The Future of Higher Education

The future of learning techniques and education

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Massimo Canducci

Chief Innovation Officer | Executive MBA Professor | Author and International Speaker | SingularityU Faculty Global | Forbes Tech Council | I build a better world using innovation and technology

February 22nd 2022 - Italy
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Revolutionizing Education: The Future of Learning and Technology

In the ever-evolving landscape of education, it's crucial to envision what the future holds. Welcome to this insightful discussion on "The Future of Learning Techniques and Education." Our host, Massimo Canducci, the Chief Innovation Officer of Engineering Group, one of Italy's most prominent IT companies, takes us on a journey through the transformative potential of technology in education. As an adjunct professor and industry leader, Massimo provides a unique perspective on the intersection of innovation, education, and technology.

Introduction

Massimo warmly greets the virtual audience and expresses his gratitude for the opportunity to engage in this essential dialogue. He underscores the pressing need for educators and thought leaders to come together to shape a more adaptable and responsive educational system that caters to the needs of tomorrow's students. Massimo briefly introduces himself, highlighting his dual roles as an IT company executive and a university adjunct professor. His wealth of experience uniquely positions him to explore the challenges and opportunities in education.

The Role of Technology

Our journey begins with a fundamental question: What role does technology play in the future of education? Massimo reminds us that technology is a tool, a means to an end rather than the end itself. It's not the subject of teaching or learning but a powerful enabler that should enhance both. He introduces a plethora of emerging technologies like the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, Blockchain, cloud computing, 3D printing, robotics, virtual and augmented reality, and more. These technologies, when thoughtfully harnessed, can revolutionize the learning experience.

Today's Education and Tomorrow's Needs

Massimo highlights the urgency of adapting education to meet the demands of tomorrow. He acknowledges that many of the required technologies are already available today, and more are on the horizon. He stresses that embracing these technologies can lead to a completely new learning experience.

Smart Education - Beyond Remote Learning

As the COVID-19 pandemic forced education online, it became evident that remote learning was not enough. Massimo introduces the concept of "Smart Education," a paradigm shift in teaching and learning. It's more than just remote classes; it's a fundamental reimagining of education. Smart Education harnesses technology to provide teachers with powerful tools for explanations, collaboration, homework, and evaluation. While this shift demands change, Massimo emphasizes that the quality of teaching and learning is directly proportional to our commitment.

Virtual Experiences - Immersive Learning

Massimo unveils the world of "Virtual Experiences." Imagine studying history through immersive virtual tours of ancient Rome or exploring human biology through interactive 3D simulations. These experiences offer a departure from traditional learning, making education engaging and profound. From primary schools to universities, the possibilities are endless. He highlights the benefits of virtual experiences in high-risk training scenarios like surgery and critical environments.

Augmented Learning - Enhancing Reality

Augmented Learning takes center stage as Massimo introduces the next wave of educational technology. He describes the promise of smart glasses and other augmented reality devices. These devices will be ever-connected, translucent, and capable of seamlessly adding digital content to our physical surroundings. Whether guiding surgeons through complex procedures or assisting learners in hazardous environments, augmented learning holds tremendous potential. Massimo underscores the importance of the educator's role in effectively leveraging these tools.

Mentor, Learning - Personalized Assistance

Massimo discusses the evolution of virtual assistants, which will transform how we access information and learn. He envisions these assistants becoming invaluable educational resources, providing guidance on complex subjects and assisting with tasks beyond simple requests like turning on lights. While their current capabilities may seem limited, Massimo anticipates significant advancements in the future, enhancing their utility for educational purposes.

Final Considerations

In conclusion, Massimo shares three critical messages:

  1. Embrace Smart Education: When teaching remotely, adapt your approach to maximize the benefits of technology. Students must also adapt their learning techniques to this new reality.

  2. Prioritize Learning Over Teaching: The ultimate goal is not merely to teach something to students but to facilitate effective learning. Technology plays a pivotal role in achieving this goal.

  3. Embrace Technology: Technology is a powerful enabler in education, but its effectiveness depends on how educators utilize it. Innovation is the key to building a better future.

Massimo expresses his gratitude to the audience for their attention and informs them that the presentation is available on his SlideShare profile. He invites those interested in further discussions to contact him through his website, which is conveniently linked on every slide.

Join us on this journey into the future of education, where innovation meets learning, and together, we shape a brighter tomorrow. Thank you for being a part of this insightful exploration. Goodbye.

