education aim to facilitate learning and improve performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources. The challenge, of course, is in finding ways to be different in the competitive environment and use technology to help students.

When venturing into the ocean of education, entrepreneurs need to first detect a specific problem area that they wish to offer a solution to. Akhil Shahani, managing director, Thadomal Shahani Centre for Management (TSCFM), "Visit colleges, schools, students and ask them if the problem area as pointed out by you is legitimate, then figure how you can use technology to solve it," advises Shahani further adding that when one uses education technology one needs to be aware of the kind of outcome one wants to get. "For example, if a student is using education technology, what is the better outcome that you are providing? Is it going to be more quality driven or quantity driven?" asks Shahani. "There is quality area and development success area but you need to make sure you know the problem properly because you're providing the solution," he adds.

In today's world where one can get information on any complex topic with the help of the internet, the education curriculum appears to be monotonous and old school. "We have hundreds of lecturers speaking for hours, repeating the same thing over and over again so what most educational technologists try to do is make learning more fun assuming that it would attract a lot of people and in turn make them money, unfortunately it doesn't work that way," informs Shahani. He points out to one of the biggest issues his company faces. "Most of them on our education technology teams come from technological backgrounds and very few have any experience in education. What happens is that they try to solve an educational problem with a technological solution but forget that education is the key factor here and not the other way around," says Shahani. Krishna Kumar, CEO, Simplilearn agrees, "Before you being planning setting up an education technology venture, it is important to fundamentally look at where the problem is. In the education section there are number of opportunities for problem solving since the education industry can be broken down into primary, secondary, higher education or faculty, resources, quality etc."

When it comes to educational advancement, it is important to know that technology is just an enabler to make it better. "Earlier we used to write and today we type which is a very small difference. When you address technology just as an enabler, you will look far beyond technology and try to find out what the core problems are. How people are working around them? And that's how you chance upon opportunities in market," he says.

Karthik KS, founder and CEO, avagmah- 24x7 Learning agrees, "Quality and cost are two major factors that need to be looked at. As far as the market goes, there is scope for everybody cause the demand for learning continues to grow. However, education technologists have to remember, "You have to target a big crowd, your product has to be a solution to a major problem demanded by the masses and at the same time be affordable," he concludes.

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