למידה, אינטרנט ... ומה שביניהם

This wearable uses translation technology to allow two people to speak different languages but still clearly understand each other. It's the dream, you know?

More important than speaking a foreign language is being understood. That’s getting easier and easier.

At the event, Pichai demonstrated the assistant’s ability to parse context by asking it what movies were playing tonight, specifying that he wanted to bring the kids, and then buying tickets, all without leaving the app and more or less in the way you’d speak to a human. … Google, Pichai said, sees the future of computing as an "ambient experience that extends beyond devices."

The idea that a student could soon be sitting at home and simply ask their Google Home device “How do I solve this problem?” and instead of the device giving the answer, it talks the student through how to solve the problem. It will ask the student questions, respond to those questions and actually teach the student. Now….yes….this is what parents do (and should do) and I’m not saying I want students talking to computers all the time. But it does open up some interesting possibilities for the future.

Any teacher that can be replaced by a computer deserves to be.

If We (Profs, Teachers) Can Be Replaced by a Computer Screen, We Should Be!

What I mean is that, given how sophisticated online technologies are becoming, given how many people around the world are clamoring for quality and low-cost education, given how seriously people in the online educational business (like Kahn Academy) are studying how people learn and what kind of help and interaction they need to learn, given all that, then, if we profs are adding no other value to our teaching but that which could be replicated on line, then, well, turn on the computers and get the over-priced profs out of the classrooms now.

Since the "tech" won’t require the extensive education and training of today’s teachers, the teacher’s union will fall apart, and that "tech" will earn about $15 an hour to facilitate a class of what could include over 50 students. This new progressive system will be justified and supported by the American public for several reasons: Each lesson will be among the most interesting and efficient lessons in the world; millions of dollars will be saved in reduced teacher salaries; the "techs" can specialize in classroom management; performance data will be standardized and immediately produced (and therefore "individualized"); and the country will finally achieve equity in its public school system.

One of the main reasons many students drop out is because they don’t receive enough teaching support. We created Jill as a way to provide faster answers and feedback.

One of the secrets of online classes is that the number of questions increases if you have more students, but the number of different questions doesn’t really go up.... Students tend to ask the same questions over and over again.

“I didn’t see personality in any of the posts,” he recalls. “But it’s what you’d expect from a TA, somewhat serious and all about giving you the answer.”

Indeed, most of the other TAs were equally deadpan, helping to keep up the charade.

We would first want to see what good teachers do when presented with problems students are having. The Georgia Tech program apparently was focused on answering student questions about due dates or assignments. That probably is what TA’s actually do which makes the AI TA question a very uninteresting question. Of course, a TA can be simulated if the TA’s job is basically robotic in the first place.

Graduate students (PhDs) typically are required to be a TA not only to be assessed by their quality as a future professor, but a learning experience for them to know their teaching style, etc. If we start replacing TAs, I am curious what type of future professors we will create? It is unacceptable that the role of a TA is being replaced by a robot to create "efficiency" or to "Save money." Learning in a classroom is a two-way street and I feel as though the introduction of robotic TAs makes it's a one-way lane.

Why Our Kids Must Learn to Code

1 million of the best jobs in America may go unfilled because only 1 in 10 schools teach students how to code

Learning these skills isn't just important for your future, it's important for our country's future.

Learning to code prepares kids for the world we live in today. There are tons of jobs and occupations that use code directly, like web designers, software developers and robotics engineers, and even more where knowing how to code is a huge asset—jobs in manufacturing, nanotechnology or information sciences.

Studies have shown that the Internet has created 2.6 jobs for each lost to technology-related inefficiencies. This indicates that possessing coding know-how can help future-proof your ability to find work in the modern economy.

All this is to suggest that the job of schools, sooner than later, may be to educate our children to be unemployed.

What I do want to ask is, “What would you say to a student who says, ‘I don’t need to know this because I don’t need a job?’” What if he is absolutely right? The next question is “What would he or she need to know for a future that does not require employment?” and “How might preparing our children for productive leisure change the WHY, WHAT and HOW of formal education?”

much like Silicon Valley has redefined business, GSV aims to redefine growth investing.

ASU is pretty clearly set up as a factory of credentialing, and any lip-service to educational excellence, particularly in the undergraduate sphere, is exactly that.

The Must-Attend Event for Education Technology Investors

Arne Duncan, the United States secretary of education, made an appearance here. He heartily endorsed data-driven technologies known as “personalized learning,” websites and apps that display different math problems or reading assignments to individual students, based on an analysis of their particular abilities.

The hope is that such individually tailored products will improve students’ learning, grades, test scores, graduation rates and, ultimately, employment prospects.

”We must make learning more personalized,” Mr. Duncan said.

Well the term "personalized learning" doesn’t have an exact definition. In general, the idea is that people progress at a different rate. If you’re ahead of what’s being taught in the class, that’s not good, you get bored. If you’re behind, then they’re using terms and concepts that create a general impression of "Hey, I’m not good at this."

And the idea of personalized learning is you always know yourself where you are on a topic, that you have the sense of what the tasks are, how much there’s left to do to achieve certain levels. So there is more personal agency.

The concept of “personalized” learning shared by Gates and many of the edtech entrepreneurs listening to him at this conference, is of a mechanical process that is done to the students. Learning that is organized and programmed for them, with no input from the child, other than the data collected based on responses to tasks on the screen. Everything is about “performance”.