The adoption of EdTech has created a way for more technology to enter the educational industry. Experts share their opinions about how technology impacts the future of education.
The recent developments show that technology will play a vital role in the future of education. With online learning entering the mainstream, we are already seeing the trends where technology is all set to make major changes in the education industry. Be it artificial intelligence-based assessment tools like PrepAI or technologies like AR/ VR in classrooms, the concept of learning is changing and evolving into something new and potentially better.
Knowing which technology to use and how to integrate it into the existing system plays a crucial role in providing a dynamic and interactive learning environment to students. That brings us to trending topics like Metaverse and Blockchain technology.
We asked experts their thoughts about the future of education. We reached out to 39 experts and asked them the following questions:
- What, according to you, is the future of education?
- How does the advent of these technologies affect education?
- What are your thoughts on Metaverse for education?
Let’s see what they have to say about the role of technology in shaping the future of education.
Experts’ Thoughts on the Future of Education
1. Caitriona
ESL Teacher and Founder, TPR Teaching
“There is no one-size-fits-all. The AI-based approach is tailored to the specific needs of each student. Digital tools have made it easier for educators to assess student progress and provide feedback. Of course, educators must be given appropriate instruction on how to manage these tools to provide a more effective and efficient learning experience for students.
Metaverse is a virtual world that allows users to create, share, and experience digital content in a three-dimensional environment. It has the potential to revolutionize learning by providing a more immersive and engaging experience. Imagine being able to go to any university or receive the best training without ever leaving the home! Keep an eye out for Metaverse in the years to come!”
2. Abhishek Singh
Product Head – PrepAI, DataToBiz
“Technology will play an increasingly important role in the future of education. Online learning, the use of mixed reality (AR/ VR/ ER) devices, and assessment tools like PrepAI will revolutionize education.
However, these new developments are not always easy to adopt and follow. New technology brings a new set of challenges. Educational institutions have to overcome the challenges to take advantage of what it offers. For example, educators first need to be trained and empowered to use the latest technology for teaching. It’s only then that students can benefit from these developments.
Personally, I feel Metaverse has the potential to present learning in an exciting, different model/ with a fresh perspective. After all, it allows us to create avatars and explore the virtual world. Metaverse would be a fun way to provide an immersive and engaging learning environment to students.”
3. Zack Robinson
CEO, Test Geek
“The pandemic forced a lot of educational settings to move online, but there’s been a mixed response to this. It seems likely that education for older students, particularly college students, will continue to move online due to cost constraints and added flexibility. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see a return to more traditional formats, especially for core teaching and younger students. We’ll probably see supplemental education materials delivered digitally, but most regular classroom instruction will go back to old-fashioned in-person teaching.”
4. Maya Frost
Artist, Author, Educator, Change Strategist
“Education will become more personalized and decentralized in the years ahead. Metaverse will provide students already accustomed to at-home Zoom classes with a dramatically superior virtual learning adventure. It can also introduce students to opportunities in the real world to learn in ways and places that are ideal for them.
Metaverse will allow learners on the autism spectrum to go deeper and gain skills in ways that go far beyond textbooks. It will also help reduce bullying based on physical appearance. Obviously, safety and security must be built into the experiences. Technology is a tool, and in the right hands, it can help learners of all ages gain knowledge, understanding, and skills that will prepare them for the challenges of the future rather than the past.”
5. Marc Prensky
Author and Keynote Speaker
“Technology is crucial for the young people’s future, but using technology to do the old education is a waste of time and money. Young people should spend their formative years NOT being educated but becoming empowered. Empowerment is self-direction plus accomplishment with a positive impact. Young people need adults as coaches to help them realize their personal dreams and help the world.
Metaverse opened up to young people a world that didn’t exist before. Technology is just a newly evolved body part to help them do these things. Our young people need to become symbiotic with it.”
