Edutainment
Reskilling and Upskilling
Skill-based learning
Personalized AI tutoring and learning
Have you ever felt like you were going through the motions in a classroom, struggling to find joy in the learning process?
If so, you’re not alone. For generations, students have been taught using the same traditional methods. Still, now, with technology at our fingertips, we have the opportunity to revolutionize the way we learn, teach, and approach education.
One area of education innovation that shows great promise is edutainment, where education meets entertainment. This approach makes learning fun and engaging, particularly in the digital age and is suitable for all ages.
Additionally, reskilling and upskilling are essential for employees looking to remain relevant in a rapidly changing job market. Online courses, workshops, or training programs can provide the necessary skills and knowledge to succeed in their careers.
Furthermore, with the increasing cost of tuition fees, alternative skill-based learning options outside the university system are gaining popularity. Apprenticeships, vocational training programs, and online courses are some of the many affordable and practical alternatives that offer essential skills.
But the real game-changer is personalized learning, which can tailor the learning experience to meet each student’s needs and learning style.
Artificial intelligence (AI) can significantly achieve customized learning on a larger scale, making education more accessible and effective for everyone.
By embracing the power of innovation and technology, we can create a dynamic, engaging, and personalized learning experience that prepares students for the future.
In this edition, we will delve deeper into these subjects and unveil how they have the potential to rekindle the delight of learning within us, as well as offer an unparalleled opportunity to create transformative change in the world.
Education 🤝 Entertainment
Oh, how lovely is it that our education system still believes in the archaic idea of separating education and entertainment! Because clearly, those who believe in such a distinction must know everything about both topics. It’s unlikely that effective learning would benefit from the two working together.
But fear not. Entertainment has always been reliable in its march towards rich media formats. First, it was books, then movies and TV, and now we have video games and immersive virtual worlds. And education should follow in entertainment’s footsteps because classrooms are just so stuck in the textbook era. Poor use of technology? Never heard of it.
Of course, it’s no surprise that innovation has happened outside of the school system globally. Heaven forbid our schools to embrace new ideas and technology. Let’s leave it to the consumer-facing applications to push education forward.
After all, YouTube is the world’s largest education company, with billions of people using it to learn new things. I personally educate myself from podcasts on the platform for hours daily. So who needs textbooks when we have “edutainment” creators making engaging content? But isn’t seeing our education system keeping up with the times delightful?
Creators on YouTube are inspiring a growing number of young people to develop a passion for #STEM. In addition, they serve as a modern-day global education system that is affordable and easily accessible, providing free resources to billions of individuals worldwide.
In recent years, TikTok has gained immense popularity and has even been compared to YouTube in terms of educational content. Users have expressed that they have learned more on TikTok than they ever did in school.
Interestingly, some individuals are referencing TikTok learnings as frequently as traditional news sources. “Not that I encourage that as a replacement.”
Nonetheless, TikTok has added a STEM tab to its homepage. Concurrently, the startup world has also seen the emergence of education-focused versions of TikTok, such as Revyze and Zigazoo, for children.
Roblox and Minecraft are even more immersive than YouTube and TikTok and are also considered edutainment companies. Roblox users spend a staggering 190 minutes daily on the platform, making it an excellent delivery method for educational content. In addition, many young people have learned Lua, the scripting language used in Roblox Studio, to build Roblox experiences. Similarly, Minecraft has been used by many users to learn how to develop and code.
Do you recall how our parents used to warn us about the harmful effects of gaming?
Despite this, gaming has become the top entertainment choice, as 40% of millennials claim to spend over 22 hours per week #gaming and a tremendous revenue stream for individuals. This presents an exciting opportunity to utilize gaming as an educational tool by creating edutainment-oriented massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) that combine Minecraft’s simplicity with @Roblox’s advanced features.
If educational content is added to the mix of the gaming industry in the #GCCregion, it could potentially provide an even greater opportunity for telecoms operators to diversify their business and attract a wider range of customers. By incorporating educational content, such as games that teach math, science, and language skills, #telecoms operators could tap into the growing demand for digital education solutions in the region.
There are several potential benefits of adding educational content to the gaming industry in the GCC region. Firstly, it could help address the #skillsgap in the region by providing access to high-quality educational content that is engaging and #interactive. Secondly, it could help drive customer #loyalty by positioning telecoms operators as providers of both entertainment and educational content. Thirdly, it could help increase #data usage as users spend more time engaging with educational #content.
Overall, the addition of educational c#ontent to the gaming industry in the GCC region has the potential to create a win-win situation for both telecoms operators and their customers. Telecoms operators would benefit from increased #revenue, customer loyalty, and a broader customer base, while customers would benefit from access to engaging educational content that can help them develop important skills. And if you personally ask me, building such a startup is so much cheaper than acquiring digital versions of a highly valued, low-end task rabbit knock off. If they would just listen, for once.
Imagine what incorporating artificial intelligence into such games can also offer? Personalized learning experiences for each user, making education more captivating and productive.
