The Future of Education (LEGO, Billund)

Michell Zappa

For how many of you does this snippet make sense?

If you don’t recognize the lyrics, then perhaps this song will help you jog your memory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQZc53dpPrQ

This is the opening to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which most of you must have seen on TV decades ago -- but written out as emoji.

That should serve as proof that language, like everything that surrounds us, is a technology.

And technologies always change over time.

Michell Zappa@michellzappa

TECHNOLOGY FUTURIST

My name is Michell, I’m a technology futurist, and I am fascinated about the future.

I study emerging technologies from a combinatorial perspective, and try make predictions about what will be possible in the near future.

Solving problems that don’t (yet) exist.

Fundamentally, my job is about solving problems that don’t yet exist.

In order to frame the thinking about technological possibility, let’s start by looking at a technology we all know and love...

Seven years ago, Steve Chen and Chad Hurley kicked off a revolution that would change the face of video, television and cinema.

YouTube wasn't the first streaming video service, and arguably it wasn't the best.

But in my opinion, they succeeded because their timing was perfect.

They succeeded because a series of other technologies had reached maturity around that time.

GPS

See, if it wasn’t for the advent of cheap hard disks, ubiquitous video cameras and millions of internet users with access to fast broadband, YouTube would never have been possible. In a way, Hitatchi, Flip and AT&T were indirectly responsible for YouTube’s success -- yet completely outside of the founders’ control.

That and billions of hours of cat videos, evidently.

1 2

3 days of content uploaded every minute.

3

Today, we’re looking at three days of content being uploaded to YouTube every minute.That’s 4000x real-time. Or four thousand seconds of video uploaded every second that I speak.

We usually think about technology in terms of its artifacts.The devices we wear, the services we use, the gadgets that litter our lives.

But technology, in fact, is everything that surrounds us.The wheel, agriculture, fire, the book and money are examples of technologies we rarely see as such.

“ Anything useful thatwe make is technology.

— Kevin Kelly Founding executive editor, WIRED Magazine

Source:http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_tells_technology_s_epic_story.html

We can also think about technology like a layer cake.

XMPP GPS Email LED Wi-Fi

Internet Compass Multi-touch QWERTY GUIGlonass

SMS TFT-LCD Bluetooth LCD HSDPA

MMS IPS SIM NFC GesturesLED

Video camera Li-Ion App store Social networking LTE

USB TCP/IP Cloud GSM CDMALightning

Video camera RAM Proximity sensor EDGE Triangulation

NiMH Kernel A-GPS Touchscreens Gyroscope802.11

Much like a cake, technology fundamentally builds upon it self in order to advance and accelerate.The array of acronyms above are a few of the thousands of individual technologies that were necessary in order to develop a modern smartphone.

XMPP GPS Email LED Wi-FiInternet Compass Multi-touch QWERTY GUIGlonass

SMS TFT-LCD Bluetooth LCD HSDPAMMS IPS SIM NFC GesturesLED

Video camera Li-Ion App store Social networking LTEUSB TCP/IP Cloud GSM CDMALightning

Video camera RAM Proximity sensor EDGE TriangulationNiMH Kernel A-GPS Touchscreens Gyroscope802.11

If it wasn’t for these individual techs, some created by the U.S. Military and others by hackers in garages -- the smartphone as we know it would not have been possible.

And you can trace this narrative for any individual technology.Just look at the evolution of writing over millennia.

Or medical imaging... (1895)

Or flight...

A NEW TOPOLOGY

Like most other industries, I believe education acquiring a new topology.The concentration of knowledge is no longer in schools -- and the methods through which we acquire new information is no longer through books.

SCREEN LITERACYThe driving force and problem regarding the future of education is the changing nature of screens, and how we relate to them.I call this ‘screen literacy’ -- or the ability to learn how to interface with the information that surrounds us.

TEACHERS & STUDENTS

The relation between teachers and students used to be a lot closer to 1:1.

One to one

The industrial revolution changed this proportion. Society started requiring massive amounts of interchangeable workers to fill factories.

One to manyOne to oneSchools (as we know them) were born from this need.

MOOCsMassive Open Online Courses

MOOCs are (rightfully) all the rage today.

