EdTech opens doors to flexibility

Education is still conducted in a last century manner but a new technology-driven sector will change the way we learn.

Stephanie Fahey. Picture: James Croucher.

In this age of widespread digital disruption, when sectors across the economy — from media to manufacturing, transport and even medicine — are undergoing a technological revolution, it’s ironic that the education sector, which prepares us for the world of work, is largely conducted in a manner that is very last-century.

All that is about to change. A collision of factors from the emergence of big data and data analytics, significant advances in artificial intelligence, automation and mobile technology, combined with new approaches to pedagogy are driving a profound shift in the way education is delivered and consumed.

All this is leading to the emergence of a new technology-driven sector that will change the way we learn. It’s called EdTech — or ­education technology, a term that embraces everything across the education life cycle from learning platforms and apps, testing and ­assessment, accreditation and recognition of qualifications, recruitment and admissions.

Stephanie Fahey is the CEO of Austrade and a champion of the Australian EdTech sector. Austrade currently has about 350 EdTech start-ups on its books.

“Australians are good at EdTech and it’s interesting to see that many of the start-ups are being run by women,” Fahey says.

In the learning and teaching sectors, EdTech is not just rewriting what and how we learn, but creating an entire new learning ­architecture. This will make education much more readily available to people in Australia and across the world, many who would not previously had easy ­access to it.

Fahey says the march of EdTech into the traditional education area is unstoppable because it offers efficiencies of scale, lower costs, and democratised access.

“We have been anticipating that EdTech would significantly change the way in which we provide education for some time, but cost and capability within educational institutions presented impediments.

“In the past, people viewed technology in education in a ­binary fashion; that online would replace face-to-face. But clearly there is much more integration in the adoption of technology and one can actually support the other without necessarily replacing it.”

Perhaps one of the most ­profound impacts of EdTech is the way it democratises access to ­education across the world. Anyone with access to a mobile phone and the internet now has access to an unimaginable amount of educational content and much of it for free.

In Australia, EdTech opens the doors for those who cannot physically access education for whatever reason — geographical, situational such as caring duties and time constraints, or medical reasons.

Fahey says EdTech is a great leveller. “It allows people who don’t have easy access to a physical ­location to have increased access to education,” she says. She notes that women in their child-bearing years are some of the biggest users of online education.

One of the most profound changes offered by EdTech is that it shifts the dynamics away from the provider to the student. ­Students can study what they want at a time of their own choosing for a cost the fraction of a traditional degree or diploma. It also comes at a time when young people today are faced with the strong chance they will be in the workforce for 50-60 years and have to change careers multiple times.

“If you need to keep updating your skills on a regular basis, then the need for continuous learning is powerful. The world is changing fast and the only way that people will be able keep their skills up-to-date as well as continuing to undertake paid employment is through the flexibility that online technologies can deliver,” says Fahey.

One of Australia’s most successful EdTech companies is Quitch, which was co-founded by Grainne Oates and Dan Hunter. Quitch is a gamified learning app that reminds students outside classroom times to answer timed quizzes based on their coursework. The idea was to capture what was distracting students from their studies, such as games on phones, into the thing that engaged them with their studies. Quitch is currently in 114 universities around the world and is moving into executive education, says Fahey.

Playconomics is another EdTech success. It is an online course designed to teach the principles of economics by putting students in the shoes of decision makers. It uses the theory of game play and social learning, as well as video games, personalised feedback and experiential learning.

Developed by Loretta Dobrescu and Justin Motta from the University of NSW, Playconomics has won several international education awards.

And there is ParentPaperwork. Kids will no longer miss out on that crucial excursion thanks to ParentPaperwork, a platform ­using data capture, management, and reporting, designed to rid schools (and parents) around the world of paperwork. It was founded by Fiona Boyd, who reportedly developed the platform from bitter ­personal experience, after having to rummage around her son’s schoolbag in search of forms.