Keynote given at Northampton University on 2011-09-01 by invitation of Adrian Pryce for the schools 2020 visioning session.

This document has a Creative Commons license (CC-BY-SA), and can be used freely.

TECHNOLOGY & EDUCATION

Michell Zappa
michellzappa.com
Were here today to talk about the intersection between technology and education. And I gured that since you guys are the experts on education, let us start with a quick primer on technology and how it behaves.

Who am I?

Last updated: 2011-03-29

meeting people is easy Optogenetics Artificial limbs Swarm robotics Utility fog Exoskeletons UAVs Regenerative medicine Domestic robots Stem-cell treatments

(biofeedback)

Reversal of aging

Programmable matter

Synthetic meat

Nanowires

ROBOTICS

Self-driving vehicles

Vertical agriculture Interplanetary internet Personalized medicine

Carbon nanotubes

Smart cities

Telemedicine Smart toys

BIOTECH

Molecular assembler Intelligence Amplification Biomaterials

MATERIALS
HAPs Biomarkers Semantic web Smart infrastructure Linked data NFC Appliance robots Cermets Memristor Print on demand Metamaterials Self-healing materials Machine translation

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

(CONNECTIVITY)
5G Cloud computing Cyberwarfare Sensors PAN Virtual currencies 4G Virtual property Pervasive video Electronic paper ACRONYMS 3D 4G 5G AR HAP NFC NUI PAN PGS SPIME UAV VASIMR 3D screens and cameras Fourth gen cellular wireless (WiMAX, LTE) Fifth gen cellular wireless Augmented Reality High Altitude Platform Near Field Communication Natural User Interface Personal Area Networks Personal Gene Sequencing An object that can be tracked through space and time Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket Immersive 3D projections Retinal screens Smart clothing Machine vision Fabricembedded screens SPIMES Picoprojectors

INTERNET

Social graph

PGS

3D printing High-frequency trading

Medical diagnostics Natural language interpretation

Space elevator

2025 +

2015 2025

2011 2015

now
(2011)
Tabs & Pads Multi touch Gesture recognition All media on demand

Private spaceflight

2011 2015

Software agents

2015 2025
Space tourism

2025 +

Fuel cells Smart meters Inductive chargers Gamification of media

Ultracapacitors

Bio-enhanced fuels

Multi-segmented smart grids VASIMR Superconducting interties

SPACE

Boards

3D AR

ENERGY
Speech recognition Procedural storytelling

Lunar outpost Nanostructure battery cathodes

UBICOMP
(HARDWARE) (SOFTWARE)
Holography

MEDIA NUI
Haptics Photovoltaics Piezoelectricity Thorium reactors Traveling wave reactor Nanogenerators Kinetic Nuclear

Location-aware media

Photvoltaic glass

Biomechanical harvesting

Telepresence Solar thermal

Artificial photosynthesis Solar

Skin-embedded screens

I recently published zappa@gmail.com Contact me: michell a visualization of a few dozen key technologies I think will be important in the Follow me: @mz upcoming decade.
BY SA

Learn more: michell zappa.com

Telemedicine Smart toys

BIOTECH

assembler

Biomaterials

MATERIALS
Biomarkers Semantic web Linked data NFC Appliance robots Cermets Memristor Print on demand Metamaterials Self-healing materials

ARTIFIC INTELLIGE

(CONNECTIVITY)

INTERNET

Social graph Cloud computing Cyberwarfare

PGS

3D printing High-frequency trading

Natural language interpretation Private spaceflight

2011 2015
Sensors PAN Virtual currencies 4G Virtual property Pervasive video Electronic paper Picoprojectors

now
(2011)
Tabs & Pads Multi touch Gesture recognition All media on demand

2011 2015

Software agents

Fuel cells Smart meters Inductive chargers Gamification of media

Ultracapacitors

Bio-enhanced fuels

Sp tou Multi-segmented smart grids

Boards

3D AR

Superconducting interties

ENERGY
Speech recognition Procedural storytelling

Nanostruc battery cath

SPIMES

UBICOMP
(HARDWARE) (SOFTWARE)
Holography

MEDIA NUI
Haptics Photovoltaics Piezoelectricity

Fabricembedded screens

Location-aware media

Photvoltaic glass

Biomechanical harvesting

It can be downloaded freely on my website.

Telepresence Solar thermal

ge

lothing Machine vision Immersive 3D projections

Artificial photosynthesis

What is technology?
What do you associate with technology? Cars? Airplanes? Mobile phones? The internet?

We usually think about technology in terms of its artifacts: robots, cars, phones, etc.

Technology, in fact, is everything that surrounds us. The wheel, agriculture, re, the book and money are examples of technologies we do not usually isolate as such.

Anything useful that we make is technology.

Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly knows what hes talking about. Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_tells_technology_s_epic_story.html

The other characteristic about technology is how its always progressing. A century ago, humanity had never even taken ight. Now, we take it for granted.

Same with medical imaging.

And also things we consider technologies, like video games.

2011

2006
CPU FSB RAM HDD Mpbs
But technology has this other interesting aspect. It grows relentlessly. You can ignore the numbers -- just look at the constant growth over time.

SPEED & STORAGE

These tend toward through exponential growth

COST & SIZE

And these tend tend asymptotically toward zero.

