How Real-Time Systems Can Power the Next Generation of EdTech Platforms

In their very essence, today’s best-known EdTech platforms are engineering wonders. They leverage full-duplex WebSockets, peer-to-peer WebRTC media streams and global pub/sub networks and transform the impossible into the seemingly mundane: coding live across multiple constraints at once, video classroom lessons and online assessment of feedback at scale.

Behind the curtain, though, the engineers must grapple with titanic challenges in scaling, security and access.

To learn more about how the development of real-time systems is revolutionising online learning and why computer science basics are pertinent not only to engineers but also to educators, investors and policy makers; BigTech Director of IT Mikhail Filimonov is able to shed some light.

A general expert on real-time architectures, Mikhail has been designing and deploying large-scale EdTech systems of more than a decade’s duration, balancing optimally among performance, compliance and user experience.

Interactive, real-time architectures are transforming the field of educational technology. Where most standard web applications rely on occasional polling or fixed updates, the real-time systems maintain ongoing connections like WebSockets to move data and media in near-real time. In the e-learning category, that becomes live video tutoring lessons and immediate feedback quizzes and synchronous collaboration software.

As PubNub reports, the production of “real-time chat and collaboration, in both individual and group contexts,” has become critical for online learning to compete with or exceed the experience of classroom learning. Real-time EdTech systems use the protocols WebSockets and WebRTC to provide low-latency video and audio and messaging, most often enabled by cloud services and thus allow lecturers and students to have online lessons with minimal delay.

Real-time architectures differ radically from the older ones. In a standard LMS or a static-content site, the server only replies on the client’s initiative, say during a page load or sporadic polling.

But real-time systems keep the channels open; for example, a WebSocket provides a “persistent, bi-directional communication channel” between server and browser. This full-duplex link lets information, be it chat communications, test results, or mouse movement, flow back and forth instantly. In much the same way, WebRTC is an open browser API aimed at peer-to-peer video and audio message transmission.

But it requires servers to handle signaling and NAT traversal and so why most platforms default to managed services like the Agora or the Twilio. Explains one expert, third-party services like the Agora “provide a layer on top of WebRTC,” so developers don’t have to roll complex infrastructure from scratch and still can add live video and audio features to their work.

In reality, instructors and developers can leverage services like Firebase Realtime Database, pushing updates to clients whenever the data alters MQTT, a lean publish/subscribe mechanism for IoT-esque messaging, PubNub or Ably’s worldwide data network with managed pub/sub channels, or cloud video APIs like the Agora and the Twilio Programmable Video to access in a hurry the characteristics of the real-time.

 

Impact on Learning: Engagement, Collaboration, Personalisation, Feedback

 

Real-time makes possible a world filled with teaching opportunities and supports quantifiable gains in learning outcomes. Studies show that live analytics and interactive software-equipped classes witness unheard-of spikes in student engagement. An exhaustive review revealed that schools that used real-time assessment analytics found higher levels of student participation than in face-to-face classes.

If instructors receive immediate insight into the state of understanding among the students, whether through polls or dashboards they can immediately tweak lessons and thus reduce disengagement. Even adaptive learning software that dynamically adapts content based on individual performance has registered a staggering 317% growth rate since 2018 and encourages rapid mastery.

Schools report that 78% of the students master the material well before the scheduled time when using the real-time adaptive software. Ultimately, information offered at the optimal time makes the learning much more efficient.

Real-time collaboration software integrates the learning experience on deep levels. Online collaborative workspaces, assuming the form of live whiteboards, shareable documents and co-editing code allow students to brainstorm and learn from each other even over distance. One teacher observed that this mode of synchronous collaboration “brought out the voices of students who were traditionally quiet or afraid to speak out.”

By letting students contribute according to their own pace, whether it’s annotating a slide together or answering a poll, the platform encourages greater engagement. Applications like Replit’s multi-player code editor shine in this category: hundreds of students can code together live, with live cursors reflecting the others’ updates and results immediately.

This intensified engagement stems from turning the otherwise passive act of watching a lecture into the experience of students actually relating to each other and the content in front of them.

