Presented at a TEDx workshop session in Phnom Penh on 22 May 2012. The session reviewed existing materials on TED and looked at other innovations in education with a particular focus on developing countries (like Cambodia) and the role of technology.

1. HEROES AND INNOVATORS IN EDUCATION
Sam Ng, 22 May 2012
@snowmansam, sam@samng.com

2. I’m a learner, not an
expert.

3. Outline (2hrs)
 Set the scene (>7.30pm)
 Education trends
 Technology trends
 Cambodia
 TED video – Charles Leadbeater on education in the
slums. (>8pm)
 Discussion in groups
 Heroes and innovations (>8.30pm)
 Apply innovations to Cambodia (>9pm)
 Solve a problem

5. My big idea
 The internet, particularly though the mobile phone,
is the catalyst for transformational innovation in
education.
 In short, the mobile phone will redefine education.
 We have just begun to explore how the internet
might be used to promote learning.
 These innovations are more likely to come from the
‘extremes’ – people working in difficult conditions
with few resources. Places like Cambodia.

6. Education at a glance
 There is a general dissatisfaction with education, no
matter where you go in the world.
 But a lot of money is spent on education.
 A lot of that money is spent on improving “school”
and our existing ideas of education.
 But will this be enough to meet the exponential
need for learning? Will it change quick enough?
 Many initiatives to reinvent school, supplement
school and even transform learning.

7. Education initiatives
 Education for All, World Education Forum 2000.
 World leaders and 180 countries agreed that by 2015 all
boys and girls should be enrolled in school and able to
complete primary education.
 Cambodia is doing okay, maybe a C+

8. EFA goals by 2015
 Goal 1: early childhood care and education
 Goal 2: universal, free primary education
 Goal 3: lifelong learning
 Goal 4: adult literacy
 Goal 5: gender parity and equality
 Goal 6: educational quality

9. Our world is changing,
fast
Excerpts from Shift Happens 2012
(http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/)

24. But are we
more creative?
We are educating people out
of their creative capacities.
We don’t grow into creativity,
we grow out of it.
We are running national
education systems where
mistakes are the worst thing
you can make.

25. What’s the point?
 In the next 25 years, according to UNESCO, more
people worldwide will be graduating through
education than since the beginning of history.
Suddenly degrees aren’t worth much.
 India has more postgraduates than there are
children in America.
 How do developed countries compete, how does
Cambodia compete?

27. Sources

28. Statistics
 58,000 teachers servicing 2.3  Teachers in Cambodia are
million primary school earning merely US$20 to
students. (1:40) US$50 a month, they resort
to collecting informal school
 27,000 teachers servicing fees of $0.02 to $0.05 per
637,000 secondary school day from students to
students. (1:24) supplement their salaries
 60% teachers received at  merely 1.7% of Cambodia's
most a secondary education. GDP (Gross Domestic
37% in remote areas had not Product) is spent on
even completed primary. education.
 5.4% villages have lower
secondary school, 2% have
upper secondary.

29. More statistics
 The opportunity cost of  citizens are merely attending
sending their children to schools for the sake of
school are very high in some obtaining paper
families, making it almost qualifications
impossible for the children in
the families to receive  not all citizens are capable of
education. undertaking tasks that their
 20% of children ages 5-9 are paper qualifications state
employed as child labor. they are capable of
 47% for children between age
10-14 and 34% for ages 15-17  Passing rates at schools are
also ill-represented due to
 the total work burden of the bribery.
economically active children,
leading to an average weekly
working hours to almost 31.

30. How Cambodia compares

31. Where US$406 million
comes from
% funds
International
grants
Loans
National budget
Local support
Are the incentives right?

32. It’s not great
But you already knew that.

33. Interestingly…
 ICT is one of the most powerful
tools for educational reform
across the system.
 ICT has significant potential for
supporting education in remote
and conflict –affected areas.

34. Yellow Pages > Education

36. In parallel let’s see what
technology is doing
 Computers that cost $1000 today will be mobile
devices that cost $10 in 8 years time.
 Bill Joy on Moore's Law.
 There’s a US$35 “iPad” like tablet in India.
 There are 5.6 billion active mobile subscriptions in
the world.

37. In Cambodia

38. Tech for tech’s sake
 Technology itself is only useful if the teacher
embraces the methodology it supports.
 Studies have consistently shown that merely
introducing technology and digital resources
alone, without a solid strategy for changing
pedagogy, does not result in improved educational
outcomes for students.
 One exception to this seems to be Sugata Mitra’s
experiments.

