Transcriber: Kelwalin Dhanasarnsombut Reviewer: Pei Fang Ng
Hello, everybody,
(Thai) Hello to all you honored guests.
(English) Thank you for the opportunity that I've been given today to be here.
I'd like to share with you my passion about digital technology and education.
It's a passion that is driven by the belief
that because of the new technologies that we have today,
and the new understandings that we have about learning,
something big will happen in schools.
Some big changes will happen soon. Alright?
And, it's really driven by the facts
that we now know a lot about how humans learn today.
I believe that all of you have been through the school system,
so it might be a little bit difficult
about how much things can really change in the classrooms.
So, allow me to set the scene
by showing a few examples of past changes
that have happened throughout history.
I think we all know this one pretty well.
We used to believe that the Earth is at the center of the universe.
And it's not really hard to imagine why.
We didn't really have the tools to observe what was really going on.
So, we saw that the moon was moving,
the stars are moving, but we're not.
So, you know, we must be at the center.
And it was Galileo,
who was among the first people who came up and said,
"Hey! I designed these new tools.
And from my observation,
I think it's the Sun we're orbiting."
And that's the basis of the common understanding
about the universe that we have today.
But, did you know that it took a bit more than a century
for this discovery to become widely accepted by the public?
And Galileo was actually prosecuted for suggesting such a radical idea.
And he had to spend the rest of his life in house arrest.
So, I think that shares a lot with what might happen in schools today.
A little lighter example.
We used to believe that margarine is a lot healthier than butter.
This is a story from my grandmother, you know.
So, everyone in the mid-20th century was switching from butter to margarine,
because they think they can keep their eating habits
without having heart disease.
But, with more understanding about the earlier margarine,
we discovered that margarine actually has the most amount of trans fat,
the most dangerous thing you can eat to have heart disease.
So, you know, that was wrong!
But that led to policy changes about margarine,
and we develop the better margarine that we have today,
but we don't really think
about margarine being better than butter anymore,
except that it's a little cheaper.
Another example.
Did you know that we used to spray DDT directly onto children?
(Laughter)
DDT is very popular during World War II,
and the public was told that it's safe.
You can inhale, you can eat DDT, without causing any harm.
So, many schools in the US actually used DDT to eliminate hair lice.
And you can search the term "DDT spraying" on YouTube.
And you'll find many shocking videos of what we used to do.
So, our better understanding about the harm of DDT actually led
to a different perspective on DDT,
and when we look back at what we used to do,
sometimes that's very intriguing.
So, let's get back to school. Alright?
So, I believe, we will be able to say similar things
about what we do in schools today,
the way we educate our children.
Because new understanding in cognitive science,
in brain science, and in developmental psychology
has led to the understanding.
But, people don't learn too well
by pure instruction or by rote learning.
But yet, that is what's happening in most schools today. Right?
The what, the where, the when, the how of learning today
is very different with the technology that we have,
with Wikipedia,
with the cellphone,
with the iPhone, iPad.
But yet the school hasn't really changed the way they teach things,
since they've begun
with the general public about a century ago.
So, that's really something that I think will make --
Soon, we'll realize that schools
aren't really creating the kind of skills that we need
for the 21st century.
OK! So, that's the inspiration. Right.
That's what keeps me going.
It's a little bit radical.
It's a little bit out there for some people.
But, it's why I do what I do. OK?
So, what I'd like to show next is what I'm doing about it.
And it's such a big topic that I, as an individual,
I won't dare to say that I'm going to change education,
I'm going to be the one who makes some difference,
I'm going to be Galileo!
But, the important thing is, you know,
I can't help to be fascinated by this topic.
So, I'm going to share with you today,
what I'm contributing to education.
The thing that I find most fascinating when studying this
is that a lot of what we learn in school today
are determined by what we can do with paper and pencil,
the technology that we had a century ago.
Now that we have technology, things can be so different,
but we don't really think about it.
Sometimes, we teach things just because
we've done that with previous generations.
So, for example:
Do we really need to get kids to memorize
all these facts about history?
Now that all the information is available just a few clicks away.
Or, do we still have to teach algebra in the most boring ways?
Now that we have the tools to make them come alive,
and you can see why we learn all these.
And, I'd like to start
by using an analogy that I learned from one of my mentors.
