GUEST EDITORIAL - Dealing with online and blended education in modern challenging times

Abstract

The use of Education Technology (EdTech) covers an array of purely online as well as blended initiatives beginning with online books and articles to online video lessons, and even live interactive virtual classrooms. Here, blended learning involves a combination of both offline and online learning, often maintaining a flexible balance as per the learner needs. Overall, the general idea of incorporating technology in education is an old one, originated in the 1950s with B.F. Skinner’s pioneering work of dividing the curriculum into smaller units and providing automated rewards to correct responses as positive reinforcements. However, with the evolution of modern technology, the blended model of education has increasingly found the perfect paraphernalia necessary to stretch its hands into the mainstream education industry. The global expansion of the internet and the emergence of data analysis techniques, e.g. Machine Learning, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, and Neural Networking, have strengthened the basis of these blended models.