40. COMMENTS, THOUGHTS?
 Get into groups of 3 to 5 around you.
 What did you find the most interesting in his talk?
 10 minutes.

42. Heroes to profile
 Salman Khan, Khan Academy
 Jay Kimmelman, Bridge International Academy
 Sugata Mitra, Hole in the Wall
 Sakena Yacoobi, AIL

43. Salman Khan
 Super smart guy, started tutoring his cousin & family
by putting videos on YouTube.
 It went viral and today it has over 3200 videos from
biology, chemistry, physics, finance, history and
humanities.
 Each video is about 10 min long and there are
interactive exercises and individualize statistics.
 Completely free.

45. Jay Kimmelman
 Successful education
entrepreneur who sold his
American business.
 Went to Kenya to create
“School in a Box” franchises
that charges US$4 a month
for private schooling.
 Extremely data driven, from
assessments, school location
selection to fee structure.
 Interactive SMS reporting
system for the entire school
system, including paying
teachers.

46. McDonalds of schooling
 We take the best research and
data on teaching and boil it
down to a lesson plan that tells
a teacher ‘You should write this
on the board, and ask this
question.’”
 The problem of educating so
many children is simply
overwhelming, and turning an
adult with a secondary school
education into a functional
teacher of primary school
students requires a focus on
repeating proven practices.
 Expanding to 1800 schools by
2015.

47. Sugata Mitra
 Indian education scientist who
did learning experiments called
“Hole in the Wall”.
 Computer kiosks within a wall in
slums where kids were able to
use it freely.
 Kids were being taught by
computers without any training.
 Putting serious research into
“Self Organised Learning
Environments”.
 Solves problem of recruiting
best teachers in toughest
places.

48. Dr. Sakena Yacoobi
 American educated
professor who went back to
Afghanistan to form Afghan
Institute of Learning (AIL).
 AIL is run by Afghan women
to increase women’s
participation in education.
 Only 13% of Afghan girls finish
primary school and 80% of
women are illiterate.
 Ran a network of 80
underground home schools
for girls when Taliban in
power, and trained 13,000
teachers.

50. Innovations to learn from
 EdX  Yoza
 TED-ED  Barefoot college
 Udemy  GoVocab
 BBC Janala  Others: HCV, BRAC Health
improvement, PSU Movil
 World Reader (practice tests), Columbia
& Pakistan literacy courses.

51. TED-Ed
 Use engaging videos to create customized lessons.
 Create interactive lessons from any YouTube or TED
video.
 "Flipping" a video allows you to turn a video into a
customized lesson that can be assigned to students
or shared more widely. You can add
context, questions, and follow-up suggestions to any
video

52. EdX
 EdX is a joint partnership between The
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and
Harvard University to offer online learning to
millions of people around the world. EdX will offer
Harvard and MIT classes online for free.
 The platform is open source that other universities
can use.
 The same content – wide variety, but no
certification.

53. Udemy, Udacity

54. BBC Janala
 A multiplatform project that uses mobile
phones, the internet and television (TV) to
support English language learning in
Bangladesh.
 Content includes SMS English lessons and
about 100,000 audio lessons accessible
through mobile devices.
 users dial ‘3000’ to access hundreds of three-
minute audio lessons. Calls cost around
US$0.01 per minute.
 Includes self-assessment: gauge progress
with interactive audio quizzes, or even record
their own stories in English.
 In 9 months, it attracted over 9 million calls.

55. World Reader
 Turns dumb phones into smart
phones.
 100,000 digital books to
Africans.
 Millions of people in the
developing world have access
to a library of books using a
device they already own: their
mobile phone.
 At the moment, feature phones
are 60% of global market share.

56. Yoza m-novels
 Short cell phone stories
that are free, published the
1st of each month.
 Readers leave
comments, vote in polls
and enter writing
competitions.
 Helps with literacy and
creativity.

57.  Ordinary villagers are trained
to be “barefoot”
professionals –
engineers, health
workers, mechanics.
 These people in turn train
others.
 Trained more than 3 million
people for jobs in the
modern world.
 Learning is within the village
and confers no
qualifications.

58. Go Vocab
 Tries to make language
learning fun with revision
games and a global
scoreboard.
 Supplements teacher’s
efforts and becomes
homework/revision.
 Gamifies a repetitive task.

61. Inspired? So what?
 Solve some problems. Get into the same group.
 Try to match challenges with inspiration from
innovations.
 Best idea wins mystery prize.

63. Questions, comments?
@snowmansam,
sam@samng.com