The future belongs to adaptive educational platforms. Flow Interview with Asger Palm
Asger Palm, one of the creators of the adaptive educational platform used by millions of students in the United States, told in an interview what adaptive educational platforms are, how they will help us maintain a decent level of education in the future, about the flow language created for them, and also - why is it better to work in a fully distributed team than to have part of the people in the office, and part - remotely.
Yes, I'm sitting in an office in Copenhagen, Denmark.
We have been working with excellent programmers, developers from Russia for many years. We started outsourcing a long time ago, at first we tried to work with people from India, they worked well, but very often changed jobs, so instead we started working with programmers from Russia, which turned out to be much better for us.
Yes, we also work with Lanit-Terk and with the Ukrainian company Intetics.
This story began a long time ago, our first company was founded in 1997, we worked in the field of education, but only in a certain field of medicine: these were simulators and advanced means of life support. Over the years, we expanded, and in 2006 founded Area9, and the scope of education has expanded significantly.
Yes, given the different platforms that we have created over the years, millions of people use them. The first platforms, in the medical field, are used by hundreds of thousands of people who are certified for advanced livelihoods, and in colleges in the USA, millions and millions of students use our products.
E-learning comes in many forms. What we create is called personalized adaptive learning. We are trying to imitate the ideal teacher. After all, the best type of training is if you have a really good teacher who is nearby. This is the best, most effective way to learn something new, and this is what we are trying to use on our platforms: we are trying to imitate the fact that an experienced teacher is sitting next to you, and as with individual training, he constantly adjusts the training for you . The teacher will ask you several questions: “Do you know that, do you know this?” - and depending on your answers, the training will change. Our systems do the same: we adapt, try to identify your strengths and weaknesses, and adjust the instructions accordingly.
I think it’s clear that the requirements for education are growing, you need to prepare for the future - with automation in terms of artificial intelligence, robotics, etc. Also, today people rarely work in the same profession all their lives - they will have to change jobs throughout their careers. so the idea that having one education you have arranged in this way your whole life probably no longer works. In the future we will have to constantly educate ourselves. Lifelong learning will be important. Of course, the problem is that education is expensive, so we cannot afford to send everyone to the university several times during their lives. So we must find ways to make quality education cheaper. And this is what some of the educational platforms can do. Therefore, I think that the future is the wider use of advanced personalized e-learning, which will help to meet the increased need for deep education in many different disciplines.
When we created the first company in the 90s, our developers worked in one office, and then we got a lot of offshore development, and then it became clear that next time we should organize everything differently. So when we launched Area9 in 2006, we decided in advance that we would not have any development in the office. Everyone will work remotely. And this was to ensure that all communications are carried out through a single communication channel, and all in a distributed team have access to the same information.
So, here is what we really learned: if you need a successful distributed team, you can no longer communicate “in the corridors”, if you understand what I mean, because then there will be people who do not know what they need to know . Therefore, we intentionally created a company that was distributed from the very beginning, and made sure that all communication was carried out only where everyone could access it.
Now we are doing some development in the office, not too much, and these people still use the same communication channels as everyone else. Therefore, I think the key result is that distributed development is great, it works really well, and you can do it if you are sure that there are no two different teams with different access to information.
Not really ... We created a blog for the platform and the Flow language, which we implemented, but in fact there is only one post so far, so I'm not very good at that. Maybe I'll take a little later.
Yes, Flow is a programming language and platform that we have been developing for many years. This is a functional language. In my presentation, I will introduce you to Flow, runtime, the UI library and show some advantages that this language can give. The key point I want to show is that, although Flow is only one of the programming languages, the way of thinking, which is in this language, is applicable more widely. I want to demonstrate how to think about how you can structure your application using some of the principles that we use, as they can be applied on many other platforms and programming languages.
To tell you the truth, no.
I think it's nice to meet people from different places in the industry. Even if you, as in our team, have about a hundred programmers from different places, this is still a small group of people. Therefore, I think it’s great to go out and meet other people, hear their opinion, when they can see a little of what we are doing, and we can get feedback from a wider audience. I think this is very valuable.
Mutually!
Questions and translation: Julia Kryuchkova.
Here is the blog with the Asger post about Flow .
If you have questions, write in the comments, ask!
Hello everyone, today we are talking with Asger Palm. Asger, where are you now, is this your office?
Yes, I'm sitting in an office in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Tell us how you are connected with St. Petersburg?
We have been working with excellent programmers, developers from Russia for many years. We started outsourcing a long time ago, at first we tried to work with people from India, they worked well, but very often changed jobs, so instead we started working with programmers from Russia, which turned out to be much better for us.
