05Education· UX Team

Attention is the new bitcoin

ScienceProbability 50/100

// A story from 2051

The day before her retirement; the last day of the school year of 2051, Katinka fires up her school laptop for the last time. She neatly arranges the concentration headbands by the entrance, so early arrivals can grab one in case they forgot their lenses at home. A convenient excuse she has heard so many times, and in so many different shapes. She remembers the start of her career, back in the days when excuses were used for not handing in written homework or ‘forgetting’ to attach their homework to an email. Now, towards the end of her career, it’s the performance measuring technology that is always ‘forgotten’ by at least one of her students.

It comforts her to know that no matter her age, kids have always been kids. For a while, especially at the dawn of perfotech in schools, she was afraid children would become robots. With their attention monitored non-stop, Katinka feared they would feel under continuous pressure to perform. But she had misjudged the situation (mostly because she herself didn’t get her first mobile phone until she was 18 and didn’t fully comprehend children’s ability to adapt to new tech). The children she had been teaching lately have grown up with technology in an inclusive way, as if trackers and algorithms were a natural extension of themselves. Monitoring their brain performance in graphs and numbers was not that big a leap from what they were already used to in their VR game performance.

Looking at the blank dashboard, Katinka remembers how grateful she felt that her school (and hundreds of other institutions around the world) hadn’t hopped on the perfotech train without vigorous debate and pilot tests. Only because the results indicated an untapped potential, did they hesitantly start monitoring their students in real time. Katinka and most of the older teachers were first opposed to yet another tool to work with in their classrooms, but when they found that the dashboard helped to pinpoint the exact student in need of support at the exact time, it became a tool they eventually leaned on daily.

The headbands – and later the lenses – have felt to Katinka like the expression of a much bigger shift in the education landscape that has taken place throughout her entire career. Take her very first class, for example. Dimitri had been a very active boy, diagnosed too late with ADHD. He’d been very bad at memorising dates, word lists and formulas. She had fought for him during the deliberations round because she felt he showed keen insights during class discussions about topics that were complex in nature. But based on his overall test scores and restless behaviour in class, the teacher panel had decided to let him repeat the year. He’d got bored, started a digital business when he was 16 and dropped out of school on his 18th birthday. She ran into him two decades later. Dimitri had a thriving business and had never regretted his decision to drop out. “I learnt what I needed to know via online courses and forums, and by allowing myself to experiment when I was young”, he said.

Had Dimitri been a student in the final year of her teaching career, Katinka was sure he would have been one of their top performers. Not in the MOOCs for universal basic knowledge that all students in the country had to take. He would have done just fine, because now the content was gamified to keep his attention, and technology such as holograms added a more immersive aspect to history, for example. But he wouldn’t have risen above the average. However, the Three Pillar classes would have yielded a much better result.

He would have absolutely loved the Technology classes, where he could have experimented with digital solutions in hackathon style every week. In the labs children were allowed to move about freely, and talking – either to collaborate, or to encourage fellow classmates – was encouraged. The Creativity classes would have been a challenge for Dimitri, Katinka thought, as he had struggled to express himself. The Pure Play modules would have stumped him, but eventually he would have loosened up. The modules that opened up the senses through haptics and olfactory stimulation would certainly have worked wonders to help him feel more anchored to the present and support his personal growth. And he would have been an absolute star in her Strategy classes. Using all kinds of data about problems to theorise about solutions and then devising tests to validate proposals? Absolutely his cup of tea - he never would have been one of those students that ‘forgot’ his AR lenses!

// The science behind it

A new school of thought for a new generation

At the turn of the century, several issues began to rise in the field of education. The first was the fact that the amount of data children had to learn, grew significantly. A person born in the 1820s had significantly less tech knowledge, formulae or history to memorise than someone living in the 21^st century. The second issue was the growing rift between the theoretical knowledge learnt at school and soft skills needed to enter the job market. Lastly, children’s attention span declined after the 2020s. There was a great need to move from the traditional, passive way of learning to a more active education style.

Along with universal internet access, there were a handful of technologies that made this transition from passive to active education more virtual, immersive, and hands-on. These included augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and holograms. For about a decade, attention monitoring via facial recognition was used to improve the curriculums of each individual class, until they reached at least 85% of average student attentiveness.

