The World Is My School: Welcome to the Era of Personalized Learning

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The World IsMy School:Welcome to the Era of

Personalized LearningBy Maria H. Andersen

Future learning will become

both more social and more

personal, says an educational

technology expert.

12 THE FUTURIST January-February 2011



cently that affect how we spend ourfree time. Facebook, now with 500million users, has disrupted normalsocial interactions in a little over sixyears. Micro-blogging explodedwhen a Web site simply invited us toanswer the question: What’s on yourmind? Twitter users now send morethan 50 million tweets per day, and big news stories break first on Twit-ter—in real time and with eyewitnessaccounts. As big as Twitter is, therewere more people playing Farmville(a social media game on Facebook)at its peak than there were activeTwitter users—a fact that has notgone unnoticed by game designersand educators. These Farmville play-ers are choosing to spend their freetime for collaborative activities (their“cognitive surplus,” as media scholar

Clay Shirky puts it) plowing virtualsoil and planting virtual crops.These innovative social disrup-

tions have happened quickly, but notfrom within the existing organiza-tional structures. For example, Face- book did not disrupt phone commu-nication by changing the nature of phone calls or phones. Facebook built an entirely new system thateventually circled back around tophones by the way of phone apps. Inthe same way, the trick to developinga personal learning system is toabandon thinking about how to build it from within the existing edu-

ing. Neal Stephenson’s novel The Di-amond Age (Spectra, 1995) shares avision of personalized learning in thefuture via an interactive book thatpossesses a conversational interface(CI) and “pseudo-intelligence,” akind of artificial intelligence (AI) thatis inferior to human intelligence. It’slikely that we’ll see decent conversa-tional interfaces within the nextdecade, and certainly applicationslike Google Voice are moving usmuch closer to this reality. AI that iscapable of directing the learningneeds of a human will take muchlonger, developing in the next 20–50years, but we can’t wait that long forthe technology to catch up with edu-cation. The need for personalizedlearning exists in the here and now.So how does one bridge this vision

of the future with the realities of thepresent?

Learning Technologies Today

Let’s start by taking stock of thepersonalized technologies for infor-mation that we already have. Wehave software that stores the contentwe like (e.g., Evernote, Posterous)and software that merely stores thelocation of that content (e.g., Diigo orDelicious). Even traditional media,like books, now have parallel digitalsystems that allow for note taking,highlighting, and bookmarking (e.g.,Kindle, Nook, or iPad). While it’suseful to store and search informa-tion, I would venture that we rarelygo back to look at the informationwe mark for storage.

This is a problem; for deep learn-ing to occur, we need to have re-peated exposure to the information,along with some time in between forreflection. We need to give our brainsa repeated opportunity to process

the information we take in so that it becomes knowledge, understanding,and wisdom. This means we’re go-ing to have to find time in our busylives to reflect on the informationthat flows past us on a daily basis,and we’re going to need some kindof technology that keeps us on track with our learning goals.

While it seems outrageous that wecould find any more time in our busylives, consider some of the disrup-tive changes we’ve seen quite re-

Humans have always beenlearning, but how we learnhas changed over time. Theearliest means of education

were highly personal: Oral historiespassed from adults to children, infor-mal or formal apprenticeships, andone-on-one tutoring have all beenused in the early history of most cul-tures. It’s only been in the last twocenturies that we’ve used formalizedsystems of mass public education(aka industrialized education).

Certainly, personalized learning isthe more effective method. In 1984,educational researcher BenjaminBloom found that average studentswho were tutored one-on-one out-performed 98% of students whowere learning via conventional meth-ods (this is referred to as Bloom’s

two-sigma problem). However, per-sonal learning is not cost-effective,and so we currently educate studentsin batches of 20, 30, or even 200 stu-dents at a time. This is likely to getworse before it gets better, withprominent philanthropists like BillGates declaring that “the best lec-tures in the world” will be onlinewithin the next five years. Certainlywe can use technology to deliverthose lectures to thousands, or evenmillions, of students at a time, but alecture does not automatically pro-duce learning any more than attend-ing a class does.

Mass education is adequate, aslong as students are highly moti-vated to learn and get ahead of theirpeers. In developing countries, a stu-dent who is successful in educationwill be able to climb the ladder of personal economic prosperity fasterthan those who are not successful.But in industrialized countries,where prosperity is the norm, an ed-ucation does not necessarily translate

into a significantly higher standardof living. In these countries, there isno longer a large economic incentiveto learn, so the motivation to learnmust become intrinsic. As we re-design en masse education, we mustaddress learners’ intrinsic motiva-tions, which means that educationmust circle back to being personalagain.