Real-time collaborative editors like Replit allow many learners to work on the same code simultaneously, complete with live cursors. This synchronous model of discussion and coding makes group learning much more efficient because team members see the effects of every change immediately and may converse or annotate simultaneously.

These live collaboration tools extend the reach of coding far beyond the realm of individual work; collaborative whiteboards and documents allow scattered students to work on problems together and thus enrich teamwork and understanding.

In reality, EdTech organisations take advantage of these features: ClassDojo uses PubNub’s real-time messaging to develop an interactive communication layer between teachers and parents and students and live dashboards, while Next Tech, a training technology provider relies on PubNub so that “users discuss themes while teams work on projects together in real time.” These represent just a few illustrations of the value that features allowing instant collaboration can have in recreating group work dynamics online.

Personalisation and looped feedback thrive on the smooth flow of live data. Unlike end-of-unit exams, live quizzes and formative assessments offer students immediate results and corrections. This immediacy grabs the attention of students and also allows instructors to correct them immediately. In effect, correction of misunderstandings on the fly makes a tremendous difference in the learning experience.

More than that, live analytics enable personalised content; with the incessant tracking of a student’s answer and speed, an adaptive curriculum can customise the next exercise or hint just for that student. Eventually, this leads to better outcomes, as schools embracing data-informed teaching, supported by live insights, show faster improvement in test scores over three years than control groups.

 

Core Technologies and Architectures

 

Creating such systems requires a robust underlying technological infrastructure. The common elements include:

Continuous Communication via protocols like WebSockets keep the TCP channel open and allow bidirectional message flows with minimal overhead. The connections over WebSockets are described as being “full duplex,” allowing for the concurrent sending and accepting of messages.

They require very low latency, due to small frame headers and the fact that only a single connection is used. In the field of application, most systems use libraries or frameworks developed on top of the WebSocket standard or even newer protocols like HTTP/2 Server Push to supplement live chat and event feeds.

Peer-to-Peer Media (WebRTC) – WebRTC is a browser standard built specifically for real-time communication over video and audio. It makes possible direct browser-to-browser video calling without the use of plugin software and instead uses secure RTP and STUN and TURN servers.

Many developers prefer managed WebRTC solutions like Agora and Jitsi and Twilio, however, as implementing and scaling TURN servers or multipoint bridges becomes fairly complex. In the words of one expert, although WebRTC is free of charge, “to make it work, you will need to develop websites, deploy servers, pay for the media traffic, optimise the code” or take the third-party route. Twilio and Agora and others take care of all the details.

Twilio provides a “Virtual Classroom” example application that automatically streams the video of the host and screen and whiteboard to numerous pupils with integrated chat.

Real-Time Databases – Services like Google’s Firebase offer the Realtime Database or Cloud Firestore, which automatically synchronises all subscribed clients whenever data changes. In essence, any database update induces real-time updates for all subscribed clients.

This feature is especially useful in collaborative environments as with chat history, live quiz scores and commonly edited document text. Fundamentally, Firebase uses WebSockets in the background to handle tens of thousands of connections, though scaling up to that enormous number requires sharding with great care.

Other BaaS providers, like AWS AppSync and Supabase, also provide live subscription support.

Pub/Sub Services – For a more flexible messaging solution, many websites opt for managed pub/sub networks. PubNub, Pusher and Ably run large global networks enabling developers to publish events onto channels with no server management needed.

These solutions ship with out-of-the-box features like presence tracking, history and integrated real-time translation. PubNub boasts enabling developers to integrate features like “real-time whiteboards, conferencing and chats (with real-time translation)” into eLearning applications with no messaging backend needed.

IoT Protocols (MQTT) – Although MQTT is best known as an IoT protocol, its light publish/subscribe model, featuring small headers and persistent keep-alives, turns out to be exceptionally well-suited for narrow networks. Some EdTech use cases use MQTT for background messaging or offline sync, like mobile clients reporting quiz responses. In addition, due to its auto-reconnect on flaky networks, MQTT can frequently provide more reliability than bare WebSockets in low-bandwidth environments.