Can you add these two numbers?
What's the result?
30! Right?
How about this version?
Same. Right?
But, I believe that for most of you,
this slide is almost like a clue for the previous slide.
Because, it's not just because
you're more familiar with the Arabic numbers,
but there's something about Arabic numbers
that makes addition or arithmetic easier than Roman numerals.
And, before the Arabic numbers became popular in the Roman empire,
doing additions and things like this
were the only things for the elites.
Because it took many years for them to perfect this skill.
It's not something that anyone can just go ahead and learn, and do!
But, when the shift came to Arabic numbers,
now, primary school children can do the same tasks.
So, this is the kind of shift in the medium,
that results in fundamental change in what we can learn,
that I believe, and many of us believe
that will happen with the digital technology.
So, let me show you a few examples of that.
So, this is an example of a work that I did:
Introducing children
to balancing a robot.
And, you know, we're balancing very well.
we can keep a stick on our fingers, and prevent it from falling.
But, if you look at the science behind that, it's very complicated.
There're many useful ideas that you can use
and apply to different things that you do in life,
like sports, or economy. Things like that.
So, I developed an environment on the computer that
allows children to get to the ideas that are behind.
Now, I don't have enough time to explain to you how I did it,
but I have a story to tell about what happened when a father came.
The father of one student came one day.
He was a very well-trained engineer.
And when he saw what we were trying to do,
we're trying to get the robot to balance the ball and the beam.
He sat down and said,
"Son, if you want to understand what's going on,
you need to understand the following."
And he spent the next twenty minutes,
writing down the equations, (Laughter)
arrows, and all these things.
And the best thing that happened though was that the child said,
"Dad, you're not making any sense."
"We were doing just fine on the computer.
We can already see what you're trying to say on the computer."
So, to me that was the pinnacle,
because it means that the computer,
if designed well, can communicate to children,
ideas that used to be hidden behind all these maze
of equations and things like that.
So, that was a success,
and it's the kind of thing
that I think reveals the true power of technology.
So, I know, I realize that there's a lot of risks with technology,
but I think if you design it and use it well,
there's a huge opportunity.
So, I'm trying to live a life following Galileo.
And not make what I do become the margarine or the DDT.
OK! So, we later learned that the technique
that we were using in this piece of work,
actually was the same thing that they used
to control the shuttle in the early 80s.
This is from NASA, and this is what we were doing
with the 13-year-old children.
So, I just highlight what you can do with technology that --
the kind of thing that you can learn with technology
that used to be too hard to grasp.
Since then, I’ve developed many other technologies
that tries to do the same thing.
I developed the GoGo Board, which is a robotics toolkit,
that allows children to create
and implement some of their innovative ideas
and sometimes, to make a better world.
So, for example, this is an intelligence stick for the blind.
It has the sensor at the end.
The idea is that when you walk along on the sidewalk,
you have different colors painted on the sidewalk,
and it tells the blind person where you are,
if you're reaching a bus stop,
or if there's a dangerous intersection ahead.
So, it's an opportunity for kids to express their innovations.
This is a model of an intelligent room that only turns on the light
when somebody is inside. Things like that.
And we've done many things with robotics.
Robo Blocks. This is a programming system for very young children.
So, early primary school children, they can't really write yet.
They can't really type very well yet.
But, we want to see if they can get to the idea behind programming.
So, we quickly found
that kids can put together these command boxes that we have,
and use them to control a moving robot.
And, you'll never get it right the first time, right?
So, it's the fabulous opportunity to get very young children to think
about problem solving, sequencing, debugging, and things like that.
OK. We also developed online magazine system.
This is just to show that I'm not just a robotic guy.
And it's developed from our observation that
children love to go on field trips and take pictures.
So, we've taken that opportunity
and transformed it into a learning activity,
where children will have assignments when they go on a field trip,
they have to tell a story, take pictures, come back,
write the story on the system.
And then, the editorial process is actually the part
where they learn key concepts about journalism and communication.
So, all of those things share the same goal.
It's to get kids to do things that were previously difficult
and to make learning more active and fun.
Now, that was my passion.
Next, it's my responsibility. Right.
So, I've tried to implement these ideas in schools for more than 10 years.
And the thing that I found
is that although schools sometimes accept my ideas
and let me work with kids,
I'm not usually part of the main thing that happens in school.