Virtual reality and augmented reality are also promising fields for education. PrismsVR, for instance, offers students experiential learning in 3D modules aimed at teaching abstract concepts like algebra and geometry. Incorporating game-like elements into such immersive technologies can make education more engaging for young people and should be the way forward for edutainment.
Skill-Based Learning: The Future of Education and Job Training
The traditional college route is becoming increasingly difficult for many individuals. For example, a recent survey by the ECMC Group revealed that only 50% of Gen Zs in the United States plan to pursue a four-year college education, down from 71% just two years ago. I do not want to even mention the GCC statistics. Instead, 56% believe that a skill-based education is more relevant today. This shift is reflected in the decline in total undergraduate enrollment from fall 2019 to fall 2021, continuing a long-term trend of declining college enrollment for the past 11 years. This is definitely how Trump made America great again!
The cost of college is a significant barrier for many, with student loan debt now standing at approximately $1.5 trillion and growing at a rate that outpaces salaries. In the 1950s United States of America, only 30% of household income was needed to cover college costs, but now, individuals must allocate nearly 80% of their household income. This makes college education unaffordable for many, particularly those from low-income families, who have only a 9% chance of obtaining a college degree by age 25.
Pursuing a traditional college education may not make financial sense for most individuals. Instead, skill-based programs may offer a better return on investment. Insert innovative solutions, and you get Reforge. For example, it is a startup that provides courses in growth marketing and product management taught by top tech executives. In addition, the rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) like Linkedin Learning, Coursera, Udacity, Udemy, and coding boot camps have also provided alternative routes to education.
Moreover, we are witnessing the emergence of field-specific training programs, such as those in nursing, data science, and design. In the future, labour marketplaces may move upmarket into job training, with platforms like Incredible Health training nurses, Nourish certifying dietitians, and Seafair preparing seafarers.
However, these platforms must overcome challenges like protecting against disintermediation, which has several advantages; giving consumers more direct access to goods and services can also mean lower prices because supply chains are streamlined, and the fees charged by distributors and logistics providers are eliminated or sharply reduced. Also, facilitates discovery and avoids the reacquisition of supply and demand. Finally, incorporating skill-based training could increase platform engagement and provide a more comprehensive service to users. Overall, skill-based learning is the future of education and job training, offering affordable and accessible alternatives to traditional college education.
Education technology companies face challenges in finding successful business models. Many rely on L&D budgets at enterprises, which may be cut in a downturn or sold into schools and school districts with long and unpredictable sales cycles and thin budgets. The education system needs to be faster to change, and corporations deprioritize training, hindering progress.
To succeed, #startups must find creative ways to #monetize, such as proving to #enterprises that they can save money by reducing worker attrition. With AI #disrupting jobs, startups should appeal to specific incentives to retrain employees instead of finding new ones. Startups can also take B2B or B2C approaches, finding economic purchase drivers and avoiding schools altogether.
Business models like #advertising, #subscription, #micropayments, and #SaaS are desirable and can lead to success. However, startups that refrain from selling to schools and sell directly to consumers or enterprises with strong incentives will likely reach escape velocity and succeed. For example, Synthesis School’s subscription-based model has reached an impressive scale by offering young students twice-weekly online courses that focus on team-thinking games.
Personalized Learning: How AI is Changing Education
As a student, I know firsthand the importance of personalized learning. Attending a private school with a low student-to-teacher ratio allowed me to receive the individual attention I needed to succeed. However, I recognize that this is only the case for some students.
Fortunately, with the rise of AI technology, personalized learning is becoming more accessible. Last week, I learned a textbook’s worth of information about medications, their interactions, and uses with ChatGPT alone, acting as a personal tutor.
AI can also automate tedious tasks like lesson planning and grading, freeing more time for personalized instruction. In addition, AI can produce customized learning materials and exercises by analyzing students’ strengths and weaknesses.
Although many schools are still figuring out how to incorporate AI into their curriculums, it has tremendous promise as a companion for teachers and students. For example, in a new education model, students may use AI for personalized lessons and exercises and then utilize valuable in-person time with teachers for specific help on complex concepts.
As the education industry is long overdue for reinvention, I hope that by 2033, we will see a radical shift in how we approach learning. By embracing AI technology, we can make personalized learning a reality for all students. So, let’s change the game and revolutionize education. Embrace the power of edutainment and skill-based learning, and let our love for learning blossom. Trust me, I’ve been there, and it’s a game-changer.
Oh, well, isn’t this just a perfect city where nothing can harm us – not even the bigger, faster, stronger structures lurking around every corner. But hey, imagine throwing all those lovely adjectives like bigger, faster, better, and stronger into the investment in startups addressing the education sector too? After all, we have the best testing grounds, with over 80% of pupils attending private schools and 90% of the population coming from over 192 nationalities and cultures. So what could go wrong when we prioritize flashy adjectives over actual substance in education?
Let’s keep patting ourselves for being diverse and dazzling while ignoring a fundamental issue.
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