Pram used to be a big research scientist: head of R&D for
Since I learned about Gooru, I’ve described it to friends and acquaintances, many of whom are classroom teachers. They often look at me confused. No wonder, Gooru is unique among offerings in the edtech space. There’s a hardly a context within which to understand what it does.
I’ll do my best to explain...
Think about the big search engines: Google, Bing, Yahoo!. They don’t just search the web; they sell advertising. They operate under the premise that what you’re searching for and what you enter into the dialogue box are not necessarily the same thing. You type “Church’s;” they crunch data and jump to the intuitive conclusion that you are not looking to learn about stained glass, alters, or steeples. Rather, you’re craving fried chicken and honey buttermilk biscuits. Search algorithms are built to cross reference and filter a large catalog of data in order to deliver results that prioritize advertising goals.
Imagine if search algorithms were built to find the best online learning resources, to collect metadata and analyze your learning habits in order to use predictive technology to suggest the best resource for the future. Gooru not only prioritizes educational goals, but also allows teachers to filter results by subject, grade level, and types of media (videos, slides, handouts, etc).
Another example: think about
Imagine if a teacher had the same kind of data. Using Gooru, teachers can create shared online “playlists.” Then, data about how the students actually used the resources is recorded and analyzed. “At every interaction, Gooru captures usage data, social signals and learning outcomes, which are used to develop user profiles, inform recommendation algorithms, and provide teachers with tools to deliver personalized learning to their students.” Consider the ramifications: I might think my students love videos, but Gooru knows that they turn them all off after three minutes. What’s more, I might discover that the students who only watched two minutes perform just as well as the ones who watched the whole thing.
Suddenly, we’re assessing the efficacy of our learning resources instead of our students’ ability to conform to our pedagogical practices.
Put simply, Gooru puts the power of big analytics in the hands of small classrooms. This is what makes Gooru so exciting. As Pram said to me during a recent phone call, “the teacher is at the center of the learning process for us.” Gooru is not edtech that attempts to automate the teaching or learning process. Instead, it makes intuitive suggestions by looking at the whole class.
Of course, a product like Gooru is only as strong as the catalog of resources from which it draws. And Pram wants it to be comprehensive. So it is built to encourage teachers to organize resources and construct study questions and assessments that become part of Gooru’s catalog. “Teachers are part of the development team.” Pram’s goal is not to gain a monopoly on the gigantic edtech market. Instead, he says, “We want to expand the education resources."
There’s more: Gooru technology is open. They have a whole bunch of stuff to say about development and APIs that I don’t really understand. “Using Gooru’s free and open RESTful APIs, major mobile device manufacturers, leading publishers, key education technology providers and a host of innovative startups are developing custom apps to bring the benefits of Gooru to their users.” Best I can tell, this means more people like Pram--folks who have a much more pragmatic vision of what technology can do for our future than I do--can build upon one another’s work.
Think of Gooru like a new tool for the classroom--like the whiteboard or the overhead projector. It empowers teachers to do what they already do well, but more efficiently and with increased ease. However, it comes with a learning curve because it creates a new skill set. Educators will need learn how to use data and analytics. This will inevitably cause a shift in the teaching process. And philosophers have made it clear for centuries that a change in process is also change in outcome. Two people walk down different paths; even if they arrive at the same destination, the journeys were not the same. To think otherwise is to remain in the service of a fantasy of objectivity.
The power of big data in the classroom is exciting. But we need to remember that every shift in HOW we teach is also a shift in WHAT we teach. I don’t mean to be alarmist. I'm really excited about Gooru. I find it to be among the most exciting developments in edtech that I’ve seen. This is huge. This is the future. For precisely this reason we should embrace it mindfully, with conscious awareness of the changes it brings.
Gooru is a non-profit that receives support from the Susan Crown Exchange, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation, as well as a number of corporate and private donors.
Jordan Shapiro is author of FREEPLAY: A Video Game Guide to Maximum Euphoric Bliss and co-editor of Occupy Psyche: Jungian and Archetypal Perspectives on a Movement. For information on his upcoming books and events click here.
