The Digital Blue Yonder - what's on the digital horizon for education and how might we harness it?

Over the last six months I have been delivering variations of the above presentation, looking at what I believe to be the biggest disruptors (and enablers) on the digital horizon. 

The presentation begins with the well worn introduction to Moore's Law and covers off a myriad of examples of technology that has continued to double in speed and processing power whilst reducing in size and cost. This is then reinforced by an excerpt from Kaila Corbin's Introduction to Exponentials from the Christchurch Singularity U Summit where she deftly describes the concept of doubling curves and the inability for human brains to actually comprehend such a bonkers rate of change. What I particularly like about this presentation was the way she paints this visual of such an extreme acceleration of change it paints a vertical line, the only problem is we, as humans, standing on the horizontal part of the continuum, tend look back and only see the gentle incline that got us to this point in history, blithely unaware that we are literally backing into a rate of change that will blast us Space X style into the stratosphere. As much as we might like to comfort ourselves that technological change will always be a matter of evolution, there is much on the horizon that suggests it may be more akin to a revolution. 

We are sitting in an interesting space in education. On one hand we are hearing messages about the potential for AI Machines to replace teachers in as little as 10 years, and then on the other hand, we look around and see many secondary schools that have barely evolved (particularly in terms of physical spaces, timetables and subject offerings) in the last 20 or 50 years. It is for this very reason that I believe teachers and schools are being lulled into a false sense of security, not really believing there is a need to change....much. Not only are teachers potentially risking being blindsided, they are also potentially missing out on the benefits that these technologies can provide both them and more importantly, their students.

So, irregardless of where we might sit on the digital-loving-kool-aid-drinking-continuum at present - what is on the horizon that may disrupt education and more importantly might enhance it?

AI (Artificial Intelligence) Machines would be my number one. Most of us will have heard of IBM's Watson which is an AI platform for business which was first designed as a question-answer computing system that could answer questions posed in natural language for the express purpose of beating humans at the quiz show Jeopardy. Not only did the computing system beat the humans, it also provided a computing platform that would transform how we process and utilise information and learning. Consider this, according to John Rennie, Watson can process 500 gigabytes, the equivalent of a million books, per second. This processing power is now being applied to all kinds of jobs and processes. For example IBM Watson is working the American Cancer Society to create a virtual cancer advisor, using it's unprecedented processing power to deliver personalised care to cancer sufferers.  IBM Watson and Sesame Workshop are collaborating to combine Watson’s cognitive computing with Sesame’s early childhood expertise. Using Watson's vast processing power to design powerfully personalised learning within a early childhood setting.

And this isn't just some 'American thang', in New Zealand we have incredibly exciting examples of AI being used in the business and learning sphere. Soul Machines is an Auckland based company who are designing "artificial humans" that bring a human face to the AI technology. Air New Zealand already has Sophie the AI assistant, NatWest UK are also testing their first AI banking assistant. Imagine what this might look as a teaching assistant? This is a question that could be closer to being answered than we might think, particularly when you consider the exciting development of the, just this week launched, Amy the AI Maths Tutor. Like Soul Machines, Amy is another piece of the AI puzzle being developed out of Auckland and picked up around the world. Amy the AI Maths tutor uses AI software to provide Maths tutoring, getting to know the learner and their specific learning needs so as to provide just in time, personalised learning support. Consider the benefits as outlined on the homepage:

• Always online - Amy is there 24/7 to help you learn whenever and wherever you need her
• Faster learning - Amy understands why you make mistakes so she only teaches you what you need to learn
• Real time feedback - Amy gives you feedback as you solve problems so you learn as you go and never get stuck again

Who wouldn't want this as a teaching assistant?! And it all designed to support the NZ Maths Curriculum and NCEA (note - the breadth of this is a work in progress) and at present is completely free for NZ teachers and students. Developer Raphael Nolden is very clear in his intent for this technology to simply support classroom teachers, however I do think the Maths teacher who is still wed to a dusty text book should be warned, you can either embrace such gifts or risk being made redundant. I don't think any teacher, who develops meaningful learning relationships with their learners and delivers engaging creative courses, is at risk of being replaced by these AI Machines, I do however suspect such technologies may have the unintended consequences of sorting the wheat from the barely-teaching chaff!

