Fifth-generation technology Archives

Online only universities in UK – Technology to the rescue

Posted on November 2, 2020July 16, 2025 by Hemant Mahajan

As universities in the UK shut down due to COVID 19 in March, students had to move online to attend live-streamed lectures and swap practical group work for remote assignments. In an attempt to deal with dwindling scholarships, travel restrictions and redefined visa rules, many prestigious universities have moved their courses online. Here is a look at how universities are adapting to a new norm, while using technology for remote learning.

With the pandemic calling for social distancing, it is likely to disrupt normal life for a long time to come. Hence, universities in the UK have shifted to offering online only classes. Leading the pack in the shift to online courses is the prestigious University of Cambridge, which will begin their online only academic year 2020-2021 from October 6. The university announced that it will move its entire course online for the 2020-21 academic year, scheduled to begin on October 6.

The University of Manchester has moved online for the upcoming autumn term with Cardiff University also moving most of its classes online after the summer break. Despite moving online and not being able to offer the intercultural experience that international students seek, it is also believed that top universities like Oxbridge etc will likely be able to attract and retain international students with the UK University degree tag.

In the last few months, there has been totally unexpected changes in the world which should be looked upon as an opportunity for universities to adopt people-centred technology and bring in digital transformation. Today, it can be safely said that the universities meeting this challenge will be the ones to thrive in the future. These universities need to adapt and expand their digital platforms to offer what students really want. The next step would include collaborating with tech companies to create affordable modular online course options, accessible to all.

Universities moving online will have to compete with new formats, including coding bootcamps like Le Wagon, Codeworks and Northcoders which offer quicker, cheaper courses in subjects like web development and data science with in-built industry connections. However, moving online also comes at a cost, Hence, universities in the UK will make sure their investment in digital transformation will be for the long term, especially when they had been lagging behind universities from other countries for years.

Modular Courses

The success of online learning has been experienced with institutes such as The Open University. In recent years, universities like Oxford, Imperial and UCL have also started experimenting with free MOOCS (Massive Open Online Courses) through FutureLearn with a paid upgrade option. These courses have proved to be highly popular with their affordability and accessibility and a degree from an internationally recognised University.

For online courses, the focus today has been moving towards modular courses or even short courses that can be availed from home, to match career choices. Here, technology makes these courses available with excellent existing programmes. For example, Zoom or Microsoft Teams platforms are being used to record sessions and provide apt online support for students. Workshopping technology like the whiteboard tool Miro is a great visual way of showing work. Augmented Reality which already existed in the gaming industry is being adapted to play a part in more practical courses.

Modular learning programmes allowing to pick and mix from different courses is likely to be the model going ahead with students having their virtual shopping baskets filled with the best modules according to their needs instead of signing up for a degree or a higher education programme irrelevant to them.

Going ahead

The growth and adoption of education technology started even before COVID 19 with global edtech investments reaching US$18.66 billion in 2019 and the overall market for online education projected to reach $350 Billion by 2025. But with COVID 19, there will be a rapid rise in usage of online technology whether it was in language apps, virtual tutoring, video conferencing tools, or online learning software.

Practically, it may look like the future of UK universities is in mixing online curriculum and offline experiences, which is known as blended learning. This will enable social distancing on campus and enhance the experience of studying. Interestingly, some innovative UK universities such as the University of East Anglia (UEA) already offered blended learning even before COVID 19.

With a consortium of 10 universities led by Coventry recently awarded £3.7m to develop partly online postgraduate conversion courses in artificial intelligence and data science, a lot of universities are taking the online route. The pandemic kickstarted a lifelong online learning agenda which will also skill up employees whose jobs will become automated in the future.

Finally, elite universities will have the advantage of their name and reputation to continue trading on, but for many other universities that bring in students because of location or for a specific course, the future depends on identifying other differentiators to bring in students. Future learning will hence be more about the quality of the learning experience and how geared up universities are to teach remotely in an innovative way using various technologies.