Speakers Info

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Massimo Canducci Chief Innovation Officer at Engineering Ingegneria Informatica Spa

Massimo Canducci is a visionary leader with over 25 years of experience in the fields of Innovation and Digital Transformation. As a Senior C-level executive, he currently serves as the Chief Innovation Officer for a company with 12,000 employees, leading a team of over 300 professionals. His mission is clear: to innovate the world around us using innovative ideas, efficient processes, cutting-edge technologies, co-innovation, gamification, and unwavering passion.

Session Script: The future of learning techniques and education


Introduction

Hello to everybody, it's a pleasure to be here, even if just remotely and unfortunately not at present, I would like to thank you to thank the organization for this very important event and for the kind invitation. In my opinion, we need more and more people who ask themselves out to build a better education more suited to the needs of our times and more open to the needs of the students of tomorrow. I'm a manager in an Italian IT company, but I am an adjunct professor too at some university. And I do know that year after year, it's getting harder to raise the bar or the quality to have a better teaching approach and of course, a better impact on learning. Just a few words about me. My name is Massimo canducci. I am the Chief Innovation Officer in the largest and most important Italian IT company, the engineering group. We are 12,000 people company with 40 offices around the world.

We provide to the market digital platforms, innovative solutions, a digital ecosystem, and a lot of very interesting technological products and services. In this context, I would like to underline that we have an internal IT academy that provides professional courses for all of our employees. In our school, we provide 25,000 days of training per year.

Agenda

So I am here today to share with you my thoughts about the future of learning. And we are going to follow this path composite by these five steps. The first one is related to the very important role of technologies in every future tech Teaching and Learning Initiative.

Technology

Technology is something that should be used to better teach and learn. Because most of the time, it is a tool. And it is not the subject of teaching or learning.
We will say something about that later, then we will discover three different and future-oriented new ways of teaching andlearning, smart education, virtual experiences, and augmented learning. The last point is about us, and what we should do to address the future in the best way.

Role of technologies

So let's start talking about technologies. We are surrounded by technologies in every aspect of our life, let me say, from when we get in, in the morning to when we go to sleep at night, and often even when we sleep is guided by different kinds of technologies. In this slide, you can find a lot of enabling emerging technologies. And these are more or less the technologies that IT companies use to provide a digital platform and digital solution and whatever. Here you can find, for instance, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, Blockchain, cloud, 3d printing, robotics, real mental reality, and a lot of other interesting bricks. These are bricks that can be assembled in different ways to create complex solutions.
For instance, we can think about wearable technologies able to collect our data science to monitor our health and notify has or our doctor when something is wrong, or in a different field.

We can think about blockchain technologies able to maintain cryptocurrencies alive, or on the other end user to notarize information to check and verify the supply chain.
Today’s education is not enough for tomorrow

Well, as you all know very well, these are a lot of technologies that today and tomorrow can use in the education domain to create a more effective learning experience. The good news is that some of them are already available right now, and the others will be available in the future. So using these technologies, we will be able to be a completely new learning experience.

And this new learning experience can be designed and realized following these three different directions. The first one is called Smart education, and have something in common with the concept of smart working, you know, unfortunately, in the last few years, we have experienced a real disaster in schools at all levels.

Pandemics changed the lives

Most schools in the world have reacted by proposing new teaching and learning experiences. Based on lessons that could be used entirely online, they activated a new teaching model based on remote education. This has been a very good reaction, able to Hello Students who attend the lesson even during the pandemic in total safety.

This approach cannot be used in a long-term view because it is an emergency solution, and it has a lot of problems, issues, and limitations. The main reason is that this wasn't smart education. This was just remote education.

Remote education is not a smart solution

Remote education is just a traditional teaching-learning experience provided online using some video conference platforms. Some teachers, we have tried this type of experience, and I have found that it is ineffective because traditional face-to-face teaching techniques work very badly. When moving online. We need something more and most importantly, our students need something more.

This Martin education experience, on the contrary, is a new way of thinking, the teaching-learning experience. Teachers have a lot of great tools that can be used for explanations for different levels of detail, for teamwork for homework, and also for exams and evaluations. Unfortunately, this new approach means a radical change in people's way of teaching. And this we know can be tiring and can be boring. But of course, we have to change because the quality of teaching or learning is proportional to our commitment. The second direction we will follow in the future will be entirely based on real-world experiences. When I say worthwhile, I mean a new way of assessing learning contexts and models tied to managing

Virtual experience in classrooms

It can be to study history by taking a virtual walk in ancient Rome, or to study science, being able to make yourself very small in a completely visual environment and enter directly into a seal of the human body. These new teaching experiences are very different from studying in books or when it goes well on a multimedia platform can be assets with a personal computer, these engage makes the experience deeper, students learn better, and the lessons are much more interesting. This kind of experience can be used for every kind of education from primary school to university try to imagine our engagement can be to assess a virtual training session in which you learn in the field out to face surgery.