The vision of a modern education built around personalized learning isnot new, but it is definitely tantaliz-

“For deep learning tooccur, we need repeatedexposure to informationplus time for reflection.”

ILLUSTRATIONS: SCOTT SPENCER, DIANE LABOMBARBE, MARTIN MALCHEN / ISTOCKPHOTO THE FUTURIST January-February 2011 13



and I could tag the question withmetadata tags I indicate (e.g., copy-right, digital copyright, and education).

Later in the day or the week, whenI have some down time, I could re-engage with SOCRAIT. Here’s howit would work: I read or listen to aquestion, answer it in my head orout loud, view or listen to the an-swer, rate my understanding, and goto the next question. Since the learn-ing is tailored to intrinsic motiva-tions, learners could rate their ownability to answer a question (e.g., 1 =I have no clue, 2 = I knew some of it,and 3 = I nailed it!), and SOCRAITcould make decisions based on theseratings. If your rating of understand-ing is low or spotty, the systemwould offer to send you back to thesource for another look. Notice that

there is no need to develop soft-ware to verify the answers toquestions—if you aren’t good atrating your own understanding(we call this metacognition), thiswill come out later in the process,and you’ll have to learn to get bet-ter at it.

With a rudimentary computerinterface, like the one imple-

For example, suppose I read anarticle about digital copyright in ed-ucational settings, and I decide thatit’s important for me to remembersome of the details of this article. Atthe end of this article, I choose“Learn This” to add a question to mySOCRAIT question bank. Two op-tions would appear: (1) write yourown question or (2) choose from alist of questions written by others. If I choose the first option, I mightwrite a simple question and answerfor myself: “What are the allowableuses for copyrighted video in an ed-ucational setting?” Following this,I’d write a short summary or clip afew sentences of content from thearticle to summarize the answer tothe question. Alongwith the question and

answer, SOCRAITw o uld s ave t hesource URL (link to the content),

cational system and to begin ponder-ing how such a system could be de-veloped outside of education.Educational institutions form a vastinterconnected network, and whilesmall changes can occur within thesystem, individual parts only havethe ability to flex within their exist-ing boundaries. For a personalizedlearning system to take hold insideeducation, it will have to be built onthe outside.

A Simple Idea: Learn This

Let me propose a realistic scenarioof what a true personalized learningsystem might look like and how itwould function. We first have to cre-ate (1) a new layer of learning mediain the background of the existing In-

ternet and (2) an ecosystem of soft-ware to easily manage the learningmedia we engage with. In the sameway we’ve integrated buttons likeTwitter’s “Tweet this” and Face- book’s “Like” at the end of videos,articles, and other media, imaginewe now add a button for “LearnThis.” Clicking this button (any-where you find it) would bring youinto an interface to help you learnthe content.

We don’t need a humanlike artifi-cial intelligence to begin this journey.The technology for such a journey al-ready exists and is simple enough touse with traditional learning meth-ods. In the first version, learningshould simply be by way of Socraticquestioning, where questions areused to analyze concepts, to prod atthe depth of knowledge, and to focuson principles, issues, or problems.Socratic questions are elegant be-cause, unlike with other formats (e.g.,multiple choice), learners must self-generate the answers rather than rely

heavily on the ability to recognize acorrect answer when they see it. Thepersonal learning system would usea spaced repetition algorithm (SRA)to reintroduce the Socratic questionsover time so that biological memoryis more likely to grasp onto the ideasand information. For now, let’s callthis system SOCRAIT (a play on “So-cratic” that includes SOC for social,AI for artificial intelligence, and IT forinformation technology within itsname).

Author Maria H. Andersenoffers the following ques-tions as sample Socratic-learning prompts for readersof this article.

•Whattechnologiesarewelikelytoseeinpersonalizedlearn-ing systems on the 20–50 year horizon?

•Whatargumentsaremadeforthelikelihoodthatwecan“find” the free time to engage in a personal learning system?

•WhyareSocraticquestionsandspacedrepetitionalgorithms(SRA) an elegant solution to the personalized learning problem?

•HowareresponsesevaluatedintheproposedSOCRAITsys-tem?

•Whatevidencedowehavethatpeoplewillbewillingtoput

in the cognitive energy to create a learning layer on the Web?•HowcouldSOCRAITbeusedbyjournalismtoimprovetherevenue stream?

•HowwouldtheSOCRAITmodelchangethewayweconsumemedia?

•WhatareSocraticscholarsandwhatfunctiondotheyserve?•IfSOCRAITwereimplemented,howwouldtheroleofeduca-

tors shift?•Whatisthe“gamelayerforlearning”andwhyisitnecessary

for something like SOCRAIT to work?•WhatisneededtobuildasystemlikeSOCRAIT?

