‘Tech is game-changer but caution must’
Technology today has become an enabler in all facets of our lives. As educational institutions around the world shut due to the pandemic, classrooms quickly moved online enabling thousands of students across the world and in India to continue their learning journeys. But, technology also means online games, Youtube and other distractions for children and must be used with caution.
HT caught up with Vivek Varshney, Founder of Speedlabs, an Ai-based personalised learning platform as part of the Education Founder Series, Empowering People through Knowledge, to talk about the role of technology in learning in an Indian context and what parents can do to empower children to learn better. Varshney started Speedlabs in 2016 to offer children a full-stack platform focused on hybrid education, with the premise that personalised education can help each and every student to achieve their full potential if you give them proper analytics, feedback, improvement areas and proper insights about their own learning behaviour. Edited excerpts:
The use of devices for education has become the norm in recent times. What are your views on the changes that have happened in the education space?
If we go back 5-6 years, 2015 was the time when India crossed 20 per cent penetration of the Internet. For any growing society, once some of these thresholds are crossed, there is a sudden acceptance towards tech-enabled services, whether it is education, healthcare, e-commerce, entertainment, or travel. So, the internet becomes a great enabler for some of the fundamental shifts and gradually the consumption behaviour also changes. The same has happened in education. Six years back, people were still very sceptical to attend a live class, but now the entire country is doing that. Technology, right now, cannot be avoided in any aspect of life and education technology brings a lot of positive things. I think, this shift is not reversible.
How did Speedlabs come into existence? Was it a Eureka moment when you thought of a smart solution to enable people to do better or was it a gradual process? Can you tell us a little bit more about it?
There are two aspects of learning – one is lecture materials where some teacher explains a theory, formula, concept, knowledge, and then the second aspect is self-study.
Technology can play a huge role in your improvement in self-study side, which is the core of learning. We are empowering students between class 6 to 12 to learn better by practising at their own speed, getting adaptive practice which is different questions for different students based on their gaps. After the practice, they are given proper insights and analytics on what was right, what was wrong, speed , accuracy, and what was wrong with the attempt. We have been able to help thousands of students, who have done much better than they expected and their confidence has grown and so has the command on concepts. I personally believe that just attending online class is an incomplete solution. That only works for top 10 per cent of students, who are already motivated and who are brilliant. But if you talk to 90 per cent of the students and their parents, none of them are happy because they are not getting the complete learning. Many of them are not even taking notes and just watch the class like a movie. This problem is being seen across geographies, even in Metro cities where students are comfortable with technology. At Speedlabs, our vision is that a personalised education is the bridge between dreams and capabilities. If you can give proper insight to every student, then they can definitely perform better in academics, increasing both their confidence and knowledge.
Adaptive learning means that you get questions in an order which is right for you. The old practice of giving the same set of questions to all students is not right. When you want to transform an average student to deliver extraordinary results, you have to get it personalised. That is where Speedlabs comes into play. Once your marks improve, as a student, your confidence also gets better. And this is for life. As a student, selfstudy is a good habit that fixes a lot. Even in our professional life, if we are used to doing things ourselves, then we find solutions for every problem. If you are always dependent on others then we always keep seeking direction. I believe that if these things are fixed early on in life, they have a huge impact throughout the career.
Talking about technology, we all see what great things happen on the internet every day. How important is the role of the Internet in helping children learn and unlearn things outside the domain of schools?
I think the last few years have been transformational in our country.everyone is realising that the core curriculum, which was a very traditional, like limited subjects, is not going to help in future. And that is where internet comes into play as it offers easy access to some of this extra knowledge. There are many free resources available on Youtube and you can learn whatever you want to learn outside of the scope of your school syllabus. But, if you have to the intent to fix your error, there are many resources on the Internet which can help you find the right way. In India right now, almost 65 per cent of people have access to the Internet. In the rural areas, education has been made possible because of the Internet and it has allowed children to continue their learning even in the remotest areas.
inclusive and has empowered students more than it could have otherwise?
Without doubt, the Internet is helping everyone. For a student living in a small village, without the internet, he just has access to the local ecosystem with limited teachers and resources. But, with the internet, he has access to content designed by the best teachers in the country. Now, information is freely transferable. You cannot make great teachers every level in every town, every village, every place for all subjects, so it allows a lot of flexibilities from that aspects too, and reduces the overall cost of learning.
At some point, I have reservations that if the Internet is equal to only online classes, that’s not its best use, because mostly it is a one way communication. If you look at online classes, not all students are attentive and could be playing games while the class is on. For this, we need to exercise some caution.
This shift towards virtual education was challenging for children and parents to adapt to. But, now, we have also seen its upside. What is your message to parents who still have reservations about this drastic change of education and what should we their take away from this new way of learning?
First of all, all parents should realise that the future is with technology, not without it. Technology has gone towards being more effective, efficient, helpful for humanity at large over the last few 100 years. And this change is unidirectional. Technology is good and also unavoidable. But at the same time, we need to strike the right balance. More screen time in the formative years is negative from a social or interpersonal skills point of view. It takes away the physical activity time which is not good in the long term. So we should adopt technology in the right way and limit exposure in terms of hours for students. Parents must become partners in this journey. If parents get to know which chapter the child doesn’t understand, they can offer help or request the teacher to teach again or revise more. Parents should be open to technology and use it in the right way, just like every other activity in their lives, but obviously have some control where they can focus on doing the right things. Technology is also video games, mobile games, etc. Teenage is the time to build your future. So, if you are just watching Youtube’s for six hours a day, it is not right.