Technology+Education, nothing new?

When reading the article introducing Khan Academy, the famous free online course website^[1], I noticed that not all the people agree that Sal Khan is reinventing education. They compared it with previously emerging technology like radio or television back in the old days. At that time when these new technologies just appeared, people were so impressed by them and believed that with these, there was no need for that many teachers in school since students can just listen to radios or watch televisions to study. There were actually some companies trying to combine education and technologies but failed in the end. No school really replaced teachers with radios or televisions. Therefore, some people believe nowadays, the co-operation of information technology and education is the same thing and nothing is really new about it. Traditional education will still remain same. However, I strongly do not agree with that.

First of all, the old technologies are not useless to education and they actually helped reshape traditional education. We still get benefits from that but they are just too normal to be noticed. For instance, we use radios to play types or record lectures. Before the invention of radio, teachers had to repeat same thing for tremendous times until all the students got it. Television actually boosts the growth of educational videos. Nowadays, little kids watch videos to learn new knowledge or even play games. Before, the teachers can only tell stories to kids but now kids can watch story videos with vivid pictures. In this way, learning becomes more interesting and appealing, especially for young kids. The impact of technology on education indeed roots in our daily life. We just get used to it so that we ignore them unconsciously.

Secondly, the combination of information technology and education is not like anything happened before. The previous technologies are just new communication channels. They were used to transfer messages, images or videos quickly. However, the information technology is not just a channel, It can be used to evaluate and modify the study process. There are tremendous companies doing this work. They are not simply online courses any more. Companies use big data collected from a large population of students to analyze the study process and optimize it. The software or websites can record student’s academic performance and provide personalized study content. Geekie, a study system invented in Brazil is an example of it. The most important value of it is to provide the most suitable and useful content to each individual and assist them to study in their own way^[2]. By gradually collecting more data from student’s academic performance, Geekie can be more aware of which part the student hasn’t mastered and the student’s most efficient way to learn. Geekie then automatically adjusts itself to the student’s learning pattern. Therefore, every student can have personalized study experience on Geekie.

References:

[1]Forbes Welcome. (2017). Forbes.com. Retrieved 12 September 2017, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelnoer/2012/11/02/one-man-one-computer-10-millionstudents- how-khan-academy-is-reinventing-education/

[2]Conheça o Geekie Lab. (2017). Materiais.geekie.com.br. Retrieved 12 September 2017, from http://materiais.geekie.com.br/conheca-glab