Crossing the Digital Chasm in Education

The online/distance education industry is yet to go mainstream despite high adoption of digital technology and the advent of multiple large players. It still lacks that ‘special ingredient’.. and its high time we addressed this area for today’s generation of learners.

One of my classmates couldn’t take up his Mid-Term Exams because of chickenpox while we were at Secondary school. However, the management agreed to grant him an exception and allowed him take his exams after he had recovered. A generous prep time of one week was given. And, my friend being a pretty good student, had the opportunity to perform really well.

But, to our astonishment, those exams turned out to be his worst ever! So what went wrong? What was different this time that made a top ranking student such as him falter?

We figured out that the reason for this debacle was the fact that he was alone during the whole process, right from preparation to writing the exam. This change in environment made us realise the value that friends, classmates and a peer group brought to the whole process of learning. I remember him saying, “Its one of those really important things that we take for granted!”

Online learning courses/apps typically focus on generating quality content, and with the help of targeted marketing blitz, students are drawn into the course. However, only a handful of them actually manage to complete it! Statistics show a huge drop out rate amidst students despite the availability of good quality content. Clearly, the problem seems to be something else.

Why is it that online and distance learning apps haven’t gone mainstream yet? Why is it, that this form of education is nowhere close to established physical universities or schools?

To understand this lack of adoption, it is imperative to know the target user group, the kind of backgrounds and circumstances they come from and their reason of opting for Distance learning as opposed to a ‘regular’ University.

During the user research for one of our distance education projects, we learnt that most students had to deal with regular day jobs and study in tandem. Some had to support their families financially while still trying to take that next leap on their career front. We also met housewives/homemakers who took up this form of learning in order to bounce back in life. And, then there were others who just needed that extra ‘degree’ to add to their resumes! We saw passion.. we saw enthusiasm.. and we saw students looking at this to be their stepping stones to join the league ahead of them.

The need for a fundamental shift in how distance education is perceived by the world was very evident. We needed to change the way students looked at Open Universities as just a ‘cheaper alternative’ to regular Universities. And, for this to happen, educational institutions had to relook at the way in which they catered to their students.

We set out to use our expertise in digital design to see if we could empower students taking up Distance learning programs from one such University in India. We were very clear that we weren’t going to build another ‘Learning App’. This was because most students were comfortable learning from physical books than their digital counterparts. And, besides not many had access to good internet facilities either. They were mostly on 2G connections! So we set out to build a ‘Learning Enabler’.

We articulated 3 very important areas of a student’s lifecycle and decided to address them using Digital as an empowering tool.

Firstly…Distance learners usually are in a lot of doubt while making that decision to commit themselves to taking up a program/course. There is this sense of anxiety on whether or not they’d be able to achieve what they set out to do, considering this to be their next big career decision.

Secondly, they aren’t confident about their competency levels since most of these students have had long breaks after school/undergrad college in the past. And, in this form of learning, one is usually alone and has no clue on how well the others in the batch are performing either. So, is there a way in which we could boost their confidence based on his/her proficiency at each stage in the learning process?

And lastly, we noticed that most students felt utterly lonely, demotivated and even miserable at times. How do we get students to beat loneliness and enjoy their course all the more there by ensuring lesser dropout rates?

We felt these to be the top 3 major concerns that needed to be addressed on our priority list. This we believe would be the start to the transitioning of the Distance Learning Education System on the whole.

What could be some possible solutions? Here’s what we think would work…

• Enabling a clear understanding of not just the course listing, but a granular articulation of the extent of completion per topic in each chapter. This enables students to keep track of their strengths and weaknesses and ensures commitment to the course. Algorithms that populate their screens with topics that they are weak in and need more attention, empowers students to be more productive and independent.
• Having a quiz section is the most obvious solution in any learning app. But, what if we made students test their competency levels in relation to those of their peers from across the country? Not only does it make them go back to their books, learn better and fight it out hard, but it also makes the whole learning process more fun and engaging! Besides, peers bring out the best or the worst in us ;) And, that’s exactly what college life was all about to us, isn’t it? By giving a sense of tangibility to an otherwise virtually diverse classroom was something that both the Students and University would appreciate
• And lastly, when we walked into college for the first time, we did feel lonely in the beginning.. but eventually, we made friends.. took help from one and another.. shared lunch with each other.. bunked classes.. watched movies.. and stood up together in times of crisis. And, this defined our years as a student. There is a need to recreate this experience and translate it into the life of a Distance learner. How about physical ‘Meet-ups’? Students could discover other batch-mates in their locality and socialise over common interests, solve model question papers, discuss Internal Assessments and support each other. In other words Distance learners will no longer have to walk alone!

To sum it up.. India has a population of over 1.2billion. Of which about 27.5% fall under the age group of 15–29. That is about 250 Million! And only 11% of this population have access to higher education from full time universities. That means.. a staggering 200 million youth in India depend on either Distance Education systems or online apps…thats a huge student base waiting for someone to address their problems. It’s time we did some serious thinking and stepped in!