But absent being guided by a teacher, or by an expert colleague, We is also connected to the same beautiful word, without risks, with the possibility to repeat the exercise as many times as you want. And with the ability to learn in a virtual environment very similar to the real one.

Dangerous environments

In the same way, try to think about training in dangerous environments or explosive situations. With temperatures that are not compatible with life or factory environments in which it's necessary to perfectly know all the actions to be performed before being able to operate in total safety. This is the same approach used, for instance, with flight simulators that aspiring airplane pilots must undergo but with much lower costs because it's not necessary to build an entire physical simulator. And with great possibility of application in all the fields, what is needed is only a virtual word to be used in good training sessions. And, of course, the ability of the teacher to make the best use of these tools, you know as you can imagine, the learning experience is not only related to the tools but especially to the use made of them.

Augmented learning

The first direction we will follow in the future will be based on augmented learning. In virtual experiences, we were into an immersive, let me say an immersive word. And to assess to eat, we have to use a particular immersive ad set. In that case, the ad sets were immersive and people using that kinds of devices completely lose the touch with their reality. On the contrary, when we talk about augmented learning, we are describing a different experience based on augmented reality enabled by a new generation of devices that will be released in a few years. Hopefully, a new family of smart glasses. These devices will be always on and always connected with a long-life battery.

That will be translucent to introduce new contents, services, and an application between our eyes and the physical reality around us. Or they will be partially immersive to quite separate the users from the physical reality around them. In this case, we could have some experience it's quite close to what we described as real reality. We will manage this new class of devices using some gestures right in front of our field or with some voice commands exactly the way we use them today. Our traditional behavioral assistants like Siri or Alexa or Cortina whatever indication field.

Augmented learning in an operating room

These devices will be used to add something to the physical reality around us such as new content, new services, or new applications. For example, in an operating room, this new kind of experience can be used not only to improve the quality of the surgery by providing the doctor with all the data he or she needs in real-time. But technology can be used to teach the basics of surgery to medical students or new surgical techniques to doctors. And of course, it can be used to guide the doctor step by step in his or her very difficult tasks. Having in front all the data that can be useful for the success of the surgery.

Augmented learning in critical environments

In the same way, this new kind of experience will be used in critical environments to learn how to be happy while maintaining the necessary safety conditions. In this way, it will be possible to learn by simulating critical situations which are the safe paths for each now the safety procedures, what to do, and especially what not to do to put yourself out of danger. The same technology can be used both to learn and to operate in your context.

Another very interesting device for the augmented learning pattern will be represented by a new generation of virtual assistants. These devices will your presents will represent the evolution of the virtual devices that we all have inside of our smartphones today and very often even at home today, among the most interesting things that can be done with these devices. There are trivial tasks like this turn on the kitchen lights for instance. You know this is not exactly a very smart task to do, especially considering In the number of millions and millions of dollars that are invested in these technologies every year, but please try to think how these devices will be in the future. What about these kinds of tasks? For instance, can you explain me? How do sales works? Can we have a conversation in French?

Or can you help me with my homework? Today, these can be considered, let me say, not-so-useful tasks. But this is because today, the quality of the services is not enough for our needs. So we have to wait a bit for them to become more functional, and for new services to be offered in the future. So this is what we have seen today. Smart education is a new way of thinking, teaching, and learning activities. Virtual experiences are the use of virtual reality to teach and learn in a completely immersive way.

Mentor, learning

The third one, our mentor, learning, the use of augmented reality to add information, content, and services in front of us so we can have a new way of teaching-learning.

Final Considerations

There are three messages I want to give you today. The first one is to make your educational approach smart and not just remote. This is very important when you teach in a remote classroom, you need to change your approach to teaching. Exactly in the same way. Students need to change their learning approaches and techniques.

The second is to consider learning more important than teaching. The real goal is not to teach something to our students. The real goal is the way they learn in this field that new technologies can be very useful.

The last message is don't be afraid of technology. It is technologies are an extraordinary enabler for your lessons. This is a key point. Technology is a great enabler but alone is completely useless. The way the teacher used the technologies is the key point for having a great learning experience.

And the very last message I asked you to convey to your students is that innovation is a key point in everybody's life. But people that are not building a better world are not innovating at all.

Thanks again to all of you my presentation has been already published on my Slide Share profile and if you want to contact me you can use my website you can find the website link in the corner of every slide thank you it's been a pleasure bye.
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