Technological advancements have taken the education sector by storm. A recent LearnPlatform study found that US school districts accessed an average of 2,739 distinct edtech tools annually, with an average of 1,436 tools used monthly during the school year. Tools like assignment dashboards, examination platforms, substitute teacher scheduling apps, attendance trackers, and so on, are becoming the new norm.
But this isn’t surprising in today’s digital age. Technology has been known to incentivize learning by creating interactive, hands-on approaches to all sorts of subjects and increasing student interest.
What was once a VHS video displayed on a monitor on four wheels followed by an essay assignment has turned into tablets with interactive modules that show videos and ask questions as they go to assess learning outcomes.
And that’s just one example. Edtech is constantly evolving to adopt new technological advancements, the latest being low-code/no-code technology, which supports teachers, students, and staff alike in easily developing their own apps.
Let’s see how this growing technology is impacting the education sector.
Building Custom Low-Code/No-Code Tools For Education
When teachers implement technology in the classroom and implement e-learning strategies, everyone perceives the benefits. Research has found that teachers and students generally feel a positive impact on their teaching and learning styles when tech is involved.
And low-code/no-code tools can be part of the mix. These platforms help teachers create teaching tools for anything they’d like. A good example is developing an app that allows you to make custom quizzes and even implement AI to generate questions according to the topic.
The good thing about low-code/no-code solutions is they might take a few sessions to get used to, but don’t require extensive knowledge or expertise for non-engineers to use them — they’re democratizing access to app development and rapid prototyping.
Empowering teachers to build their own classroom tools means they can tend to students’ specific needs to make the learning process a smoother experience for them. So, if a history teacher finds that students learn more easily by using visual aids, they can develop an app that walks them through historic periods through the most emblematic pictures and paintings of the time.
Learning solutions are merely a few drag-and-drops away.
Encouraging Hands-On Learning In Students
Students can also directly interact with low-code/no-code tools to get hands-on experience. Depending on the subject, they can build apps to strengthen their logic, problem-solving skills, and discipline.
In fact, a study on the impact of project-based learning, a form of hands-on learning, helps increase student motivation. It has also been known to improve information retention, which is crucial when learning new concepts.
As such, teachers can implement low-code/no-code platforms in STEM classes and beyond, either for students to build their own apps, websites, or other tools, and interact with apps provided by teachers. By simply moving away from lectures and into more active learning methods, students can enhance their collaboration and communication skills while learning on the go.
Helping Education Staff Operations
One of low-code/no-code’s biggest benefits has been streamlining workflows and helping citizen developers build apps customized for their needs at work. And the education sector isn’t the exception!
School staff can also take advantage of low-code/no-code tools to automate tasks like substitute teacher scheduling, form submissions, parent communications, and general reporting. Automation can look like one action triggering an outcome (checking a substitute agenda and sending a class invitation), digitalizing a process (easy digital form submission rather than using paper), or gathering, analyzing, and organizing information (generating reports based on sheets or documents).
These small but significant low-code/no-code apps will save time for staff and remove friction in many areas of their work. It will also remove the need for additional IT services as anyone can build and troubleshoot these apps from scratch without involving engineers.
The education sector has been stepping up in adopting edtech tools, and low-code/no-code solutions shouldn’t be the exception. These platforms make it easy to customize learning methods, encourage hands-on learning, and streamline operations — ideal outcomes for such a vital sector.
