What do you like about your role?

The ability to co-design, produce and deliver digital learning experiences that deliver meaningful impact for our customers. Feeling that we make a difference and that we help people make a step change in their personal leadership journey is very gratifying. This recent piece in the Financial Times nicely encapsulates why we do what we do….How a five-day business course changed a life.

Share three predictions on the future of Edtech.

• More micro learning-more learning chunks on the go, less and shorter F2F programs

• More sophisticated adaptive learning-learning experiences truly shaped to learners’ progress

• More leveraging of behavioural analytics-learning specifically targeted to your (potentially unconscious) needs by pertinent analysis of your online presence

   

What technologies do you believe have the potential to transform the education industry?

Augmented Reality-this could be the next significant change in bringing digital learning to life 

Adaptive Learning algorithms (as referenced above) are already starting to get fairly sophisticated and will continue to do so.

Additionally ongoing research projects such as the Blue Brain project-a Swiss national brain initiative which aims to create a digital reconstruction of the brain by reverse-engineering mammalian brain circuitry will also be a game changer

As we are celebrating out 5th anniversary of EdTechXEurope, we are looking at the key trends over the past 5 years in edtech. What would you say have been the key areas of change that are impacting edtech today? Anything unexpected that surprised you? Trends that were overhyped and never met their expected potential?

For me, and I know this is somewhat controversial, one of the largest hopes, but also one of the greatest disappointments, has been the MOOC mania. A movement that started with so much promise has in many ways been over hyped. The reputation of MOOCS has been tarnished by unequal standards-there are of course some great MOOCS, however there are also some of very dubious quality. Many MOOCS fall into the trap of primarily focusing on knowledge dissemination and have difficulty engendering learning application. MOOCS have also been dogged by low completion rates. There is of course still a bright future for MOOCS, but a radical rethink of MOOC design, production and delivery will be necessary to take them to the next level. 

Why is it important for all players in the edtech ecosystem to continuously connect, network and learn from each other?

Co-creation is essential to jump the S curve and to proactively manage disruptive innovation. If you think you can paddle your own canoe in this domain, think again! There is so much to be gained by cross pollination with partners, competitors, customers, non-customers as well as from serendipitous interactions with both individuals and companies who are completely unrelated to our industries. As Professor Bill Fischer likes to say ‘More different minds are better than more of the same…’

When you think about joining EdTechXEurope this year, what are you looking forward to? What makes you excited about our event in London?

Spending time in the company of curious individuals who come from a wide range of industries, from different generations, from different backgrounds and with an eclectic mix of experiences and viewpoints in a condensed timeframe. These are great conditions to induce meaningful learning.

Join Paul and our 100+ thought leader speakers at EdTechXEurope 2017 on 20 - 21st June 2017 - reserve your place now >> 

Explore the agenda and see all of our confirmed 2017 EdTechXEurope speakers - go to agenda >>