“Sesame Street” + IBM Watson = Personalized Learning

 You may remember how, back in 2011, IBM’s supercomputer Watson competed against the world’s best “Jeopardy” champions and won. Fast-forward a few years and cognitive computing and machine learning have become the latest tech buzzwords that promise to revolutionize industries such as healthcare by providing real-time, actionable insights and much more.

 Entire markets, including banking and finance, law, and auditing and accounting, to name a few, are also facing disruption as well as opportunities with ongoing advancements in cognitive technology. The power of IBM Watson is finally being realized now that it can understand, reason and learn from the wealth of big data that most businesses are struggling to make sense of.

 Early childhood education appears to be next on the agenda. Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization that produces “Sesame Street,” recently announced a collaboration to use IBM Watson's cognitive computing technology in a three-year deal. The partnership between IBM and Sesame’s early childhood expertise is aiming to advance preschool education around the world in new and powerful ways.

 What has traditionally been dismissed as child's play is about to get a dramatic overhaul. Harriet Green, IBM's General Manager for Watson IoT, Commerce and Education, advised: "The potential for Watson to absorb, correlate and learn from massive amounts of unstructured data and then deliver very personalized educational experiences is unprecedented.”

 Although we invest heavily in education, we often forget that the foundation to all learning as well as personality and intellectual skills is formed in the first few years of our lives. Educators have known for decades that from birth to five years old is the most critical period in the development of children, but unfortunately this critical window for learning and development has been difficult to improve upon and is often neglected.

 Not all, but far too many educators use a one-size-fits-all approach by only recognizing a particular type of intelligence. Any student, regardless of age, outside of this restrictive structure quickly falls behind, so it's clear that something needs to change. The reality is that the personalization of education is difficult when you have 30 kids in your classroom. Personalized educational experiences that take into account individual learning styles during a child's most formative years are a significant step forward in the name of progress.

 As children or adults, we all learn in different ways. Whether our learning styles are visual, auditory or kinesthetic, teachers tend to teach in the way they learn best. This is where technology, in this case Watson, can help by learning what is the best learning style for each student and then personalizing instruction for that style.  

 Internet-connected smart toys that speak, listen and grow with children by using advanced language processing algorithms to drive real two-way, speech-based interactions are already readily available. Some parents may find this concept a little uncomfortable. But, a toy that becomes smarter as the child learns has to be more beneficial than the traditional toys we grew up with repeating catchphrases.

 The new relationship between cognitive computing and preschool education seems like a perfect match. This is not about technology replacing teachers but giving them a tool that enables individualized learning for children by understanding both the learning style and level of each student.

 As this technology advances, it's not beyond the realms of possibility to have a digital teaching assistant that can analyze behaviors while also assessing both the strengths and weaknesses of pupils. This could be a fantastic tool that would enable teachers to prevent problems occurring in the classroom before they happen.

 Watson’s biggest strength is its ability to learn and adapt in real time through conversations rather than have users simply stare at yet another screen. The next generation of educational tools is starting to unleash unprecedented opportunities in classrooms across the globe. Whatever your opinions on so-called supercomputers in schools, teaching children as the unique individuals that they are can only be a good thing.

 IBM’s Watson has come a long way since beating the champions of “Jeopardy.” Its ability to learn from the colossal amount of data thrown in its direction illustrates how cognitive computing, AI and machine learning will be leading the way forward across much of the digital landscape.

 Maybe we can finally wave goodbye to the days where children who don’t respond to traditional teaching methods get left behind. It’s interesting to consider that in this case it is technology that can help us unlock our human side and both maximize and celebrate our unique potential.

 Are you excited or cautious about technology helping to deliver personalized educational experiences? Please comment below and let me know your thoughts.

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Thanks for reading. You can find my previous Linkedin articles here, and you can also connect on Twitter at @DanielBurrus

DANIEL BURRUS is considered one of the World's Leading Futurists on Global Trends and Innovation, and is the founder and CEO of Burrus Research, a research and consulting firm that monitors global advancements in technology driven trends to help clients understand how technological, social and business forces are converging to create enormous untapped opportunities. He is the author of six books including New York Times & Wall Street Journal best seller Flash Foresight.   

Daniel Burrus is also the creator of  The Anticipatory Organization? Learning System–named a Top 10 Product of 2016.

The AO Learning System is a training process for executives and their teams to develop the skills to accurately foresee and take critical actions before disruption strikes.

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