tedx phnom penh - heroes and innovations in education

HEROES AND INNOVATORS IN EDUCATION

Sam Ng, 22 May 2012

@snowmansam, sam@samng.com

I’m a learner, not an expert.

Outline (2hrs)

Set the scene (>7.30pm) Education trends Technology trends Cambodia

TED video – Charles Leadbeater on education in the slums. (>8pm) Discussion in groups

Heroes and innovations (>8.30pm)

Apply innovations to Cambodia (>9pm) Solve a problem

SETTING THE SCENE

GLOBAL TRENDS IN EDUCATION

EDUCATION IN CAMBODIA

TRENDS IN TECHNOLOGY

My big idea

The internet, particularly though the mobile phone, is the catalyst for transformational innovation in education.

In short, the mobile phone will redefine education.

We have just begun to explore how the internet might be used to promote learning.

These innovations are more likely to come from the ‘extremes’ – people working in difficult conditions with few resources. Places like Cambodia.

Education at a glance

There is a general dissatisfaction with education, no matter where you go in the world.

But a lot of money is spent on education.

A lot of that money is spent on improving “school” and our existing ideas of education.

But will this be enough to meet the exponential need for learning? Will it change quick enough?

Many initiatives to reinvent school, supplement school and even transform learning.

Education initiatives

Education for All, World Education Forum 2000. World leaders and 180 countries agreed that by

2015 all boys and girls should be enrolled in school and able to complete primary education.

Cambodia is doing okay, maybe a C+

EFA goals by 2015

Goal 1: early childhood care and education

Goal 2: universal, free primary education

Goal 3: lifelong learning

Goal 4: adult literacy

Goal 5: gender parity and equality

Goal 6: educational quality

Our world is changing,

fastExcerpts from Shift Happens 2012

(http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/)

But are we more

creative?We are educating people

out of their creative capacities.

We don’t grow into creativity, we grow out

of it.

We are running national education

systems where mistakes are the

worst thing you can make.

What’s the point?

In the next 25 years, according to UNESCO, more people worldwide will be graduating through education than since the beginning of history. Suddenly degrees aren’t worth much.

India has more postgraduates than there are children in America.

How do developed countries compete, how does Cambodia compete?

CAMBODIATHE CURRENT STATE

Sources

Statistics

58,000 teachers servicing 2.3 million primary school students. (1:40)

27,000 teachers servicing 637,000 secondary school students. (1:24)

60% teachers received at most a secondary education. 37% in remote areas had not even completed primary.

5.4% villages have lower secondary school, 2% have upper secondary.

Teachers in Cambodia are earning merely US$20 to US$50 a month, they resort to collecting informal school fees of $0.02 to $0.05 per day from students to supplement their salaries

merely 1.7% of Cambodia's GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is spent on education.

More statistics The opportunity cost of

sending their children to school are very high in some families, making it almost impossible for the children in the families to receive education. 20% of children ages 5-9 are

employed as child labor. 47% for children between

age 10-14 and 34% for ages 15-17

the total work burden of the economically active children, leading to an average weekly working hours to almost 31.

citizens are merely attending schools for the sake of obtaining paper qualifications

not all citizens are capable of undertaking tasks that their paper qualifications state they are capable of

Passing rates at schools are also ill-represented due to bribery.

How Cambodia compares

Where US$406 million comes from

% funds

International grantsLoansNational budgetLocal support

Are the incentives right?

It’s not great

But you already knew that.

Interestingly…

ICT is one of the most powerful tools for educational reform across the system.

ICT has significant potential for supporting education in remote and conflict –affected areas.

Yellow Pages > Education

TRENDS IN TECHNOLOGY

In parallel let’s see what technology is doing

Computers that cost $1000 today will be mobile devices that cost $10 in 8 years time.

Bill Joy on Moore's Law.

There’s a US$35 “iPad” like tablet in India.

There are 5.6 billion active mobile subscriptions in the world.

In Cambodia

Tech for tech’s sake

Technology itself is only useful if the teacher embraces the methodology it supports.

Studies have consistently shown that merely introducing technology and digital resources alone, without a solid strategy for changing pedagogy, does not result in improved educational outcomes for students.