6. Greg McDonough
Innovation Space Coordinator and Educator, Lake Forest Country Day School
“Data collection tools will be seamless and incorporated directly into formative assessments. As colleges move away from requiring ACTs and SATs, we’ll see more testing purely for the students’ benefit and provide accountability for teachers and districts by measuring growth.
I look forward to a future where the tools adjust to the teachers and students rather than the other way around. If students continue to learn remotely, I could see Metaverse playing a role in keeping students connected and facilitating SEL curriculum beyond Zoom squares.”
7. Gustavo Gehrke Maierá
Founder, mesttra
“The future of education is an artificial intelligence concierge that tracks all your digital footprints, websites, everything that you read, and guides you to the things that you still need to learn to achieve your goals. Education professionals will have to adapt and bring their life experience to better guide students. They will have to develop more critical and problem-solving skills to understand when software solutions are not quite right.
Metaverse will bring a human augmented perspective. Instead of keyboards and mouses, students will be able to discover the world on a much richer experience that will increase the interactions with machines/tools and may open room for more interaction with humans.”
8. Robert Puharich
High School Teacher and Founder, Teen Learner
“Covid really changed our education system. It accelerated the use of technology greatly and forced everybody to adapt to using it. Moving forward, online learning and communication will become more important. For Metaverse to be adopted by professionals and school districts is a long way away in my belief. Private learning may adapt quickly, but for systems to jump in will take time.”
9. Liz Miller
Communication Manager, GetSetUp
“Education will be more of deconstruction and include lifelong learning. More people will be looking for upskilling and reskilling courses. New technologies will force successful people to take education into their own hands or the education system to revamp and stop teaching the same way it has for decades.
A version of the metaverse has been around with virtual reality and the sims and other programs for a long time, but it’s not really a bonus in education. Offering more opportunities for learning across age brackets will likely be the most impactful shift in education.”
10. Leena Bakshi McLean
Founder and Executive Director, STEM4Real
“The education system has been built on the rocky foundations of Brown vs. Board of Education. For the future of education to achieve equity and access for every student, we must start by incorporating a framework for justice. We must also ensure that our educators are trained on implicit bias and systemic racism to ensure that our Black and Brown students are truly getting served in a system that historically has not served them.
- Recognize: Our leaders must recognize the points of inequity.
- Dismantle: We have to dismantle the systems that are perpetuating inequities.
- Rebuild ways that address student inequities.
The pandemic unveiled many educational inequities, and we also found that students did not have access to a simple computer or Wi-Fi. We must also address the teacher’s efficacy when utilizing this technology. We also have challenges with educators that do not have their own computers or training to access software programs.
There is a lack of representation of teachers of color in the science and mathematics spaces of education. We have to truly dissect the inequities that exist now before we dive into the Metaverse on education.”
11. Gerald
Co-Founder, The Word Counter
“The future of education will be heavily focused on a flexible, personalized format. Remote learning has been a struggle for educators and students; in the future, I believe technology will allow for remote learning, but it will have to be tailored and supplemented with in-person instruction as well.
Metaverse has the potential to introduce new milestones for empowering learners, but it is essential not to underestimate the power of learning within a classroom.”
12. Michael Jan
SEO and Technical/Marketing Content Specialist, Dream Chasers XYZ
“The future of education is not only about learning but also about making sure that students are equipped with skills and knowledge that will help them in their careers. With new technologies such as virtual reality, AI, and blockchain becoming popular, we need to rethink what it means to learn in school today and how it can be applied in the future workforce.
Education professionals should be aware of the importance of AI in their field as it has a lot of potential to change the way things work in this sector. AI can be used for creating personalized learning paths for students according to their needs and interests.
I think that Metaverse for education is a great platform for learning. It allows students to explore different worlds and interactively experience new things. The only downside of the platform is that it can be difficult to navigate, especially when students are not familiar with the layout of the interface.”
