Distance learning programs have existed since the 1980s, but technological innovation, content scalability and widespread mobile adoption have enabled the online degree program to be a competitive option for aspiring students.
According to Forbes, the acceleration of online-based learning has its benefits, but it isn’t a silver bullet. However, a set of next-generation improvements facilitated by artificial intelligence (AI) stands to completely change the virtual experience.
To improve the current teaching model in which the teacher is the source of knowledge and the student is the recipient, we need to fundamentally reimagine the role of an educator in the university system. Advances in automated assignment grading and remote monitoring services allow instructors to forego repetitive, time-intensive tasks and instead dedicate their saved time to higher-value work.
For international students, the language barrier may complicate progress, but cutting-edge research in text translation and machine learning aims to create deep-learning systems that can translate English lectures into the student’s native tongue. Similar technologies in voice recognition and text summarization can transcribe an entire lecture with stunning accuracy and reduce paragraphs of text into just the relevant bullet points for review.