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for centuries this is what school for
most kids looked like
but in 2020 all that changed
the covid19 pandemic created the largest
disruption to education in modern
history as teachers scrambled to get
their classes online
and parents developed a new found
respect for their kids teachers no
that's not a that's an ex no this is an
act
but out of the disruption has come a
realization of technology's potential
to transform one of the most important
sectors for the future of the world
summer camp has long been a tradition
for american kids
wholesome weeks away in nature to focus
on sports or science or even space
this summer though there's a new camp
the copic ketchup camp
for students like these
when the pandemic hit their classes
switched to online
which wasn't easy
my pandemic school year was
chaotic i could just like kind of do
whatever i wanted because like the
teachers couldn't see me so like i'll be
eating in class sometimes falling asleep
you know i can share like the living
room my sister and her class was extra
loud i did not like zoom
some schools in san francisco were
closed for in-person learning for more
than a year
and so the city decided to lay on extra
summer classes for all public school
children
our children particularly our very poor
and low-income families all had a very
difficult time with distance learning
not because they didn't have the
technology or the equipment but because
they didn't have the support to stay
engaged in distance learning
nor the structure at home to provide
that support for them and so as a result
we very quickly came together and
created the summer together initiative
last year was a year of loss
and this summer we were determined for
this summer to be a year of recovery
by mid april of 2020 1.4 billion
students were out of school and
university across 190 countries
by the start of 2021
schools had been wholly or partly closed
for about two-thirds of an academic year
while office workers transitioned to
remote working fairly easily it was a
different story in schools
tamara jilks bohr is the economist's u.s
policy correspondent but she used to be
a teacher
when i heard that schools were shutting
down with maybe a day of notice
i just couldn't even imagine how i would
have picked up the pieces so quickly and
continue to teach my students
we barely had
enough working computers when i was a
teacher
while new technologies transformed
working life in many sectors education
has been notoriously slow to digitize
classrooms today looked the same as they
did decades ago
even though parents often say that they
want an innovative new type of education
for their children when they walk into
the classroom they often want to see the
things that they saw when they were
children so there's often pushback
against a new kind of education
and there was pushback from teachers too
many of whom were skeptical about
technology that didn't center on
face-to-face learning
in general education doesn't change much
because there's a high cost to being
wrong why change something up when the
alternative could be so much worse
but the pandemic sparked a tech
celebration in education as schools
rushed online 2.4 million learners in
america were given emergency internet
access
the british government handed out more
than a million devices to students
some schools even put wi-fi boosters on
buses and drove them around towns
as demand rocketed the edtech sector
responded designing apps and software to
aid teachers rather than replace them
once teachers had to
suddenly become virtual there was an
appetite to get better technology in the
classroom and then edtech had an
opportunity not only to serve those
customers but then they were able to get
even better user data and improve their
products for a unique subset which is
teachers in the classroom
the amount of money spent on edtech
globally is expected to double from
almost 200 billion dollars in 2019 to
more than 400 billion in 2025.