13. Kimberly Silvia
CEO, FindPeopleFirst
“I believe the future of education will be changed drastically, as AI can help schools provide personalized learning programs which would increase students’ motivation to learn. A machine-learning algorithm could be used to predict what class students would like based on their previous interests.
Teachers could also use these models of student success and help students figure out where they need the most help. However, AI may be able to teach children, leading to the elimination of teachers.
The Metaverse allows educators to easily share content and provide students with rich experiences, such as simulations of the practicals that will help students visualize much better than in a 2D space. There are plenty of opportunities for educators to improve learning experiences.”
14. Nandita Gupta
TEDx Speaker, Accessibility Program Manager, Microsoft
“To me, the future of education is truly providing accessible content and knowledge to all. There’s a huge need for us to bake inclusion and accessibility into the way we teach our future generations to ensure that the systems created by the future generations will be inclusive and accessible to all!
The pandemic was a great example of how technological innovation helped us take our education systems to the next level. Microsoft teams changed the way educational systems operated across the globe, and we saw a huge rise in adoption!”
15. Maubeen Masudi
Co-Founder, Wise Leap Technologies
“I foresee two key changes in education: better access and greater variety. The barrier to entry has effectively been reduced. The low cost of instruction (online) will create a wave of new-age courses and content.
It’s still early days for metaverse to impact education. In the short term, the constraints remain around hardware (nausea/headache due to prolonged usage) and software infrastructure for it to make a significant impact in education.”
16. Rosalina Olivia
Student Services Advisor, Oxford Learning College
“We expect the evolution of edtech to continue, with the goal of more people of various backgrounds having access to educational opportunities. Distanced learning will continue to be considered alongside ‘traditional’ education more and more. AI will be of particular use when it comes to the monitoring of educational performance. Analysis of more data will allow for the early identification of any issues which may be addressed through student intervention.
Edtech is still not advanced enough to allow for the wide availability of the metaverse. However, this is sure to change, with people of all ages having access to the metaverse in the future. We could have AI-driven discussions with famous historical figures, a way of learning about the times without reciting a textbook.”
17. Diane Gayeski
Professor of Strategic Communication, Ithaca College’s Roy H. Park School of Communications
“For higher education specifically, I think the future will harness the level of comfort that both professors and students developed during COVID to incorporate more remote and hybrid teaching. But I envision the biggest change will be that universities will be able to have on their faculty individuals from all over the globe—it will no longer be necessary for people to actually live near campus. Of course, the right types of employment contracts and incentives would need to be in place.
While there will always be a place for traditional universities as places that generate new knowledge and provide an incubator for personal development, the educational marketplace will expand to allow much more affordable and continuing access to educational experts and content.”
18. Jake Guy
Product Manager, GrantMe
“The future of education is where learning, the primary modality for achieving ‘education’, is universally distributed and widely accessible to anyone who wants to pursue education. Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) will support the aforementioned accelerating change in curriculum, though, beyond that, it will have an important impact on how we learn. The rate at which the curricula change will also continue to increase. This is to say that education is changing fast but will also change faster (and faster). Where some research demonstrates that teaching methodologies based on kinesthetic learning can be highly effective for learning, AR & VR will likely be used to grow the possible number of learning experiences students can have.
The Metaverse will only play a prominent role in education for the relatively brief period that it exists in the absence of sophisticated brain-machine interface technology at which point instantaneous learning will make redundant time-laden learning experiences.”
19. Alex Haley
Co-Founder, YardsNearMe
“In my opinion, the education sector will see dramatic changes in the coming years. Like me, teachers, schools, colleges, universities, professors, coaching centers, and home tutors are now using the latest technology innovation to teach a large number of students and help them understand complicated topics quite easily. Online education will be the new normal in 10 to 20 years. Metaverse tools are free for anyone and can help increase the overall literacy among the population in different countries.”
