While nobody can be 100% on the mark about the future, these are the technology trends in education that will have the biggest impact on teachers and students as well as the software development/ independent software vendors who are delivering their products to the education space.

VR/Augmented reality

While many classrooms have VR headsets and are experimenting more – the true extent of what we can do with augmented reality was seen when a student learns about the ocean – not through notes and videos but by being virtually transported under the sea to discover everything yourself. VR and augmented reality has the potential to completely transform the way that we learn. Though almost 77% of 350 higher education and K-12 schools had not used VR in the classroom, and the top reasons for not utilizing the technology, according to 43% of the respondents, were the high cost of equipment and the difficulty in implementation.

However, the future of VR in the education sector isn’t bleak at all. The creative use of VR technology as a storytelling tool is also expected to further engage young learners. Organizations that are into education software can help innovate the way schools teach in classroom and allow students to visualize concepts that were confined to the pictures in a textbook

Student privacy

The latest educational technology is highly effective at creating a more personalized education system through data collection. However, it can also be used for more nefarious purposes. Public data breaches represent a real threat to students and their families, so it’s little wonder that data mining can be a frightening concept. How do we balance the promise of data with the challenges it represents? Student privacy and security will be top of the agenda for educational software companies all over the world.

AI and the Internet of Things (IoT)

Our world is running on artificial intelligence. Siri manages our calendars. Facebook suggests our friends. Computers trade our stocks. We have cars that park themselves, and air traffic control is almost fully automated. Virtually every field has benefited from advances in artificial intelligence, from the military to medicine to manufacturing.

Artificial intelligence could play a role in the growing field of learning analytics, evaluating the quality of curricular materials, and in adaptive learning and recommendation engines. Interactive boards and other interactive devices are becoming more common in classrooms around the world.  Education software companies have understood perfectly that Artificial Intelligence has proven its role as a game changing factor in the education space, causing transformations unimaginable in the past.

Digital literacy

As the importance of being tech-savvy starts to sink in at schools around the world, there has been a huge effort to incorporate digital literacy into curriculum from the younger grades. Digital Literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills. A computing education also ensures that pupils become digitally literate – able to use, and express themselves through, information and communication technology – at a level suitable for the future workplace and as active participants in a digital world.

Gamification

“Fun” or “game” is the reason why developers, teachers and other personnel are constantly looking for ways to use new technology in education.

Gamification allow students to learn subjects such as algebra through programs with game-like features, such as completing missions. Kids love playing games and there is no doubt about it so why not educate them in a Gamified way. Games are loved and enjoyed by all kids, so mode of education in the form of games is a great way to teach kids while keeping them engaged and interested in their course of study. Education software vendors have developed a lot of gamification platforms, apps and tools on the market.  But a real gamified learning experience is grounded in education and those organizations that realize the revenue potential and fundamental concepts simply won’t distract.

Conclusion

The education sector is becoming more integrated with the digital world and schools are constantly looking for products and tools that will make this easier to achieve.

The post Digital Technology Trends first appeared on Merkat Intellekt.

•  Product Road map is not clearly defined and we aren’t sure if automation is appropriate for us?
• In most ISVs & Software Enabled Businesses, developers double up as testers and there is no formal testing process in place
• QA is typically given a step-motherly treatment and is looked at only when schedule and time permits
• Though Test automation may be a good choice, but still is expensive and takes ages to justify the investments.
•  Automation resources are top-heavy and would mean a lot of upfront costs.

These are some of the initial reactions that we get to hear whenever we think of Product Testing. These reactions aren’t unfounded and it merits careful assessment. This, if unaddressed most likely to result in increased rework, decreased customer satisfaction, decrease in profits, loss of business, increased bug fixing costs and product recalls. Testing can help ISVs & Software Enabled Businesses in removing all the pains & inhibitions listed above.

 Some of the reasons that substantiate usage of  testing are:

• Good software development practice calls for separating the development team from the testing team. This allows provision of unbiased view of the product quality and greater visibility of product issues.
• ISV’s can save up to 40% in overall cost by doing a proper testing
• Time to market can be greatly reduced with increased product quality, enhancing their competitive advantage
• Software product testing is a specialist skill, and cannot be accomplished by the developer community and can result in compromised product quality

Thus product testing is critical to ensure quality of product and test automation is a viable choice to ensure time to market & quality. Test automation is not about removing manual testers but to make use of their time better. It is possible to automate testing completely, and it has to be a mix of expertise from manual testers and automation testers

Some questions to consider before deciding to automate are:

• Is your product complex, fairly stable and do you have paying customers for its initial version?
• Are you following Agile Development? Do you overlook to thoroughly regression test before release?
• Does the product have a clearly defined Road map?
• Does every version upgrade, both minor and major warrant running all the functional tests over and over again? Essentially, the test scripts would be re-used multiple times justifying the investments?
• Does your product have a number of test cases that need to be validated?
• Do you maintain different versions for each of your customer?

If you answer yes to any of the above questions, then most likely, your product is a candidate for automation testing. Still, there are number of issues that need to be considered at the product level and also the larger objective of the organization before deciding to invest on automation.

If you have decided to automate testing, below are some practical tips for implementing any test automation initiative:

1. Focus on the Framework/methodology and not the tool

A clearly defined automation framework/methodology that covers how the automation process will be conducted can eliminate most of the frustrations associated with automation by providing stakeholders with an upfront understanding. This would provide a fair idea on what is needed to automate tests, which includes tool selection as well as the rest of the automation process.

1. Choose tools that are scalable to meet future needs and doesn’t gets you locked with them

Ensure that the tools can be customized to your needs and address the following: reusability, scalability, maintainability, visibility, measurability and manageability. Also, look at the support each tool has for scripting in different languages, where there are strengths available internally. Otherwise, you will need to organize an appropriate program that trains the team on the selected tools.

Keep in mind that no single tool will satisfy all the requirements; so choose a tool that meets the majority of the evaluation criteria.

1. Perform a POC using the selected tool

Even if the tool appears to satisfy the evaluation criteria, it is advised to conduct a few test scenarios using the tool. Proof of concept (POC) should be done in such a way that the test scenarios cover an end to end business scenario, most of the controls and a few common features. POCs can be done with the evaluation versions of most tools and hence it is a fairly easier option to do.

1. Test automation should not lead test design

Test design must be kept independent of test automation and they form the input for the automation discipline and not the other way around. Essentially, quality is the prerogative of the QA function and it has to be in control without worrying about the automation function and the problems faced by the automation team.

1. Expect reasonable ROI

Test automation requires substantial investments upfront in terms of tool licenses(commercial) and creating automation scripts. It should be clear to all stakeholders that it will take time to see a defined return on these investments. However, there are intangibles such as improved quality and increased test coverage that can be observed in the short-term.

The post Product Testing – the only way to ensuring product quality! first appeared on Merkat Intellekt.