The world is changing, and we are changing with it. The more digital technologies penetrate into our lives, the more actively society tries to follow these trends. And we not only follow ourselves, we have to teach this to our children.

The more actively students use modern means of cognition of the world, the easier it will be for them to adapt to the rapid changes in it. Our task is to help them now, when the tasks of education have begun to be actively solved with the help of IT. And we will start with the main digital trends of the upcoming academic year. These technologies will be used in the world, actively applied in life and of course will have an undeniable impact on the education of people of all ages. 

Artificial intelligence

AI, AI, Artificial intelligence is called the most influential technology of the XXI century. Today it changes all aspects of our life, including education. Of course, this topic is well-known, and perhaps you are not so interested in reading about its application again, but there is nowhere without AI today. 

In the school classroom , he can meet in the form of:

• Virtual assistants for managing student/teacher time and checking homework;
• Tutoring systems that individualize additional learning for children of all ages and abilities;
• Distance and online learning programs also with an individual approach to each;
• Translation systems for multilingual classes or schools;
• Simulators for developing skills;

As an example, our project Orator Nomad for learning the Kazakh language.

And many other programs and applications. It is even reported that an experimental project has been introduced in China to track the faces of students in the classroom. The system analyzes the behavior and evaluates the overall level of attention of the class in order to identify problematic and simply boring places in the curriculum.

According to UNESCO, AI in education can solve some global problems, such as inequality in learning methods or lack of access to knowledge in certain regions. 

The disadvantages of the technology so far include its relative high cost and the need for resource provision on the ground. 

Distance, online and hybrid learning

One might think that the active transition of education to online occurred during the COVID19 epidemic. Yes, it was a strong reason, but far from the root cause of the transfer of training to the rails of Internet technologies. The revolution happened much earlier, during the popularization of online courses. 

For example, the specialists of Geimticher LLP successfully launched training programs and simulators on the global network for about 9 years before the pandemic. And this is not the only example. 

For a school, the advantages of online education are undeniable:

•  It is always possible to communicate with students, regardless of their isolation level;
• Saving time on access to classes and materials;
• The ability to test, consolidate and test skills.

All this made online education platforms popular ten years ago. Today, this trend not only continues, but also actively develops for the better along with the IT level. Western colleagues even use popular music and movie stars to conduct courses to increase interest in online learning, which undoubtedly increases global interest in learning.

Gamification, igropedagogics

No one fascinates children as much as games. The great thinkers of the past knew about this, developing their lectures into interactive formats using riddles and role-playing interactions. Today, the game actively uses technology to get the maximum of its capabilities. 

A computer game can, in principle, do anything. It both "thinks" with the help of AI, and attracts attention with the help of graphics, and provides many ways for its fascinating passage. The basic ability of games to cause excitement and desire to reach new heights has generated a symbiosis with educational programs. 

Now you can not just play for fun, but also learn more and more new, useful things in your studies and life with each level. Schoolchildren appreciated this even when educational applications were released on CDs. Today, IT provides unlimited opportunities to create really useful games that organically complement the educational process. 

The difficulty is to make the process systematic, without scattering the student's attention to various IT education tools. 

Virtual and Augmented reality

Virtual (VR) and augmented (AR) reality are forms of augmented reality (XR) technology, whose influence on the learning process is becoming more active. This is a kind of form of play in which the student gets personal access to the material being studied. 

He can look at historical events with his own eyes, visit the best museums in the world without leaving home, receive translations of texts on the fly or reference materials near the object of interest to him. Everything that causes surprise is usually very well remembered. 

In 2023/2024, a boom in the use of entire virtual classrooms is planned, with the help of which training will take place remotely in a more exciting environment. You can show amazing events to children and conduct various experiments without resorting to physical influences. 

VR is a fairly expensive technology, while AR tools have been available in conventional smartphones for more than five years. With their help, education is actively moving to a new technological level, and the more actively user devices are developed, the more applications this area of IT training will have. 

Micro- and nano-training

"Micro–learning" or "Nano-learning" is an educational approach that was previously used in corporate training. The success of the methodology made teachers of the world think about how to transfer it to schools, which should be relevant if not in 2023, then in 2024.

The method assumes that the educational content will be presented to students in the form of short, easily digestible manuals or mini-lessons. They will focus on repeating the same materials in order to better retain them in memory (see the link to the article on interval training above).

The rapid growth of attention to short video content – such as TikTok or Reels – made us think about the possibilities of micro-education to attract the attention of schoolchildren. They are already turning to these services for help with homework (!), which introduces them to new ideas and topics, but potentially threatens with misinformation. 

Micro-education as an educational trend will allow teachers to control information by providing really useful educational content that divides complex topics into less intimidating fragments for schoolchildren. 

In this case, IT allows you to create training modules for the implementation of nanoeducation programs, and automatically divide information into understandable, accessible blocks, while giving them to students in an attractive, memorable form. 

What can teachers expect from high technology in 2023/2024?

Most likely, we should expect an abundance of training services that will be offered to schools for implementation. In this abundance, it is important to choose really working techniques and applications. It's not as difficult to do as it seems:

1. Evaluate the experience of developers;
2. Try to follow those who not only create IT, but also understand educational materials and methodologies;
3. Try and test training services, today there are many opportunities for this;
4. Do not stop your own development.

Today it is impossible to imagine the world without high technologies, so constant involvement in the sphere will be useful for everyone – from a student to a teacher and a school principal. Be aware of the latest developments and trends, especially taking into account the orientation of Kazakhstan in this direction of development.