Learn This!

SOCRAIT Questions

for “The World Is

My School”




media content would remain free, but access to the question bank would require a one-time paymentor ongoing subscription by the con-sumer. This would certainly helpmodern journalism (or the textbook industry) to shore up their revenuestream.

A New Learning EcosystemBooks like Nicholas Carr’s The

Shallows (W.W. Norton, 2010) causeus to question whether we might betrapped on the information super-highway—stuck on the line betweendata lanes and unable to scoot for-ward or backward. Twitter users reg-ularly use the phrase “drink from thefire hose” when referring to their ex-perience of dipping into the live datastream. Information, whether it befrom radio, television, print, Web

media, or social networks, is comingat us too quickly; all that most of uscan do is surface-skim, rarely paus-ing to reflect or think deeply. Tolearn, to analyze, to innovate, and tothink creatively, we must internalizesome of the information we process.

An entirely new ecosystem couldgrow up around this Socratic learn-ing system. Certainly a ratings sys-tem for questions could be built us-ing the technology developed bycompanies like Netflix. For example,

ture needs to develop organicallyaround Web-based content and growtendrils into everything we producein the future. It will take some timeto go back and create a learning layerto integrate with all the content thatwe already have, but as we’ve seenfrom projects like Wikipedia, thereare people willing to contribute theirtime and energy to these kinds of tasks. Wikipedia became the largestencyclopedia ever assembled withina mere six years after its creation,and was built using less than 1% of the time that Americans spendwatching TV every year (as calcu-lated by Clay Shirky).

A system like SOCRAIT has thepotential to benefit other industriesoutside of education. For example,modern journalism has been strug-

gling with a problem of incomestream. While revenue has shifted toonline advertising, it is not enoughto shore up the industry. At present,the vast majority of Internet contentis free and, as Chris Anderson arguesin his book Free (Hyperion, 2009), it’snot likely to change. How do you getreaders (or viewers) to pay for some-thing that they already get for free?The answer: Add something to thecontent that’s not already there. If readers or viewers had the ability toquickly add reputable questions totheir learning bank, this would be avalue-added service. Cleverly, the

mented in Google Voice, there’s noreason why SOCRAIT couldn’t bevoice-based and available anywherewe interact with computers (e.g., cellphones, tablets, auto navigation sys-tems). This would allow us to im-prove our learning while performingother tasks: commuting to work,making dinner, or walking the dogs.

Initially, the so-called “Pareto’s Vi-tal Few” (the 20% of people who get80% of the work done) would be theones who would be most interestedin creating and engaging with ques-tions. But as the connectedness of thesystem matures, the need to writeyour own Socratic questions wouldlessen. Authors and media creatorswould write their own questions,targeting comprehension of impor-tant ideas and facts. Media consum-

ers would be able to choose from alist of questions, perhaps seeing asorted list based on their indicatedlearning priorities. Two readers of the same article would see differentquestions at the top of their “sug-gested questions” based on tags of the content. In some cases, the usermight choose to pay for curated orreputable content so that their learn-ing can later be certified by an em-ployer, educational body, or organi-zation.

Personal Learning’s ImplicationsFor Education

Now let’s take a step back andlook at the big picture. Any contentthat exists on the Internet (or is con-nected to the Internet) would betagged with Socratic learning ques-tions and metadata for subjects.Learners would have their own bank of questions, personalized to theirown learning interests. As a result,instead of learning that is designed

around a physical place (e.g.,schools), an educational space (e.g.,learning management systems), or aperson of authority (e.g., instructor),this system is designed around thelearner.

It goes without saying that the im-plications for education are huge. Inthe space of a few years, we coulddevelop a completely separate con-tent learning system that’s incrediblyflexible and personalized to the in-terests of the learner. The architec-

“To learn, to analyze,to innovate, and tothink creatively, wemust internalize someof the information we

process.”

“For a personalizedlearning system to takehold inside education,it will have to be builton the outside.”

THE FUTURIST January-February 2011 15



day. For most certification of learn-ing, we simply look at a transcript. If the class is listed, we assume thelearner has that knowledge. Of course, knowledge ages—sometimesit evolves into understanding or wis-dom, and sometimes it fades out of existence. The fact that I earned achemistry degree in 1996 does notmean you would want to hire me asa chemist today. Ideally, you’d wantme to recertify before I entered the“chemist” job pool. Biological mem-ory is not reflected in the metrics of transcripts or grade point averages.

