Top 5 Essential Remote Learning Tools for Higher Ed

With the landscape of education changing with lockdowns across the globe, remote learning is becoming the new norm.

Over the years, edtech has been adopted in Higher education in different forms in both remote and in-class education formats?live streaming, online assessments, video learning, e-learning material access, online classrooms, e-certifications, digital display of learning material in class, simulations, etc.

But now, more than ever, education technology has established its importance in uninterrupted delivery of education.

Higher education institutes and platforms are upping their digital delivery infrastructure to ensure that students do not face delays in learning this year due to the wide-spread impact of COVID-19.

Use of edtech, which existed earlier, too, is now becoming more deep rooted. This means that even after the lockdowns across the world are lifted, technology will still remain a main medium of education delivery around the globe.

So, what are the main technology products higher education students and educators must equip themselves with? The main tech products for remote learning comprise a mix of hardware and software to enable access to learning material and virtual collaborations.

It is essential to note that these products will be long-term assets for users, as the realities of the education world might change forever after the pandemic.

1. Desktop/Tablet & Internet Connectivity

A basic desktop and tablet that can accomodate learning material and apps, help create and view documents, sheets and presentations, and has good camera and microphone abilities for video chatting is good enough for basic learning. This has to be supported with good internet connectivity through LAN or WiFi.

If a learner needs access to heavy designing or editing applications, then a device with high configurations is recommended.

You can access various Computers, Tablets and Components including desktops, laptops, keyboards, mouse, headphones, etc. to equip yourself with home learning tech products.

2. Classroom Management Tools

There are various classroom management tools in the market like Google Classroom and Kahoot. They enable educators to share assignments, projects, quizzes and lessons with students and to host and moderate live discussions. Students can use the application to share completed assignments with educators, start a thread of conversation, and ask questions about posted lessons. 

As most of the classroom management tools are cloud-based, there is no need to have a large amount of storage capacity in your learning devices to use these applications.

3. Collaboration and Administration Tools

Collaborating online with tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoho helps assign tasks, set up meetings, classes or calls, and collaborate on projects easily. Such tools also help in strategizing lessons and assessments.

These tools help teachers, school administrations and students to plan and implement smooth functioning of a learning course or term.

4. Video Conferencing Tools

Virtual classes and video discussions and chats are the norm of today! Students are collaborating with their peers and teachers through video chat tools like Zoom and Cisco WebEx.

These tools also help in screen sharing and presentations, besides live chat during virtual classes. Zoom chat also allows the host of the video chat to control who can access audio to speak and chat box to ask questions.

5. Grammarly

Grammarly is a grammar checking tool that helps students and teachers write error-free content. With more use of digital means of communication in education, students and teachers have to type a lot to post lessons and assignments, ask questions, participate in discussions, write essays, submit assignments, etc.

Grammarly’s browser extension and online editor help learners and educators to make their copy free of grammatical and spelling errors. It even makes vocabulary and citation suggestions. Its plagiarism tool also helps students write original content by checking their own work, and it helps teachers by ensuring that no student submission is plagiarised.

These tools are necessary in today?s time and will help make education easily accessible in the future. The push given to edtech by the current lockdowns is likely to impact the face of education forever.