What can technology help us learn

[Music]

i moved to syria in 2009

i stayed there until the war broke out

in 2011.

i didn’t realize it at the time but i

was beginning a journey in education

i began life in syria as a humble

computer scientist

now i build and design education

technology

and i want to share with you the power

and importance of this world and the

duty that we have in ensuring that it

works

for us so back to 2009 when i moved to

syria i knew almost nothing about it

i just knew that i wanted to go there

and study arabic

but i fell in love with damascus

immediately

the smell of hostok alhamdiyah the taste

of beck dash ice cream

the feeling of warmth from the people i

met

i rented a house that looks across all

of damascus

i could listen to the call to prayer

listen to it slowly make its way from

mosque to mosque across the city

and slowly i learned what the words mean

how the people are called to pray

my favorite ones are sung at dawn

they mean come to pray come to pray

prayer is better than sleep that’s what

it says prayer is better than sleep

i took their word for it early on though

i was struggling

arabic has a really complicated

structure and it means that for every

one word in english you have to learn

two or three words in arabic and when my

teacher said to me one day

leishma tudoros which means why don’t

you study

i knew something was wrong with my

method

every night i was studying hours and

hours and hours

but for some reason i wasn’t learning

and i remember i was

i was getting out my word list and i was

covering the words up and i was testing

myself

and mostly i got it right and i guess

that was part of the problem

you can’t really test yourself when

you’re just covering up words from

one minute one minute ago so i got it

my laptop i connected my dial up

internet

and i did some research i discovered

flashcards it’s a really simple device

you have one english word on one side

and the corresponding arabic words on

the other

you put them all in an envelope you take

out that envelope

on one day and then you test yourself

and if you get it right you put them

into another envelope

if you get a word right five times in a

row

you’ve learnt it now i didn’t even know

how to say envelope much less want to

fiddle about with all of these envelopes

so i did what every self-respecting

computer scientist might do

and i thought i could write an app to

solve this problem

i made myself a little flashcard out

i coded up the user interface i added

the words

but most importantly i decided when and

how often words flashed up

splashed up to me i even researched this

thing called

spaced repetition to ensure that i put

those words into my long-term memory but

what was i really learning

i was remembering the words but could i

use them

could i use them in speech could i

understand them when spoken

in truth my language learning out my

flashcard app

it was just a beginning i researched all

these other tools i came across

duolingo and rosetta stone but

ultimately they were just

the same as mine they were just this

kind of pattern matching tool they pose

learning as a problem to be solved

without social context

and then set about solving it as though

it’s just a problem for engineers

it felt to me like there weren’t really

any teachers or

pedagogy experts in the design room

so i became one i taught english in

syria in damascus in melbourne and in

sydney

i even taught asylum seekers on

christmas island that’s another story

i read book after book after book about

teaching and learning

and i applied what i learnt each day in

the classroom

it turns out that apps like duolingo are

based on an old

and fundamentally discredited form of

teaching known as grammar translation

the idea behind it is that if you can

translate enough words

enough sentences enough paragraphs into

another language

then you can speak it right turns out

not really

and the other part of duolingo is

repetition

drilling it’s a kind of behavioralism

the idea that just

acting out the actions of an expert

makes you an expert

but if you imagine your korean-speaking

wives telling you to

take out the darned rubbish please does

she really want you to say

right back to her take out the darned

rubbish please or does she just want you

to take out the darned rubbish

modern language teaching is about using

the language not just being drilled

again and again

now duolingo have attempted to take on

some of these criticisms and if you look

carefully under each sentence

there’s a little discuss button and it’s

an attempt to bring in some kind of

social constructivist learning

but really their heart’s not inner users

keep using

the user base grows revenue increases

but this is not a bad thing do not

misunderstand me here

technology can be a huge multiplier for

learning

it’s just that we need to recognize that

duolingo’s aims are different to ours

duolingo wants us to increase our

engagement

with the app rather than the world our

aim

is to increase our engagement with the

world using the app as a tool

so how might apps like duolingo help us

do this instead

here are some possibilities at the start

of the day duolingo

could ask you what are your aims or what

are your goals

and then it could set you challenges to

achieve that day

at the end of the day it could ask you

how long you’ve spent using the language

then a new aim for users and designers

alike becomes

maximizing the ratio between using the

language and time spent in the app

because we know that’s what drives

learning

and what about the context your context

outside the technology

a key part of learning is connecting it

to what we already know

sometimes what we already know can help

us learn other times our preconceptions

can hinder us

there’s a lovely fable it’s called fish

is fish

it’s about this really really curious

fish who’s desperate to know what life

is like on land

so he befriends a frog who of course one

day goes to land

and then comes back and he sits

he sits the fish down he says fish i’ve

been to land and this is what i saw

i saw a bird flying around i saw a bull

sitting in the paddock with horns i saw

a human

all dressed up with somewhere to go

and the fish nodded nodded very well

very wisely with that same feeling of

learning that we’ve all had at some time

and he swam away thinking in his mind’s

eye

about a fish with wings swimming along

another fish with horns and a final fish

that was all dressed up in a top hat

and a suit but somehow swinging up

swimming upright

the point is context is important

duolingo doesn’t know what you already

know or what you don’t know or what

preconceptions you might need to break

in order to help you learn

in fact the gamer gamification

principles behind dual lingo

mean that it’s it’s better if you get

most of your answers

right because that’s what will keep you

coming back confident that you get all

the answers right

the next time you open the hour but

sometimes you need to take a risk

sometimes you need to do something like

go to a

pa bar go to a pub

maybe even tell a joke in a pub

because there are plenty of bars and

pubs in syria

now think back to your last technology

based learning experience

was it a slide and video based piece of

compliance training at work

how do you work differently now was it

watching your kid lose themselves on an

educational ipad game or

even one that isn’t educational but has

supposed benefits for learning

where links made in class back to logic

or to reasoning

another way of looking at this is how do

these companies judge themselves what

are their metrics

engagement engagement app opens

sign-ups that’s what drives revenue

and even in education we have this thing

called education analytics

but ultimately it’s so often just a

page opens time spent on a page

time spent on a page how do we know that

they weren’t just confused

i know there is a growing movement in

the world around humane technology and

that’s a great thing

but the technology companies they always

have an out

who doesn’t want ads that are more

personalized to them rather than just

random

why shouldn’t you get a notification

about cat videos while you’re trying to

read wikipedia

after all that’s what engages you

but education technology is different

values matter

learning helps us act positively within

this world it helps us understand this

world

it helps us solve today’s problems and

it helps us get ready for tomorrow’s

problems

and all the big companies are making big

bets on education

apple facebook microsoft

google they know that today’s students

are tomorrow’s customers tomorrow’s

workers the potential power of these

giants is immense

but how do we ensure that they design

in a way that helps us connect with the

world not disconnect

do they design with humility or are they

arrogantly separate thinking that they

can own and control the entire learning

process

all for themselves

as education technology seeps further

and further into our world

we should ensure that these companies

treat our minds and treat our kids minds

like the precious things they are

where the technology is designed just to

play a role

a role in learning a role in our lives

whether technology helps us engage as

well as disengage

where it’s purposefully designed to help

us connect to the rest of the world

and helps us realize our potential where

it helps us

not just memorize words in arabic but

connect to those who speak it

here