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Can Technology Change Education?

Added Dec 02, 2014 •

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tank volume  can technology change education I like you guys already so this is an image from the late sixties of a CDC plateau  and for some of you that may recognize that it's one of the first computer-assisted learning systems and ran on a Mainframe and it was delivering about 20 lessons I mean friend so big idea but perhaps not so big impact so certainly technology has changed tremendously in the last 50 + years  intervene many initiatives that have tried to use technology to change education some very visible like the one laptop for child but most would believe that technology has failed to meet some of the expectations I firmly believe that technology you can transform learning  I really believe it can I do know that there are few mitts and a few barriers about what it might take to change ocation my talk is about real life stories where technology has advanced education  my talk is about tree inspiring stories and three lessons where  amazing people with big dreams have Pioneer change and also about three lessons that we can take from these stories and apply them in our own backyards and in our communities but first I'm going to show you something so take a piece of paper you might have one and just draw two dots did this before backstage but you can do it now and we've learnt in Jama tree that the shortest distance between two dots is a straight line of course you know I have a different answer here  so what you can do is when you bend the rules you've been the the paper the dots are now actually touching each other and the shortest distance between these two dots is when you touch them together so that's the metaphor for my stories when you change the thinking you can change the rules we can change the solution know maybe you were expecting a magic sleight of hand I didn't get the Applause I'm dishing light but I called this the magic of thinking right so I think it's an amazing way to say when we change our thinking we can actually change the so what are the popular myth is that Big Dreams need big budgets in a 50 years ago the big dream was let's put turn on the moon and certainly we spent a lot of money getting a man on the moon and that sort of conditions are thinking about Big Dreams need big budget we certainly see that in the media every day  what is the same context of the Space Program here's a story of Apollo 13 where we had three astronauts Jim Lowe  Jack swigert and Fred Hi-C on another mission to the moon but an equipment malfunction created a crisis and came the mess turn the ship Houston we have a problem all the money in the world and all the resources in the world could not reach out to these three men in space the situation that was created was work with what you have and necessity created Innovation and these three men were able to return sleep back to Earth and there's a common analogy there  too many dissolution around education be more spending  and I'm here to share with you a story that says it's not about all increase spending I've looked at quite a few of months of data a lot of surveys and the one I grabbed here for you is a surgery that talks about education spending in case 12 on a per-student basis and the survey includes education spending from about 25 plus countries and somewhere at the top we have the you states where we spend about $10,000 or more per student per year and at the bottom of the chart and I know tonight shark it's not easy to see is Turkey the country of and they spent just over about $1,000 a year per student per year and for the people that say well you know the daughter is a different well it's actually also represented as a percentage of GDP rights or trying to make sure that you know purchasing power and currencies don't really that's early are you know are changing DJ to my feet so you know spending is the answer and we all know and I'm not you to suggest that we should not spend more but the story I'd like to share with you is the story that comes from turkey and it's an amazing story so let's play the video please so I think this Firefly project the mobile learning in the project and turkey actually teaches a valuable lesson in a great insight and that is Tech you can change how we do school some more than 1.6 million children that are getting access to learning that didn't have access from learning before and that's being transformed because of technology so what it teaches me is you can actually dream big and make a big impact you and me don't have a lot of money I think that's the lesson away from here so you can achieve a lot with small amounts of money if you think careful get her to spend it  II MEF I want talk about is  the mess that for us we already have technology in our schools we have computers in our schools you don't have a problem we have some computers in that classroom we may have some computers and computer labs not in my own backyard in Silicon Valley I see that's not the case I see the traditional classroom I see the four walls of the classroom I see the teacher at The Head of the Class stage at the stage  and instructions being delivered in a race standard way to students  so I believe that even in today World we're pretty much delivering learning just like we did when we didn't have computers because nothing really much has changed and what's needed we have to tear down the Walls we have to tear down the Walls the classroom and we can make that possible with technology where we can use Blended learning to deliver a mix of different types of learning to kids  can I have the story from this small school district in Moraga California Elementary Schools one middle school and Moraga School District worked with their budget didn't have a lot of it they work with their budget and they look for low-cost computing turn on a cheese and they were able to get them deployed so you could create a one-to-one learning environment and that learning environment both teachers and who does work together and in my opinion Blended learning is where you get the bows the best of both teachers and technology and just look at these images you've got children doing customized learning the connection you learn what they want to learn they can learn at their own pace  you can see much better collaboration