One exception to this seems to be Sugata Mitra’s experiments.

TED VIDEOCharles Leadbeater: Education innovation in the

slums

COMMENTS, THOUGHTS?

Get into groups of 3 to 5 around you.

What did you find the most interesting in his talk?

10 minutes.

HEROES & INNOVATIONS

Heroes to profile

Salman Khan, Khan Academy

Jay Kimmelman, Bridge International Academy

Sugata Mitra, Hole in the Wall

Sakena Yacoobi, AIL

Salman Khan

Super smart guy, started tutoring his cousin & family by putting videos on YouTube.

It went viral and today it has over 3200 videos from biology, chemistry, physics, finance, history and humanities.

Each video is about 10 min long and there are interactive exercises and individualize statistics.

Completely free.

Jay Kimmelman Successful education

entrepreneur who sold his American business.

Went to Kenya to create “School in a Box” franchises that charges US$4 a month for private schooling.

Extremely data driven, from assessments, school location selection to fee structure.

Interactive SMS reporting system for the entire school system, including paying teachers.

McDonalds of schooling

We take the best research and data on teaching and boil it down to a lesson plan that tells a teacher ‘You should write this on the board, and ask this question.’”

The problem of educating so many children is simply overwhelming, and turning an adult with a secondary school education into a functional teacher of primary school students requires a focus on repeating proven practices.

Expanding to 1800 schools by 2015.

Sugata Mitra Indian education scientist

who did learning experiments called “Hole in the Wall”.

Computer kiosks within a wall in slums where kids were able to use it freely.

Kids were being taught by computers without any training.

Putting serious research into “Self Organised Learning Environments”.

Solves problem of recruiting best teachers in toughest places.

Dr. Sakena Yacoobi

American educated professor who went back to Afghanistan to form Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL).

AIL is run by Afghan women to increase women’s participation in education. Only 13% of Afghan girls

finish primary school and 80% of women are illiterate.

Ran a network of 80 underground home schools for girls when Taliban in power, and trained 13,000 teachers.

INNOVATIONS

Innovations to learn from

EdX

TED-ED

Udemy

BBC Janala

World Reader

Yoza

Barefoot college

GoVocab

Others: HCV, BRAC Health improvement, PSU Movil (practice tests), Columbia & Pakistan literacy courses.

TED-Ed

Use engaging videos to create customized lessons.

Create interactive lessons from any YouTube or TED video.

"Flipping" a video allows you to turn a video into a customized lesson that can be assigned to students or shared more widely. You can add context, questions, and follow-up suggestions to any video

EdX

EdX is a joint partnership between The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University to offer online learning to millions of people around the world. EdX will offer Harvard and MIT classes online for free.

The platform is open source that other universities can use.

The same content – wide variety, but no certification.

Udemy, Udacity

BBC Janala A multiplatform project that uses mobile

phones, the internet and television (TV) to support English language learning in Bangladesh.

Content includes SMS English lessons and about 100,000 audio lessons accessible through mobile devices.

users dial ‘3000’ to access hundreds of three-minute audio lessons. Calls cost around US$0.01 per minute.

Includes self-assessment: gauge progress with interactive audio quizzes, or even record their own stories in English.

In 9 months, it attracted over 9 million calls.

World Reader

Turns dumb phones into smart phones.

100,000 digital books to Africans.

Millions of people in the developing world have access to a library of books using a device they already own: their mobile phone.

At the moment, feature phones are 60% of global market share.

Yoza m-novels

Short cell phone stories that are free, published the 1st of each month.

Readers leave comments, vote in polls and enter writing competitions.

Helps with literacy and creativity.

Ordinary villagers are trained to be “barefoot” professionals – engineers, health workers, mechanics.

These people in turn train others.

Trained more than 3 million people for jobs in the modern world.

Learning is within the village and confers no qualifications.

Go Vocab

Tries to make language learning fun with revision games and a global scoreboard.

Supplements teacher’s efforts and becomes homework/revision.

Gamifies a repetitive task.

YOUR TURN

Inspired? So what?

Solve some problems. Get into the same group.

Try to match challenges with inspiration from innovations.

Best idea wins mystery prize.

Questions, comments?

@snowmansam, sam@samng.com