I am not saying that this “certi-fied” content knowledge equals theability to function as a practitioner inthe discipline. Even a diploma onlyindicates that the educational systemhas walked you through some series

of appropriate paces for the disci-pline. Skills like critical thinking andcreativity are often lost in education(especially in science and technol-ogy) because there is such an incred-ible amount of content to cover.However, if the content knowledgemoved outside the educational sys-tem, then educators could focus onthe learning that surrounds technicalknowledge instead (e.g., problemsolving, analysis, creativity, applica-tions).

Let’s imagine what would happenif a robust Socratic learning systemwas at the heart of the educationalsystem. A learning coach (a more ap-propriate term for the teacher or in-structor in this learner-centered envi-ronment) will designate some corematerial that he or she wants you tolearn. For example, in calculus, Imight use a set of 500 curated con-cept-oriented questions from a well-known calculus textbook author,with each question linking to sup-porting media. Every student would

be working on those questions, andso, as a learning community, we’d allwork on that together. I would hopethat this doesn’t sound like too radi-cal a departure from normal.

This is where it changes: Becauseevery student has different interestsand career ambitions, I would alsorequire that each student find an ad-ditional 100 questions tagged with both calculus and tags that are of in-terest to that student. For a studentstudying to be a doctor, questions

learned 500 tagged questions on bio-chemistry to prepare for teaching anew class. In order for this to counttoward my professional develop-ment hours, my college asks me tocertify the learning. I pay for a So-cratic scholar who specializes inchemistry to rate my knowledge. Wemeet either in person or via the Web(more likely) and have a discussionabout the questions in my learning bank on biochemistry.

The scholar has access to the 500questions I say I’ve mastered andasks me to answer a random selec-tion. Of course, this is where itwould be valuable to have reputablequestions in my learning bank (fromauthors, researchers, scientists, andleaders in the field). Since the scholarcan see both my questions and theanswers (linked back to original con-tent), it should not be difficult to as-certain whether I have, in fact, mas-tered the knowledge and concepts asI have claimed. Because the certifica-tion is human-to-human, and not

human-to-machine, the nuances of human language would be under-stood. So if the language of the ver- bal answer and the language of thewritten answer don’t match up ex-actly, that wouldn’t be a problem. Atthe end of the session, the scholarwould “grade” my understanding of the 500 questions on biochemistry,and I could provide this certificationto the human resources department.

In many respects, this is a much better system than what we have to-

“Your friends John and Iveta chosethis question. Would you like to seeother questions/media they chosefor this topic?” If you choose to doso, the questions you see when youadd content to your question bank could be filtered by your existing so-cial networks. Rather than showingall the possible questions in existencefor that media (which could becomea fairly lengthy list), you couldchoose to see only the ones people inyour social network have also used.

So far, I’ve discussed how the sys-tem would work if you engaged inreading and watching media as youdo today. However, such a systemcould also shift how and when weseek out content. After all, a lot of time is wasted in modern education by re-teaching content that some of

the learners already know. There isno incentive for students to getahead when the reward is sittingthrough a lecture on somethingthey’ve already learned.

Imagine: When you need to learnsomething new, you could subscribeto a curated collection of questionson that topic. For example, “DigitalCopyright 101” might be a collectionof questions developed by somebodywho teaches digital copyright policyto beginners. The truly fascinatingshift is that you wouldn’t necessarilystart by consuming the media thatgoes with the questions. Instead, youwould simply start answering thequestions in your bank. As you en-counter learning questions that youcan’t answer, you could dive into thecontent at those points in time—thisis the exact point between boredom(with things you already know) andfrustration (with things you don’tknow), the point to engage in learn-ing.

Testing Knowledge Acquisition

Almost immediately after the per-sonalized learning architecture is inplace, we will need a new educa-tional industry tasked with certify-ing knowledge and understanding.For lack of a better name, let’s callthese folks “Socratic scholars.” Their job will be to rate how well youknow what you claim to havelearned. For example, let’s say I’veengaged with and theoretically

“When you need tolearn something new,you could subscribe toa curated collection ofquestions on that topic.”




participate in learning.

Let’s Build It

A diploma has become a social sig-nal to stop learning. In today’sworld, where technical knowledgedoubles every two years, this is ab-solutely the wrong thing to do. Ca-reers shift overnight, and industriescollapse rapidly. We have to learn,and learn faster than we ever have before, in order to stay ahead of theproblems we are now creating.

The content for a system likeSOCRAIT already exists; it is the ar-chitecture and interface we are miss-ing. This new learning medium needsto be an interconnected network of user-generated, or author-generated,Socratic questions with a seamless

question-management interface. Thearchitecture needs to remain open sothat anyone can create questions onany content, and any developer can build applications for the computingdevice of his or her choice.