My second big ticket item in the disrupt and enhance digital developments is the growing availability of online micro-credentials. Micro-credentials (online micro or small credentials or certifications) are not a new concept, in fact online certificates and MOOCs (mass open online courses) have been providing distinctly average online learning opportunities for some time now. What is changing is the quality of these courses and also the way in which these courses are now beginning to be recognised as part of more formal assessment frameworks. Just last year NZQA kicked of the 'Micro-credential pilot' working with three providers (Audacity, Otago Polytechnic and Young Enterprise Scheme) to offer three online micro-credentials that will be recognised as part of NCEA (The YES certificate contributes 24 credits at Level 3 on the NZQF that can be used toward NCEA) or even recognised by NZQA as the equivalent of Masters. From the NZQA website:

Udacity's Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree is a micro-credential that has been assessed by the NZQA for the purposes of this pilot as equivalent to a 60 credit package of learning at Level 9 (Masters Level) on the New Zealand Qualifications Framework (NZQF).

On one level you might say, so what, but think again, what if there was a whole suite of micro-credentials that would allow learners to gain NCEA or beyond with setting foot with a bricks and mortar school?? My personal dream, as outlined in an earlier blogpost, is exactly how I would love see high stakes assessment happen albeit with learners still seeing the value of learning with a school environment - that's if those AI Machines aren't also out-teaching us! Personally I don't see this as a threat to schools and teachers, rather I think both online micro-credentials  and AI Machines might just be a way of addressing teacher workload whilst also supporting greater personalisation and pathways for our learners. And quite frankly, if an AI Machine is more engaging and better at forming  relationships with our learners than we are, we probably need check our career choice! I will however jump at the chance of having an AI assistant if it means I can better meet the needs of increasing complex and diverse learning needs.

Other developments worth mentioning are virtual and mixed reality. Whilst these seem, for the most part, to be ensconced in the land of entertainment, the increasingly sophisticated experiences now available at a fraction of their original cost thanks to the likes of Google Cardboard means virtual reality as an educational tool is quickly becoming democratised. Multi-player virtual reality gaming is growing quickly in both popularity and sophistication. It is not hard to imagine how multi-player VR zombie killing games might quickly evolve into rich and immersive learning experiences.

Also, it is worth noting the impact that the Digital Technologies curriculum may have on the learners who will be arriving in secondary school classrooms in the coming years. Particularly when we consider that learners from as young as five will be designing and developing digital outcomes. What will be their expectations as to what learning will look like by the time they reach high school. I believe we are already seeing young people taking massive steps backwards in both levels of engagement and creativity when they set foot in high school. What will this look like when they are also engaged in creating increasingly sophisticated digital outcomes?

So what will be the impact of this level of disruption if and when it does happen? What will be the value proposition of “bricks and mortar” schools when students can genuinely learn anywhere, anytime and gain their qualifications independent of schools?

Basically, I think we need to focus on what humans do well, connecting with learners and developing warm and demanding learning relationships with our students. We also need to focus on the skills (and yes, the knowledge) that really matters:

• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by Influence
• Agility and Adaptability
• Initiative and Entrepreneurship
• Effective Oral and Written Communication
• Assessing and Analyzing Information
• Curiosity and Imagination

I also think we need to future proof our schools by ensuring they are as relevant and as engaging as possible. Creating a physical space where we can support learners face to face whilst embracing the very best that technology has to offer. This might include:

• One to one devices with an open Internet
• Spend more time doing less.
• Connected interdisciplinary learning.
• Large scale long term   project learning.
• Home rooms with academic and personal coaching.
• Secondary schools move from teaching subjects to coaching young people through their learning journey.

In terms of how we might personally prepare for what is likely to come, I think we need to do what the best educators have always done. Be open, curious and critical. Keep abreast of digital developments and be open to testing and trialling tools and interventions, curating and collecting the best for enhancing and supporting teaching and learning any way that we can. We need to also recognise the power for what is on the 'digital horizon' to help teachers, alleviating workload issues and helping us to personalise learning in real time. 

I would love to know your thoughts. What do you think are the most likely digital developments to disrupt education in the coming years? And what do you think we need to do to ensure it enhances rather than replaces what we do in classroom?

You can also view the full presentation here (as delivered to AUT lecturers at SOTEL): 

http://ondemand.aut.ac.nz/Mediasite/Play/0b776ad969754281ac2dc4b4cab52fe91d

Related blogposts include: 

Teaching as Inquiry: A mechanism for leading meaningful and manageable pedagogical change (and integrating Digital Technologies)

Amplifying best practice with BYOD and Google Classroom (or any online platform)

Blue Sky High - five things every secondary school should implement...now

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#SUNZSUMMIT - What I learnt from attending SingularityU and what I reckon it means for education in NZ

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Earlier this week (Mon-Wed) I was lucky enough to attend the inaugural SingularityU NZ Summit in Christchurch. Since then (Thurs-forever) my brain has a been a whirl as I have tried my best to understand and appreciate exactly what it is I learned and heard at the event. The saying "the more you know, the more you know you don't know" kept coming to mind. I went in to the event fairly confident I was abreast technological developments, what was in store and what that meant for education. I came away from his event patently aware that whilst I am relatively aware of technological developments, my knowledge really only skipped across the surface like a skittery ol' skipping stone and my understanding of the impact it is going to have on education was way short - I need to stop thinking Blue Sky High and need to start thinking Intergalactic Intelligence Building!

