On September 28, Mr. Jinshu Ke, President and Chief Education Officer of OneSmart, a leading premium K12 education company in China, was part of a panel discussion entitled “Education Culture, Education Lecture Room,” with ambassadors and international education experts at the Global Forum on Pioneer Education in Shanghai. The panel discussion was a showpiece of the 6th annual Global Diplomats’ Chinese Cultural Night, hosted by Shanghai Education TV Station Xin Min.
Mr. Ke said it was important to stay true to the original aspirations and dreams of educators while promoting technology-empowered education, in order to cultivate future leaders with global vision and strategic thinking. He said: “Education is about more than passing down knowledge. It must also focus on building character and integrity. The essence of education is unchanging, while the methods and approaches to education may change with the times, including disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI).”
Ke added: “Technology empowers education. First, it fosters fairness in education by breaking the limits of time and space. Secondly, leveraging big data analytics and cloud computing, OneSmart’s highly effective personalized teaching programs can enhance the quality of education. Thirdly, online education can cater to the different needs of students at different levels and support diversification of education.”
The panel discussion covered current education trends in China and abroad, as well as trends and prospects in the application of AI to education in China. The panel featured in-depth discussion of the interaction between the AI technology and education in the era of 5G, and the future of AI-assisted education.
A High-Level Diplomatic Event Promoting Cultural and Education Exchange
As a senior, non-governmental event, the organizing committee of the Global Diplomats’ Chinese Cultural Night is composed of representatives of 65 embassies in China. Altogether 160 embassies supported the event, now in its sixth season, making it an important platform for multilateral exchange between China and the world. The event aims at breaking down communication barriers and national boundaries to promote an active dialogue between Chinese culture and world civilization. Previous sessions have been held in Beijing, starting in 2015. It was held for the first time in Shanghai, the headquarters of OneSmart, which has been growing rapidly and expanded its footprint across China.
In addition to discussing on present opportunities and future developments in the education sector, the event also seeks to expand collaboration among the industry players on new economic drivers, culture and tourism and emerging technologies, and to promote international cooperation at the municipal or metropolitan level. To promote mutual understanding and learning among different cultures, the event hosted a press conference, exhibitions of Chinese culture and world cultures, as well as charities and donations. It provides a platform for promotion of traditional cultures with the aim of achieving effective communication and integration among Chinese and foreign cultures.
Distinguished guests at the forum included Wang Zhen, Secretary-General of the China Committee of UNESCO International Folk Art Organization, Zhou Weiyan, Funding Director of Shenzhen One Foundation and Chairman of Beijing Yongzhen Public Welfare Foundation, and Rui Renjie, Headmaster of famous Shanghai Xiangming High School. Also present at the event were hundreds of diplomats and consular officials, political figures and education officials from Beijing and Shanghai, as well as celebrities from Chinese and international cultural circles.
Technology-empowered education and AI-assisted teaching
In recent years, the rapid development of technology has changed the trajectory of nearly all industries and sectors, and the education industry is no exception.
Building on its rich industry experience, OneSmart leads the education industry with its visionary strategies. OneSmart was among the first to invest in "technology + education" and put forward the concept of “technology empowers education and power learning builds the future”. OneSmart has built its expansion of capital, manpower and technology around these principles.
The advent of the 5G era is reshaping teaching tools, scenarios, and business models in the education industry. In particular, artificial intelligence has seen wide application in education along with a number of other cutting-edge technologies including the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data analytics. OneSmart has already made AI an integral part of its daily teaching operations and has launched its cutting-edge AI Teacher, which provides customized teaching through AI analytics by leveraging its powerful big data-based platform hosting more than 10 million exercise questions, 100,000 learning points, 16 million learning resources and close to 200 million data points.
Equipped with knowledge of educational theories, practices and psychology, and powered by big data, AI Teacher is capable of providing teaching support across the board. It can collect mistakes that students make in class and in their assignments to generate a smart error track record listing the mistakes in categories. In this way, AI Teacher provides students with customized learning experience, with targeted remedial assignments on a regular basis, and automatic marking of assignments.
In addition to AI Teacher, OneSmart has also pioneered an AI system to track students’ performance in the classroom. The AI system monitors, analyzes and quantifies data on their learning behavior and habits in class. It also keeps track of teachers’ behavior in class to ensure consistent teaching quality, while sending periodic student analysis reports to parents, which helps to enhance home-school communication. OneSmart has also applied AI to upgrade its teaching hardware. Its classrooms for premium 1on1 tutoring have installed smart boards, which support digital handwriting by both teachers and students on a shared whiteboard, thus making teacher-student interaction easier. Leveraging IoT perception technology, AI Teacher also delivers individualized teaching services by generating study assessment data for each student for teachers to develop tailor-made assignments.