Note on EdTech.
Published in
2 min readNov 27, 2016
[Evolution] appears to be not a series of accidents the course of which is determined only by the change of environments during earth history and the resulting struggle for existence, . . . but is governed by definite laws. . . . The discovery of these laws constitutes one of the most important tasks of the future.
— Ludwig von Bertalanffy, biologist
- I’m convinced that the only way, as human, to survive and evolve, is to learn, as fast as we can. This evolution will be no driven by the education system but by technology.
- We embrace technology because we are motivated by the curiosity to find answers and, the progress in the machine learning field are opening up opportunities for improving cognitive learning.
- Every year $ 7 trillion flooded into the education system but , sadly, this has increased bureaucracy and regulation.
- The education systems is stuck in a sort of paralysis and isn’t able to evolve: it didn’t change since the age of enlightenment when it was ideated.
- Technology investments in education are growing year on year but the education system is fighting back: personal smart phones are not allowed in class but at the same time there is no budget to provide hardware to each student.
- Education software was bad designed and teacher find hard to use it, ultimately it is meaningless and often wrapped in dust.
- Education is an incredibly complex system, but this may be only an excuse. Every country, every district, every school, every teacher, every parent value different cultural backgrounds forgetting that the students are first foremost human.
- The education system is still very much designed around a standardised way of moving from one examination to another forgetting that as human we learn at different peace; personalised adaptive algorithm can replace the one-size-fits-all teaching style.
- High education is very expensive, and the results are often subpar. For example, over 40 million Americans are paying more than $1.2 trillion in outstanding student loan debt even though many of them feel they weren’t prepared well for employment.
- EdTech is an incredibly rewarding field: there are no consolidated patterns and changes make big impact in accelerating learning.