And as the founder and CEO of the non-profit Khan Academy told a packed auditorium at EduTECH last week, a traditional academic system inevitably ‘has to make compromises’ at the individual level.
A major drawcard for the annual event, Khan used his plenary address to crystallise some home truths about technology – AI-powered tech in particular – and to showcase its potential for both good and bad in education.
He noted that students whose parents can afford catch-up tutoring can indeed close their learning gaps and continue on the path to mastery – but what about those left behind?
Years ago, while in the thick of tutoring a number of his younger cousins who were struggling in maths, Khan happened upon a viable and widely accessible solution: technology.
Inspired by a suggestion he could leverage YouTube as a platform to share instructional videos with all of his charges, the edtech guru first spied the power in making education personalised at scale.
For starters, his ‘students’ liked him more online than in person, Khan jokes.
“It was awfully convenient (for them) to have an on-demand version of their cousin,” he adds.
Now Khan’s free curriculum and instructional videos are removing the barriers to education worldwide, with Khan Academy videos clocking up more than 1 billion views to date.
The non-profit also offer an AI-powered bot called ‘Khanmigo’, which is there to give every student the gift of a 1:1 tutor.
The expert suggests AI can offer teachers incredibly granular information about the learning progress of their students, with his Academy having released a whole suite of tools, complete with a teacher interface, where they are in total command.
“If I had to pick between an amazing teacher and no technology, or amazing technology and no teacher, I would pick an amazing teacher every time,” he clarifies.
But in an ideal reality, we don’t have to make this trade off, he says.
Ultimately, Khan believes that technology is always “something that amplifies human intent”.
In the case of generative AI, there are a host of ‘bad actors’ using it to amplify their needs – be that a lazy student using it to cheat on their assignment, or some of the more sinister and harmful applications that are unfolding, he suggests.
“Unless we put in the time, energy and resources into amplifying our positive intent, the bad intent is going to win,” he implores delegates.
If we want AI technology to improve human intelligence and purpose in the long-run, we need to mobilise and drive the positive use of it, Khan adds.
A look inside the mechanics of generative AI
Meanwhile, for those educators still building their understanding of generative AI and how it actually works at an intuitive level, James Curran, CEO and director of Grok Academy, sets out to untangle the maze with some cut-through explanations on Day 1.
As immature technology, if teachers understand the deeper ideas behind generative AI then they’ll be well prepared for whatever the future will look like with the tech in play, Curran says.
Ultimately it will be our students who will need to resolve some of the bigger questions and issues cracked open by generative AI, he suggests.
“If generative AI is used to create an apology, is it really an apology at all?” he asks the audience.
(PS: Curran decides it does indeed count as one.)
Crafting tech policies for the long-term in schools
Over in the school leaders learning stream, a panel is wrapped up in discussing how schools can minimise ‘reactive scrambling’ and instead ‘future-proof’ themselves against the relentless and inevitable pipeline of technological change to come.
Joining moderator Alan Finkel, former Australia’s chief scientist and chancellor of Monash University, is Michelle Dennis, head of digital at Haileybury, and Shane Parnell, director of technology at Anglican Schools Commission.
Both throw out some bites of wisdom regarding the issue of deepfakes, legal ramifications students need to know about, and the importance of scaffolding students use of tech so they are taught to develop a ‘moral compass’ with it.
As Dennis puts it, developing a whole school policy around technology ought to be robust enough to be applied to every new tool that emerges.
To do this, policies should be based on broader ideas agreed upon by the school community that can safely guide students’ use of any tool or platform, she indicates.
Parnell says one huge issue he’s seen is that students are entirely too trusting of AI and the online realm more generally.
Yet blanket bans are not the way to go now, Dennis urges.
“The internet is the ultimate cockroach, which means that banning things is a lot more complex,” she says.
“These are complex social issues, we need to make sure we have the same level of [complex] solutions.”
EduTECH was held at the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre over two days last week.
Widely known as one of the largest education events in the world, and boasting nine separate learning streams and a free showroom expo, thousands of educators and edtech experts came together for the professional learning and networking opportunities up for grabs.
EduTECH 2025 will be held in Sydney.
