Students Continue Learning Through Coronavirus School Closures with AI-Based Tech
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 02/24/20
With
schools in Asia shuttered in response to the coronavirus outbreak, a
UK company has offered its education technology software free to
affected students so they can continue taking classes in digital
form. According to London-based Century-Tech,
more than two dozen schools have already taken advantage of the
offer.
Century's
program is an online learning platform that the company said uses
artificial intelligence to create learning pathways tailored and
adapted for each student. Students can use the online program to
continue lessons in English language arts, math and science. The
program tracks every "click, score and interaction" and
feeds that into AI algorithms that assess how each individual learns
and plots the most effective route through learning material.
Differentiated lessons are provided based on a student's focus,
difficulty levels and pace of learning. Teachers can intervene with
their own lessons and track student progress through a dashboard.
The
company was founded by Priya Lakhani, who also co-founded the
Institute
for Ethical Artificial Intelligence in Education,
based at the University
of Buckingham.
Century's software also been used in Lebanon to augment the education
delivered to refugee students from Syria.
The
initiative launched in Asia began by focusing on reaching 201 schools
in Hong Kong and others in China using the British curriculum.
However, the company said that it would provide free logins to any
British curriculum or English-speaking schools in Hong Kong and
China.
"The
closure of schools presents a wealth of challenges for teachers and
students. At international schools, like here at Kellett
School,
we have to find ways of continuing to prepare our students for the
upcoming British public examinations," said Hong Kong school
principal Mark Steed said in a statement. "We are most grateful
to Century for making their AI learning platform available to our
students free of charge during this testing time. This will give our
teachers the tools they need to help our students to continue to
progress throughout the disruption."
"I
am incredibly pleased that Century will support our students with
their learning," added Oliver Wells, headteacher of Rong
Qiao Sedbergh School
in Fuzhou, China. "During the next three weeks of isolation at
home due to the virus in China they will make tremendous progress and
also provide teachers with diagnostic data on the areas where they
still need human support."
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.