What is Kizuna Education?

On October 5th 2011 an Indian company named DataWind launched a product that had the potential to change education. Their Android based tablet was nearly a disruptive innovation radically undermining the economic assumptions of the tablet market by retailing at a mere $60. With a mind for the products potential,
the Indian government subsidized making it even more universally affordable at $35. Their focus was made evident by the rapid adaptation for educational purposes. No longer would schools be forking over hundreds of dollars for overpriced hardware with functionality they didn't need. They could supply their students with access to cutting edge training at a price cheaper than that of a traditional textbook. Easy, manageable access to the worlds information was opened up in groundbreaking ways.

Given the right software, these tablets can help give teachers convenient access to materials they've long sought after, enhance the education of students both in the educational system and those who are home taught, and even bring education to those in circumstances that would normally leave them without.  On this day, Kizuna Education was born.

Kizuna is Japanese for bond, or relationship.  We're looking for connections between educational concepts of all fields and levels, and finding ways to show those to teachers, students and parents in a useful and scaleable way.  We're developing software that can be used on mobile devices, in classrooms and homes, that will give us a clearer picture of what exactly students are and are not understanding, as well as how to best present information to each individual student so that they can learn what they need to learn in the best way for them.

Essentially, we're designing a Learning Management System that's different from all the rest, and that can easily be used in classrooms and homes of all grade levels.

Our first step is to make this system as simple, user friendly, and easy to integrate as possible.  There are many incredible educational programs out today, however a lot of them call for complete reorganization of the classroom or teaching structure, as well as large learning curves for both teachers and students on how to use the software alone.  Though these programs are great, many schools are unwilling, or don't have the resources (be it funding or time) to implement these systems into their curriculum.  It doesn't matter how good or revolutionary your software is, if it can't be implemented into classrooms or homes, it's useless.  One of our main goals has been to design our system so that it's simple to understand and use.  We plan on using many commonly-used programs as basis for our layouts, so that our system is already something familiar for everyone to use.  We want the adoption of our system to be as simple as "One semester, you're teaching your class as normal.  The next semester, you're still teaching your classroom as normal, but with the addition of Kizuna as a tool".  It is important for us not to supply a service that distracts teachers from what matters the most: Teaching.

Our second step is to provide information, insights and functionality that is not normally obtainable in a classroom or home-school setting.  In order to do this, we're taking advantage of several aspects of LMS systems, namely grade management, assessments, and learning activities.  By designing our system to be used with tablets, our system is more readily usable in the classroom.  Students can take digital assessments in the forms of tests, quizzes, or assignments.  Due to the interactive nature of the software, these assessments can range from simple "Solve this problem" assessments, to class-wide games and challenges, to on-the-moment response from every member of the class as to their understanding.  On top of this, learning activities can become more interactive and useful to both the teachers and students.  Though this alone makes the LMS infinitely more profitable to teacher and student, it is not the only advantage.  The downside of most LMS systems is their inaccessibility.  In order to provide access for everyone, the class either needs to book and move to a computer lab, or wait till the students go home, and hope each of them will have access to a computer in order to do these assessments.  By moving to a mobile platform, Kizuna allows easy use of the LMS, making it much more useful for teachers, and allowing us to gather more information to help teachers and students focus on what's most important.  Another large benefit of using this system, is allowing easy access for parents to see how their child is doing, what assignments are coming up, and how they can help their child further their education.

Our third step contains two parts, and centers around using the information gathered as students and teachers use our system.

The first part is based on assessment, and is centered around the way that educational concepts build on each other.  The way our educational system works is constructive.  As students progress, each new concept they learn will build or expand on those they've learned previously.  This is a brilliant system, except for when it breaks down.  A lot of times when students are struggling in school, it's because they've either forgotten or never properly understood a concept from previous lessons.  Without a clear understanding of all prerequisite concepts, a Student will struggle to understand what's being taught to them.  As this continues throughout their education, the problem will compound on itself until the student understands little to nothing of what goes on in class.  With our system gathering constant information on what a student does and does not understand, we plan on solving this problem.

Part of the work we've done up to date has been forming educational maps.  We've been taking various concepts and standards, and mapping out what concepts and standards those rely on.  As students use the assessment aspects of our system, it will keep track of not only the concept that's currently being tested, but all the concepts that the current one relies on.  When a student struggles on a topic, Kizuna will automatically look back and assess how well the student understands every concept related to it.  If it finds a prerequisite area that the student poorly understands, it can point the student in that direction for revision, and supply them with learning activities that will help them remember or learn the unknown concept.  This benefits the students by helping them spend their time revising what could really be causing the problem, rather than mindlessly trying over and over to solve a problem they just can't understand.  This system benefits the teacher in many ways.  One, being that it helps teachers know how to best focus their one-on-one time with the students.  If the teacher knows exactly where the student is struggling (something hard to do for each student in today's large classes), they can better use the limited time they have with each student.  Another way this benefits teachers, is by providing them knowledge as to class-wide trends.  The entire class could do poorly on a test, not because they misunderstood a concept, but because the test for that concept contained mainly questions that relied on a topic that most of the class has forgotten.  Using this system the teacher is better able to tell what the class as a whole needs, and make better use of general class time.

The second part of how we plan to enable teachers and students is based on learning, and how every single person learns differently.  Each student has something unique called a 'learning style'.  Some people learn better visually, others through auditory instruction.  Some learn better when they can apply the concepts hands-on, while others learn best simply by reading.  Despite this being the case, because of large class sizes it's currently impossible to not only determine how each student best learns, but then provide them with unique instruction in that form.  This is where Kizuna steps in.  As students use our system, it will keep track of what learning activities best helped them understand a subject, as well as what type of assessment tools they best understood.  Classifying these, we'll be able to determine the individual learning style of each student, and provide this information to them, their teacher, and their parents.  It is then up to the teacher to choose how to use this information.  Some of many possible applications include focussing one-on-one instruction, breaking the class up into groups of the different learning styles for easier instruction, or even breaking them up into groups that contain at least one of each learning style, allowing them to better help each other understand.  It's up to the teacher to determine the situation, and use our tools accordingly.

On top of this, Kizuna will be able to supply additional instruction to students in the way that best suits them.  Rather than have each concept taught one way, we're gathering a library of ways to teach each educational concept in as many ways as possible.  Pulling from this library, students will be able to receive help and additional instruction in the method that best suits them.  Education is not meant to be arbitrary, but personal.

All of this amounts to a long explanation of something incredible, and yet barely scratches the surface of potential that this system shows.

In short, we plan to make software that is easy and fun to use in classrooms, that improves understanding, allows teachers to focus on instruction, allows students to focus on learning, provides equal opportunity to learn for all students, and pinpoints exactly what someone isn't understanding rather than give vague and unintelligible metrics that doesn't help the student learn.  Using this framework, we intend not only to improve our educational system nation-wide, but also use this system to provide learning opportunities to students world-wide that do not currently have access to the right of education.

This is an incredible undertaking, and we're aware of it.  However, we know we're not alone.  Every single person out there, every single one of you has at one point struggled with the educational system.  Teachers have been frustrated, and students driven to tears.  It's each and every one of you, your stories, ideas and suggestions that will help make this change.  We want to provide schools, parents, teachers and students with the tools that they need now that fix the problems they're having now.  We'll be working with each and every one of you in the coming months, getting your ideas and suggestions, so that we know we get this right.  When this software hits schools, we want the teachers and students to be able to know that they were an integral part in its' development.

We are Kizuna Education.  We are the relationship between student and teacher, teacher and parent, instruction and learning.  We are here to change education worldwide.  We are a community, and that community is strong.