In October, Gartner released a report with predictions about the top tech trends for business in 2018. We covered the first three trends according to Gartner in part one of this series. Below, we look at the remaining seven:

1) Digital Twins. 

A digital twin is a digital representation of a real-world entity or system.The most powerful application of this concept in education is as the digital representation of the “learner model” i.e. a digital model that can with increasingly detail represent what is going on inside the learner’s brain.

2) Cloud to the Edge.

In education there is a growing trend to use digital resources and blended learning models in which part of the learning is online. Resources and applications that might have been hosted locally in the past are moving into the cloud.

3) Conversational Platforms. 

Conversational platforms, capable of answering simple questions, are evolving to be able to handle more complex interactions. “The challenge that conversational platforms face is that users must communicate in a very structured way, and this is often a frustrating experience.”

4) Immersive Experience. 

There are some ways in which virtual experiences are already being used in schools; for example, virtual labs, virtual and interactive museum tours/field trips, simulations and problem-solving.

5) Blockchain.

In the future, Blockchain might become important on the business side of education, but it has other applications, especially for secondary, higher education, and career and technical education providers.

6) Event-Driven. 

In today’s world whenever something happens it is an “event” that might be captured as data.

7) Continuous Adaptive Risk and Trust. 

This technology uses AI for real-time, risk and trust-based decision making for things like security and fraud protection.

Read the full article about the top technology education trends by Jim Goodell, Liz Glowa and Brandt Redd at Getting Smart.