School education primarily consists of teacher informing students about all what they should know so as to continue to climb up the education ladder. Students get to know important facts about different subjects through their teachers and hence they develop an understanding of what is happening in the world. However, Knowillage, a Canadian start-up, wants to change this pattern and take learning to the next level by encouraging focus on creative and intellectual talent of a student rather than telling them the facts.
Knowillage, which hopes to become Google of education, has come up with a personalised way of spreading education, allowing students to eliminate the need of a teacher as far as obtaining facts are concerned. The teachers, however, must not be completely wiped out of the picture and they must focus on exploring creative and intellectual abilities of their students, Knowillage believes.
“If the lecturer can bring their expertise to a higher level of education, to the higher ranks of Bloom’s Taxonomy, Analysis and Creation, then that’s where they’ll succeed in helping students go deeper and use their creative thinking,” says Bill Bilic of Knowillage, via Techvibes. “Let technology deliver facts. Let the teachers help them think on a higher level.”
Aiming at providing all the factual information a student needs, Knowillage adapts to the changing learning pattern and capacity of any individual. It tracks what has helped an individual the most in their learning and ensures presenting all the required facts in the required format and level of understanding as per the age of the students.
Bill is of the view that this way of learning will greatly amplify the learning potential of students, but regrets that teachers are the main hurdle in the progress of their students. He believes that teachers must allow students to gather facts on their own and then take them a step forward by providing them with something more than just facts. He says:
“The concept of linear delivery of education is going to be abandoned sooner or later. In a classroom today, you have high school students who sit in front of teachers who deliver the education to kids…who each have a very powerful computing device on their hip that can supplement their education, and they’re not doing it because the teachers don’t want them to.”
Knowillage’s philosophy has already been adopted by a few schools and the people running this project want it to be a global source of gathering facts.
Photo: Knowillage