The use of Digital Simulation as a branch of eLearning has seen significant growth, particularly during and after the Covid period. While eLearning is generally easier for general subjects with its computer and internet requirements, STEM subjects with experimental components rely on various simulation tools. The application of Digital Simulation in eLearning has witnessed remarkable growth. The Covid period brought about restrictions and limitations on traditional hands-on experimentation, leading educators and learners to explore alternative methods.
Digital Simulation emerged as an invaluable solution, offering a virtual platform where students could engage in simulated experiments and gain practical insights. This shift resulted in an increased recognition of the importance and effectiveness of simulation tools in STEM education. These tools provide a safe and controlled environment for conducting complex experiments and allow students to explore different scenarios. Therefore, I am particularly interested in delving deeper into this specific niche, as it possesses immense potential and stands out among other educational technologies.
I see this blog post is very informative about simulations in STEM education: https://cadrek12.org/spotlight/simulations-stem-teaching-learning
Thank you for the post Terrence. The article you linked is very interesting because I expected it would be largely about having students use simulations to enhance their learning, so I was surprised when a large part of the article was about a pre-service teacher using a simulated classroom to improve their teaching mastery. This shows how many different opportunities there are in this space for further applications. The educational uses are near infinite, as well as applications used by military, aviation, healthcare, and many more industries.
I personally use simulations frequently while teaching physics and science. I exclusively use free simulations such as PhET (https://phet.colorado.edu/), and yet I see from this report that the ‘virtual training and simulation industry’ is worth about 300 billion dollars which will increase to nearly a trillion dollars by 2030 (https://straitsresearch.com/report/virtual-training-and-simulation-market). I will be keeping a close eye on developments in this market, and one day I hope to contribute a digital game or simulation to the science education industry myself.
Hey Terrence,
Thank you for your analysis of digital simulation for STEM education! As Braden pointed out, there is much opportunity in this field, as future economic growth will rely on STEM to build out infrastructure or support high technology, such as AI, and the other infrastructure related to maintaining AI systems, servers, and environments. One article in the blog that you posted was the expansion of haptic and non-visual simulation education to support students with disabilities to succeed in the STEM. I find this market projection useful to the broader community of educators as I see an opportunity to have academic markets, buyers and teachers to increase STEM education in this population of students. In relation to AI, I can see Digital Stem education for students with disabilities to be a test of AI to utilize and execute best practices for digital education with visual needs to be able to learn STEM in a digital setting.
One of the promises of learning technologies and AI is to be able bring equity to learners with visual impairments to learn STEM. Globally the need for STEM careers is becoming an issue to recruit into and having the opportunity to bring this education to those who traditionally were not able to be exposed to education can be a gift. Below is an article on the insights of digital learning tools in a global setting
https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/industry-reports/digital-learning-tools-market