0:00:01.019,0:00:04.170
"This is the first generation of people that work, play, think and learn differently than their parents.

0:00:04.170,0:00:07.970
They are the first generation to not be afraid of technology. It’s like the air to them." - Don Tapscott

0:00:14.507,0:00:17.831
Everything looks bigger than life when you are five.

0:00:17.831,0:00:24.459
So everything was big, everything was strange, and I remember feeling a bit scared.

0:00:24.459,0:00:29.715
Like many children, I remember my school years fondly but the bits I remember fondly aren't

0:00:29.715,0:00:31.340
the bits I should have remembered.

0:00:31.340,0:00:37.925
I remember the play and the sport and the naughtiness and the playfulness and the mischief.

0:00:37.925,0:00:40.684
In fact, I remember the bits that were non-standard.

0:00:40.684,0:00:45.300
It's an incredible privilege for me to have had education be such

0:00:45.300,0:00:49.771
an important and present part of my life.

0:00:49.771,0:00:57.823
I remember being bored a lot. It didn't bring out the best in me, I got through it anyhow.

0:00:57.823,0:01:02.317
I wasn't a great fit or the system wasn't a great fit for me.

0:01:02.317,0:01:04.529
It's kind of crazy when you think about it.

0:01:04.529,0:01:08.022
That we take all these children and we force them to try to adapt to this really complex

0:01:08.022,0:01:12.046
bureaucracy system, the system should adapt to them.

0:01:12.046,0:01:18.229
The origins of traditional education lie inside the military, to a large extent.

0:01:18.229,0:01:23.799
They needed identical people; soldiers, administrators, and so on, so they produced this system.

0:01:23.799,0:01:27.193
When the industrial revolution happened they do wanted

0:01:27.193,0:01:29.850
identical people in their assembly lines.

0:01:29.850,0:01:33.096
Even with consumers, they wanted consumers to be identical

0:01:33.096,0:01:35.005
so that everybody would buy the same things.

0:01:35.005,0:01:39.031
So if you look at school that way, if you look at the fact that we process twenty or

0:01:39.031,0:01:42.707
thirty kids at a time, in a batch, just like in the factory.

0:01:42.707,0:01:45.580
If you look at the fact that if you fail third grade, what do you do?

0:01:45.580,0:01:48.061
We hold you back and we reprocess you.

0:01:48.061,0:01:53.287
All matching with the factory works, we built it on purpose.

0:01:53.287,0:01:56.689
And it was really useful for its function.

0:01:56.689,0:02:00.668
But we don't have a shortage of factory workers any more.

0:02:00.668,0:02:04.009
We are probably at the death of education right now.

0:02:04.009,0:02:10.329
I think the structures and strictures of school, of learning from nine till three,

0:02:10.329,0:02:12.799
working on your own, not working with others.

0:02:12.799,0:02:21.800
I think that's dead or dying. And I think learning is just beginning.

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THE FUTURE OF LEARNING

0:02:45.120,0:02:49.631
I had ADD when I was growing up, like so many people now do.

0:02:49.631,0:02:53.863
And there's this feeling that there is something broken about the kid,

0:02:53.863,0:02:58.016
because the kid doesn't conform to the system.

0:02:58.016,0:03:03.451
So what we do is we medicate children to fit into the system, as opposed to saying;

0:03:03.451,0:03:07.023
wait, the system is here for the kids.

0:03:07.023,0:03:12.029
And there are lots of people who can quite easily sit still for eight hours

0:03:12.029,0:03:14.345
and take notes, and then two weeks later say back

0:03:14.345,0:03:16.210
what they wrote down.

0:03:16.210,0:03:20.204
But there is also this huge population of extraordinarily talented

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and engaged people who can't learn that way.

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There's a very big difference between accessed[br]information and school,

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they used to be the same thing.

0:03:31.838,0:03:39.489
Information is there online to anyone of the billion people who have access to the Internet.

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So what that means is if we give access to a four year old or an eight year old or a

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twelve year old, they will get the information if they want it.

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Knowing something is probably an obsolete idea.

0:03:55.434,0:03:58.781
You don't actually need to know anything, you can find out at the point

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when you need to know it.

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It's the teacher's job to point young minds towards the right kind of question.

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A teacher doesn't need to give any answers, because answers are everywhere.

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And we know now from years of measurements that learners who find the answers for themselves

0:04:19.545,0:04:23.542
retain it better than if they're told the answer.

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Education is being very slow to look at data, to look at numbers,

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to look at analysis and what's actually happening.