A system for personalized learningwill not grow from inside formal ed-ucation. Education is like a fieldthat’s been overplanted with onlysmall patches of fertile soil. Toomany stakeholders (parents, unions,administration, faculty, etc.) competeto promote various ideas about howto change, acting like weeds orplagues that choke off plant growth.The fresh and fertile soil of the openWeb can foster the quick growth of apersonalized learning system. Then,like a good fertilizer, it can be usedto replenish the soil of formal educa-tion and help us to reach that “HolyGrail” of education: personalizedlearning for all. ❏

About the Author

Maria H. Andersen is the

Learning Futurist for TheLIFT Institute at Muskegon

Community College, Mus-

kegon, Michigan. She has

degrees in mathematics,

chemistry, biology, business,

and (ABD) Higher Education Leadership.

She is considered an expert in educational

technology and has been studying, re-

searching, speaking, and writing about the

future of education and learning for several

years, including at the World Future Society’s

2010 meeting. E-mail [email protected]

or search @busynessgirl on Twitter.

of values. The real question iswhether learning can become one of our new values, especially in theUnited States. In 2009, The U.S. Bu-reau of Labor Statistics estimated thatthe average American adult spentmore than five hours per day on lei-sure activities (close to three of thoseleisure hours watching television)and about 30 minutes per day on ed-ucational activities. Given the 10:1 ra-tio of leisure to educational activities,is American culture likely to embracelearning as a choice? Initially my an-swer was no, but then I began tothink about video-game design.

Entrepreneur Seth Priebatschspoke at TEDxBoston (2010) about building a “game layer on top of theworld.” What if one of the game lay-ers we create surrounds learning?

The same game dynamics used to build successful video games (e.g.,appointment dynamics, influenceand status dynamics, and progres-sion dynamics) could be deployed tomake learning the game itself. Whilethis might still be a hard sell for theaverage adult, there will be sub-populations, such as early technol-ogy adapters, who will see the im-mediate value in cultivating andlearning from their own question banks. Children who grow up learn-ing with a Socratic question systemmight gain learning values naturallyand carry these to their adult lives.

A successful Spaced Repetition So-cratic Learning System (SRSLS)would have to entice you to keep tospecific goals, like answering 50questions per week or answering 100questions with a certain tag in thenext month. Any of these goals could be incentivized with points (1 ques-tion answered correctly = 1 point),incentive rewards for meeting cer-tain goals (“you’ve earned your Sil-

ver Calculus badge for 100 questionslearned”), and social status levels(“Maria has just become a CalculusMaster—can you do it too?”).

Those engaged in formal educa-tion would participate with a fargreater intensity of daily questionsthan those who are in the workforce.However, the wise worker wouldcontinue to learn, albeit at a slowerpace. Résumés would boast levels of knowledge on particular topics andstats on the intensity at which you

tagged with medicine or epidemiology might be appropriate. For a studentgoing into business, questions taggedwith marketing or management might be more appropriate.

As the learning coach, my job is nolonger to “deliver content” to thestudents. SOCRAIT does that. Now Ican use my time to help studentssearch for good questions, help themto understand the content they arelearning, provide activities to helpthem work with the concepts or con-nect the material in an applied way,and foster discussion with other stu-dents on these topics.

When it comes time to certify thelearning for each student, it is done by an oral interview in which I haveaccess to the common questions andthe personalized questions for each

student. Even if I’m not an expert onall the personalized questions, theanswers are provided and the con-tent is related to a subject of my ex-pertise. Again, I only have to ask about a random selection of ques-tions to be able to assess understand-ing. At the end of the semester, allstudents have learned their own per-sonal versions of calculus, while stilllearning a core of common material.

Such a system has implications forlifelong learning “on the job,” too.Instead of holding mandatory train-ing, a human resources departmentcould push out a bank of Socraticquestions to all their employeesabout safety, new initiatives, missionstatements, etc. For example, to trainemployees on Occupational Safetyand Health Administration (OSHA)compliance, the employees would beinvited to add a curated list of 40questions about OSHA policies. Eachquestion would lead back to a sourcethat provides the necessary contentto answer the question. After two

weeks, someone in HR can act as theSocratic scholar and spend five min-utes with each employee to test hisor her knowledge of the policies, us-ing a random selection of questions.

A Game Layer for Learning

Futurist John Smart writes about acoming “valuecosm” within 10 to 20years, when we’ll be able to programour apps or avatars to make decisionsfor us based on what we say is our set

THE FUTURIST January-February 2011 17

The World Is My School: Welcome to the Era of Personalized Learning

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