APIs and Frameworks reach well beyond raw protocol alone; many EdTech platforms employ more advanced structures. GraphQL subscriptions, frequently sent over WebSocket, can have a front-end indicating its desired data update interest. SDKs for real-time like Firebase SDK and Twilio SDK provide smooth integration.

Additionally, the prevalence of continuous delivery pipelines and microservices like serverless functions and Kubernetes enables each piece, be it video, chat, or analytics to scale individually.

All these technologies form the foundation for real-time EdTech. Consider, for example, a live video tutorial session on the web: the video broadcast is delivered via WebRTC, text messaging via WebSockets, collaborative work on a whiteboard prospers and a real-time database synchronises quiz questions among students in immaculate harmony.

In real-life scenarios, companies tend to prefer pre-bundled solutions; with minimal lines of code, they can easily integrate video and chat support via Twilio’s APIs, while PubNub or Firebase handle all details of data synchronisation.

 

Case Studies and Examples

 

A number of EdTech platforms mention the application of real-time systems:

• bookateacher (Switzerland): This internet-based-tutoring company employed a specially developed LMS with a “Live Lecture application” which assigns students to tutors “in real-time through video, audio, chat and screen-shared course material”. It did not employ a standard eLearning platform but built a custom solution from scratch for the particular purpose of facilitating live one-to-one tutoring. It emphasises high-definition streaming and co-annotation of lessons via the WebRTC and real-time live messaging.
• LiveBoard (Global): LiveBoard is a SaaS tutor management platform with hundreds of thousands of tutors located all around the world. It provides white-label virtual classrooms with integrated video calls, screen sharing,and co-working whiteboard. The company claims that LiveBoard virtual classroom “enables your tutors to teach live classes, share files, [and] co-work in real-time through video, audio and instant messaging.” All tutoring tools, calendar, payments and progress of the students are wrapped into one software but the value lies in the real-time interactive lesson space.
• Replit (USA): ReplIt is an online IDE in real-time. Several students can have the same code file open simultaneously (with their respective cursors and highlighting) and run the code simultaneously. Its documentation states “Code together in real-time with live cursors, run code and see the same results, together.” Excellent for group program lessons or peer mentoring.

These examples shed light on the physical uses of live technology in the EdTech landscape. They employ a mix of proprietary and third-party tools to create instant interactions, leveraging the technologies we’ve discussed thus far, including WebRTC, WebSockets and BaaS.

Importantly, none of them are traditional “pull-only” platforms; all of them actively push or stream information, keeping teachers and learners invested in real time.

 

Challenges: Scaling, Security, Accessibility, Connectivity

 

Development of real-time EdTech has huge possibilities, but there remain engineering and policy difficulties.

Scaling Infrastructure: Real-time systems have a stateful nature that requires heavy resources. To support thousands of concurrent sessions, whether for video or chat, a scalable back-end infrastructure is required. Some platforms aptly note, “managing thousands of concurrent users during peak exam times is a major challenge.”

Solutions include cloud auto-scaling, dynamically adding back-end servers and using CDNs or edge nodes to allow for efficient media streaming.

Technologies like WebSocket, however, present scaling challenges; the long-running connections requested by clients require session affinity or shared brokers to spread these connections over servers. Large platforms usually route messages via back-end services like Redis or Kafka, thus ensuring front-end servers are stateless. Furthermore, estimating latency is important; use of caching mechanisms and reducing round-trips are important strategies to facilitate real-time interactions.

Privacy and Security: Live EdTech traverses the complex landscape of sensitive data, adhering to strict regulations. Any site serving minors is required to comply with FERPA, COPPA (in the US), or GDPR (in Europe) to protect data privacy.

As one guide notes, tools “must take strong measures to keep data secure when it is being sent or stored,” using encryption in transit (TLS) and at rest, combined with strong authentication mechanisms like 2FA and SSO. Sites should be designed to collect minimal data, collecting only what is necessary and to ensure schools own their students’ data. The addition of real-time video brings additional risk: proctoring sessions or videoconferences may capture personal audio and visual information, emphasising consent, data retention policies and secure storage.