0:04:31.036,0:04:33.559
We measure a test here, and an exam there,

0:04:33.559,0:04:36.823
but the details of what's happening we don't really have.

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That will be, for sure, the next important thing in our pockets,

0:04:41.043,0:04:43.003
our ability to analyze wherever you are.

0:04:43.003,0:04:46.069
Some of the people watching this will already be analyzing their health

0:04:46.069,0:04:47.527
and their wellbeing and their sport.

0:04:47.527,0:04:50.032
They will be analyzing their learning too soon.

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And then we'll be really good at it.

0:05:04.498,0:05:08.437
Knewton is a data-mining and adaptive learning[br]platform

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that allows anybody, anywhere to upload content.

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They could be a publisher, an individual teacher, or anything in-between.

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And produce a course that will be uniquely personalized to each student based on

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what she knows and how she learns best.

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The textbook of the future is going to be delivered on connected devices.

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What that means is the incredible amount of data that students have always produced,

0:05:34.065,0:05:37.403
when they studied, are now capturable and useable.

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So Knewton and any product built on Knewton can figure out things like; you learn math

0:05:41.701,0:05:46.013
best in the morning between 08:32 and 09:14 am.

0:05:46.013,0:05:48.008
You learn science best in 40 minute bite sizes.

0:05:48.008,0:05:51.289
At the 42 minute mark your click rate always begins to decline, we should pull that from

0:05:51.289,0:05:54.061
you then and move you to something else to keep you engaged.

0:05:54.061,0:05:57.018
That 35 minute burst you do at lunch everyday you're not retaining any of that just

0:05:57.018,0:06:01.009
hang out with your friends and do that stuff in the afternoon instead when you learn better.

0:06:01.009,0:06:05.006
You learn this stuff best with short questions;[br]

0:06:05.006,0:06:05.055
this stuff best with complicated, difficult questions.

0:06:05.055,0:06:08.052
We should return this type of material to you four days later for optimal retention.

0:06:08.052,0:06:11.077
And here's exactly the things you're going to struggle with your homework tonight because

0:06:11.077,0:06:15.569
you haven't learned some of the concepts that are embedded in that material.

0:06:15.569,0:06:19.091
And we can go in real-time and grab you the perfect little bit of content, from last month,

0:06:19.091,0:06:23.919
or last year, and put that seamlessly in front of you so that you don't struggle.

0:06:23.919,0:06:29.943
We can predict failure in advance and prevent it from happening.

0:06:29.943,0:06:33.979
We're going to move from this kind of alienating and in some cases boring and in some cases

0:06:33.979,0:06:36.668
frustrating model of everybody gets exactly the same stuff.

0:06:36.668,0:06:38.575
They're getting it at the exact same time, the exact same order,

0:06:38.575,0:06:40.836
and the exact same difficulty level.

0:06:40.836,0:06:45.925
For half of the class it's too hard, for half of the class it's too boring.

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It's going to get the most advanced kids, the most stimulating material.

0:06:49.019,0:06:52.199
It's going to get them to unlock their potential in a way that they're not today.

0:06:52.199,0:06:55.639
But for every kid, no matter how much you are struggling, you've got a path to success.

0:06:55.639,0:06:59.027
It might take you a little longer, but you'll have a path to success no matter what.

0:06:59.027,0:07:03.058
And also the system gets smarter and smarter as more people use it.

0:07:03.058,0:07:08.705
Strategies compete against each other to be replicated in the next generation,

0:07:08.705,0:07:12.641
so the strategy that is the most effective for you,[br]once we find that;

0:07:12.641,0:07:17.695
any kid in the future will have that strategy teed up.

0:07:17.695,0:07:20.719
It's a whole new thing.

0:07:20.719,0:07:24.058
When the automobile was invented people weren't asking for the automobile

0:07:24.058,0:07:26.394
they were asking for faster horses.

0:07:26.394,0:07:30.592
And people aren't really asking for Knewton because they don't know what it is yet,

0:07:30.592,0:07:34.625
but once they see it and experience it then they'll get it right away.

0:07:35.333,0:07:38.723
THE SHIFT IN KNOWLEDGE

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People say that education moves very slowly.

0:07:47.006,0:07:50.003
Suddenly you just need to be connected.

0:07:50.003,0:07:56.037
That changes everything; it changes the basis on which you can make a contribution,

0:07:56.037,0:07:59.629
your brain can make a contribution at a distance.

0:07:59.629,0:08:06.349
It's one thing to sit here in the media lab and talk about the future.

