Apple and IBM: It Is Time to Transform Education with Watson Element!

Great news! This week Apple and IBM company launched their first iOS app for academia. It was an important step forward to set themselves the task of blending student data with curriculum and cognitive technology to improve and enhance personalized education for K-12 students. And the goal has been finally attained owing to IBM Watson Element for Educators.

Apple and IBM joined efforts in a new way to astonish the customers and clients. IBM Watson Element for Educators, a new iPad app from the companies, has been created to provide teachers with a more integral view of students’ academic progress, attainments, progress, interests, and learning activities in grades K-12. IBM company started to work on the initiative in 2013 and quickened development following its 2014 partnership with Apple. As a result, MobileFirst for iOS program has been designed.

It was essential for the companies to reconstruct the educational experience for both teachers and students by coupling IBM data, analytics and cognitive computing with Apple’s design and user experience, in accordance with Chalapathy Neti, vice president of education innovation for IBM Watson.

Watson, IBM’s cognitive technology, pulls from three data classes to align curriculum with students’ proficiencies and interests, as recorded by educators, according to Neti. IBM Watson Element for Educators uses recorded behaviors and interests in order to provide insight on students’ proficiencies, to determine the types of personalized content and learning environments that can best engage them, Neti says.

Some readers may think this app is a system of record for educators. But indeed, it’s rather a portal through which teachers can access, handle and gain insights from various data sets. Data that are used by the application can exist in different systems, as is the norm with most school districts, including the Coppell Independent School District (ISD) in Texas, the first academic institution to use Watson Element.

Relevant data will be integrated into the app due to the work of Apple and IBM company which is expected to help educators keep tabs on students’ learning paths and record observations about their preferred learning styles. Ultimately, customized plans, improving over time, will be built.

Approximately 150 educators across four schools in Coppell ISD are using Watson Element at the present time, and the district plans to have the app in the hands of all of its teachers by next year. The teachers have had access to iPads for about three years, that’s why the tablet and some iOS apps are already habitual for their lesson designs.

Teachers can also integrate training programs or other published material, as well as lesson plans, textbooks, videos, and open-sourced data, to further customize their district’s instance of Watson Element.

The new iPad app, created by Apple and IBM, is available to educators at a per-year, per-student price, plus a one-time setup cost that includes integration with school districts’ existing training programs, databases and technologies.

This article was originally published by CIO.

• Category: ibm
• Tags: apple, ibm, watson element