To get the full benefit of online classes, there is a specific need to go beyond just replicating the physical class through video capabilities and instead, using different collaboration tools and engagement methods which promote inclusion, personalisation and intelligence. With an abundance of ready to use content available across different digital media to enable capability building and meet targeted challenges, Universities will need to use well-designed digital tools for sharing knowledge and support information. The role of technology in online learning will have to be explored to its full potential.

7 Emerging Technologies that are Reshaping Education

Posted on October 29, 2020July 16, 2025 by Hemant Mahajan

In the field of education, emerging technologies are revolutionizing the learning process for students by enhancing the way students, teachers and institutions work. Technology has changed the world and cutting-edge technologies are reshaping education in innovative and unimaginable ways. Students are getting the opportunities and unique experiences they need and deserve as emerging technologies promise to deliver exciting new resources for learners.

Let us take a closer look at the seven emerging technologies that are earmarked to make major waves and reshape education.

1. Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality

Mixed Reality and Simulations are pathbreaking experiences for learners and teachers too. AR, considered as one of the best emerging technologies in the world, can be used by educators in innovative ways to make lessons interesting and interactive. AR is useful in overlaying interactive digital elements to give real time experience and for promoting skills like creativity, critical thinking analysis and problem solving. AR promises to help learners capture their dreams and imaginations and take learning to the next level.

Virtual Reality, the next big thing in education, enhances student learning and engagement by cutting across all barriers and immersing students in what they are learning and helping them to process information better.

learning and helping them to process information better.

2. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education is already transforming the way curricula are implemented in schools, with innovations that would have been impossible a few years back. AI applications have made the academic world more convenient and personalized. One of the key impacts of AI from kindergarten to graduate school is the different levels of individualized learning with adaptive learning programs, games and software, where students can work at their own pace.

AI aims to reshape education by supporting the sharing of first-person perspectives which will be useful for students research. From artificially generated content to image recognition and smart tagging systems, AI is also automating basic activities like grading homework and tests as it takes up a lot of time for teachers. While human grading may not be fully replaced, AI can help in providing detailed analysis of student performance in exams, and help in grading to a certain extent.

AI has resulted in automation of administrative jobs, saving time for educators.

3. 5G Technology

5G is the fifth generation of wireless technology which promises high speed and low latency wireless technology. 5G is meant to change the way educational institutions interact with much quicker downloads and increased efficiency and expanding the scope of connected devices and technology within the classroom.

Some universities have started implementing IoT integration for higher education where lectures and discussions on specialized topics can be conducted through virtual reality experiences. Seamless connectivity will bring in better engagement which will be a big boon for international students, along with faster downloads of files and resources and more powerful networks.

Interestingly, 5G was supposed to be launched in India in 2020 and would have been extremely beneficial for students learning from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, things didn’t go as planned and the launch has been pushed to mid 2021.

4. Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) has tremendous potential to create smarter and connected schools and is already impacting the education sector by making learning simpler, faster and safer. IoT can save energy and lighting, and sensors across the campus can track traffic and the strategic positioning of security features like lighting would help students and visitors too.. IoT can help break the usual barriers to education like language, location or certain disabilities, besides helping everyone with bottom-line solutions.

5. Adaptive Learning

The Adaptive learning technology provides learning activities to students, based on their needs and learning style and behavior. It helps students with unique learning paths that are based entirely on their interests and learning ability.

It can play a huge role in the educational system as it uses computer algorithms to orchestrate the interaction with the learner. Although this technology originated from AI, it actively caters with individualized resources and top learning activities to take care of the special needs of a learner.

6. Learning Analytics

When it comes to the process of learning for students, it needs efficient tracking and analyzing to understand results better. This is essential to bring about improvement which is a very important factor in education to improve the learning experience of every student. The learning analytics technology helps teachers to better record the learning rate and behavior of students so that teachers can provide targeted improvements to courses.

