Making a Difference in Education through Innovation in Technology

Harold Javid, Ph.D.Director – Education Research Programs

Microsoft Research

Research is about answering questions

Technology should give more• It should go beyond old approaches• Create new possibilities – Can we:

Increase access to excellent education!

Teach science and math to the next tier!

Create new tools for teachers!

Improvement through technology

How can technology improve teaching and learning?

Gaming Student-developed computer games Use of computer games to teach CS

concepts Pair programming & mentorship Use of MMORPGs to teach language Simulating behavior of real-world

situations Multiplayer competition and

cooperative play

Tablet PC In-class submission of assignments w/

real-time instructor feedback Real-time annotation of PowerPoint

slides by instructor Groups of students working on single

Tablet PC Use of Tablet PC in real-world settings

Robotics Hands-on manipulation of robots Writing code to direct robotic action

and sounds Open-ended assignments in which

students are encouraged to experiment, play and be creative with robots

ExperientialLearning

Faculty-Student Contact

Problem-Based

Learning

Prompt Feedback

ActiveLearning

Collaborative

Learning

Factors that improve learning

Robotics and Gaming bring people to CS

Institute for Personal Robots in Education (IPRE)Hosted at Georgia Tech with Bryn Mawr College

Vision: A Personal Robot for Every Student Program

Tablet - Tablet PC

Tablet

It has on it a diagram of a square with 30 on one side, the diagonals are drawn in and near the centre is written 1,24,51,10 and 42,25,35. Of course these numbers are written in Babylonian numerals to base 60. . . Now the Babylonian numbers are always ambiguous and no indication occurs as to where the integer part ends and the fractional part begins. Assuming that the first number is 1; 24,51,10 then converting this to a decimal gives 1.414212963 while √2 = 1.414213562. Calculating 30 [ 1;24,51,10 ] gives 42;25,35 which is the second number. The diagonal of a square of side 30 is found by multiplying 30 by the approximation to √2. This shows a nice understanding of Pythagoras's theorem.

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Babylonian_Pythagoras.html

http://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/Euclid/ybc/ybc7289-1.jpg

Tablet PC

Tablet PC – Collaborative Education

Looking Forward

• Games for Education – will they make math and science more accessible?

• How can surface be leveraged

to improve teaching and learning?• How can social networking

improve collaborative and distance education?

So . . .

It’s about imagining how technologies can be used to improve education.

It’s about technology research.

It’s about pedagogical research.

It’s about finding a way to measure whether we have made a difference.

Information

• http://www.microsoft.com/education/facultyconnection • http://research.microsoft.com/erp