Nice to hear! Do you work with SPbU?
Yes, we also work with Lanit-Terk and with the Ukrainian company Intetics.
You work on educational platforms, known precisely for them. How did you get to work in this area?
This story began a long time ago, our first company was founded in 1997, we worked in the field of education, but only in a certain field of medicine: these were simulators and advanced means of life support. Over the years, we expanded, and in 2006 founded Area9, and the scope of education has expanded significantly.
Do you know how many people in the world are using your platforms now?
Yes, given the different platforms that we have created over the years, millions of people use them. The first platforms, in the medical field, are used by hundreds of thousands of people who are certified for advanced livelihoods, and in colleges in the USA, millions and millions of students use our products.
One platform is an adaptive platform. What does “adaptive” mean, what is the difference, say, from the classic online platform?
E-learning comes in many forms. What we create is called personalized adaptive learning. We are trying to imitate the ideal teacher. After all, the best type of training is if you have a really good teacher who is nearby. This is the best, most effective way to learn something new, and this is what we are trying to use on our platforms: we are trying to imitate the fact that an experienced teacher is sitting next to you, and as with individual training, he constantly adjusts the training for you . The teacher will ask you several questions: “Do you know that, do you know this?” - and depending on your answers, the training will change. Our systems do the same: we adapt, try to identify your strengths and weaknesses, and adjust the instructions accordingly.
It sounds really interesting. Before our interview, I wrote about him in social networks, and people asked me to ask you some questions. Anastasia is interested in your view of the future of online education and forecasts for learning trends in a virtual environment.
I think it’s clear that the requirements for education are growing, you need to prepare for the future - with automation in terms of artificial intelligence, robotics, etc. Also, today people rarely work in the same profession all their lives - they will have to change jobs throughout their careers. so the idea that having one education you have arranged in this way your whole life probably no longer works. In the future we will have to constantly educate ourselves. Lifelong learning will be important. Of course, the problem is that education is expensive, so we cannot afford to send everyone to the university several times during their lives. So we must find ways to make quality education cheaper. And this is what some of the educational platforms can do. Therefore, I think that the future is the wider use of advanced personalized e-learning, which will help to meet the increased need for deep education in many different disciplines.
It sounds really reasonable, I agree, I think people should learn all their lives. Another reader of ours, Tanya, asks: “You work with a very distributed team (people are located in 50+ places). What is the most important thing you learned from working with such a distributed team? "
When we created the first company in the 90s, our developers worked in one office, and then we got a lot of offshore development, and then it became clear that next time we should organize everything differently. So when we launched Area9 in 2006, we decided in advance that we would not have any development in the office. Everyone will work remotely. And this was to ensure that all communications are carried out through a single communication channel, and all in a distributed team have access to the same information.
So, here is what we really learned: if you need a successful distributed team, you can no longer communicate “in the corridors”, if you understand what I mean, because then there will be people who do not know what they need to know . Therefore, we intentionally created a company that was distributed from the very beginning, and made sure that all communication was carried out only where everyone could access it.
Now we are doing some development in the office, not too much, and these people still use the same communication channels as everyone else. Therefore, I think the key result is that distributed development is great, it works really well, and you can do it if you are sure that there are no two different teams with different access to information.
Do you have a blog?
Not really ... We created a blog for the platform and the Flow language, which we implemented, but in fact there is only one post so far, so I'm not very good at that. Maybe I'll take a little later.
Could you tell about your speech at the conference? It will be about Flow, right?
Yes, Flow is a programming language and platform that we have been developing for many years. This is a functional language. In my presentation, I will introduce you to Flow, runtime, the UI library and show some advantages that this language can give. The key point I want to show is that, although Flow is only one of the programming languages, the way of thinking, which is in this language, is applicable more widely. I want to demonstrate how to think about how you can structure your application using some of the principles that we use, as they can be applied on many other platforms and programming languages.
Sounds great. You probably attend a lot of conferences?
To tell you the truth, no.
What do you think is the main thing at the conference: communication, reports or any bright ideas that come to mind?
I think it's nice to meet people from different places in the industry. Even if you, as in our team, have about a hundred programmers from different places, this is still a small group of people. Therefore, I think it’s great to go out and meet other people, hear their opinion, when they can see a little of what we are doing, and we can get feedback from a wider audience. I think this is very valuable.
Thank you, I look forward to seeing you!
Mutually!
Questions and translation: Julia Kryuchkova.
Here is the blog with the Asger post about Flow .
If you have questions, write in the comments, ask!
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