iSchool

Apple have recently added iTunes U into the iTunes store.

As a longtime skeptic of Apple evangelists, I was somewhat frustrated to find myself joining their camp when I recently got an iPhone.

Without lavishing undue praise on Apple (there are enough sites doing that, and soon even a film) one thing Apple has successfully achieved repeatedly in the past is disruptive innovation.

If there is anyone who can simplify and popularise education it is Apple.

Not only do they have the right brand image to get kids to check out the new offerings, they also have a history of ensuring that ease of use is a priority. The more accessible educational material is, the more it is consumed.

Someone who starts off downloading an Oxford lecture that uses Facebook as an introduction to the theory of the strength of weak ties can easily move on to listening to a reading of Beowulf.

While Apple's move will not revolutionise education overnight (how many schoolchildren have iPhones?), where Apple focuses, others usually follow.

Hacking education (part III)

The title of this post comes from two posts entitled 'Hacking Education' which I read recently.

I referred to the first in my post below. It is written by the venture capitalist Fred Wilson over at www.avc.com.

The second comes from Jeff Jarvis (author of What Would Google Do?)

The fact that venture capitalists are looking to invest in educational ventures is exciting because venture capital has a history of stimulating disruptions by providing the necessary finance to innovative companies.

But I also think that it his post is exciting as he sums up the opportunities that technology offers education

The tools to do this are right in front of us; peer production, collaboration, social networking, web video, voip, open source, even game play. I think we can look at what has happened to the big media institutions over the past ten years as a guide to how to do this...We all have to start participating and engaging in educating each other.

As I outlined before, money alone cannot change things. However Jeff Jarvis sees increasing pressure in both supply and demand:

I’m one among many who believe that there are huge opportunities in education, not just to change and improve it but to find new business opportunities. That’s true especially now, as the economic crisis forces people to reconsider and change paths.

Who needs a university when we have Google? All the world’s digital knowledge is available at a search. We can connect those who want to know with those who know. We can link students to the best teachers for them (who may be fellow students). We can find experts on any topic. Textbooks need no longer be petrified on pages but can link to information and discussion; they can be the products of collaboration, updated and corrected, answering questions and giving quizzes, even singing and dancing. There’s no reason my children should be limited to the courses at one school; even now, they can get coursework online from no less than MIT and Stanford.

However for a true reflection of the potential for education to be 'hacked', I think this video says it perfectly on so many levels

Innovative teaching methods - making things stick

Teaching methods are another area that offers great opportunities for innovative providers.

Gerd Gigerenzer's Reckoning with Risk shows how traditional methods often leave people with a poor grasp of statistics.

While statistics may sound like a small area of mathematics, Gigerenzer uses examples from medicine and law to highlight the importance of ensuring that we do not misunderstand statistical information

This is best shown with an example:

The probability that a woman of age 40 has breast cancer is about 1%. If she has breast cancer, the probability that she tests positive on a mammogram is 90%. If she does not have breast cancer, the probability that she nevertheless tests positive is 9%.

What are the chances that a woman who tests positive actually has breast cancer?

Presented in this format, most people suggest that the probability is about 90%, as they are confused by the framing of the situation in probabilities.

However Gigerenzer then presents the problem in natural frequencies

Think of 100 women. One has breast cancer, and she will probably test positive. Of the 99 who do not have breast cancer, 9 will also test positive. Thus, a total of 10 women will test positive.

How many of those who test positive will actually have breast cancer?

This way of presenting the numbers clearly shows that 90% of women who test positive would not actually have cancer.

Which way would you prefer your doctor to have been taught?

Gigerenzer goes on to illustrate this with the example of an experiment where American and German students were taught statistics using probabilities and natural frequencies.

German students have traditionally better at understanding probability based statistical teaching, and retain that knowledge better.

However, when taught to convert probabilities into natural frequencies, both groups acheived significantly better results

Even more impressive however, is the difference on retention - in both groups students were able to continue to apply the techniques accurately on later tests, which they were unable to do when taught using traditional probabilities.






As Gigerenzer says, dealing with uncertainty is a crucial skill in today's world, and the better able people are to accurately evaluate outcomes, the better they are able to deal with reality and all its inherent challenges.

Motivation

However, the more important development that comes out of teaching students in ways that 'stick', is that everyone enjoys things more when they can do them well.

This changes everything.

While the above example involves maths, the development of new teaching methods to ensure 'stickiness' means that students will face learning with a whole new outlook.

The idea of making things stick comes from the book of the same name by Chip and Dan Heath. Dan co-founded Thinkwell, a company which specialises in new media textbooks.

As Carl Tyson, the current CEO of Thinkwell says "education and learning are fundamental to making our country competitive in the world".

As detailed in my previous post, I think that education not only offers to make a country competitive, but also improves out chances of solving many of the world's problems.

Although unfortunately I wasn't taught using natural frequencies so I'm not sure how much...!