The SingularityU NZ website describes the event as bringing "the world’s top speakers and experts on exponentially accelerating technologies together with New Zealand's and Australia's leaders of today and tomorrow, giving us the knowledge and insight we need to compete — and win — in an exponentially changing world." Basically, think a future-focused TEDx on steroids and you will get the idea.

As someone who has the attention span of a flea or truly worried about the format, I would probably rather perform a bit of at home dentistry rather than sit through 20 lengthy TED type talks, but somehow, the format worked...maybe it was something in that tasty and ridiculously healthy cuisine they kept feeding us...and the free coffee certainly helped. I came away from the event with my brain absolutely stuffed full with new learning and with an appetite to learn more and more importantly to ACT!

Moore's Law
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The first day was all about setting the scene and ensuring each and everyone of use understood the concept of exponential change and what the ramifications of this change will be for every one of us. Kaila Corbin (who made this event happen), kicked us off with lesson in exponential change. Exponential change was often exemplified by the concept of Moore's Law which is based on Intel founders prediction that computing power would double in power every year and would half in price and size (or something like that) and thereby providing a handy example that is symbolic of the exponential technological change we are experiencing. Moore's Law is something that I have often quoted, so whilst this wasn't a new concept, what I did take away from Kaila's talk was the realisation about how the vast majority view the trajectory of development and resulting change. If you look at the graph at the top and imagine you are standing on the "you are here" dot and looking backward. The slope is insignificant, and by looking back, there is nothing to suggest that the trajectory will change, thereby lulling us into  the notion of gentle change, change that can make you feel like you a skipping through a field of daisies, the change is visible, at times its exciting and other time's pretty disappointing in it's glacial nature. However if you turn around and look forward, with a knowledge of the principles that underpin exponential change, you are hit, smack bam in the face by a sudden acceleration that results in a trajectory that appears damn near vertical! Unprepared, and it could feel like chaos, more prepared, I reckon you might more likely experience amazement and ultimately be more ready benefit from the down right bonkers rate of change.

Along with this intro to exponential change and many examples of it (think Uber, Tesla, Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence) the first day also set the scene for ensuring we approach all this technical whizz-bangery with empathy and ethics. Basically we can use all of this stuff for bad and selfish means, or we can use these developments for the good of humankind, as Nathaniel Calhoun asked us - what impact do you want to make on society?

The three days were jam-packed with lightbulb moments and technological takeaways. There is no way I can do it justice here, so here are just a few that stuck with me:

"Re-spect abundance... If you look again you might see that there enough resources for everybody" - Tiago Mattos stressed the idea that whilst we might have been plundering our Earth's resources that if we harness technology in a positive way it can lead to abundance for all.

"Technology allows us to be more human" - David Roberts flipped the notion of us all being bereft as a result of being replaced by robots in our workplace, we can see it as an opportunity to be freed from tedious repetitive jobs and to have more time. Of course that does also beg the question asked by Kathryn Myronuk - what will life look like when 80% of our work is automated? And I kept thinking how will we then make money? I keep clinging to the rather romantic notion that this may lead to a modern day renaissance...just don't ask me how we will fund it.

There were other less scary concepts to think about, I particularly like the idea of bitcoin and blockchain and the way that it allowed for things like mircopayments, allowing to bypass advertisers and companied to simply pay micro amounts, say 10c, to read an article. "Imagine our browser had digital currency built into it. A simple click & a micropayment goes directly to the original creator." said Mandy Simpson. Imagine how this could allow for individuals to flourish by cutting out giants such as Amazon or Facebook. 

There was also a lots (and I mean A LOT) of talk about self-driving and electric cars, this was combined with Uber and the concept of "uberisation". Basically the message was that we will all be in driverless, electric cars before we know it, and we will probably access vehicles as and when we need them. As stated by Amin Toufani, it will be about "access instead of ownership". Brad Templeton warned that we should not underestimate the level of disruption electric/driverless cars will cause - "Ownership, parking, real estate, energy, retail, food, medical… Just some of the industries self-driving cars will disrupt".