7. Blockchain

The Blockchain technology which has changed every industry dynamically, can prove to be very useful in the education sector as well. It is especially useful to collaborate around distributed information in a database. Blockchain can help in examination management, verifying student credentials, verifying certificates, managing life-long learning records etc. Besides effective analyzing and tracking, it can help teachers provide targeted improvement for courses and help students deliver enhanced results.

4 Reasons Why 5G is a Game Changer For the Education Sector

Posted on February 14, 2020July 11, 2025 by Hemant Mahajan

As the world announces to go 5G bound, every industry in the world is busy paving the way for it to be used in the segment. 5G, or fifth-generation wireless, is a new iteration in cellular technology that is said to bring great speed and responsiveness into wireless networks. This means the world is ready to go wireless in the truest sense, and virtual reality will take over.

With so many things being said and stipulated around technology, we also have some speculations about technology usage in the education industry.

How is 5G different from 4G?

To start with, 5G will take the internet experience to the next level. It is on a new level, even though both 4G and 5G are wireless technologies. Latency, i.e., the delay between sending and receiving the information, is very low in 5G technology. Hence, faster delivery and seamless experience using gadgets, software, digital tools, etc.

With an extremely low latency rate, 5G technology would allow faster educational delivery and make the user experience more immersive while using a variety of educational technologies. In comparison, a 5G cell tower can hold and support about 10 times more devices than a 4G cell tower. This will completely change the education landscape with greater bandwidth that supports superior communication over larger distances.

How is 5G going to transform the education industry?

Generally speaking, 5G can improve the quality of video conferencing, add haptic response capabilities, improve the immersive learning experience and allow educators to use VR and AR in the classrooms. Along with it, it would support a higher degree of personalization. Here are 4 ways in which 5G will be a game changer in the education industry.

Improved interaction between teachers and students.

If you are using any conferencing application such as Zoom or Google Meet, you are likely to experience lags and breaks in the connectivity. This negatively impacts education delivery in an online or hybrid learning environment. But with 5G, there is very little chance you would face such a problem.

During online classes, you would not be required to wait for the program to load and reconnect, and hence would make connectivity between teachers and learners even easier. It would improve the knowledge retention of a student better in an online learning setup, would keep them engaged with the curriculum, and is likely to increase their participation.

Similarly, students could download videos and learn material faster, and cool technology such as holograms, VR, AR, etc., can be effectively incorporated into the classrooms.

It Brings in an immersive learning experience

Although online learning in the devastating times of COVID-19 indeed became a saviour, it still had some limitations. Skill transfer, lab work, hands-on experience, and related activities were outside the scope of online learning tools. For this, extra tactile stimulation is required to offer the equivalent learning experience online as in real-life.

With 5G, technologies such as AR and VR can provide an immersive classroom experience and allow students to explore complex concepts through zooming, pinching, and touching. Tools that can stimulate haptic responses (feeling of touch, motion, or interaction with physical objects) to introduce a variety of learning tools into the classroom other than traditional video conferencing that can increase student experience and engagement.

Personalized learning experience

The one-size-fits-all concept is ceasing in the education industry. Education authorities worldwide are realizing the power of technology and its capacity to provide highly personalized experiences to students. With 5G just around the corner, it is likely to improve personalization by creating intelligent systems. These systems would constantly analyze the student’s behavior and give near-accurate reports about his unique abilities, learning styles, preferences, and other attributes.

Another trend that has been brought to reality with 5G technology is virtual teaching assistants. Which can assist a student in learning and provide a personalized experience as per their performance analysis and preferences.

Access to knowledge and education

5G will likely democratize education. With technology, education would become more accessible and become more inclusive, and affordable. Hence, making education more equitable and accessible to the socially and economically weaker sections of society.

Wrapping Up

Although the true potential of the technology can only be realized once it becomes accessible to the world, these are the 4 things that are surely going to change in the education industry with 5G technology. For more interesting information such as this, stay tuned and subscribe to our newsletter.