between kids you can also see a much higher engagement and serve me I think kids today are much more tuned into using technology so by using technology you can transform the learning in the classroom especially when you go for a one-to-one teachers some of them feel that technology made deep personalized learning experience  but what we have found is that almost the opposite that it immensely personalizes the teaching experience and a teacher can go from being the sage of the stage to a guide by the site you can actually transform the role of the teacher to become a coach working closely with students as they need help they can really reconnect with their main purpose of being learning Masters and not necessarily worry about being haunted so technology can really change how we do school as we start to integrate technology into the into the school into the classroom not just in the supplement laugh the kids might see maybe 30 minutes a week or 30 minutes a day answer the second lesson that I have learned is technology can change how we do school and one of the ways you can do that is if you integrate technology into the classroom not just as a supplementary thing and when you focus on the student Destiny just on the teachers when you focus in the students I need look at student-centered learning make more options available the students are more engaged and the teacher's role is transform and it turns out to be actually better for both so you can really unlock the power of certain Centric learning but technology  deferred method talk about is  you know people may believe if only I had this great widget this great technology then it will solve everything and that usually end pleading this mistake which I call the hunger for Tech candy we all like candy and we see this great candy and you know maybe a few years ago it was netbooks then who was IMAX then it was maybe some kind of a Ultrabook or a laptop or iPads and you know clearly these are great Technologies right they actually serve a great purpose but they turn out to be sometimes  either very expensive or possibly heart to scale  and that's what I want us to think about is it's it's not that I'm suggesting we should not have experiment we should not have Innovation I think what I'm suggesting is that we've got to think about how we can put the tech candy on a diet but really focus on me this available too many rather than a few so what are the things that will matter when I take a look at some kind of technology I can actually unable broad access it's my third story to you he is about the Richmond City School District in Virginia this is the school district that has 55 sides and 25000 students  students in the school district are living below the poverty level right there in a lot of ending that the school may get he's actually channel to help provide in a nutritious nutritional meals to the kids so there's not a lot of money left over for other things it also turns out that most of the kids don't have access to computers or technology at home so two people at the school Kinect commands a gardener and Cassandra Harris they work in it and they're really felt that the current situation was not tenable they have one or two computer labs and maybe a few computers in the classroom they really wanted to get more Computing in front of kids so they would have more access but they could where to buy few seeds so they looked at some low-cost Computing Technologies and there are quite a few different options out there and they decided to make them more available more pervasive so they were able to double the number of more than double the number of computer labs they were actually able to bring Computing and technology in the classroom and start to make a difference and what happened place as a result kids now had more access to get different kinds of learning available to them they had more ability to together with their with their peers with their with it with other classmates teachers were more integrated into that environment and they were able to help more he was also possible for kids to learn how to better in a run through an assessment so all variety of changes led to just an overall Better Learning environment but also creating an environment of federal Chief men and that was made possible because Cassandra and kabanza thought about turkey lesson which is how do we deliver this technology to and provide more access to many rather than a few lessons that I would like to share do you when I think about technology in the classroom and technology and education I see a much broader purpose a purpose of universal conductivity let me explain what I mean by that and I'll do that with an analogy in 1825 Louis Braille devised rail system 1825 the Blind and the visually impaired did not have access to the vast amounts of books and written knowledge after this was device the Braille system opened up a whole world of content information available so blind and visually impaired people could actually learn by themselves and be free and I please technology can play in a similar way of a similar role by making conductivity possible and make the conductivity possible to all these growing open learn the resources that are out there in the world today in the green by the day and this is what you'll allow kids to basically learn anytime anywhere where they a kid in Bend Oregon or kid in Hong Kong or kid in London so  three stories tree since it's what we do I believe that each one of you can make a big difference the question is how Urban Computing we are creating a community website this website has more than 30 stories we are working with more than 30,000 call Jean Abel schools around the world want you to do each one of you is to come and learn whether your apparent weather your teacher but that you're an administrator later  we want you to come and learn then we want you to come and share what you have learned and what might have been learned by a teacher let's see in Zambia reapplied in a school district summer else in the US or somewhere else around the world so what's working what's not working that can be shared in the community will actually try on then finally as we learning as we share we can bring the change back into our communities and ultimately do what we all want to do which is learning better for our children thank you

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