okay so today we are going to be
focusing on math so if you can
these students are getting a
personalized learning experience thanks
to an app on their laptops
the software is called century it was
created by priya lakani a former
barrister turned tech entrepreneur
so century is a blend of artificial
intelligence and machine learning
technology with neuroscience and
learning science the idea is that it can
personalize and differentiate for every
student no matter what age what course
what language and it can then use big
data analytics and provide educators
with instant insights you know deep
intervention insights as to what they
need to do at the point of time to help
to increase a student's outcome
on a teacher dashboard it will allow us
to see the children where they're at
how many nuggets they've completed and
their average score once we've done that
we can then go into a bit deeper and
find out what the nugget is they're
doing
how they've done on it what questions
they've got right where they're
struggling at if they've skipped any
question so we can really analyze that
data on your century priya created
century as a way of addressing the
problems she saw in the education sector
we were still delivering a very
one-size-fits-all education every child
deserves a personalized differentiated
experience but that's really really
really difficult nearly impossible to
provide in every educational setting
the second issue was that teachers spent
more than half of their time 60 percent
of their time micromarking
microassessing trying to do the admin
you know that was related to the
children and not actually spending most
of their time teaching
before we would have to spend hours and
hours marking we don't have to do that
now it shows us the data and we can see
whether it's green amber red we can see
where the children are working at and we
can then pick up on those points to help
the children
with children in britain already
spending on average almost four hours a
day online some may worry about
increased use of technology in the
classroom but lori davis reckons it's
crucial
although all children have a laptop
we are not on it all day every day we
manage what we are doing and we
implement it into our learning in a
blended learning approach at the end of
the day
every job out there now is using some
sort of computer so we need to lay those
foundations and if that is how ai
develops to give those children a better
future
then i'm excited about that journey
tech is also being used in an attempt to
revolutionize how teachers teach
so today you are going to be talking
with a group of five students
these trainees at the university of
virginia are practicing their lessons
not on children but on avatars
interested
in you know what life was like for the
boy
so when you're a teacher the first time
is really high stakes you're working
with real kids and you don't often get a
second chance to explain a complicated
math concept and so what these
simulations help us do
is give our beginning teachers the
chance to actually practice that and
then do it again once they've gotten
feedback
i saw you use a lot of talk moves in
probing the students thinking and this
is a pretty advanced kind of discussion
skill
the software is designed by tech company
immersion behind the scenes a digital
puppet master plays the role of the
children it's a good question
um you know what i'm going to say froot
loops i eat fruit loops every
day
but the developers of the software hope
that in future the avatars can be
programmed to think for themselves
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the pandemic has also raised questions
about whether children need to be taught
in a classroom at
all for twins julia and colin mise
technology has helped give them an
altogether different learning experience
they attend a virtual public school
are you taking british and world
literature
which provides them with the equipment
they need to learn remotely
so i'm taking a fine arts course so in
my box i have
clay
and
some
paint brushes and then some acrylic
color paint
julia moved to full-time remote learning
during the pandemic but colin was a
trailblazer switching to e-education in
2019
the environment of a one-on-one in
comparison to one on 30 is just a lot
nicer i have a lot more contact with my
teachers and the classes that are
offered is just so much more than what
is offered at the normal public school
like computer science for example i've
been able to take more classes that
interest me i think my grades have been
better so i probably will have a better
chance of getting into my dream colleges
a recent survey found that nearly a
third of american parents say it's
likely their child will continue with
remote learning indefinitely
it's unclear to what extent fear of
covet has influenced this decision but
roughly 20 percent of districts in
america are planning to offer some form
of virtual learning even after the
pandemic we can all agree that most
students do better when they're in the
classroom but for some students having
to do school remotely was a positive
some students have anxiety issues and it
was easier to work from home for example
okay so you have your classes here
for dad mike the technology also allows
him to keep better tabs on his kids
progress
and then you actually start
on wednesday
normal normal classes during the
pandemic many teachers told me that this
is the first time they've seen so much
parent engagement
and a lot of that is because
parents are home listening to the
lessons but also because they are
engaging technology that makes it easier
for parents to be up to speed
not all students can afford the space
and internet connection needed to study
online which means increased use of
remote learning risks widening the
digital divide
ultimately the barrier to success for
all edtech not just e-education is
financial
for edtech to be successful there needs
to be investment in the schools that
currently are under resourced there
needs to be
a push to
make sure that these schools have the
proper internet access the facilities
and everything else they need to be able
to properly function with edtech if that
doesn't happen then we will see
inequities
develop in the classroom and across
schools
the technology that education deserves
should be technology that is as advanced
if not more advanced than the technology
that is applied to the banking sector
and if you want that sort of technology
in the education sector then you're
going to have to create a model that
investors have an appetite for
the pandemic has made clear the vital
role played by teachers for many
students the best place to learn is in
the classroom
but technology can and will play a vital
role in aiding education
teachers are seeing the benefit of being
able to have a hybrid classroom and most
importantly they're seeing the skills
their students are gaining that they
wouldn't have had otherwise
and these are skills that i think we all
agree these students will need for the
future
if you are interested in learning more
about kovid and education click on the
link
thank you for watching and please don't
forget to subscribe
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