What allows YouTube to exist? The combination of: Ubiquitous cameras, cheap storage, fast processing, internet users everywhere, fast internet access. http://www.ickr.com/photos/dtimcarr/308240826/

48 hours of content uploaded every minute.

(As of May/2001) nearly 8 years of content uploaded every day Sources: http://www.mecmanchester.co.uk/blog/youtube-birthday.html http://www.youtube.com/t/press_statistics

While we avoid talking about specic gadgets, there is one elephant in the room...

The iPad is, however, an important exception to the rule of not looking at gadgets. It will inevitable make its mark on education, but in my opinion, it will mostly have a great impact on textbooks in the foreseeable future.

A rocket will never be able to leave the Earths atmosphere.

New York Times, 1936

Tech predictions are fundamentally awed and risky. Source: http://listverse.com/history/top-30-failed-technology-predictions/

THREE TECHNOLOGICAL DRIVERS

Social Learning Platforms

One to one

One to many

The face of education after the industrial revolution.

The one-to-many approach changed a bit with the web. But mostly by amplifying the many. Open Courseware (and its kin) is still fundamentally broadcasting knowledge.

Everyone is in on the game.

One to one

One to many

Many to many

I think the equation is changing with the advent of many-to-many. Where every student is a teacher.

Million students per month Pause, repeat, review Own pace, skip ahead Teacher overview panel Generate as many questions as the student needs. Until they get ten in a row.

2.200+ lessons 100.000+ views per day

Tons of examples of peer to peer learning. OpenStudy is all about receiving help from other students.

As is Udemy.

Livemocha is changing the face of language education. Learn from those already speak a different language -- and teach them a language you speak in return.

And if you question the validity of Open Courseware approaches, just look at Stanfords recent AI course.

Flip the classroom.

Flip the classroom: lectures are the new homework -- and classes are used for answering questions and doing work Transforming a system that has become industrial by necessity into a craft once again.

Personal Informatics

This is how we quantify ourselves today. Ranking, measuring, achievements.

Nike+

Nike+ has over 2.5m users, and can be credited to kicking off the personal informatics trend.

Philips DirectLife

Philips is in the game, with a device measuring all your exercise. http://www.directlife.philips.com/

Withings

Or how about measuring your weight and having the results uploaded to your phone in real time? It becomes a way of tightening the feedback loop between cause and effect. Between eating that extra bagel, and knowing you gained a few more pounds. http://www.withings.com/en/index/?taranim=1

Or track the quality of your sleep. http://www.myzeo.com/

The same thing is happening to education, of course. Grockit facilitates learning and test-prep by breaking down the problems into quantiable chunks. Track how well you are performing at every *aspect* of math. Not simply through a grade at the end of the term/test.

Algorithmic homework assignment

What happens when you leverage the trend in order to algorithmically assign more adequate homework assignments to the students?

Tighter feedback loops

This is not the way to develop a complicated skill. It would be like trying to master the violin, say, by going blind to a recital, having an expert tell you all the ways youve failed, and letting that gestate for a few weeks before your next recital. Equity in the feedback loop. Its a way to raise the bar for everyone.

Gamified learning
Or when you start gamifying the learning? Better rankings, better class overview, more incentives for the students to try harder.

Instant Information Retrieval

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can nd information on it.

The number of Google searches per day keeps going up. We are more than accustomed to having access to information at our ngertips. But comes after typing in queries into a computer?

Personal computing

Ubiquitous computing

Were surrounding ourselves with ever more gadgets. All interconnected and covered in smart sensors.

Google Goggles

So why have to look up the name of that bridge? Or who created that painting? Point your smartphone camera and have Google tell you. Its called reverse image search, and its frankly uncanny.

Google Voice Search

Speak your queries. Or have the phone listen in and proactively answer your questions (at some point in the future).

Word Lens

Realtime translations in your phone. You never have to get lost in a foreign culture again. Five dollars in the App Store.

Vicon Revue

Next step? Cameras everywhere. Wear one around your neck. http://www.viconrevue.com/index.html

Looxcie

Or one on your ear. (Already for sale).

Heads-up-displays are still a few years away -- but theyll come.

Wisdom Knowledge Information Data

Who teaches our kids to sift through the information ood? How do we learn to judge the value and validity of this torrent of data? Thats probably the role of the educators today.

Social Learning Platforms

Instant Information Retrieval

Personal Informatics

To recap...

FUTURE LITERACY & NUMERACY

What is the future of literacy?

65% of today's grade school

kids will end up at a job that hasn't been invented yet.

Source: United States Department of Labor: Futurework - Trends and Challenges for Work in the 21st Century We are currently preparing for jobs that dont yet exist, using technologies that havent been invented, In order to solve problems we dont even know are problems yet.

PROGRAMMING INTERFACE PRIVACY MULTIMEDIA ATTENTION MULTITASKING CONCENTRATION

We need to rethink the very basic skills that are being taught in school. Even more emphasis on future-proof skills such as Interface, Concentration and Attention. Those issues arent going anywhere. Today, programmers are just like scribes in the middle ages or ancient Egypt. In the future, everyone will be a programmer. Everyone will have to interact with all media. Its no longer a IT problem.

Students should be taken to the edge of the precipice beyond which knowledge does not exist.

Harold Innis

I love this phrase (because we have no other option than to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to this precipice).

Thank you.
@mz mz@michellzappa.com michellzappa.com