Rethinking online education
[Music]
education
as a fundamental human right is an
inherently democratic ideal
the word democracy comes from the
ancient greek demos
meaning common people and kratos meaning
power
and throughout history it’s been a
pretty universally recognized concept
that knowledge is power it is precisely
our universal education system
and the free exchange of this knowledge
that has propelled our human society
forward
at a pace unimaginable to our ancestors
but the double-edged sword of this
accelerated pace of change
brought on by modern technologies is
that our modern world is leaving the
majority of people behind
creating a widening gap between the new
knowledge elites
and everyone else we’ve all seen the
news we’re in the middle of a
technological revolution
the internet is all around us and yet it
feels
untrustworthy millions and millions of
people
are being told that in the future of
work they need to re-skill
in order to remain relevant or that
robots might take their jobs
even those of us with university
educations now find ourselves in a
rapidly evolving and uncertain workplace
that we were not prepared for when
online courses debuted in 2011
they purported to be a solution to all
of these problems
by giving the keys to elite education to
anyone with an internet connection
massive open online courses or moocs
promise to democratize knowledge once
and for all
the only problem is nearly a decade
later
that hasn’t happened research compiled
by the international council for open
and distance learning
shows that of all the people who have
ever completed an online course
over 80 percent already hold a
university degree
that men outnumber women at 56 percent
and that amongst individual subjects
such as stem
the typical gender divide still exists
online
now for those of you who work in higher
education or online education
these statistics are nothing new but
when these topics are discussed blame is
typically placed on the very notion that
it’s impossible to reach
or engage with people off campus and
that any sort of
ed tech solution that purports to be
able to do this
should be met with skepticism but what i
would like to argue today
is that traditional institutions and
online course platforms
have actually not attempted to adapt
tertiary education
to the needs of our hectic modern
lifestyles let alone
on attracting typically marginalized
groups and that doing so
can make all the difference what i’m
working on now with my team at reactor
is to rethink online education using
human centered design thinking
that may sound like something a little
bit out of the box but actually
most of the products that we know and
use today were done with design thinking
so why not online education as a very
basic principle
design thinking means to understand
empathize with
and to find your end user ahead of
designing the concept and build of your
product
then everything about your product from
why it exists to what it consists of
to how it is delivered and how it adapts
to ongoing feedback
is centered around considering the needs
and experiences
of your users imagine for the moment the
background of a typical person
looking to upskill or re-skill online or
even somebody who’s just looking to gain
a general understanding of a topic that
they’ve had no prior background in
regardless as to their prior educational
attainment they are very likely to be
time poor
whether they’re job seeking working full
time or taking care of family
they also most likely belong to the 80
percent of europeans who access the
internet primarily on their mobile
phones
mostly using just a few of their
familiar applications
for this person online education needs
to be bite-sized
easily digestible approachable in tone
and feel
and most importantly mobile friendly it
also helps if it’s fun
bringing online education into where it
actually happens in most people’s lives
their free time the vast majority of
online courses today
were designed for full-time university
students
and they are delivered in tone and
format to those
already familiar with and majoring in
their subject areas
but what about the rest of us what about
the over 200 million people
between the ages of 25 and 65 in europe
and the us
alone who do not hold a university
degree
what about people like me with an
educational background in the humanities
a perspective so desperately needed in
technology today
where do we go to feel like there’s
content for us
and how can we all work together to
close the diversity gap in education in
areas like
gender socioeconomic background and
region
in recent years the knowledge gap in
technology especially
has grown even wider and faster than
ever before
we are starting to understand on a
societal level
the consequences that this can have on
everything from creating inclusive
technologies
to maintaining trust in our democracies
to future-proofing
our economies like many others my career
journey to work in tech
was not a linear narrative in my quest
to translate the world around me into a
language that i could understand
i had the great fortune to come across
and now join a project
that is redefining the space of online
learning
my team at reactor education teamed up
with the university of helsinki
to create a free online course called
elements
of ai and now two and a half years on
it’s become somewhat of a global
phenomenon
artificial intelligence is like
electricity
it will shape our world in ways that we
are just now imagining
so our idea was a simple democratic one
if ai like knowledge is power
then it should not be left in the hands
of a few elite coders
but how do you go about taking a subject
at the cutting edge of computer science
and putting it in the hands of citizens
just coming to terms
with digital literacy working with
professor tamuruz
at the university of helsinki we
combined world-class education
with design thinking to create a course
on the basics of ai
specifically aimed at people who are
typically left out of technology
discussions
we gathered focus groups from our target
demographics
and asked them how they felt about the
subject and the way in which it is
delivered
we were told that ai is elitist
confusing
and intimidating that they were over
saturated by information
and they didn’t know where to go to get
clear concise
explanations with practical real world
examples that
anyone could understand understanding
not just the subject
but the delivery we were able to build a
product with a user experience that is
intuitive
just like the other apps and websites
that people are familiar with in their
daily lives
we did all of this with a mobile first
build so that our students could take
the course on their bus ride to work
we worked with copy editors and
designers to make sure that our content
was conversational
and that our graphics are inviting and
approachable
and as anyone who’s ever created a
digital product will tell you
it’s not enough just to create something
and put it online
expecting people to find it the same
goes with online education
particularly if you are trying to
attract typically marginalized groups
who feel left out of that space ahead of
launching the course
we set a public challenge for ourselves
and anyone who would join us
to educate one percent of finland’s
population on the basics of ai
it started with a local social media
campaign called the ai challenge
that grew after we threw a public
ceremony for all of our first graduates
hosted by the president of finland our
growth since
has been completely organic spurred on
by grassroots movements
amongst our students and our global
partners
all aiming to educate people in their
areas who would otherwise
be left out of the ai conversation
with our course we have reached everyone
from presidents
to prisoners to retirees for
us inclusivity means building online
education
for students that other classrooms leave
behind
now featured in over 500 media outlets
around the world
the oecd has cited elements of ai
as one of the reasons finland will
succeed in the 21st century
we are working now to expand this model
globally
with local partners and hope to
encourage others
through our success to form similar
collaborations connecting people
and technology after exceeding our goal
of educating one percent of finland’s
population on the basics of ai
we partnered with the finnish office of
the european presidency
and the european commission to translate
elements of ai
into every official european language
the first course online to do so
we are now currently rolling this course
out to every eu country
forming partnerships on the ground with
governments universities and local
organizations to make sure that this
course gets in the hands of the people
who need it most
and now over two years later we have
over 540 000 students globally
but most importantly over 40 percent of
those students are women
more than double the average of every
other computer science course online
looking back the partnership that we
formed between a private sector
technology firm and a public sector
university
was an important catalyst in helping us
to rethink online education
and the relationships that we have
formed since with our local partners
have shown us that truly democratizing
learning is a collaborative effort both
on
and offline it may seem like a daunting
task
but there are so many groups of people
under represented in the space of online
education
that it is enough to just get started by
listening to those
you want to reach most if you were able
to consider
the daily realities of your target
students how might you
rethink your approach there’s clearly no
one-size-fits-all silver bullet here but
if knowledge
is power how and with whom we choose to
share it
will be the defining feature of our
future society
i hope today at least that i’ve inspired
some of you to join us
in designing for a truly democratic one
thank you