Health was another area that will see massive disruption. Raymond McCauley terrified and excited us with the potential impact of biohacking - "By 2022, sequencing a human genome will be cheaper than flushing a toilet. That’s so cheap it’s almost free". Basically stating that in less than 10 years our ability to "fix" by sequencing human genomes will be a viable option for many. If you could produce a child that was immune to influenza, immune to HIV, could be born without Downs Syndrome, would you do it?? I experienced massive internal ethical debates after this session. We also heard from Michael Gillam about the potential for exponential improvement of health advice around the corner, with the use of IBM's Watson in medicine we have "not just the mind of one doctor taking care of you, but the minds of 7 billion doctors taking care of you".  Now that's got to be better than my one vaguely interested GP.

And of course it kept coming back to the idea that all of this technological can do damage or can do good, depending on how we, the humans, harness it. As Ramez Naam so eloquently (and terrifyingly) stated - "We’re in a race - how fast we screw up our planet and how fast we innovate with these new technologies".

So what does this all mean for education?

Well for one, I feel like each and every session reinforced that we as a nation are doing one of two things:

The first group are sticking their heads in the sand by thinking that education (and probably everything else) won't or doesn't really need to change. Think back to that early image I created where people were standing on the "we are here" dot looking backwards. These are the people in education who protect the status quo, who think BYOD, makerspaces and a bit of coding will equip our young people for gently evolving future. And I fear A LOT of our schools are exactly in this place and space.

The second group of people are pretty much who I have been hanging with (up until I attended this pesky event ;-), a growing number of educators who are trying new approaches, enjoying Blue Sky High thinking. They are the schools exploring knocking down walls, exploring project based learning, integrated studies, self-directed learning time, STEM and STEAM initiatives. These are the educators who are aware that the world is changing and who are exploring innovation from within the still largely traditional enabling constraints of our primary and secondary schools. An increasing number of educators are in this space and this is exactly where we need to be....for now.

What I now realise is that second scenario is a good one for the very short term only. It is a scenario that relied on the idea of a qualified teacher being optimal, a physical school being necessary and the notion of a localised curriculum and qualification being relevant. After the three days at SingularityU I now no longer believe any of these things can be relied on as a "enabling constraint" for more than the next 10 years, 15 max. Sue Suckling (Chair of NZQA) set the scene when she stated - "The day of the qualification is over. The era of verification is coming". Now when the CHAIR of NZQA states that the very idea of a qualification is numbered we need to sit up listen. Consider this. One of the main reason children attend school until 18 (aside from it's obvious appeal as a free baby-sitting service) is to gain a qualification. What if the whole concept of a localised curriculum and qualification disappeared, would there be the same compulsion to remain in school? Combine that with the reality that access to the Internet and increasingly engaging, sophisticated online learning options become available we are no longer going to be able to lure students in by our ability to teach them anything they can't get online. And I am not just talking hokey MOOCs and Khan Academy, I am talking training with NASA experts and leaders from all fields from across the world. Who knows what the future holds when you combine this with AI and VR. You could be walking around NASA, learning alongside astronauts from the comfort of your home. And basically you can translate this to any field.

At one point during the summit I had an absolute lightbulb moment. Here we are with people stressing about local educational developments - how we can evolve NCEA, sticking antiquated exams online, worrying that COOLs will bring about terrifying change. And all we are doing is panicking about the sideshows, getting distracted by the local developments. We are standing on that "we are here" dot, kidding ourselves that the gentle incline we are standing on will continue ahead of us. If we use the "horse to cars" analogy, I can't help feeling we are painting wings on a pony when we should be building a freakin' Tesla. We need to be thinking beyond the bricks and mortar and the local curriculum and qualification and start thinking about how we can harness each and every learning opportunity beyond our classroom walls, whether it be out in a forest, in a local business or in a virtual landscape. We need to think about how we can completely revise this concept of a school or at least this concept of a physical school. As Jane Gilbert often reminds me, we need to come back to the big question of "what is education for?" and go from there. I was only half joking when I tweeted the following:

But seriously, if we want to do this thing and we want education (and educators) in NZ to be relevant beyond the 10-15 year window we might have, we need start thinking outside the box and most definitely outside this thing we call school!

Innovation: doing the same things better

Disruption: doing new things that make the old things obsolete.

Basically our days of "innovation" being enough in education are numbered. I suspect we might experience disruption sooner than we think. Whether we want it or not. Let's stop seeing the "we are here" as a destination and recognise it for what it really is....a bloody exciting starting point!!

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