The new normal in language learning

Children and students around the world have not seen the inside of a classroom for over two years. And the interesting point is that the need to go to school to learn something is slowly fading away. These days, students are content sitting in the comfort of their bedrooms and interact with their teachers and classmates just as they would in a regular class.
The pressure of necessity has compelled companies and educational institutions to develop cutting-edge technologies in the virtual classroom field. These technologies have enabled students and teachers to have a similar experience and add something they couldn’t have in a physical classroom.

Some recent trends in virtual classrooms

Online communication

One of the most important features of virtual classes is communication. The communication in these classes happens over IM, e-mail, and bulletin boards. This communication means make sure that the teacher and the students have all the tools necessary at their disposal to ask and answer questions.

Virtual whiteboards

This is one of the areas in which virtual classrooms can outperform regular one because a virtual whiteboard has significantly more features than a regular one. The ability to show pictures and draw on them, create charts and graphs right in class with the help of the students, and use visual models of the lesson does not exist on a physical whiteboard.

File management

Another helpful feature of virtual classes is the ability to share files freely and securely. As a teacher, you can share video and audio files with your students whenever you need them. As a student, you can download and save files necessary for your project or lesson.

The largest companies that offer virtual classes

Oracle Corporation (ORCL)

Oracle was founded in 1977 in Austin, Texas. This company specializes in cloud software as a service in various areas related to business and business management. Some of these areas include analytics, computing, storage, and cloud database.

Oracle’s services in the education industry include education for children and teenagers, higher education, and career-advancing education. With all these modules, you can have a personalized learning experience that fits your institution or company’s timeline and your abilities as a learner. What’s more, the teaching method in Oracle is called collaborative social teaching, which means the teachers and learners have equal shares in the learning responsibility.

Oracle’s revenue is estimated to reach 42.27 billion dollars by the end of the current year, 2021. This amount has risen about 4% since the previous year. Additionally, the revenue for this company is predicted to grow by another 4% till next year and reach 44.1 billion dollars. The stock for Oracle is currently traded for $89.35 per share. Analysts believe that this stock will grow by 11% in the next year.

Google Inc (GOOG)

Google is one of those companies that has found its way into all aspects of our lives in the last few years. This company’s products and services cover almost anything from browsing and mail to business and, of course, education.

Google Classroom comes with many other features that help the teachers and make the students’ experience a happier one. Google Docs, Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Drive are all the features of Google Classroom that help teachers and students in their online education programs.

Google went through a restructuring in 2015. The changes included Google and several of its subsidiaries to go under the name Alphabet Inc. This company’s revenue was 182.53 billion dollars in 2020. This revenue had grown by 12% since the past year, and it is estimated to reach 250.68 billion dollars in the current year, 2021. The stock for Alphabet Inc. is currently traded for 2,891.01 dollars per share. This stock has been growing in the past year, and it is forecasted to rise by 24.41% per year in the next five years.

Microsoft (MSFT)

Microsoft is another company that has started preparing valuable tools for students and their teachers. Apart from Windows 10 and Excel, other software designed by Microsoft can be perfect for an online classroom platform.

Microsoft Sway is an online platform for students to combine images, video, and other media to create a story. Then these stories are shared and discussed in the common area with the teacher and the other students. Microsoft OneNote Classroom allows teachers to prepare the lesson’s content and plans and save them online. And there is also Microsoft Teams on which you can communicate with the students interactively.

Microsoft classroom itself includes the ability to share documents and media. This platform also has a grading system that gives the teacher the overall performance of the students during a specific period. There is also a workflow assignment where the teacher and the students work on the assignments and assess the results together.

In the current year, 2021, Microsoft is estimated to have about 191.6 billion dollars of revenue. This amount has risen by over 9% since the previous year, and it is expected to grow by another 8% in the next year. The stock price for Microsoft is 299.72 dollars per share at the moment. This stock is also forecasted to grow by 15.25% per year in the next five years.

IBM

IBM has changed the process of creating an online platform for education by including the teachers in the design process. This means that IBM Watson has the collective experience of many teachers behind it. IBM Watson helps teachers plan their lessons more efficiently by putting at their disposal all the resources they might need for a lesson. Over 8000 lesson plans and strategies on this platform come from more than 15 thousand teachers in different levels and grades.

IBM is estimated to have 75.13 billion dollars of income in 2021. This amount is predicted to have a 1.60% growth in the next year and reach 76.3 billion dollars by 2022. The stock price for IBM is traded for 139.41 dollars per share. This amount is forecasted to grow by 16.35% in the next five years.

The market size for virtual classes

The companies that have designed and are running virtual classroom platforms are much more than this. Some of these companies are HTC, Panasonic, Skyperep, Hitachi, Dell, etc. The growing demand for online education has prompted these companies to add more valuable features to their platforms to make the experience more convenient.

The global market size for virtual classrooms was estimated to be over 12.7 billion dollars in 2020. This market is perpetually on the rise and is predicted to reach 15 billion dollars in 2021. In the next five years, this market is expected to grow by 18.9% and reach 30.3 billion dollars by 2025.