0:08:06.349,0:08:11.068
I often go into places that are about as different from a media lab as it can get.

0:08:11.068,0:08:18.789
And I think to myself; what's the value of all my ideas over here.

0:08:18.789,0:08:20.819
But, there is one great hope.

0:08:20.819,0:08:26.879
Wherever I go, the very first thing that I ask, or I take out my phone to check for,

0:08:26.879,0:08:31.217
is; do I have that little bit of bandwidth to give me GPRS,

0:08:31.217,0:08:34.519
or something equivalent to that?

0:08:34.519,0:08:41.919
And in the middle of jungles I find that sometimes it says connected

0:08:41.919,0:08:47.076
And I know then that everything that I'm saying can go anywhere,

0:08:47.076,0:08:48.062
and work exactly the same way.

0:08:48.062,0:08:51.221
It's a question of time.

0:08:57.281,0:09:01.532
CONNECT TO LEARN

0:09:04.934,0:09:12.032
Connectivity is actually opening up the world. If you open up a village, for example Bonsaaso,

0:09:12.032,0:09:17.808
and the students can actually now communicate with other students, say in London.

0:09:17.808,0:09:21.738
It means they start seeing the world in a different way.

0:09:21.738,0:09:26.063
Educate a youth, and you educate a nation.

0:09:26.063,0:09:31.073
Connect to Learn is a partnership between Ericsson, together with AF Institute

0:09:31.073,0:09:34.042
in Columbia University, and the Millennium Promise.

0:09:34.042,0:09:39.529
It's twofold, it provides scholarships to girls, and Connect to Learn gives students

0:09:39.529,0:09:47.928
computers and connectivity and shows them how to use it, and how to get information.

0:09:47.928,0:09:52.014
Education was limited to what the teacher could tell the students, and the teacher was

0:09:52.014,0:09:55.301
relying on a small textbook, or those few books,

0:09:55.301,0:09:57.694
so the teacher was not getting very exposed.

0:09:57.694,0:10:04.435
Now you are able to access a lot of information and the children start chatting

0:10:04.435,0:10:08.763
and exchanging information, you can see that there is much more things for them

0:10:08.763,0:10:11.026
to talk about because they feel like they are more exposed.

0:10:11.026,0:10:13.529
And the children are more confident.

0:10:13.529,0:10:18.493
They have the energy, they have quite a lifespan[br]ahead of them

0:10:18.493,0:10:21.038
and they are about to start thinking bigger.

0:10:21.038,0:10:25.006
If you bring connectivity to them, they are actually able to do transactions and they

0:10:25.006,0:10:28.011
can start small businesses, which will uplift them.

0:10:28.011,0:10:36.512
So I'd say it's actually opening up our villages, our country, and the whole continent.

0:10:36.512,0:10:43.343
We're rolling it out in as many countries as possible in Africa, and also in South America.

0:10:43.343,0:10:47.666
It has the potential to be upscaled to any country.

0:10:57.743,0:11:02.428
A FLAWED SYSTEM?

0:11:05.922,0:11:09.039
The way we solve interesting problems is we fail and we fail

0:11:09.039,0:11:10.708
and we fail and we fail, until we succeed.

0:11:10.708,0:11:16.029
And if you've talked to people who have succeeded, what they almost all have in common is

0:11:16.029,0:11:18.573
that they've failed a hundred times before they succeeded.

0:11:18.573,0:11:23.386
And what separates them, from people who aren't successful, isn't that they succeeded,

0:11:23.386,0:11:28.570
it's that they failed more that the other people did.

0:11:28.570,0:11:33.537
I'm not sure it's okay for the schools to say; we have to optimize,

0:11:33.537,0:11:39.007
to process as many people as we can to match this testing regime.

0:11:39.007,0:11:45.011
You can't imagine, in a world where you sit down to do an exam and you ask yourself

0:11:45.011,0:11:49.004
the question; I hope there are no surprises on the exam paper.

0:11:49.004,0:11:51.708
And your teachers think; I hope I prepared him for everything.

0:11:51.708,0:11:54.830
How would that prepare you then to go out into a world

0:11:54.830,0:11:57.077
that everyday is going to surprise you.

0:11:57.077,0:12:00.980
It's full of the surprises of the economy, of society,

0:12:00.980,0:12:03.404
of politics, of invention, of technology.

0:12:03.404,0:12:05.068
Everyday is a surprise.

0:12:05.068,0:12:10.453
Learning prepares you to cope with the surprises, education prepares you to cope with certainty,

0:12:10.453,0:12:14.089
there is no certainty.

