Unlike the previous generations, today’s students –those who are in K-12 education, colleges and universities– were born and brought up in a digital world. A world that fully embraced the advantages of digital platforms, tools, and the hyper-connectivity that these allow.

In response, schools and colleges are expected to facilitate learning, collaboration, and communication using platforms and devices that are familiar for students. Not only is this more convenient for students and teachers.

It also greatly improves the learning experiences, makes education more accessible, and has a positive impact on the futures of students outside the education environment.

Why education providers have been slow to embrace a digital future?

Unlike other sectors, education can be slow at embracing change and innovation. One reason for this is the source of funding. Governments provide the bulk of funding at many levels of the education sector, so securing funds for digital projects wasn’t always a priority for a number of years.

Governments own experiences with massive IT projects are one reason for this. IT and digital projects in the 1990s and early 2000s weren’t always successful. Often, a massive budget and timescale overruns set back digital innovation in the government sector, with knock-on effects in education and other sectors reliant on government funding for large-scale projects.

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In Europe in particular, the impact of the global recession created over long-term budgetary pressures in the education sector. In the UK and other European countries, governments out of necessity implemented austerity programmes.

In practice, this meant that schools and universities couldn’t have the money needed to implement digital transformation and other IT projects that they needed to enhance the student experience and learning outcomes.

Schools are still struggling, even today, to balance budgets. Although in many countries, money has gradually been found over the years to provide tablets in classrooms, smart whiteboards, and communication platforms for keeping parents and students informed about what is going on in schools.

Yet in other areas, school leaders are still struggling to provide everything that students need to learn and thrive, including stationary and even essentials, such as the salary for cleaners. Hence the difficulty schools have to find more money for digital technology projects and creating a positive environment that would improve the teaching of science and technology subjects.

In colleges and universities, educators have larger budgets, but the willpower and desire to make changes weren’t always as strong It took time for the business case to make sense. It took time for the right people to understand the value of digital systems in higher education.

It also took time for those systems to become sufficiently popular and in-demand before higher education providers started to embrace digital technology en-masse.

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Benefits of embracing digital transformation

Students now expect digital platforms and tools.

Not only do students at colleges and universities get to know one another before arriving on campus through social media (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat); they also collaborate on course and lecture notes using tools such as Google Docs. Joint projects can now be managed within project management tools, such as Basecamp and using email and messenger platforms.

Students have found ways to make their own education easier and more effective using digital tools that universities don’t need to provide.

As effective as these grass-roots innovations are, educators need a way of maintaining centralised control and keeping in contact with students. Custom-built and off-the-shelf education management systems are a great way to give students access to course materials, provide feedback to essays, upload lecture notes, and reading lists, and even give them videos of lectures for those who can’t attend.

It also proves a quicker and more effective way to communicate with students than physical noticeboards, news pigeon holes, and email.

Convenience aside, this is what employers expect and need.

The wider economic impact of education: providing students with the knowledge and most importantly, digital skills that make them ready for the world of work, is one of the main reasons for education providers embracing a digital future today.

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Employers expect and need graduates with the skills and experience with digital environments, tools, platforms, ways of sourcing information, collaborating, and managing project. In some sectors, such as IT, employers need more intensive sector-specific skills too, such as knowledge and experience writing code and solving technical challenges.

As Renee Patton, Director of US public sector education at Cisco says: “Effective digital transformation must be continual and evolutionary in order to enhance teaching and learning, support business processes and improve efficiency. It also necessitates collaborative working; vision and leadership; culture; process and methodology.”

Embracing digital transformation is the way forward for educators, schools, colleges, students, and society as a whole when students graduate.

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