Connect the unexpected
DLD09 live
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Education: Jose Ferreira, Calvin Chin
dld· dld09· education - 0 comments
(all quotes only roughly verbal)
The panel:
Jose Ferreira (Knewton)
Calvin Chin (Qifang)Shai Reshef (University of People)
Alexander Olek (Phorms Schools)
Moderation: Simon Levene (Accel)I will concentrate on Jose Ferreira and Calvin Chin while my co-blogger Thomas will feature the other panelists. (link to his post follows)
(I have massive problems hearing, sorry,a s soon as the battery is full I will move to the main room.)
Calvin Chin: We at Qifang are doing Peer-to-Peer student loans in China. [There was something about t-shirts that I did not get.]
Jose Ferreira: We do a online video platform and enrich that with textbook editors content. (Knewton)
Education costs about 4.3% of global GDP. 15% of the global population is involved in education as a teacher or student.
(I am in the main room now.)
Shai Reshef: The problem for teaching online is that the teachers are still oriented towards 'teacher speaks , everyone listens'. For some students this is great but many students would prefer to 'rewind and listen again', talk to peers, read books, have study groups or others. This is possible online.
Calvin Chin. It is not about the students, it's about the content. Other forms of learning need facilitators and this cannot be well delivered online.
Calvin: Maybe I hope hat in 20 years with computing and access to the Internet there will be access for the 'pyramid'. Maybe you can teach basic knowledge that way.
Jose: I don't think that replacing classical teaching with computers is good. we need both. But we mainly need to make the teachers better. The access problem cannot be solved in the schools. But we can take the top teachers and professors and connect them and make them accessible to inner city school kids.
Jose: In 20 years we will have fewer schools with fewer but better schools and a blended model with maybe also holographic technology. The best teachers will be 'broadcast' to neighboring districts.
Calvin: The transition from this 'legacy system' will be gard. How do you move to fewer teachers and broadcasting?
Aleksander: That is political work. Pay teachers better. We need to flush out the old generation and bring in the ones that use online tools. We broadcast lessons and have an assistant in the other classroom - if there is no one present nothing is learned. Without (direct) human interaction there is no learning. Live teachers motivate, the knowledge can be fed online.
Jose Ferreira: Nobody is intrinsically motivated to learn a multiplication table by heart.
Calvin: I agree with your zero-learning thesis. But as tools get better we we might improve that factor.
Aleksander: All online learning attempts are stillborn. But we have found a way to teach teachers how to be better teachers.
?: What about non- and for-profit models? Is money the factor? Is the student the customer or partents or the government?
Jose: (very short statement, missed sorry)
Calvin: Profit makes sense for tertiary education. But education is a human right, so for the 5 to 7 year old it is not a good solution.
?: Show us a glimpse of the future.
Jose: I'd take the OLPC-initiative, they have paved the way and others try now to develop similar programs, like Microsoft and Intel. Maybe a OLPC-Kindle hybrid that would not need electricity would be helpful.
Calvin: The most interesting thing online is Google. This is how you learn: by searching, by queries.
?: What is the role of education in the 21st century? What are the new competencies? Innovation? Teamwork? Publishing? Does this have to start in kindergarten? Preventing teachers and students from participating is a sin.
Calvin: In China many are consumers of technology, many are not trained to be publishers and producers. education has to focus on the needs of the many. (?)
?: If teachers are empowered by technology, how do we prevent 'false learning' for a whole generation?
Aleksander: We have to take it slow.
Calvin: If change is fast feedback will have to be fast, too.
Jose: Sometimes feedback can be also almost instant. There is analysis possible of homework that directly is used to decide what you work on the next week.
January 27, 2009
11:45 AM