A look into the future: the digital revolution and the classroom

Maria Stefanecz

The digital revolution is rapidly changing the world we live in; how will it affect the classroom?

Image: Pearson, All Rights Reserved

Digital technologies are fundamentally changing the way people live, work, learn and socialise today. [1] Increasingly sophisticated interactions between technologies and students and teachers, as well as the growing hype around their application in education, is delivering a promise of more “personalised” or “adaptive” learning (eg. ALEKS, Knewton, DreamBox).  This addresses one of the main critiques of the current education model; namely, the lack of a personalised approach to students’ needs.[4,5]

Technology can be, and is increasingly, used for student and teacher assessment and monitoring (ex.:No More Marking, Geekie), virtual mentoring and teaching of particular skills.  (ex.:Mindspark, Siyavula Practice, Teach to One, Byju), It also helps to connect formal and informal learning settings and offer options of mobile and e-learning (ex.:edX, Udacity, Coursera, Lynda.com). A growing number of schools in Western countries are also incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into their core curriculum. Examples in the US include such schools as Khan Lab School, the network of AltSchools and Summit Public Schools.[4] 

Experts generally agree that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) through artificial intelligence (AI) and big data for learning analytics (machine learning) could provide opportunities for better management and stronger evidence based approaches to development and implementation at scale of educational policies.[2]

The reasons for optimism rely on some positive results obtained and the enthusiasm of investors for the edtech industry, which has an estimated potential to grow in value from $75bn in 2014 to $120bn in 2019 in the North American and European markets.[4] To illustrate positive results, research at the US Summit Public Schools (11 schools and 130 more “partner schools”) found in 2015, that students exposed to AI at the Summit Schools had 10% higher school completion rate compared to other public schools. Also, ⅔ of the Summit students obtained higher math test results than their peers from regular schools. As another example, a J-PAL review of  India’s after-school scheme found that the progress made in language and maths by pupils was greater than in almost any study of education in poor countries for a fraction of the cost of attending a government-run school.

However, judging the impact of technology is not simple for several reasons:

1) difficulty of predicting the outcomes of the application at scale;

2) focus on the positive and difficulties of giving visibility to negative results;

3) deviations in outcomes: lack of homogeneity of positive effect between the students (Mindspark), unstable results year to year (Teach One), varied impact between schools (DreamBox).

The cost of education in tech advanced schools is a challenge. Attending the Altschools in the US costs parents $27,000 per year, more than twice the average spending per pupil in OECD countries. The price could be even more of an obstacle for parents and governments in poorer countries, taking into account the fact that to-date, 53% of the world’s population is still offline. [1]

Other challenges relate to issues of privacy as well as accountability and transparency in the use of AI. Since machine learning relies on the collection of big data to produce results, there is a question as to how the privacy of participants can be protected and how it can be ensured that the data will be used responsibly and ethically. The harm which the non-transparent and unaccountable use of algorithms might produce can be seen in the example of The Value-Added Model which was used for decades in the US to assess teachers’ performance. It took years before teachers in courts could prove that the secretive system had flaws meanwhile their tenure and pay was determined predominantly by it. [6,7] To better understand the nature of algorithms listen to the TED Talk by Cathy O’Neil, author of “Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy” [3]:

To address these challenges, researches at UNESCO argue for: ethics, transparency, accountability; guiding principles for procurement of AI systems; more accessible and open AI platforms to increase competition; capacity building for students, parents and policymakers to develop data literacy, critical thinking, creativity, social skills and emotional intelligence, digital citizenship and digital design; and elaboration of a shared vision among all education stakeholders as to the policies implemented. [2] 

The wheels of technological progress are hard to stop. Technology in education can be used to increase learning outcomes and help free up teacher’s time to provide more personalized assistance to students. Alternatively, it can exacerbate inequalities and turn classrooms into tech labs where tech start-ups are highly paid for experiments on children and teachers. It is high time policymakers and parents become alert to the issue and ensure that the right policies are put in place and actions are taken to lead the change and not to fall victim to it.