Teaching and technology
E-ducation
A long-overdue technological revolution is at last under way
Jun 29th 2013
“IT IS possible to teach every branch of human knowledge with the
motion picture,” observed Thomas Edison in 1913, predicting that books
would soon be obsolete in the classroom. In fact the motion picture has
had little effect on education. The same, until recently, was true of
computers. Ever since the 1970s Silicon Valley’s visionaries have been
claiming that their industry would change the schoolroom as radically as
the office—and they have sold a lot of technology to schools on the
back of that. Children use computers to do research, type essays and
cheat. But the core of the system has changed little since the Middle
Ages: a “sage on a stage” teacher spouting “lessons” to rows of
students. Tom Brown and Huckleberry Finn would recognise it in an
instant—and shudder.
Now at last a revolution is under way (see article).
At its heart is the idea of moving from “one-size-fits-all” education
to a more personalised approach, with technology allowing each child to
be taught at a different speed, in some cases by adaptive computer
programs, in others by “superstar” lecturers of one sort or another,
while the job of classroom teachers moves from orator to coach: giving
individual attention to children identified by the gizmos as needing
targeted help. In theory the classroom will be “flipped”, so that more
basic information is supplied at home via screens, while class time is
spent embedding, refining and testing that knowledge (in the same way
that homework does now, but more effectively). The promise is of better
teaching for millions of children at lower cost—but only if politicians
and teachers embrace it.
Why is this time different? Largely because a number of big changes
are coming at the same time: high-speed mobile networks, cheap tablet
devices, the ability to process huge amounts of data cheaply,
sophisticated online gaming and adaptive-learning software. For
instance, new interactive digital textbooks with built-in continuous
performance assessment can change in real time, depending on what and
how much the pupil using it is learning (sometimes with the pupil being
unaware that he or she is being tested). New data-mining software is
able to predict when a pupil is likely to fail at reading or mathematics
without special attention, allowing the teacher to intervene before it
is too late.
Yes we Khan
Higher education is in the vanguard. Barely a year from its launch,
Coursera, one of the pioneers in offering “massive open online courses”,
now boasts more than 3.9m students worldwide, taking courses supplied
by 83 partner institutions. Colleges have always been keen to experiment
with technology: Britain’s television-based Open University is now 44
years old. But this time schools are following. Four years after Salman
Khan gave up his job at a hedge fund to focus on making maths videos,
the Khan Academy has 6m registered users, who solve (or try to solve) 3m
problems a day, and it has broadened its curriculum far beyond maths.
It is spreading beyond America, too. Carlos Slim, one of the world’s
richest men, is said to be paying for a version of Khan Academy’s
curriculum to be developed for schoolchildren in his native Mexico.
Edtech has collected other impressive advocates. Bill Gates calls
this “a special moment” for education. Private-sector money is piling
in. Rupert Murdoch, hardly a rose-tinted-specs technophile, is allowing
Amplify, his digital education business, to run up losses of around
$180m this year in hope of dominating an edtech market that News
Corporation reckons will soon be worth $44 billion in America alone.
GEMS, a Dubai-based education provider, wants to expand its use of
technology in India and Ghana to reach children in remote areas.
Others are not so sure. Many parents already blame the “dumbest
generation” on too much gaming, always-on computing and illiterate
texting. Teachers may use edtech websites, but their unions are
suspicious of anything suggesting that schools could get along with
fewer teachers, and they dislike the idea of private companies such as
Mr Murdoch’s News Corp making money out of education. There are also
worries about privacy: edtech companies will end up with a vast store of
personal data on pupils.
It seems to work
Most of these fears are overdone. For-profit companies have long been
in the business of selling printed textbooks, and there is no reason
why data-privacy laws cannot extend to students. The biggest question
remains: will children learn more? That in turn relies on the teachers,
because even the best technology will get nowhere without their support.
The evidence on the efficacy of edtech comes largely from America.
Most of it suggests that when teachers have been properly trained, it
works. Low-income students at Rocketship, a chain of charter schools in
San Jose, California, which also use the technologies, outperform those
living in the wealthiest districts in the state. Having performed well
in various pilot programmes, Khan Academy’s adaptive software platform
is now being rolled out across Los Altos, one of America’s wealthiest
and best-performing school districts.
Edtech will boost inequality in the short term, because it will be
taken up most enthusiastically by richer schools, especially private
ones, while underfunded state schools may struggle to find the money to
buy technology that would help poorer students catch up. Governments
will have to invest to allow them to do so. Some already are. In South
Korea high-speed internet access is the norm in schools. Barack Obama
recently promised that America will follow. Laws may have to be changed
to allow pupils to study with those at a similar stage of learning
rather than be grouped according to their age. But the biggest challenge
for many politicians will be confronting the enormously powerful
teachers’ unions.
Parents and taxpayers should stiffen the politicians’ spines.
Education has proved stubbornly resistant to the improvements in
productivity that technology has brought to other jobs. This wave of
edtech promises to change that. Technology has supposedly been on the
verge of transforming education for over a century. This time it looks
as though it will.