0:12:14.089,0:12:23.007
The teacher stands between the child and the formal education.

0:12:23.007,0:12:25.012
Trying to make the child face that system.

0:12:25.012,0:12:32.099
And until that system breaks down, or disappears, she has an incredibly difficult job of keeping

0:12:32.099,0:12:37.038
the child's curiosity alive, while at the same time saying; listen, by the time you

0:12:37.038,0:12:42.097
are sixteen, you'll have to start memorizing certain things, so that you can go and sit

0:12:42.097,0:12:48.007
for the examination, clear it, and get out of school properly.

0:12:48.007,0:12:51.038
No one I know takes standardized tests for a living.

0:12:51.038,0:12:55.047
So why are we using standardized test to see if you are going to be good when we don't

0:12:55.047,0:12:57.062
have standardized tests after you take it.

0:12:57.062,0:13:03.076
It's infected the entire marketing eco-system of education, because famous colleges are

0:13:03.076,0:13:07.054
famous because they are picky about your SAT scores.

0:13:07.054,0:13:10.045
Parents want their kids to go to a famous college.

0:13:10.045,0:13:15.081
Parents push their school to create kids who will get into

0:13:15.081,0:13:17.036
a famous college by doing well on the SAT.

0:13:17.036,0:13:21.589
All which is corrupting the entire reason we have education in the first place.

0:13:21.589,0:13:28.017
If we can get parents, and teachers, and kids, and administrators, to have this conversation,

0:13:28.017,0:13:34.709
to just talk about it, then if at school board meetings, or if, at ten year reviews the questions

0:13:34.709,0:13:40.004
we are asking are not; how did your students do on the SAT.

0:13:40.004,0:13:45.339
But instead we say; the SAT makes no sense, famous colleges are a scam,

0:13:45.339,0:13:49.079
we need to create a different thing and we can have this conversation.

0:13:49.079,0:14:00.081
Then change will start to happen.

0:14:00.081,0:14:10.068
Coursera is a social entrepreneurship company that enables the best universities to take

0:14:10.068,0:14:14.072
their best courses and put them out there, so that everyone around the world with an

0:14:14.072,0:14:23.004
Internet connection can benefit from having access to a great education.

0:14:23.004,0:14:29.019
As of today, which is the end of September we have 1.5 million students from 196 countries,

0:14:29.019,0:14:31.061
it's a little debatable how you count countries.

0:14:31.061,0:14:36.043
We have 195 courses from 33 universities.

0:14:36.043,0:14:42.899
Our larger courses have an enrollment of 130,000, our smaller courses have an enrollment of

0:14:42.899,0:14:48.099
only about 10,000, of course they're still growing, most of them haven't launched yet.

0:14:48.099,0:14:57.055
A medium class, when it launches, has about 50- 60,000 students registered.

0:14:57.055,0:15:05.149
Scale is interesting because it allows us to offer a high quality product at a very

0:15:05.149,0:15:10.329
low marginal cost per student, which is what allows us to take people who really can't

0:15:10.329,0:15:14.829
pay for an education and to provide them a free education.

0:15:14.829,0:15:21.339
Education for free at the highest quality because the costs are so low per student.

0:15:21.339,0:15:25.529
The student experience in Coursera is that the course starts on a given day and each

0:15:25.529,0:15:28.519
week a student has access to numerous pieces.

0:15:28.519,0:15:33.001
One piece is video lecture, and it's interactive videos, you don't sit there for an hour just

0:15:33.001,0:15:35.899
watching video, you get to interact with the video.

0:15:35.899,0:15:40.057
There is rigorous meaningful assessments of different kinds,

0:15:40.057,0:15:42.005
not just multiple choice but real exercises with real depth.

0:15:42.005,0:15:47.041
And there is a community of students that you get to interact with to ask questions

0:15:47.041,0:15:50.069
and have those questions answered by your fellow students.

0:15:50.069,0:15:56.008
So that you get both a better learning experience via peer teaching as well as a social experience,

0:15:56.008,0:16:03.032
where you feel like there is a community of learners surrounding this intellectual activity.

0:16:03.032,0:16:07.024
People often ask us whether universities are a thing of the past, whether universities

0:16:07.024,0:16:10.093
are going to die out, and I definitely do not think so.

0:16:10.093,0:16:15.008
There is something tremendous about getting[br]people together in a place

0:16:15.008,0:16:17.024
where serendipitous interactions can happen.

