It’s coming.
It won’t be what you expect, but it will be disruptive and change millions of lives.
That’s not the voice-over for the next blockbuster thriller movie. It’s the prediction of several education thinkers on the topic of technology in education.
When is it coming? Very soon. This generation. According to Tech Crunch, “last week, Microsoft announced a new investment of $250 million in its Partners In Learning Project to equip teachers with the skills to teach IT and other technology-related subjects worldwide. Now the company has announced another investment, this time of up to $75 million, aimed at increasing digital access to educational materials throughout Africa.” Revealed at the Global Forum 2012 in Prague over the weekend, Microsoft is partnering with six global humanitarian organizations on this new initiative and investment, including World Vision Inc., the British Council, SOS Children’s Villages International, Catholic Relief Services, Plan Ltd. and the International Rescue Committee.
"Let’s not get too giddy", says one of the players in education tech, the publisher Pearson, which, in its own global report comparing countries’ education performance says the lesson is that “there are no magic bullets.” The report says, “Throwing money at education by itself rarely produces results, and individual changes to education systems, however sensible, rarely do much on their own. Education requires long-term, coherent and focused system-wide attention to achieve improvement.”
Yet others are making even bolder predictions in education. One person, Sal Khan, is leading the way to an alternative path for some learners with access to technology, and he now has a global audience. According to one story, “His rise to prominence in online education was serendipitous. Teaching his niece over a webcam, Khan began uploading his tutoring sessions to YouTube and his videos caught the attention of millions, so he quit his day job as a hedge fund analyst and founded Khan Academy.” Now years later he has received a large grant from—wait for it—the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (just to come full circle in this blog) and if you believe this 60 Minutes report, it is going to change the way we define education.
For those of you who say, “Hey wait a minute. There aren’t any mobile devices or computers in Africa.” Guess again. As I blogged recently, industry groups say within a few years there will more mobile devices than people, likely with faster performance. And at a Washington, DC forum this week ONE’s Director of Multilateral Institutions, Edith Jibunoh, said that they are focusing on mobile devices in Africa because there are 500 million of them already there. That is not a misprint. In fact, the World Bank pegs the number higher at 650 million in its recent Information Communication Technology (ICT) in Africa report. Nigeria alone has over 100 million mobile devices, according to CNN, which reports that experts estimate there will be 1 billion mobile devices in Africa by 2016—one for every person.
Ah, Mike, those are just phones. You can’t actually read books on them, right? Wrong again. Our friends at World Reader are working with mobile provider Binu (both were partners in our Reading Changed My Life photo and video contest), and together they have built a mobile app which makes simple mobile phones into smart phones, where users can download and read books. Speaking of the photo/video contest, we gave away over 20 Kindle e-Readers to contestants in 13 countries, some in Africa. Now The Economist reports that “the prospect of many of Africa’s 300 million pupils learning digitally has not escaped the attention of global technology giants either. Amazon has seen sales of its Kindle e-readers in Africa increase tenfold in the past year. The firm’s developers are adding features to its devices with the African consumer in mind: talking books, new languages and a longer battery life.”
These devices are too expensive for developing country consumers? Maybe not. Again, the Economist reports, “In Kenya eight out of ten parents pay tuition for courses outside school. Amaf School charges about $10 a month. Start-ups such as eLimu (an education tech company in Kenya) hope to make money with micro-payments, very small sums paid per download.” It’s coming. It might already be here. And wouldn’t it be nice if these developments—if they’re not magic bullets—help a few more people learn to read?