Liberating effect of tech in education

• Published date: 27 September 2021
• Publication title: Shanghai Daily

THIRDCENTURY BC philosopher Xunzi once wrote, "Not having heard of it is not as good as having heard of it. Hav ing heard of it is not as good as having seen it. Having seen it is not as good as knowing it. Knowing it is not as good as putting it into practice."

While Xunzi was speaking primarily of the Confucian way of life, the act of cementing one's learning by putting it into practice is certainly not a novel con cept in the realm of education. Adults the world over may remember with varying levels of fondness the various dissections that took place in their biol ogy classes, the history trips to ancient ruins, or the journeys to local sites of interest to collect data for geographical analysis. Mathematics lessons may have involved venturing out into the wider school community to measure the di mensions of various spaces, while many of the arts and other STEAM-inclusive (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) subjects are by dint of their very nature full to the brim of practical learning activities.

With the world of educational tech nology rapidly shifting, accelerated further by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent moves to online and hybrid learning systems, these practical expe riences and subsequent cementing of knowledge in students have taken on new and exciting forms.

With a class set of virtual reality headsets, for example, teachers are no longer constrained by budget, time or pandemic-induced travel restrictions. Suddenly, the world is quite literally at our students' fingertips. They can wan der the lively streets of Pompeii and see for themselves how the home of an aris tocrat may have looked, and then feel the fear at the distant sounds of an erupting Mt Vesuvius -- and live to tell the tale. Physics students can don their headsets -- or perhaps a 3D-printed casing for their mobile phone that will give them an equivalent VRexperience -- and cre ate a detailed simulation to test theories that may be difficult or even impossible to create in the classroom. And where else could a student perform open heart surgery at the tender age of eleven if not in the virtual world? Entire universes of new experiences are available, and now more than ever students can put their learning into practice.

Even better, advances in modern tech nology aren't just limited to enhancing the practical learning experiences of our students. Teachers and support staff now have a myriad of tools in their hands enabling them to support their students on a...