As technology gets better at doing jobs humans used to do, it’s important to revisit the role of humans in the classroom. I’ll be writing a series of articles exploring this topic.
- First: Freeing up time for teachers.
- Second: Letting students choose what they learn.
- Third: Replacing degrees with life.
- Fourth: Providing world-class education to those in the poorest locations.
Thousands of classrooms, in the poorest countries around the world, are closed to the information contained in their teacher’s minds, or in the textbooks they have access to.
They still don’t have an internet connection. They’ve never had one.
According to Endless Mobile, an education technology company tackling this precise problem, there are 5 billion people in the world without computers.
What will happen when they get smartphones?
When thanks to Coursera, they get access to courses from Stanford or Yale?
When thanks to Khan Academy, they get access to K-12 level courses in science, math, history, art, for free?
When thanks to Duolingo, they are able to learn the languages of the world?
When thanks to the efforts of many others, they are able to access the total sum of human knowledge, instantly?
Google is on the mission of bringing internet to the world’s most remote places with Project Loon, Facebook is doing it with Internet.org.We’re at the dawn of an educational revolution that will impact every corner of the earth. It’s all being powered by technology.