You know, I'm just this thing that happens in an after-school program
or may be an extracurricular activity.
If I cause trouble, they get rid of me.
And I like to call this phenomenon "Appendix Phenomenon." Right?
It's sort of the same thing.
So, I discovered that it's really important
to think about other factors that are important
when you want an innovation to work in schools.
And I learned a lot about it when I was working on this project.
Some of you might have heard of it.
It's called "one laptop per child."
We were trying to give children their own laptops.
So, we have a whole class, everyone has a laptop,
and you know, see what happens,
what are the opportunities and what are the risks.
So, we did a relatively small,
pilot study with 500 machines.
Most of the schools are in Chiang Mai, near to where I am.
So, I get to see a lot about what happened.
And, the thing that I've learned from this experience
is that there are three basics building blocks
that you need to have to get something to truly work in a school.
So, the materials, the tools, that's just one part.
You need that. That's the innovation.
But, it's sometimes deceiving.
Because when you put a technology into a school,
in the beginning, they are usually very excited
and enthusiastic about this new toy they have,
like you put a laptop in front of a child,
here you go, just like that.
They'd bring the laptop to school every day.
They are excited to learn everything about it.
But then, this excitement,
this energy level falls,
quickly, after some weeks or some months.
And, you know, I like to call this behavior "the perks curve."
Because I think it's a natural thing that happens,
and every one should understand this.
When you work with schools,
it's natural for the interest, the energy level to fall.
There's a great risk, if you don't do anything about it,
your project will fail, the whole thing would fail.
Because, it'll just go away.
Only if the school can think
about how to use the technology in a meaningful way,
to integrate it into what you're really doing in schools,
can the energy level come back up.
And if you can manage that to happen,
it usually stabilizes after a while.
It might not reach the height of when you first introduced it,
but there's a great chance that it will sustain.
Two other things that are important.
The institution factor.
So, the CEO has to be on board.
The headmaster,
if he or she doesn't agree on what you're doing,
then that's mostly the end of the story.
So, we have a great example about how one school, one headmaster,
believed in what we were doing with the laptop,
and she actually organized
so that we had nine weeks to do projects,
to learn with the laptops without any traditional class.
And that's something that you don't typically
see any schoolmaster wants to do.
It requires courage to do,
and the belief that what you're doing is right.
The last part is the socio-cultural factor.
That's the teacher and the parents, especially the parents.
Parents are very worried about what happen with their children.
So, getting them involved,
providing an open mind
about how learning can take place is very important.
It's tricky, but if you can make that work,
it usually results in learning activities that are really quite unique.
For example, we've seen projects with household accounting.
Now, this is a picture of an account book
which the parent has to log her income and expenses,
which is required for her to get financial aid
for the local co-op for her debt problem.
So, the way it works is that the child got the laptop
and uses the laptop to help the parent with the logging.
And instead of using a regular logbook,
they child uses Google spreadsheets.
And it becomes something that is real for the child,
because you can't screw this up.
You might not get financial aid if you screwed up.
And the teacher uses it to teach that student about spelling,
about how to do mathematical analysis through statistics,
and things that used to be quite hard to do before.
So, that's an example of what you can really get.
This is another project.
They integrated the laptop with the local Thai band.
So, they would have a Thai drum and a few other instruments.
And the child would play the laptop.
The laptop would be one component of the band.
This is quite popular actually.
So, those three components are the key to make things happen in real school,
from my experience.
So, making that happened is really an art form.
There's no real science behind it.
So, it depends on the situation and how you manage it.
I'd like to summarize by showing you this map.
It's a map that show how much instruction
a child at age eleven receives around the world.
Not every country is in the data, but you can see that Thailand,
my beloved Thailand, is number 1 in this category
with almost 8 hours of instruction per day.
And it shows that the education system realizes that there's a problem.
But the natural response is to do more of what they're already doing.
So, you instruct more, you are more rigorous about testing.
So, I think it's normal for a struggling system
to respond this way.
But, it also shows that innovation doesn't happen automatically.
There's a great risk of all of these.
Opportunity will be missed.
So, it's a responsibility for all of us to create the awareness,
to make it actually happen.
And I'm very proud to be part of this process.
Thank you.
(Applause)