In fact, over the last few weeks, the New York Times, Forbes and Technology Review have all featured big stories on the future of online education and MOOCs in particular.

The one-to-many approach changed a bit with the web. But mostly by amplifying the “many”.Open Courseware (and its kin) are still fundamentally about broadcasting knowledge.

They are becoming better by the day.

And today we have several reliable online-only MOOCs.

Khan Academy is undoubtedly the largest proponent of this trend. They have published countless videos to millions of users, and are single-handedly pushing education reform to an increasing audience.

One to many Many to manyOne to one

I don’t think MOOCs are a genuine next big thing. They excel at widening the classroom from 30 students to 30 million.

The next truly big shift will happen when education incorporates the many-to-many mentality.

Let every student become a teacher.

Livemocha is doing this for languages.If you speak german and is looking to learn japanese, the system will pair you up with a japanese speaker who wants to learn german.

Programmers across the globe have learned to code from such platforms and forums. Professional coders who learned their trade in studying Computer Science are the exception, not the rule.

Many to many

The fundamental reason behind this shift relates to the accelerating change of culture and information. It becomes harder and harder for a “teacher” to know more than “students”. Information is created at a rate that makes it impossible for everyone to keep up.

For that reason alone, we need to acquire information from each other in a disruptive way.

Flipped classrooms are helping bring upon this change. Specifically from allowing a rapid change in education models without requiring massive infrastructure investments.

Adaptive knowledge graphs

The digitization of all accessible information is a driving force behind many of the trends we’re seeing today.

But when coupled with adaptive knowledge graphs, such as Knewton, the transformation becomes remarkable.

Knewton quantifies the learning and information acquisition process, drawing an evolutionary branch between distinct areas of knowledge.

The platform allows students to not only learn at their own pace, but also identifies subjects where they’re facing difficulties and stealthily introduces pertinent exercices to help them along the way.

CONTINUOUSLY ADAPTIVE EDUCATIONP2P teaching + Adaptive knowledge graphs

This scenario, where autonomous systems identify students’ needs and knowledge, but also couples them with potential teachers anywhere on the planet will bring upon massive change. The notion of school will fundamentally shift from a container of information towards that of a life guide.

INSTANT INFORMATIONThe second paradigm change I want to discuss is how we retrieve and relate to information.

Libraries have always had an important role for information acquisition, but we know that’s changing.

Knowledge is of two kinds.We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it.

“

I used to live near the British Library in London, and once came across this quote.

Their claim is true.

The question is: who will be the gatekeeper of information localization?

The number of Google searches per day keeps going up. We are more than accustomed to having access to information at our fingertips.What comes “after” typing in queries into a computer?What happens when there’s only a “I’m Feeling Lucky” button? Or not even that?

Personal computing Ubiquitous computingWe’re surrounding ourselves with ever more gadgets. All interconnected and covered in sensors and screens.

Our devices see what we see.They know who we’re with.

So why have to look up the name of that bridge? Or who created that painting?Point your smartphone camera and have Google tell you. It’s called reverse image search, and it’s frankly uncanny.

Speak your queries. Or have the device listen in and answer your questions in real-time.

Or let the phone read and translate for you. Never get lost abroad.Five dollars in the App Store.

The next step? Cameras everywhere. Wear one around your neck.

Not to mention the inevitability of Google Glass and similar devices.

Outsource memorization, wayfaring, translation, information lookups... Everything to your devices.

And learn to live with the consequences of having no signal on occasion.

SCREEN LITERACYSo what is the future of screen literacy?What is the role of school in this rapidly changing world?

interface.Who will teach us about interface?

programming.Or programming: the new fundamental life skill.

privacy.Or what photos to upload on Facebook?

attention.Or how to successfully split your attention across dozen simultaneous information streams while keeping up a conversation in real life?

entrepreneurship.Or how to build your own company. In kindergarten.

failure.Or what happens when your enterprises inevitably fail, fail and fail.

data.Or how to deal with “the new oil”.

collaboration.Or how to work in a group (that just happens to be spread across four continents).

Everything is accelerating.

Everything is accelerating.

Today is the slowest things will ever be.

Thank you.

@michellzappa