0:06 this will revolutionize education no
0:08 prediction has been made as often or as
0:12 incorrectly as that one in 1922 it was
0:13 Thomas Edison who declared that the
0:15 motion picture is destined to
0:17 revolutionize our educational system and
0:19 that in a few years it will supplant
0:21 largely if not entirely the use of
0:24 textbooks yeah and you know how that
0:27 worked out by the 1930s it was radio the
0:29 idea was you could beam experts directly
0:31 into classrooms improving the quality of
0:33 education for more students at lower
0:35 cost and that would mean you require
0:38 fewer skilled teachers a theme common to
0:40 all of the proposed education
0:42 revolutions like that of educational
0:46 television in the 1950s and 60s studies
0:47 were conducted to determine whether
0:48 students preferred watching a lecture
0:51 live or sitting in an adjacent room
0:53 where the same lecture was broadcast via
0:56 closed-circuit TV what would you prefer
0:59 in the 80s there was no debating
1:01 computers were the revolutionary
1:03 solution to our educational woes they
1:06 were audio-visual interactive and could
1:08 be programmed to do almost anything you like
1:08 like
1:10 well at the time they could run Oregon
1:13 Trail but their potential was obvious
1:15 researchers suspected that if they could
1:17 teach kids to program say how to move a
1:19 turtle around a screen then their
1:21 procedural reasoning skills would also
1:24 improve so how did it go well the
1:26 students got better at programming the
1:28 turtle but their reasoning skills were
1:31 unaffected even by the 1990s we had not
1:33 learned from the failure of our past
1:36 predictions and I quote the use of video
1:37 discs in classroom instruction is
1:40 increasing every year and promises to
1:41 revolutionize what will happen in the
1:45 classroom of tomorrow video discs yeah
1:48 those giant oversized CD things remember
1:50 when they revolutionized education
1:53 nowadays plenty of things are poised to
1:55 revolutionize education like smart
1:58 boards smartphones tablets and MOOCs
2:00 those are massive open online courses
2:03 and some believe we're getting close to
2:04 a universal teaching machine a computer
2:07 so quick and well programmed that is
2:08 basically like having your own personal
2:09 tutor in
2:11 Sheen a student could work through
2:13 well-structured lessons at their own
2:15 pace receiving immediate and personally
2:17 tailored feedback and all without the
2:19 interference of a meddlesome and
2:22 expensive teacher do these claims sound
2:24 familiar over the past 100 years a lot
2:26 of areas of life have been
2:29 revolutionized but education is not one
2:31 of them by and large students are still
2:35 taught in groups by a single teacher and
2:37 that is not what a revolution looks like
2:39 some might blame this state of affairs
2:41 on the inertia of our educational
2:43 institutions it's just too hard to get a
2:46 huge bureaucracy to change but I think
2:47 the reason technology hasn't
2:49 revolutionized education is something
2:51 else something that goes to the very
2:54 heart of what education is let's
2:56 consider the process of learning say you
2:58 want to teach someone how a human heart
3:00 pumps blood which learning a do you
3:02 think would be more effective this
3:05 animation with narration or this set of
3:08 static pictures with text obviously the
3:10 animation is better I mean for one thing
3:13 it shows exactly what the heart does for
3:15 decades educational research focused on
3:17 questions like this does a video promote
3:19 learning better than a book our live
3:22 lectures more effective than televised
3:24 lectures is animation better than static
3:27 graphics in all well-controlled studies
3:29 the result is no significant difference
3:32 that is so long as the content is
3:33 equivalent between the two treatments
3:35 the learning outcomes are the same with
3:38 all different media how is this possible
3:40 how can something which seems so
3:42 powerful like animation be no more
3:45 effective than static graphics well for
3:46 one thing
3:48 animations are fleeting and so you might
3:51 miss something as they go by Plus since
3:53 the parts are animated for you you don't
3:55 have to mentally envision how the parts
3:57 are moving and so you don't have to
3:59 invest as much mental effort which would
4:01 make it more memorable in fact sometimes
4:03 esthetic graphics perform better than
4:05 animations and I think this points to a
4:08 really fundamental aspect of Education
4:10 which is it doesn't matter what happens
4:13 around the learner we are not limited by
4:16 the experiences we can give to students
4:20 what limits learning is what can happen
4:21 inside this
4:25 head that is where the important part of
4:27 learning takes place no technology is
4:30 inherently superior to any other
4:31 researchers spent so much time
4:33 investigating whether one medium or
4:35 technology was more effective than
4:37 another that they failed to investigate
4:39 exactly how to use the technology to
4:42 promote meaningful thought processes so
4:45 the question really is what experiences
4:47 promote the kind of thinking that is
4:49 required for learning recently that
4:51 research is being conducted and we're
4:53 finding out some pretty important stuff
4:55 I mean it may sound obvious but it turns
4:58 out learning with words and pictures
4:59 together whether they're animation &
5:01 narration or static pictures and text
5:05 works better than words alone also we
5:07 see that anything which is extraneous
5:10 needs to be eliminated from a lesson for
5:11 example on-screen text
5:13 competes with visuals so learners
5:15 perform better when it is omitted than
5:17 when it is present now that we know how
5:20 best to make educational videos and any
5:22 experience can be simulated in the video
5:25 setting YouTube must be the platform
5:27 that will revolutionize education I mean
5:29 the number of educational videos on
5:33 YouTube is increasing every day so why
5:35 do we need teachers well if you think
5:37 that the fundamental job of a teacher is
5:39 to transmit information from their head
5:42 to their students then you're right they
5:45 are obsolete I mean you probably imagine
5:46 a classroom where this teacher is
5:48 spewing out facts at a pace which is
5:51 appropriate for one student to fast for
5:53 half and to slow for the rest
5:54 luckily the fundamental role of a
5:57 teacher is not to deliver information it
5:59 is to guide the social process of
6:01 learning the job of a teacher is to
6:05 inspire to challenge to excite their
6:09 students to want to learn yes they also
6:11 do explain and demonstrate and show
6:14 things but fundamentally that is beside
6:16 the point the most important thing a
6:18 teacher does is make every student feel
6:21 like they are important to make them
6:24 feel accountable for doing the work of
6:25 learning all of this is not to say
6:27 technology has had no impact on
6:30 education students and teachers work and
6:32 communicate via computers and videos are
6:33 used both inside
6:36 and outside of classrooms but all of
6:38 this is best characterized as an
6:40 evolution not a revolution the
6:42 foundation of Education is still based
6:44 on the social interaction between
6:47 teachers and students for as
6:49 transformative as each new technology
6:51 seems to be like motion pictures or
6:53 computers or smart boards what really
6:56 matters is what happens inside the
6:58 learners head and making a learner think
7:01 seems best achieved in a social
7:04 environment with other learners and a
7:05 caring teacher [Music]