The next two decades were filled with exciting adaptations of this concept. The first adaptation was meant to come in the form of Neuralink-like implants, but the procedure was deemed too invasive and the outcome uncertain. Instead, adaptation came in the form of attention monitoring bands that collected data via EEG tech and gave student instructions via bone conduction and sent data to their teacher’s tablet. Monitoring devices were advised to be worn at home during their study-time as well. Based on the data accumulated, the device would then identify the best moments for data retention. It would then communicate with students’ mobile devices to recommend them the most optimal time of the day at which to study.

As schools started to implement these digital solutions, they also gathered more data. When they finally started to pool and analyse their big data, the entire view on education began to shift away from turning children into passive knowledge repositories, and more and more towards the new model. Suddenly, “knowing things” was only considered a starting point and not the ultimate goal. Kids were increasingly taught where to find the right information, how to judge it, how to analyse and use it. This quickly developed into the ‘Base and Three Pillars’ approach to education.

The idea of this new approach was to develop MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) that held all the basic knowledge and theory children at a certain age were supposed to acquire in a country (and in some cases where language allowed it, even across borders). These courses were fully automated to free up teacher time for the Pillars. The MOOCs were also gamified, to keep student engagement high and continuous. All children took MOOCs consecutively, only able to access the next course when the previous ‘level’ was fully mastered. This was what became known as the Base.

The courses in these MOOCs were enhanced with technology like holograms, so students could listen to the best performances of the best teachers in the world. Or view Hollywood-style reconstructions of historical events. What could be better than hearing Napoleon Bonaparte recounting his life and the Waterloo battle himself, rather than having to read through hundreds of pages in his biography?

This meant that education centres, like schools, campuses and other learning facilities, could transform into learning labs. That’s where the Three Pillars came into play: Strategy, Technology and Creativity. The first pillar, Strategy, was centred around the idea that being able to look at any kind of data and coming up with a structured, executable solution that could be verified through user testing, was a worthy skill in the job marketplace.

The second pillar, Technology, was centred around the idea that children should no longer need to answer the question “How far?” when it came to technology, but instead “To what use?”. Modules in this pillar were based on the sporadic hackathons that were organised at the turn of the century, where existing technology was used as a playground for solutions. In Technology classes from the ‘Base and Three Pillars’ approach, children were asked to create something new with any tech equipment they found in the lab. Technology skills were of course trained in these classes, but they also served to teach collaboration skills as well as the failure-as-a-learning-opportunity mindset.

The final pillar, Creativity, was aimed at keeping people’s minds open. This pillar used techniques for play mindsets that would encourage out-of-the-box thinking and creative expression. In addition, they focused on growing empathy through what would come to be known as ‘deep immersion’. Based on advancements made in relation to VR headsets, children were offered experiences that immersed them completely into the life and situation of someone else. One of these advancements was the dispersal of scent through little openings right below the goggles. The goggles themselves had five cartridges from where scents were mixed to fit the experience before being released. Additionally, for VR to be able to stimulate the nervous system through pressure, pain and temperature, the goggles were combined with haptic bodysuits, whose actuators placed within the fabric generated vibrations that simulated the sensation of touch. This allowed them to stimulate all five of the major senses – sound, sight, taste, touch and smell. With all senses engaged, immersive technology could really let someone walk a mile in another person’s shoes – hence ‘deep immersion’.

Upon completing their studies, the end result of which we now term a diploma, was no longer based on number or letter scores. All MOOCs had to be completed, so everyone graduated with the same ‘degree’ around their 18^th birthday. What made their graduation special was that their achievements and expertise were officially validated. This gave them a clear view of what to specialise in if they studied further, or which type of jobs they should start looking for in the workplace.

Can the heroes of yesteryear be tomorrow’s teachers?

That attention spans are lowering with each new generation, is no secret. Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark concluded that the attention span of people all over the world is narrowing due to the amount of information that is presented to the public. The Chinese government is already implementing several measures to combat this. Notably, they’re limiting the time children spend playing video games. Other measures revolve around monitoring attention with tech – what we called ‘perfotech’ in our proposal – like attention detecting facial recognition software, or performance monitoring hardware like bands.

