“No screen can ever replace the humanity of a teacher… the relationship between teachers and technology must be one of complementarity – never of substitutability” - Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO
Information & Communication Technology (ICT) tools have provided a competitive advantage to all enterprises irrespective of sector or vertical in a volatile, uncertain, complex & ambiguous (VUCA) world. ICT tools are great facilitators and accelerators of organizational workflows and processes. In fact, during the COVID-19 pandemic, unlike various sectors like supply chain, airports, and hotel sectors, which were completely devastated, education emerged unhurt in the meltdown largely due to the wide smartphone and Internet footprint and penetration all across. No doubt, the pandemic accelerated Education 4.0 as well as its present-day transformation to Education 5.0. While cutting-edge tools such as AI, ML, 5G, robotics, and AR/VR, characterized Education 4.0, Education 5.0 promises a holistic transformation using technologies to provide humanized instruction and personalized learning focusing on the development of the social and emotional faculties of the students to make them change agents who benefit society and humanity. Digital transformation can facilitate quality improvement of education systems and also bring about greater equity. Nevertheless, at the same time, we need to be wary of a digital divide as well as equitable and safe development of educational technologies including the use of Generative AI in education. One technology ensemble, that can be widely deployed in the educational context, is the SMAC stack. This convergence of four cutting-edge technologies drives innovation.
SMAC Stack
An integration of various disruptive technologies in the form of the SMAC - Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud stack that will complement the AI wave. Components within SMAC supplement each other and their collective interplay brings a force-multiplier effect. SMAC is the concept that uses?social interactions, mobile, and analytics driven by cloud technologies and?Big Data?to simplify customer experiences and boost productivity. This is already influencing all sectors and verticals. It provides an eco-system for a business to transform from an e-business into a digital one. The SMAC stack is aiding organizations to achieve competitive advantage and improvements in the bottom-line. SMAC ecosystem connects customers and supports shopping on e-commerce sites and in brick-and-mortar stores. Importantly, the SMAC application has transcended retail and consumer marketing activities, and has significant relevance in banking, healthcare, and other business functions. Gartner has termed this stack as the ‘nexus of forces’.
Each of these SMAC components are pervasive, as seen by the stats given below:
-
SOCIAL: Over 60% of the world’s population, which is around 5.2+ billion, uses social media. Facebook is the leading social network at 3 billion monthly active users, followed by YouTube (2.5 billion), Instagram (2 billion), WhatsApp (2 billion),
Integration, intersection and interplay of the SMAC technologies have resulted in the disruptive business models of super-successful companies like Amazon & Google. Never before have entrepreneurs been as empowered to connect with customers globally and capture information to gain insights about their needs, opinions, and connections to product and services. One of the earliest adopter of the SMAC stack is Netflix, the entertainment company who is a leader in the video distribution space. Netflix has a subscriber base of 300 million subscribers. It is estimated that Netflix users watch billions of hours of movies, documentaries and entertainment every quarter. Netflix uses its proprietary Cinematch analytics module uses customer ratings and preferences to recommend the popular flicks. These movies are hosted on the cloud through the provider, Amazon Web services. The movies can be easily accessed using tablets, smart phones and/or television. Customer choices and preferences with regard to the movie selection and recommendation are also in Facebook. This is a classic example of a SMAC stack building a collaborative eco-system, where technologies complement each other and derive customer value and satisfaction. The ultimate beneficiary is the consumer, who gets a personalized experience of watching movies. Amazon too works on similar principles. When we scout for books to buy on Amazon, we bump into several recommendations and reviews by book buyers. Amazon, which is fully hosted on the cloud, is available as an App on any tablet or phone. SMAC technologies are being used beyond traditional consumer models. This includes President Barack Obama's campaign machine, which leveraged the SMAC platform to engage voters based on data analytics, mobile devices, social media, and the Internet to drive behavior and outcome. Scherer found data-driven decisions led to the reelection of President Obama in 2012.
SMAC Stack for Education
As per the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring (GEM) 2023 report, the accomplishment of SDG 4 (Quality Education for all) is intrinsically linked to technology. Technology in education puts learners and teachers at the center. Technology appears in six out of the ten targets in the fourth Sustainable Development goal on education. SMAC can be widely deployed for the following five distinct channels as mentioned in the report as follows:
In terms of applications, the following are some SMAC use-cases towards Education 5.0 could include:
-
Online Programs for delivery, communication, collaboration, and dialogue between all stakeholders such as university, instructor and students as well as workflow and administration of said programs
-
Academic repositories such as course plans, lesson plans, learning objectives, syllabi statements, course policies, student submissions such as assignments, quiz, case study, problems, etc.
About the Author
Dr. Prashant R. Nair, Head, Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC), Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, has over twenty-four years of academic and administrative experience. He has taught in academic programs in the USA and Europe at the University of California, San Diego; Sofia University, Bulgaria and University of Trento, Italy as an Erasmus fellow. He has written 6 books, 2 edited books, 1 book chapter, and over 75 publications in reputed journals, books, and conferences. He is active as a science writer & columnist. He has been serving as the Chairman/Vice-Chairman/Coordinator of Amrita University’s Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) since 2009. He has coordinated 3 cycles of NAAC accreditation, 2 cycles of NBA Accreditation, NIRF rankings, and Swachh campus rankings, and also served as UGC nodal officer for the university with achievements such as an A++ grade by NAAC, the top private university in India in both national and international university rankings.?A very sought-after speaker, by conservative estimates, has addressed 150,000 students and trained 15,000+ faculty on technology, innovation, professional bodies, and quality aspects of higher education in India, USA, Thailand, Russia, Italy, Bulgaria, Hong Kong, Singapore, Nepal, Bhutan, etc. Awards & recognitions won include multiple CSI Best Faculty and academic excellence awards, IEEE Education Society global chapter achievement award, IETE fellowship, Fulbright program reviewer, etc.