Navigating the digital landscape: My digital experience at Leeds
Student Ambassador for digital education Chandraprakash(cp), reflects on his digital experience at Leeds and the future of digital learning.
Since the covid-19 pandemic, universities have transitioned away from physical teaching on campus towards digital education. Students have access to educational content readily available to them through technology, enabling them to read, watch, and learn from the comfort of their own homes.
Is new technology, such as “Metaverse in education,” involving or attracting more students to digital education? The answers to these questions may be subjective. But what about students? What is their preferred mode of instruction?
The benefits of digital education
Digital education provides many benefits. We can connect with all our classmates and professors by using the virtual learning environment, Minerva where all content videos, books, articles, podcasts, software, etc, are all in one place.
Online discussion boards provide a virtual community and resources such as Microsoft Teams and OneDrive are useful for students to connect and collaborate on group projects. Tools like Mentimeter and Tophat allow us to interact with a professor in the classroom and multiple choice questions (MCQ), reflexive journals, and detailed report-based assignments can be used to assess students, and students can receive individual feedback.
Why do I enjoy digital education?
Everything is readily accessible to me. I can access content such as lecture videos on Minerva and the university provides a student license to various tools such as MATLAB online and Office 365. The university also provides a digital library that includes hundreds of online books and articles as well as licenses to academic journal sites such as sciencedirect.com.
The future
As the world is moving forward and developing Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Internet of Things (IoT) type technologies for day-to-day work, the future will be digital. As a result, we must stay updated and learn new skills over time. Universities must invest in future technology and development platforms in education, such as Metaverse and AR/VR, as they can provide students with an immersive experience to help them understand new concepts.
As we enter the digital age of constructive collaboration, students must decide what they want from their universities and provide constructive feedback on how their university can continue to improve their approach to digital technologies.
Written by Chandraprakash(cp) - Student Ambassador for Digital Education