Anti-cheating capabilities, such as facial recognition and audio analysis, must be carefully balanced against privacy concerns and possible biases. Ultimately, each real-time feature must be thoroughly vetted with security and legal compliance as the centre of its creation.

Accessibility and Equity: EdTech of today needs to be accessible to a wide range of learners. Here, we need to consider all categories of users. This means accommodating individuals with disabilities via screen readers, captions and keyboard control and presenting high-contrast or text-to-speech functionality. Inclusive design is not a recommendation: “Creating inclusive interfaces for users with disabilities is both a legal and ethical requirement.”

Real-time features should include features such as auto-captioning for video lessons, alternative input methods for collaboration tools and backwards-compatible devices. In addition, there is a digital divide: some students lack access to stable internet or contemporary hardware. To support such learners, platforms can provide offline modes (caching lessons and delayed sync) or extremely low-bandwidth options (text-only modes and compact video codecs).

Protocols such as MQTT or WebSocket can be useful by making liberal use of minimal headers, but even they may suffer on unreliable networks. In fact, some networks or proxies have the capability to block WebSockets completely. In environments of low resources, designers must engage in aggressive optimisation (progressive web apps and occasional batching) to guarantee that real-time features fade easily.

Operational Complexity: Finally, combining several real-time elements can be very complicated. Teams often end up juggling video servers, database shards and third-party APIs. Every real-time functionality has to be fault-tolerant against failures like lost connections or client-side code crashes.

To ensure a quality experience, extensive monitoring and testing are a must. Strategically, organisations must also see to it that teachers and learners are prepared to employ these new tools effectively; a feature is valuable only when teachers are able to use it easily as part of their teaching.

 

Strategic Recommendations

 

For Developers: Adopt scalable, cloud-native architectures. Break the platform into separate microservices, i.e., separate services for video, chat and analytics, using container orchestration software such as Kubernetes or AWS ECS to scale individual components effectively.

Leverage managed real-time services to minimise overhead; for example, using Firebase or PubNub can help get out of building custom WebSocket clusters. Doing so makes it possible to focus the team on pedagogy, not plumbing. It’s also necessary to put robust data practices first: encrypt all streams, comply with privacy standards and choose compliant vendors, considering the Student Data Privacy Consortium listings.

Test rigorously under real network conditions to detect latency and firewall problems early.

For Educators: Use the power of interactivity. Integrate live polls, quizzes and shared tasks into each lesson.

Use the information at your fingertips; instant analysis can uncover when a class is “stuck” or bored. Encourage students to interact via digital tools like chat and Q&A sessions. Provide training so teachers are comfortable with the technology, an active teacher is crucial for the effective use of real-time platforms.

For Investors: Real-time EdTech is an opportunity for growth. Products statistically confirming higher learner engagement and learning results (23%+-score booster or 67% higher participation) create huge market opportunity.

Invest in products addressing major infra bottlenecks (scale, security) or underserved markets (low-bandwidth region-friendly products at mass market prices). EdTech investors may want to consider neighboring infra plays (content distribution, data analytics for learning) as well.

For Policymakers: Fund necessary infra and regulation. Fund school broadband and device access to end the digital divide; live EdTech requires robust connectivity. Move procurement policies to favor platforms that include long-term real-time interaction capabilities.

In the short term, require robust privacy protocols and publish honest guidance on data treatment (e.g. example vendor agreements) so new EdTech honors student rights. Call for interoperability standards (e.g. LTI, XAPI) so schools can mix-and-match best-in-class tools.

Overall, real-time systems already revolutionise learning. By facilitating real-time communication, collaboration and feedback, they create learning environments that are more richly textured, highly responsive and engaging. It’s not anecdotal: such tech-powered classes have much higher rates of learning achievement and engagement.

EdTech innovators must create scalable, secure real-time platforms using modern web and cloud technologies.

Educators and advocates should prioritise such capabilities to prepare students for the future. When done well, real-time EdTech can help bring to life the ideal of individualised, fair and efficient learning for all.