#FutureSchool - How AI, VR and Robots are transforming how children learn

Presentation given at the Middle East Schools Leadership Conference on Wednesday 10th October 2018

 

How Virtual Reality is transforming how children learn.

A presentation given at the COBIS annual conference on Sunday 13th May 2018 in London. The presentation tracks the journey of JESS Dubai through the four stages: Learning, Enhancing, Innovating and Disrupting.

 

#FutureSchool: How technology can help us educate the 263m children in the world who currently are not in education

The Challenge 

The greatest challenge in facing global education today is that there are an estimated 263 million children who are not in education (UNESCO Institute of Statistics Fact Sheet October 2016, No.39). Furthermore, the same report estimates that the world will need 3.3 million more primary school teachers and 5.1 million more lower secondary teachers by 2030 to meet future demand. 

The traditional model of one teacher taking a class of 20-30 pupils is unsustainable. 

What is clear from these projections that the traditional model of one teacher taking a class of 20-30 pupils is unsustainable – it is a luxury form of education which most societies cannot afford. We need to look for alternatives and, if we are to be successful, technology undoubtedly will have to have a large part to play. 

How Technology can make education more widely available 

Zero Marginal Cost 

One of the great advantages of digital technologies over traditional industrial models is that as a product becomes more widely available the marginal cost of producing additional units approaches zero. Compare, if you will, the costs associated with producing and distributing a print edition of a daily newspaper and a digital edition. For both formats there are a number of fixed costs (e.g. the salaries of the journalistic staff, the cost of running their offices etc.) However, for the print edition there are many more variable costs (e.g. more rolls of paper will be required to print more newspapers) which do not exist for the digital version. For the print edition there will always be an additional marginal cost of producing an additional newspaper; but it makes next to no difference if the newspaper distributes one digital copy or one million copies. We can apply the same principle to education: once a digital lesson has been produced, the marginal cost of distributing it around the world is almost zero. 

Online Learning Platforms 

Online learning programmes are becoming increasingly sophisticated. These platforms are driven by intelligent systems which promise to offer personalised learning experiences. Typically, the program ‘teaches’ a topic (through online videos and interactive exercises); then uses low-stakes testing to assess the student’s knowledge and understanding, high-lighting areas of strengths and weakness; before recommending which courses or units to do next. These platforms are still at a formative stage but there is no doubt that they have potential to be the true disruptor of education. As with all disruptive technologies they will initially be established at the margins of the educational sector, but, in time they will become accepted into the mainstream. 

Blended Learning Programmes 

There is little doubt that most Governments around the world will be attracted by online learning platforms in order to reduce the overall cost of education and to address concerns about teacher shortages. However, it must be recognised that schools fill other important social functions: they provide significant child care, thus releasing parents to participate in the work-force; they are places of socialisation, where young people learn to interact with each other and to become good citizens; and they ensure that all children within the system reach a minimum standard of education. It is very difficult to see how an education system that is wholly online will fulfil these functions at scale.

Blended Learning Programmes combine online learning with ‘brick-and-mortar’ education where the student attends a physical school with teachers so that there is a coherent programme of study. This combination of a traditional school experience with online learning has real potential to be the best of both worlds: providing a more cost-effective form of education which is more personalised than the present model, whilst maintaining the important social functions that schools fulfil. 

Remote Teaching and Virtual Reality Teaching 

One of the great benefits of the Internet is that we are now able to connect with people around the world typically through video-conferencing apps such as Skype or FaceTime. Communication technologies may also be harnessed by schools to allow ‘Remote Teaching’ i.e. live school lessons that taught by a teacher video-conferencing into the classroom. The problem with this is that it is difficult for a remote teacher to engage the pupils. 

360 Degree Camera in French Lesson
Virtual Reality Teaching

At JESS, Dubai we are taking this idea to the next level. ‘Virtual Reality Teaching’ (VRT) has the potential to allow children in Calcutta to feel as if they are in a classroom at JESS, Dubai. Earlier this year, we conducted a “proof-of-concept” test of VRT aiming to give students an immersive experience of being in a classroom, rather than passively watching a video-conferencing screen. This involved putting a 360-degree camera in the second row of a classroom and running a live stream to a classroom next door where three students wearing VR headsets ‘participated virtually’ in the lesson. The experience was so real that the pupils found themselves putting up their hand to answer the teacher’s questions! (A video of the experiment is on the JESS Digital YouTube Channel.) We are confident that it is only a matter of time before students will be able to attend class at JESS remotely via VTC. 

Robots and Supporting Personalised Learning 

Technology is doing to have its greatest impact in personalised learning by making highly specialised support more widely available. A great example of this is the way in which robots are being used to deliver lessons in a way that promotes engagement in learners with Autism. The Robots4Autism project which has built Milo, a humanoid robot, can walk, talk and even model human facial expressions; and never gets frustrated or tired. Milo helps these learners improve their social and behavioural skills and thus to gain the confidence to succeed academically and socially. 

Final Remarks 

New technology has promised for the past thirty years that it will entirely transform education and I suspect that it will be a number of years before it delivers on that promise. However, there is huge potential here to get much closer to educating those 263m children who presently are not able to go to school.