20. Melissa Jones
International Speaker, Girls Empowerment Coach, and Founder, Girls Positivity Club
“I think the future and best practice of education is going to be a marrying of the two (traditional and technology), and to do that is going to take trial and error, research about what is best for kids both academically and socially, and an open mind to the way education is conducted in school to have some flexibility for innovation. If these technologies are going to be integrated into the classroom, then standardized testing needs to change too.
I think there will be a big learning curve and what school systems and edtech experts need to do is get on the same page as partners in creating an amazing learning environment for kids. There is still value in traditional methods for kids and we want to provide those real-life experiences for students as well as utilize the benefits of actually taking kids back in time to experience life from the past in history and making their stories come to life through AI.
Metaverse for education sounds great in theory, and I think it will be very engaging and motivating for students. I believe that students still need a real live person teaching them and guiding them through these experiences. We cannot ignore the mental and emotional health of students.”
21. Brian Gawor
Vice President – Research, RNL
“Education is now about engagement. Certainly, engaging students, but also engaging families, employers, and communities. This means a shift from institutions really positioned as a central authority, to building community and culture. It’s time to look at your alma mater as a key partner for decades after graduation.
Everything has changed, from most institutions going test-optional to recruitment and student success outreach shifting virtual, to the majority of graduate students saying they want at least some portion of their degrees delivered online. “Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality have a tremendous opportunity for educators. We’ve just scratched the surface of higher education’s use of these new tools, and I hope this will be an opportunity for colleges and universities to lead.”
22. Vivek Sunder
Global Edtech Expert and CEO, Cuemath
“It’s true that remote schooling and supplemental learning delivered through technology, apps, and websites may never be the primary model of education. But we may come to adopt a model where we use various channels when it best suits our and our children’s needs.
Proven online learning options must weave together the best online and in-person capabilities. One emerging school of thought involves “education-on-demand”. This idea of hyper-customization – creating an individualized blended education model designed to suit different needs – is growing in popularity as parents look for more flexibility and high-quality education.
Evolution in education will come about at its own pace, including looking at the metaverse. But the pandemic has allowed us to test the waters and try new models of accessing education.”
23. Tanya Trevett
Special Education Teacher, Parent Coach, and Author
“Education will be more collaborative and creative, allowing students to be more engaged, active, and social. The future of education will be technologically advanced, forcing teachers to instruct the way students today want to learn.
Education professionals have to be open-minded and willing to change. I believe the metaverse could open up a new level of engagement and learning experiences for students if it is well thought out. As a special education teacher, I am always thinking about how all students access learning. I envision lessons that will allow students to become deeply immersed in learning allowing them to learn hands-on in ways we never imagined. “
24. Allen Koh
CEO, Cardinal Education
“More online education will open up opportunities to overcome access issues for disadvantaged students. We think that a rise in online education will also lead elite universities to offer more democratically accessible programs. This could damage second and wipe out third-tier physical universities.
Educators have to constantly ask themselves if they are delivering value from the perspective of students and employers. Metaverse is better than nothing. But for the elites, it will always be just a tool and not a way of life.”
25. Elio DiStaola
Strategic Communications, RedShelf
“Education was due for a change–and the pandemic forced the hands of many educators/institutions to reset ‘normal’. We’re seeing instructors embrace tech tools that support and track students’ participation, engagement, and understanding–regardless of where that learning takes place. In fact, recent surveys in higher education suggest that students and staff aren’t quite ready to give up some of the newfound benefits they’ve discovered in these new approaches.
In a digital classroom, instructors can collect data and then course-correct in real-time. For Metaverse, institutions are likely in a ‘wait and see’ position. But, FOMO is a very powerful force, and like the crypto story, those who jump in early are likely to see a promising return.”
26. Sheila Fung
Manager of Program Delivery, Uvaro
“I’d make a case for “the future” already being well underway- I see more blending of various media and learning methods toward community-based learning coming…potentially in a way that blends digital spaces with physical ones. As an educator, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that our success is directly tied to our ability to sustain engagement- which requires adopting new tools and approaches in this quickly changing landscape.
