Mar 17 2025
A [recent BBC article](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3e4w4ng02go) reminded me of one of my enduring technology disappointments over the last 40 years – the failure of the educational system to reasonably (let alone fully) leverage multimedia and computer technology to enhance learning. The article is about a symposium in the UK about using AI in the classroom. I am confident there are many ways in which AI can enhance learning efficacy in the classroom, just as I am confident that we collectively will fail to utilize AI anywhere nears its potential. I hope I’m wrong, but it’s hard to shake four decades of consistent disappointment.
What am I referring to? Partly it stems from the fact that in the 1980s and 1990s I had lots of expectations about what future technology would bring. These expectations were born of voraciously reading books, magazines, and articles and watching documentaries about potential future technology, but also from my own user experience. For example, starting in high school I became exposed to computer programs (at first just DOS-based text programs) designed to teach some specific body of knowledge. One program that sticks out walked the user through the nomenclature of chemical reactions. It was a very simple program, but it “gamified” the learning process in a very effective way. By providing immediate feedback, and progressing at the individual pace of the user, the learning curve was extremely steep.
This, I thought to myself, was the future of education. I even wrote my own program in basic designed to teach math skills to elementary schoolers, and tested it on my friend’s kids with good results. It followed the same pattern as the nomenclature program: question-response-feedback. I feel confident that my high school self would be absolutely shocked to learn how little this type of computer-based learning has been incorporated into standard education by 2025.
When my daughters were preschoolers I found every computer game I could that taught colors, letters, numbers, categories, etc., again with good effect. But once they got to school age, the resources were scarce and almost nothing was routinely incorporated into their education. The school’s idea of computer-based learning was taking notes on a laptop. I’m serious. Multimedia was also a joke. The divide between what was possible and what was reality just continued to widen. One of the best aspects of social media, in my opinion, is tutorial videos. You can often find much better learning on YouTube than in a classroom.
I know there are lots of resources out there, and I welcome people to leave examples in the comments, but in my experience none of this is routine, and there is precious little that has been specifically developed to teach the standard curriculum to students in school. I essentially just witnessed my two daughters go through the entire American educational system (my younger daughter is a senior at college). I also experienced it myself in the decades prior to that, and now I experience it as a medical school educator. At no level would I say that we are anywhere close to leveraging the full potential of computers and multi-media learning. And now it is great that there is a discussion about AI, but why should I feel it will be any different?
To be clear, there have been significant changes, especially at the graduate school level. At Yale over the last 20 years we have transitioned away from giving lectures about topics to giving students access to videos and podcasts, and then following up with workshops. There are also some specific software applications and even simulators that are effective. However, medical school is a trade school designed to teach specific skills. My experience there does not translate to K-12 or even undergraduate education. And even in medical school I feel we are only scratching the surface of the true potential.
What is that potential? Let’s do some thought experiments about what is possible.
First, I think giving live lectures is simply obsolete. People only have about a 20 minute attention span, and the attention of any class is going to vary widely. Also, lecturers have a massive difference in their general lecturing skills and their mastery of any specific topic. Imagine if the entire K-12 core curriculum were accompanied by series of lectures by the best lecturers with high level mastery of the subject material. You can also add production value, like animations and demonstrations. Why have a million teachers replicate that lecture – just give students access to the very best. They can watch it at their own pace, rewind parts they want to hear again, pause when their attention wanes or they need a break. Use class time for discussion and questions.
By the way – this exists – it’s called The Great Courses by the Teaching Company (disclosure – I produced three courses with the Teaching Company). This is geared more toward adult learning with courses generally at a college level. But they show that a single company can mass produce such video lectures, with reasonably high production value.
Some content may work better as audio-only (a Podcast, essentially), which people can listen to when in the car or on the bus, while working out, or engaged in other cognitively-light activity.
Then there are specific skills, like math, reading, many aspects of science, etc. These topics might work best as a video/audio lecture series combined with software designed to gamify the skill and teach it to children at their own pace. Video games are fun and addictive, and they have perfected the technology of progressing the difficulty of the skill of the game at the pace of the user.
What might a typical school day look like with these resources? I imagine that students’ “homework” would consist of watching one or more videos and/or listening to podcasts, followed by a short assessment – a few questions focusing on knowledge they should have gained from watching the video. In addition, students may need to get to a certain level in a learning video game teaching some skill. Perhaps each week they need to progress to the next level. They can do this anytime over the course of a week.
During class time (this will vary by grade level and course) the teachers review the material the students should have already watched. They can review the questions in the assessment, or help students struggling to get to the next level in their training program. All of the assessments and games are online, so the teacher can have access to how every student is doing. Classroom time is also used for physical hands-on projects. There might also be computer time for students to use to get caught up on their computer-based work, with extended hours for students who may lack resources at home.
This kind of approach also helps when we need to close school for whatever reason (snow day, disease outbreak, facility problem, security issue), or when an individual needs to stay home because they are sick. Rather than trying to hold Zoom class (which is massively suboptimal, especially for younger students), students can take the day to consume multi-media lessons and play learning games, while logging proof-of-work for the teachers to review. Students can perhaps schedule individual Zoom time with teachers to go over questions and see if they need help with anything.
The current dominant model of lecture-textbook-homework is simply clunky and obsolete. A fully realized and integrated computer-based multi-media learning experience would be vastly superior. The popularity of YouTube tutorials, podcasts, and video games is evidence of how effective these modalities can be. We also might as well prepare students for a lifetime of learning using these resources. We don’t even really need AI, but targeted use of AI can make the whole experience even better. The same goes for virtual reality – there may be some specific applications where VR has an advantage. And this is just me riffing from my own experience.
The potential here is huge, worth the investment of billions of dollars, and creating a market competition for companies to produce the best products. The education community needs to embrace this enthusiastically, with full knowledge that this will mean reimagining what teachers do day-to-day and that they may need to increase their own skills. The payoff for society, if history is any judge, would be worth the investment.