0:16:17.024,0:16:21.005
Where you can have face-to-face mentoring between an instructor and students

0:16:21.005,0:16:25.099
where students can talk to each other, and create together, and learn to debate ideas.

0:16:25.099,0:16:33.007
So this on-campus physical experience at the moment

0:16:33.007,0:16:34.889
has no virtual substitute that is equally effective.

0:16:34.889,0:16:42.037
Our goal here, and I think one needs to be pragmatic about this, is not to equalize necessarily

0:16:42.037,0:16:48.779
the opportunity of students who currently don't have any access, and make it equal

0:16:48.779,0:16:52.082
to what a fortunate Princeton student might have.

0:16:52.082,0:16:55.073
Because that might be a really worthy goal, but it's not something

0:16:55.073,0:16:57.075
that we can necessarily can achieve in the short time frame.

0:16:57.075,0:17:01.029
What we'd like to do, is we'd like to bring both of these up to considerably better than

0:17:01.029,0:17:03.839
where they are now, even if they don't end up being equal.

0:17:03.839,0:17:09.006
If we've improved a lot, of both the on-campus students, and the ones,

0:17:09.006,0:17:21.001
who currently don't have access, I think we've done an amazing thing.

0:17:21.001,0:17:23.052
So let me explain how revolutions work.

0:17:23.052,0:17:27.419
Revolutions destroy the perfect and then they enable the impossible.

0:17:27.419,0:17:30.066
They never go from everything is good to everything is good.

0:17:30.066,0:17:33.063
There is a lot of noise in the middle.

0:17:33.063,0:17:38.041
If we look at the music business; first it destroyed the record label business, the Internet.

0:17:38.041,0:17:43.048
And only now is it enabling independent musicians[br]to get heard.

0:17:43.048,0:17:48.025
Education tends to move in stairstep functions, in terms of change,

0:17:48.025,0:17:49.006
so when it does change, it explosively changes.

0:17:49.006,0:17:54.046
The move from pre-printing press to post-printing press is a one-time transition

0:17:54.046,0:17:56.065
in history of the world, in terms of education.

0:17:56.065,0:17:59.075
Online education is going to be like that as well. And we want to make sure that,

0:17:59.075,0:18:02.011
as a species, the human species gets it right.

0:18:02.011,0:18:07.033
One of the revolutions that we're going to see is where less and less of education is

0:18:07.033,0:18:12.028
about a conveyer of content, because that is going to be a commodity, and hopefully

0:18:12.028,0:18:15.063
one that's going to be available to everyone around the world.

0:18:15.063,0:18:21.001
And a lot more of what we think of as education is going to go back

0:18:21.001,0:18:21.089
to its original roots of teaching.

0:18:21.089,0:18:27.075
Where the instructor actually engages in a dialogue with the students and helps them

0:18:27.075,0:18:31.099
develop thinking skills, problem solving skills, passion for the discipline.

0:18:31.099,0:18:37.057
The kinds of things that are much easier to do in a face-to-face setting and a lot harder

0:18:37.057,0:18:43.009
to do in an online format, but for which, really the college experience, as we know

0:18:43.009,0:18:48.061
it; that it the right place where you'd like to put that kind of development of skills.

0:18:48.061,0:18:54.035
Now what I want to see from schools is; get kids to want it.

0:18:54.035,0:19:06.069
Create an environment where kids are restless until their need for information is satisfied.

0:19:06.069,0:19:13.919
Every time I get a question right, I get immediate engagement. I think the teacher has to step

0:19:13.919,0:19:22.051
back and say; today's topic is this. Open your notebook and figure it out for yourself.

0:19:22.051,0:19:29.002
What we need are teachers who will look people[br]in the eye, and believe in them,

0:19:29.002,0:19:32.027
and push them forward, and it's hard to do that on the Internet.

0:19:32.027,0:19:35.003
It really needs to be done in person.

0:19:35.003,0:19:38.035
Schools decide to be better because they see children being better.

0:19:38.035,0:19:40.095
And teachers... what does it say on teacher's t-shirts?

0:19:40.095,0:19:44.004
It says: 'We're in it for the outcome, not the income!'.

0:19:44.004,0:19:48.027
Teachers are there because they can see the change in their children.

0:19:48.027,0:19:52.005
If you add up every child in history, more children will leave school

0:19:52.005,0:19:56.013
in the next 30 years, than they've ever left school in history.

0:19:56.013,0:20:03.025
If I was going to make one change, I'd make their schooling just a little bit better.

0:20:03.025,9:59:59.000
And that would change history faster than anything else.