If we have the option to engage with education the way we *want* to (in the way the metaverse is meant to eventually allow us to engage with augmented reality), I am all for it!”
27. Ricardo Luís Von Groll
Content Manager, Talentify
“The future of education is a ‘hybrid’. New technology demands constant updates and research by educators. Once it is inserted in classes, keeping it attractive and effective is necessary. Metaverse is still a means to be discovered and better explored by educators worldwide. Still, I see it as a great complementary tool for hybrid education.”
28. Eric Kim
Program Director and Co-Owner, LA Tutors 123
“The future of education will be crowdsourced, with more people sharing information more efficiently every day. As technologies become more efficient, professionals will need to adapt and adjust their skill sets to become familiar with and adept at utilizing these tools.
Virtual reality offers many new opportunities for learning. That being said, VR is still in its nascent stages, and it will take a while before people are comfortable, with consuming media in that format. If it becomes more accepted and widespread, there will be limitless applications for education.”
29. Adrian Le’Roy Devezin
Executive Director, Empowr
“The future of education will be rooted in the real world. As was emphasized in former Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan’s book How Schools Work, the most successful schools are ones that are integrated with the community. The fact is that everyone must now become a technologist. To serve students properly, educators must understand what tech students are using and why.
As someone born on the cusp of being outside and participating in the tech world, the metaverse is still a strange concept to me. It will become a normal tool in the education sector within the next decade or so. It’s important to begin adapting curriculum to use technology now so that schools are properly prepared for the adoption of the metaverse.”
30. Sarah Ross
Co-Founder, CocoLoan
“The students of today are digital natives. Future instructors will have to deal with the fact that pupils will need (and desire) to study in a flexible, individualized style, which for some may imply a more technologically centered classroom. Education will become increasingly project-based in the future since greater levels of thinking and learning necessitate more student responsibility.
We’ll need to adapt curriculum and courses to reflect the skills demanded by developing economies and technology, in contrast to the old-school traditions in English, math, social studies, and science.
Both instructor and student can meet in the metaverse regardless of their physical location. Depending on their metaverse of choice, instructors will be able to create a genuinely magnificent setting that will fascinate both young and elderly pupils.”
31. Brent Goldman
CEO and Co-Founder, Xceed Preparatory Academy
“Hybrid learning and giving students more control over their learning. Many of our students are elite athletes and performers who travel all over the country and world, yet they can connect with their teachers in a matter of seconds. This was not possible when I started my career.
The metaverse will offer additional options for active learning, but educators have to be careful not to overwhelm students with apps and technologies.”
32. Andrew G. Swapp
Director of Renewable and Sustainable Technology, Mesalands Community College
“I think that education will become more fluid and less centralized. Micro-credentials that can stack to become a degree or completion certification that is highly desired by the student or recommended by an employer will be of great value. If institutions do not become more flexible in their offerings they may find themselves becoming a dinosaur.
A lot of education professionals could be out of a job if we use our technology to the extent that it could be used. We can make fantastic welders in a shorter time and with less cost to the student with simulation. VR can expand horizons dramatically. Communication is instantaneous, and safety is reinforced with sensors and smart controls. As an education professional, I feel more effective, safer, and more productive using the technologies I have in my control.
The metaverse opens new doors and new possibilities that are amazing yet at the same time who knows what I know now and how will this information be used in the future. The internet has gathered much and the metaverse will gather much, much more. On the brighter side, eventually, we will gather the greatest of the great educators and have them available for all.”
33. Amrit Ahluwalia
Director of Strategic Insights, Modern Campus
“The loss of nearly 1 million college students over the past two years has been sudden, but it wasn’t completely unforeseen. We’re in the midst of a massive societal demographic shift stemming from a decline in the birth rate in the early-2000s. There are simply fewer 18-year-olds than there have been in past years, which means the competition for undergraduate enrollments is fierce.
