Covid and the subsequent push to online learning has transformed the way education works. Higher education may never be the same and the lasting impacts of the pandemic have actually shaped new online education trends for the upcoming year.

• Artificial intelligence
• First on the list is an increase in artificial intelligence in higher education. Stanford University has indicated technical advances far beyond the benchmarks that test those advances. AI has now been seen providing:
• Disability support
• Library services
• Grading
• Proctoring
• Student information systems
• Lifelong education
• Universities traditionally require students complete their degree program or certification program within a set number of years, allowing up to 2 years of break time. Now, with so many people capitalizing on continuing education under quarantine restrictions, and jobs encouraging people to invest in their education, universities are allowing lifelong education so that students can take as much time as necessary to complete an online course, owing to the fact that many are going to school and working fulltime simultaneously

• Blended and hybrid learning
• Blended and hybrid courses are likely to remain just as popular after all covid restrictions come to a close. Hybrid models allow students and employees in continuing education to operate remotely part of the time. Hybrid and blended classes offer unprecedented flexibility whereby
• Classes can be entirely online with a final exam proctored in person
• Courses can be equal parts at home and in person, meeting only one or two days per week
• Theater and film productions can have actors record themselves remotely and then merge them in a virtual environment together
• Digital textbooks
• Part of the push toward blended and hybrid learning extends to technologies offering digital textbooks. The provision of digital textbooks reduces the cost for students or employees continuing their education and ensures that all students have the right textbooks without having to visit a campus bookstore.

• Increased professional education
• Hybrid learning has gone hand-in-hand with other technological tools to provide professional education for employees looking to improve their skill set. This extends to shorter certifications with badges that can be easily integrated into online profiles including email signature blocks and LinkedIn profiles.
• Data analytics
• Universities collect mountains of data but only through data analytics can educators test and analyze that information to find things like patterns in student participation or study habits.
• Learning analytics
• Tangentially, universities have already begun utilizing learning analytics to help educators pinpoint patterns in their lectures that might improve their teaching. Data points can be analyzed using natural learning processes from artificial intelligence.
• Micro credentialing

Micro credentialing has replaced the longer, four-year university standard. Micro credentials focus on individual skill sets and are more flexible than traditional degrees. Over 700,000 micro credential programs are now offered in hybrid, online, and in-person environments. These programs can take as little as 10 hours all the way up to 5000 hours to complete but include:

• Boot camps
• Short courses and completion badges
• Professional licenses or certifications
• Certificates from universities for specific areas of expertise
• Better quality in online learning

Institutions have focused on improving online learning by offering virtual exhibit halls, virtual museums, virtual lab assessments, virtual microscope viewers and slide viewers, all of which represents investments in modern curriculum transformed for an online environment.

• Open education resources

New research from EDUCAUSE Horizon Report for 2021 corroborates the prediction that open education resources will serve as one of the top new online education technologies for 2022. Institutions are now offering their research materials and learning materials free to students. The more information is made available online, the easier it will be for students to understand their subject matters.