LMS analytics allows the teachers to understand each student as it alerts the teacher when interventionsare required. The system also takes away all repetitive tasks allowing teachers spend more time on academics, and in solving student problems, says Manoj Chawla, Chief Business Officer at TriByte Technologies in an interaction with CIO AXIS.
CIO AXIS: Why is it important to simplify the education process while using technologies?
Manoj Chawla: This is a wonderful question. The real question should be, Does EdTech mean “Education Technology”, or is it “Technology for Education”?
An education institute has many processes which can leverage technology. Such processes can be classified as Administrative or Teaching. Administrative processes are best supported by ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)software whereas Teaching/Learning is best supported by an LMS (Learning Management System), as they support different end objectives. An LMS should be focused on Learning outcomes, whereas an ERP on increased process efficiency. ERP and LMS should co-exists integrated between both systems to improve overall efficiency.
CIO AXIS: How can technologies help students, teachers, and parents to be aligned with the student’s learning progress?
Manoj Chawla: The main purpose of a LMS is to increase the learning efficiency and progress.
A LMS allows learning material and activities to be available online in a structured manner, allowing students to access them anywhere anytime. A LMS which offers personalized learning can has the ability to customize the materials based on the student learning styles and goals. Students can learn at their own pace and level and complete all their activities, resulting in better learning outcome.
LMS analytics allows the teachers to understand each student as it alerts the teacher when interventionsare required. The system also takes away all repetitive tasks allowing teachers spend more time on academics, and in solving student problems.
Learning progress tracking with reports on activities, notifications and individual student gradebook can help parents to understand the student challenges and help the student when needed. Features like discussion forum and notifications over Email and WhatsApp allows free flow of information among parents and teacher removing information gaps among various stake holders.
CIO AXIS: What all LMS features are needed for educational institutions?
Manoj Chawla: Each institute is unique in its requirements. The common requirements of LMS across most institutes are flexible Learning Material Management with support to a wide of range of learning material, Discussion forums, Assignment and Gradebooks, Notification, and a host of Analytics. Equally important are system generated alerts for teachers and parents. The LMS should alsoprovide for flexibility of online and offline classes, as a blended solution. And all this while ensuring a simple, secure, and robust interface.
CIO AXIS: What are some of the innovations you are trying to build for ed-tech startups to help them standout?
Manoj Chawla: When we started Tribyte (in 2010), we focused on the issue of proving a technology platform which can address the issue of flaky internet/ low bandwidth. Thus, TriByte LMS was developed with a focus on Indian market conditions, as well as the capability to operate Offline (i.e., without internet connectivity).
As we gained traction, we started working on the next problem of enabling a fun and engaging learning environment. And now, we are working towards integrating the best-in-class technologies (AI/ ML / Adaptive Learning) in enabling a Gamified personalized learning for each individual.
CIO AXIS: How is technology making alternate ways to educate students?
Manoj Chawla:While many online initiatives have been in place since the last 10 years, the Covid pandemic has allayed all doubts about the necessity of online education.
Now with the pandemic slowly fading away, a blended mode of education is emerging. Online Virtual classes blended with self-paced learningwhere all activities done remotely with limited physical classroom events, are allowing education to scale across the country, and hence will become the primary mode of education in the coming years.
CIO AXIS: How technology and online learning can go hand in hand with traditional learning to elevate learning?
Manoj Chawla: Traditionally in a classroom situation, the teacher teaches to a group of students, who in themselves, may have different levels of understanding, as well as different learning styles. In case of Online learning, this learning input can be customized for each individual student.
The students, parents and teachers can remain in sync with the ongoing learning process by way of automated reports, and alerts. Also, students can also interact with their peers using the Forum feature.
Online Learning, if blended with a well thought through pedagogy, can start delivering better learning outcomes for the students, and a more efficient method of student learning management for the teacher as technology can do the repetitive jobs through automation.
CIO AXIS: A few ways an LMS can reach corners of the globe that might be technologically disadvantaged?
Manoj Chawla: TriByte has been on the forefront on this count, as it is an ‘Offline-first’ system. With Adaptive Learning (through deep data analysis), the LMS is generating a personalized learning path of each student. This leads to a very engaged learning, irrespective of technological competence.
Tribyte has multi-lingual capabilities, which ensure that the students in different geographies can learn in the language they understand best. Other than English, the Tribyte platform is already deployed in Hindi, Telegu, Kannada, Tamil, and in Spanish, Portuguese, and Bahasa.
CIO AXIS: How is online learning is bringing alternate careers into the limelight?
Manoj Chawla: Individual tutors, who used to previously teach in the neighborhood only, now are technologically equipped and as proximity is no more a constrain, it opens up a huge revenue opportunity for such individual tutors.
The wide-spread acceptance in online education is also giving rise to build new technologies and newer pedagogies are emerging. Thus, Instructional designers (and content writers), are in greater demand, as the possibility of better learning outcomes have increased manifold.
As more companies adopt online learning, there is also a need for Data scientiststo analyze learning trends and use Artificial Intelligence (AI)/ Machine Learning (ML) to make decisions. Infact, salary trends suggest that salary hikes when people switch from digital analytics to data science is 31% on average.
With Data privacy& Data Security taking precedence in many forums, there is also a boom for such roles. It a very promising sector to be a part of: Securing the networks, safeguarding confidential data, and employee operations against the many security threats has become extremely important, especially with remote working
And finally, freelancing as a career option has emerged as a new category after the pandemic forced people to rethink their career strategies and motivated them to take the plunge.