Colleges and universities that don’t adjust quickly to these shifts—both the demographic change and the consumer expectations of the modern learner—they’ll struggle to stay open. Postsecondary institutions that don’t explore routes to serving new audiences, and for those that don’t find better ways to attract the learners they’re best-suited to serve, they could be under threat of becoming a statistic.”
34. Emma Gordon
Founder, USSalvageYards
“In my opinion, the future education will be flexible. As a start, we might have faced a few challenges for the start-ups, but in the future when the facilities are ready, the education will no longer be only in the classroom. With the new technology we have now, education professionals have a broader way to teach in class.
I love the idea of metaverse for education. Metaverse is interesting as it can create a virtual reality and help the students to feel excited to learn. With metaverse, there is no limit to education.”
35. Max Shak
CFO, Abtron
“In the coming years, I believe that nearly everything will be online, from education to learning. The education industry has been profoundly impacted by technology. Technology enhances overall learning and teaching experiences by allowing teachers, parents, and students to access information quickly and collaboratively.
There is a lot of potential in the metaverse, assuming that it does not expect education to be a computer-to-student isolated experience. To create an enriched learning environment in the digital age, teachers, students, and experts must be able to connect among themselves.”
36. Baljeet Dogra
CEO and Founder, Kidsmart
“The pandemic demonstrated the growing importance and relevance of using digital tools for the effective delivery of high-quality educational solutions. As an entrepreneur, I used my professional skills to create an app to help my daughter prepare for 11+ (an examination taken at the age of 11–12 to determine the type of secondary school a child should enter).
The educator who embraces technology will be blessed with a creative space for delivery and new revenue streams versus the outdated approach of labor-intensive delivery in classrooms. Metaverse will improve the virtual delivery of lessons and invite new technology that has the potential of significantly reducing boundaries of virtual separation in the classroom.”
37. Stella Cooper
CEO, PaydayLoansUK
“Future teachers or educators should understand that students will require learning in a personalized and flexible format. It means having a more tech-oriented classroom. The walls of the classrooms are no longer a restriction as technology provides new ways of communicating, teaching, and working.
Through VR, AR, and other cutting-edge technology, the metaverse can close the gap between the virtual world and the physical kingdom. It will let children learn without realizing it, which is the holy grail of education. For a teacher, it will assist in breaking down the artificial siloing of subjects.”
38. Beverly Gearreald
Community Manager, Transizion
“What I want to see in the future of education and what I think is happening are, unfortunately, two different things. What I want to see is education becoming more equal, with disadvantaged groups gaining more and more access to quality education. However, the trend that I’m seeing is that advantaged groups are using their advantages to further widen the educational divide.
As someone who works at an educational tech startup, the dream is that technology will bring more equality to education. However, some logistical hurdles are difficult to overcome, such as student access to reliable internet and quiet study spaces while at home.
While the data is still out on whether a true VR experience would provide that, I think it is safe to say that the evidence suggests that Zoom does not, at least for the large majority of students. Thus, while I cannot rule out using VR or other technology-enabled classrooms as useful for the right students, those ‘right’ students are likely motivated, privileged students who can use the time not spent on a bus to instead work on self-guided learning, passion projects, or any other number of other things.”
39. Dr. Ron Wagner
Founder and CEO, Relearnit
“Technology has been a valuable tool that is transforming the work environment for education professionals and students. It will continue to streamline hiring processes and the measurement of student productivity for educators. Educators in hybrid and remote settings increasingly need these tools to ensure the student experience is seamless for recruitment, retainment, graduation, and beyond.
Metaverse applications such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality would enable educators to set up virtual office hours for students to interact one-on-one. A professor could also conduct a study session in a virtual space that mimics class objectives with a hands-on experience.”
To Sum Up
We can conclude that experts from different fields (including the education industry) think technology will be an integral part of the future of education. They emphasize the need for education professionals to understand technology the right way and empower themselves before empowering students and building an inclusive classroom.
