The post EdTech world - The past

We are living in a post EdTech world… long live the EdTech. Many of us who have seen the rise and fall of EdTech are wondering what is in store for the industry in the future. Will the advent of artificial intelligence create something entirely different or reestablish EdTech albeit with a few enhancements.

While it gives us some solace that new EdTech companies are rising up to fill the space vacated by old ones, the lack of new ideas is what is so concerning. Replacing an old name with the new name but with same business model and offerings will not change much in the EdTech space. For the revival to happen, there has to be a new model, still elusive for EdTech experts.

But future cannot be planned unless we scrutinize the past, the foundational ideas, and our hits and misses. This article will critically analyze some of the ideas that EdTech espoused.

Once upon a time, there was a company that brought long lasting changes in how people learn and teach in India. It was truly an innovation that brought multi-dimensional learning into the classroom and put life into the concepts that we learnt without understanding. 3D geometry, universal phenomenon, laws of nature, mensuration, and many other concepts which were difficult to visualize was made real by innovative videos, AR/VR, and interactive flash files.

Innovation in the presentation of content brought innovation in other parts of education too. Teaching, learning, assessments, reports, recommendation, experiments, chemical reactions, physical laws, and mathematical models… all built new ways to explain the concepts hitherto limited to the constraints of 2 dimensional pages.

So, let’s take a look at some of the key features (not necessarily in the order) introduced or enhanced upon to add more value to the process of teaching and learning. Some turned out long lasting while some fizzled out but not without forcing us to mend our ways.

Digital content and uses of AR/VR

Digital content and AR/VR did bring significant changes in the way content is presented and explained. I really doubt if I would have ever understood Heisenberg uncertainty principle without YouTube videos. Yes, I am kidding. I still don’t understand it. Looks like digital content too has its own limit.

But the message is clear. Digital content did help us improve our knowledge by a big margin.

For K-12 students too, digital content played a big role in explaining complex concepts. I have personally seen JEE aspirants getting immense benefit in understanding permutation & combination, 3D & vector, areas in calculus, coordinate geometry, complex number, and many topics which are difficult to visualize.

There have been students of grade 6-8, who learnt robotics quickly with the help of digital content. The interactivity that digital content provide is the force behind stepped-up learning. It encourages you to explore more and experiment more.

Flipped classroom

Flipped classroom brought a new way of teaching. It is very similar to life. Give the assignment first and teach the lesson later. The result was same as in life. Most of us in real life either do bad in assignment, forget the lessons, or simply endure the hardship that assignment brings with it without any tangible improvement.

Flipped classroom idea is great when it comes to upskilling of professionals because they have some idea of the problem in hand. They may not have the solution but can find a way to begin somewhere and connect with the assignment. The same idea doesn’t work in classroom setting for K-12 because most of the content is new for children. Without providing the context or basic understanding, assignments or self-reading doesn’t produce desirable results. In fact, it may be counterproductive where the content is completely new.

Applying flipped classroom for K-12 can be done in few areas of mathematics and science where there is gradual building up of curriculum but cannot be applicable to all.

Personalized learning

Learning cannot be personalized. Learning paths can be, but nor learning. There are different paths to reach a knowledge state as KST (knowledge State Theory) suggests. Which one to choose is entirely dependent on the student based on his or her current understanding, performance, and teachers’ feedback. I think we went little too far in personalizing learning at individual level.

Even when we personalize learning paths, there cannot be many paths. After all, reaching a certain stage in learning requires few prerequisites and those prerequisites further require some more prerequisites. Connecting all of them creates the learning path. There cannot be many learning paths as each strand consists of specific elements of learning. You can rearrange the elements to create different learning paths but the options are not many. You will be hard pressed to find more than 3 paths to reach a certain knowledge state. Trying to create any more variants compromises the quality and wholeness of learning.

The other problem with personalized learning is that it prescribes different levels of learning for individuals. Unfortunately, this is not how knowledge works. Mastery or skillful application of any subject requires a certain level of understanding of the subject and anything below that is as useless as not knowing the subject. That level has to be achieved by everyone for any meaningful application irrespective of learning ability, interest, or complexity of subject.

Feedback system

My friend was narrating an incident where his 8 years old son attended a demo coding class from a well known EdTech company. After the demo class, he was called 2-3 times on his child’s feedback on teacher’s performance. My friend, being from academic field, was disappointed by persistent calls. How can an 8 years old child give feedback to the teacher. I do understand the immense importance of getting one extra student on the topline and bottom line but that cannot be the reason for turning the system upside down. Teachers give feedback to students to improve and not the other way round.

The issue is not about accepting all teachers as great educators. There are great teachers, average teachers, and “need improvement” teachers. I also agree that periodic feedback should be provided in order to help them improve but being obsessed about feedback by every student is counterproductive. Not only that, it breaks the sanctity of relation between the learner and trainer.

Feedback should be wholesome. Create a set of specific questions and how you rate the responses. Build objective criteria, and sum up the ratings. If it crosses a certain minimum threshold, treat the teacher as good. Then provide specific feedback pointing out both good and improvement areas. Changing teachers on every feedback without thorough analysis must be avoided. The institutions or company end up losing good teachers and retaining only those who entertain students and manage the flawed system.

Teaching is hard work and exhaustive. Speaking at the top of your voice, walking through the class, and addressing 50-100 students with their varying learning and nuisance capacity, class after class require big effort. After all this, negative feedback on a silly thing is pretty rich for a society that expects “thank you” note for doing even trivial tasks.

Anytime, anywhere learning

The other major value proposition of EdTech was “Anytime, anywhere learning”. The idea is great but implementation of it depends on many things.

For students of K-12, learning cannot be anytime and anywhere. It has to be done in a given time and, in a setup, where learning is most effective. Discipline in learning is as important as the content and delivery.

Additionally, anytime anywhere learning is not dependent on digital models. Books are even more tuned towards anytime anywhere learning. It is much easier to handle books than a laptop, tab, or mobile. It is much easier to browser through a physical book than browsing through content on mobile or videos to locate the desired content.

However, the good part of anytime anywhere learning is its ability to transform adult learning. As adult, it is assumed that you learn for a purpose. The purpose is what forces you to create your own routine and learn. Moreover, it doesn’t impact your regular work and productivity. It has been pretty successful despite the dropout rate of online learning being dangerously high.

The results are for everyone to see. There has been dramatic change in the knowledge of professionals but not much change in students’ learning.

Some of these features will continue to play important role. Some will be enhanced to adapt to the new reality of artificial intelligence and some will be phased out.

In the next article, we will discuss some of the use cases and features that can be supported in future EdTech.