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Of zombies and physics - online education 1

A few years ago, maybe 5-6 years ago, I was approached by an upcoming ed-tech start up. The salesperson was aggressively trying to sell us a bundled course of 3 odd years complete with a free tab thrown in. 

As someone in L&D (and this was pre covid), I was not a great believer in online learning when depth and understanding is required. So, I asked, "What is so special about this" and the answer "We teach physics using zombies (as an example)". That statement completely put me off. 

This is a decoration versus construction fallacy. Zombies on physics are a decoration at best. There are many other, better, intuitive ways to learn physics. And there are many videos of professors teaching physics using various concepts, contraptions, demonstrations and stories. 

So, we said no, we are keen on a more classroom model for learning. And went ahead with it. For the most part, it worked for us. 

Then covid happened. I learnt the skills of virtual facilitation - delivered many hours of virtual training - I still hate it. The EO did have an online component of learning through Covid - he struggled and managed. 

Somewhere along the way, this upcoming edtech company had become a unicorn or some exotic animal and gobbled up, an offline classes center. That was some climb down for an ostensibly online platform - plus they also opened up tuition centres. 

All this is not to diss the edtech firm and many others in this space. This is to share my observation on online learnings and their possible constructs. 

Simply put, it is practically impossible to create a perfect online self learning experience that does not have human interaction.  Atleast so far - will an AI powered bot enable to make the transition - perhaps. 

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