Technology evangelists and the big tech providers have long dreamed of disrupting education. That despite all the changes brought about by technology most education remains organised by institutions, many funded by the public sector is a source of frustration to the. One of the most prominent of teh change advocates is Salman Khan. Founder of the Salmon Academy, which boomed during the COVID 19 lock downs and advocate of video lessons and flipped learning, Salmon Khan was in London last week to publicize his new book, Brave New Words: how AI will revolutionise education (and why that’s a good thing), and while there he was interviewed for an article in the Times Education Supplement.
As Dan Meyer says in his newsletter Mathworlds, his remarks indicate "the edtech industry is starting to realize that the possibility of revolutionary impact with generative AI is small and the possibility of any impact will require them to operate as partners with institutions that many of them have disregarded."
Meyer points out that despite all the rhetoric "in reality Khan Academy has not transformed teaching like Khan hoped it might. In the US, as in the UK, students still typically sit at desks while a teacher delivers a lecture-style presentation, and then they complete tasks based on what they have learned." And Khan seems to agree. "“If you walk into a random classroom, for the most part it seems pretty similar to what we used to see,” he says. “If you asked me 10 years ago, I would have hoped… I mean, I’ve given TED Talks saying you shouldn’t need to give lectures any more, and everyone should be able to go at their own pace.”
And this raises the question of why the Khan Academy Hasn't ushered in a new era of education?
Well, the platform is designed to help students who are “trying to get through the [public school] system”, Khan says. “Either we support them in moments where they have a gap or we are used more systematically by their teacher, by their school, to improve the learning that goes on.”
And the public school system is far bigger than Khan Academy, he says.
The academy “needs to be pretty well integrated with the formal systems for it to have the maximum impact. That’s the journey that will keep us busy for decades to come”, its founder says.
It seems increasingly unlikely that AI alone is going to revolutionise education this t9ime round.