Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is a world leading expert in big data.
On Nov.20, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, author of the bestseller Big Data: A Revolution That Transforms How we Work, gave a speech with the topic of “Learning with Big Data:The Future of Education” at Yifu Building”, on Zhongshan Campus.
The speech attracts a lot of audiences.
Due to the popularity of the concept of big data and the charming of Viktor, the lecture hall was crowded with audiences. In response to the enthusiasm of the audience, Victor sat on the floor with some students before the lecture began.
In his speech, Viktor started with an example of open online course called Coursera. He said online course changes our way of teaching and learning, which is distinct from traditional teaching by meeting our needs through data collecting. According to Viktor, traditional teaching methods focus more on the result of learning instead of the process. Mass production of education is like one size of shoes that fits few. While individualized teaching based on enough data is like a collection of various songs from diverse bands, which considers the preferences of different people and gives full play to their potential.
Viktor reveals how big data reshapes our learning and education.
"Data provides us with probabilistic predictions to make decisions for the future", Viktor said. It is not about fixing future by filtering students but by motivating everyone to explore their possibilities.
At the end of the speech, he came to the conclusion that the hope for future education is to create better education for everyone. It is full of possibilities and the only certainty is about change.
The audiences are active in the Q&A phase.
In the Q&A phase, Viktor answered questions about the abuse of big data, the privacy of people, the limited online courses of universities. He reminded us of the risk and freedom in the process of using data. The more we use data, the less risk we will take and freedom we will have.
Viktor signs for the audiences.
Viktor is Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the University of Oxford. Earlier he spent ten years on the faculty of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He has been focusing his research on the role of information in a networked economy and has published over a hundred papers in peer-reviewed journals including Science and Nature. As a world leading expert in big data, he is on the advisory boards of government departments, corporations and organizations around the world, including the White House, Microsoft, and the World Economic Forum.
On behalf of the organizer of the lecture, Prof. Xie Chao, Director of ECNU's Publicity Department, sends a souvenir to Viktor.
What’s more, Viktor is also a bestselling author and has published nine books. Learning with Big Data: The Future of Education is one of them. It reveals how big data will reshape our learning and education. The Chinese version of the book will soon be published by the Publishing House of ECNU.
Written by: Han Yue
Edited by: Liu Jinyu