This article was written for the Edarabia Network

The Digital #FutureSchool - Automation, Innovation, Disruption

A Presentation given at the ISC Digital Strategy Group Conference held at Microsoft, Reading on 30th November 2017

 

How top schools can help educate the 263m children in the world who are not in education.

Interview about how top schools can use new technologies, such as Virtual Reality teaching and Blended Learning, to educate some of the 263m children who are not in education.

 

Interview at the HMC Annual Conference in London, 04/10/2017

How “Virtual Reality Teaching” could help educate the world.

The Challenge 

One of the greatest challenges for Education in the Twenty-first Century is that there is an ever-increasing divide between the demand for learning and the supply of schooling. This is seen most obviously in the global shortage of teachers, but it extends to the dearth of school leaders, and to the unavailability of schools themselves.
 According to UNESCO (Institute of Statistics, 2013), there are currently 263 million children not in education and the world will need 3.3 million more primary teachers and 5.1 million more lower Secondary teachers by 2030. These statistics demonstrate that we are failing millions of young people. Our current model of teaching with a specialist standing in front of a class of 20-30 pupils is inefficient and unsustainable. We need to find a way to bring education to all. There is no easy answer to this problem, but I believe that “Virtual Reality Teaching” will be part of the solution.

Virtual Reality in the Classroom 

Most are familiar with Virtual Reality (VR) – it is transforming the Gaming industry and it is now finding its way into classrooms around the world. The technology is simple: it works very much in the same way that enabled a previous generation of children to enjoy 3D images through a Viewmaster. The headset projects a slightly different image to each eye, which gives a 3D effect. As the viewer moves his head to the left and right, the image moves giving a strong feeling of being in situ. By turning around, the viewer can see what is behind him; by looking up he can see what’s above him-it’s ‘real’!

What makes Virtual Reality different? 

The greatest difference between VR and, say, watching a DVD is that VR is an active rather than a passive process. It feels like the real experience. Because the viewer is controlling where he looks and what he focuses on, this inevitably leads to greater engagement. Indeed, Virtual Reality allows the user to experience what is going on in a way that feels authentic.

Personalised Learning 

At JESS, Dubai, we use VR extensively in our Primary schools to take children on virtual school trips traveling around the world, back in time and even into space. In the past few weeks at Year 5 have met some ancient Egyptians, Year 4 have been to London, Foundation 2 travelled to Mars and Year 6 went to Ancient Greece. The children ‘felt’ what it was like to be there and the experience helped them to develop mature responses at a significantly deeper level than would ever be possible from watching a video. Possibly the greatest strength of VR is that the experience is personalised – the child is in control of the experience, he can go at his own pace, choosing to look at what he wants, taking time to look for detail, moving on only when ready.

From Virtual Reality to Virtual Reality Teaching 

I believe that Virtual Reality technology is more than just the latest in the long line of technologies which can be harnessed by teachers to help them make their classrooms come alive. It has the potential to be the “disruptor” of education providing access to some of the best teaching in the world to millions of children who are currently not in education.

Proof of Concept: “Virtual Reality Teaching” 

“Virtual Reality Teaching” (VRT) has the potential to allow children in Calcutta to feel as if they are in a classroom at JESS, Dubai. Earlier this year, Steve Bambury, the Director of Innovation and Digital Learning at JESS, conducted a “proof-of-concept” test of VRT. We aimed to give students an immersive experience of being in a classroom, rather than passively watching a Video Conferencing screen. This involved putting a 360-degree camera in the second row of a classroom and running a live stream to a classroom next door where a student wearing a VR headset “participated virtually” in the lesson. The experience of the remote student was not perfect, there was a time delay and some buffering, but he felt like he was in the classroom. This has the potential to be revolutionary. The technical processor speed and network bandwidth issues will be resolved sooner rather than later in accordance with the inexorable progress of Moore’s Law. We are confident that it is only a matter of time that students will be able to attend class at JESS remotely.

“Virtual Reality English Language Teaching” 

The English Language teaching sector is a significant part of the global education industry. According to the British Council figures there were 1.5bn people learning and speaking English in 2014 and it is estimated that this will increase to 2bn people (25% of the global population) by 2020. The Export revenue for the UK’s English Language Teaching (ELT) sector was estimated at £1.2 billion (US$1.74 billion) for 2014 (Source: ICEF Monitor, Feb 2016). The demand for English Language Teaching is only set to increase as English extends its influence as the lingua franca. Virtual Reality Teaching is likely to become an important way in which learners will be able to gain access to the best teachers and interact with native speakers. Potential investors would be well advised to target the Far East in the first instance as this region is quick to embrace new technologies and already is an established market for English Language teaching.

Making “Virtual Reality Teaching” a Reality

"Virtual Reality Teaching" has enormous potential, but it will take more than a couple forward-thinking professionals in the UAE to make it happen. Technological development will have to combine with a robust educational pedagogy. We have a long way to go. 

I suspect that the technological development will come from Oculus, the leading VR company owned by Facebook. Understandably, having recently become a father, Mark Zuckerberg is becoming interested in education and he has the resources to make this vision happen. It is perhaps fitting that he then has the last word: 

“After Games, we’re going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a courtside seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world, or consulting a doctor face-to-face – just by putting on your goggles at home.” 

This article was written for the English Language Gazette.