Some schools and countries’ education systems are already addressing problematic passive educational environments. Finland remains at the top of the rankings for the world’s best education systems through the implementation of play-based learning in schools across the country. Elon Musk has also experimented with new types of education by creating Ad Astra and Astra Novia schools, where students learn through online, live team games with students from around the world. His education system, like the other advanced ones, stresses the importance of group work. Following the online learning theme, the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 32.8% during 2021-2026.

AR, VR, AI, hologram and other technologies are also already tapping into the field of education. With SkyView App, for example, students can explore the universe via AR overlays of the night sky. Students can point their mobile devices towards sky to discover stars, constellations, planets, and satellites. With the Froggipedia App on the other hand, students can explore and discover the unique life cycle and intricate anatomical details of a frog.

Some medical students already have the opportunity to use Microsoft HoloLens to learn about the human body by, amongst many other things, ‘flowing’ through the bloodstream or ‘walking’ inside human body parts in order to better understand the inner functions of the body. This not only helps students gain a better understanding of anatomy but also gives them a more detailed perspective on treatment for different medical conditions.

Holograms of professors were first implemented at Tecnològico de Monterrey in undergraduate courses in 2016. They pioneered the use of holograms, captivating both students and teachers. Holograms increase the mobility of teachers, mentors, historical leaders, and others and gets them to interact with students live or via recording.

Google Expeditions were particularly useful during Covid, as teachers were able to take students around the globe, thanks to various immersive school trips offered by this VR platform. Trying to teach your students about a bombing raid on Nazi Germany during World War Two? The 1943 Berlin Blitz in 360°, an experience produced by Immersive VR Education for BBC, can help bring it to life in ways a textbook could never achieve.

There’s also been an attempt to develop the world's first Multisensory Mask that releases smells, vibrates, and blasts your face with air or mist. The project, FEELREAL, has earned plenty of backers on crowdfunding sites, but hasn’t provided a prototype yet.

We already got to re-live the experience of listening to Tupac, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and Amy Winehouse – well after their deaths – via holograms, so it’s not hard to see those applied to education systems and historical figures.

The closest to haptic bodysuits today is “synthetic skin”. Developed by Northwestern University, it is a wirelessly powered, 15-centimetre square patch that can be stuck onto any part of the body, using actuators that vibrate against the skin to simulate tactile sensations.

In one of the papers published in the Soft Robotics Journal, scientists revealed details of a second skin that’s about 500 nanometers thick. It was intended for VR users, and is far more sophisticated and less obtrusive than existing haptic feedback systems. The prototype offered real-time feedback at a frequency of 100Hz and a sensitivity of up to one Newton of force.

Turns out that even AR contact lenses aren’t that far-fetched either. Mojo Vision is developing the world’s first, true smart contact lens with AR display, powered by an external compute pack. Its hexagonal shaped display boasts 14.000 pixels per inch. Its magnification system expands the imagery and beams it into part of retina called the fovea. Mojo Vision’s Vice President Steve Sinclair explained to Forbes that the compute pack is meant to be a device that communicates with the lens and is to be worn around a user’s neck. The device is where the processor, GPU, batteries and storage will be contained.

A lot of ‘perfotech’ mentioned in the article is already here. Their use was accelerated by Covid-19, like the Massive Open Online Courses, AR, VR incorporation and even hologram professors. Synthetic skin in the form of a patch is under development (and we’re eagerly waiting for someone to make it into a full body suit). Scent-releasing VR glasses already exist, but it will take a while before they hit the market, as the FDA has not approved their usage. Another type of tech that’s mentioned in our vision are the smart contact lenses. They are just an idea, waiting to be prototyped. There seems to be a lot of tech that’s already in use or at the very least being developed, so why the low score?

Personalised learning is the ultimate goal of education systems around the globe. Yet it seems like moving closer towards that goal is a rather slow and costly affair that governments aren’t eager to push. That cannot be said for China, where pilot projects for bands that monitor brain waves are already ongoing. In other classes, students’ attention is monitored through video recording and face recognition and compared with data about their achievements. If these kinds of innovations and user testing continues, we’re looking at China becoming the most dominant intellectual global force. Looking at their yearly patents growth rate, it seems that their efforts are already proving fruitful. So, are we content simply to ride their wave of success, or will we rise up and redefine our education ourselves?

// Sources & further reading