Doctor Who and the Nanoracers Click - Short Edition

Coming up in ten minutes Newswatch with Paddy O'Connell,

School, it's changed a lot since I went through the education

The school buildings may look the same but technology has

been infusing education for quite a while now.

We have smart whiteboards, we have increasing use

We have e-textbooks instead of textbooks, but also

systems which mean the way in which kids learn and are taught

It seems many tech giants want to become part of education.

After all, an early introduction to their brands may one day add up

Microsoft this week launched its education offering

which includes a new version of Windows called Windows S,

a budget Surface Pro in various colours and some tweaks

Apple's teaching tool Classroom had a face-lift last month and now

But before both of these came Google Classroom.

And today I'm finding more about it from Mr Lickfold,

director of learning at Tring secondary school.

They've been using this online system for the past 18 months

to teach and monitor the students' progress.

Today I'm learning about the Galapagos Islands and I have

to say the lesson that Chris has constructed certainly looks more

But tech can do a lot more than just provide media rich lesson plans.

We're able to personalise what we do far more than we have ever done

before and take them to different resources that are available

Every student's learning journey will be different.

Taking teaching online also means teachers have a lot more access

to children's individual learning data and even

For example, this browser extension Draftback lets the teacher watch how

If I've got a student who in preparation for their exams

is not constructing their paragraphs correctly, I can say,

"OK, let's look at how you constructed your particular

If it's maybe two or three paragraphs and they spent so long

on the first one then I can also just say,

"Look, this is how long you spent on this first document,

You only spent five minutes on the second and third one."

The kids also seem to like the learning experience.

Using online tools and data is one way to enhance learning in schools,

but Lara Lewington has been looking at other tech that promises

to change how children learn completely.

VR, robots, holograms, it wasn't like this in my day.

At the BET Education Show earlier this year we saw some

of the most cutting edge ideas heading to the classroom soon.

Over the past few months I've seen quite a few devices that bring

together the idea of kids coding and toys aiming to make

But good old Lego here have gone a step further.

They are trying to recreate real life situations where robots

would be used so that children can find problems and then find

the solution and the mission we have here is for a space robot

which needs to move around the space base collecting these theses

all together and taking them back to one place.

But obviously the coding should do that bit.

Using the drag and drop blocks to create sequences that carry out

actions is just part of the learning process as science is being taught

But Brickso's vision of what could be learned

through these small plastic blocks was quite different.

This is a way to bring your existing Lego set to life.

It has got a couple of LED lights, a sensor, and these blocks

From there you can create whatever spinning, moving,

But this use of technology isn't just about teaching ICT.

This adaptive learning is also about employing new methods

The teacher guides with experience but as a student you can

Now, Jen here is going to play the part of a teacher.

She will be talking through what we are all looking

at through the goggles at the same time.

I mean, looking at the difference between the healthy lungs

and the smoker's lungs I definitely think we should stick with the kids.

The idea of an image in your mind is certainly something that could be

easier to maintain than just someone just talking.

But my issue is actually with the idea of wearing the goggles.

They're fine for a couple of minutes but then I do feel the urge to take

them off so I can't imagine actually wearing them for a full half-hour

Many of these ideas will be picked up by individual schools,

but although the ideas and devices are out there,

the challenge comes in making them available to the masses

and that is something which one not for profit in Finland,

a country considered to have one of the world's best education

I would say that education is one of the few big industries

that is still waiting to be disrupted.

One of the biggest challenges in our education system

is that it is based on the ideals of the industrial world,

so it is kind of like teaching everyone to be the same.

And in tomorrow's world it is crucial to be individual.

One idea turns things on its head though, focusing not simply

on new ways of teaching, but firstly analysing how we learn.

Well, I'm on my way to maths class which should cause me a bit

of concern because I am not sure I remember that much from school,

but with this class everybody's having their own private lesson.

The teacher doesn't stand up and project their voice

The kids take their places at computers were Century AI

This artificial intelligence system aims to teach each pupil

at their own pace and in a way that suits them best,

constantly getting to know them better and tracking their progress.

The entire purpose of this machine is to learn how your brain learns

and then utilise that data, and it constantly adapts,

to provide them with a top-tier education at any single moment

and then takes that data and offers it to the teacher in real-time.

It's provided by real-time teachers and they can intervene

when necessary and they can spend more time on the human interactions

with the student, the pastoral care that they need to provide

Now, you may remember last year we tickled your earbuds

with something called binaural sound.

Now, this is a way of recording audio so when you listen back

through headphones, the sounds actually sound like they are coming

Well, it turns out someone was listening.

Not just someone, but The Doctor, and he invited Kate Russell to hear

Go and have a look. Why me?

Unlike a new episode of Doctor Who, that uses binaural sound to really

I have come to south Wales, where the episode

In this spooky-looking house, the Doctor investigates

Using binaural sound, the show's producers are able

to ramp up the fright factor by placing sound effects all around

the listener, so they feel like they are actually

SO if you see a normal, digital audio workstation,

But actually, we can see those tracks on the computer as little

objects, like you are looking down on top of a room.

So you can see these dots with a cross showing where the left

and right is, and the up-and-down axis.

When the sounds are then put through into the BBC renderer,

which is a piece of software that the R team have made,

then you can see where those sounds are hanging in 3-D space.

To experience the binaural effect you must be using stereo headphones.

Even a top-of-the-range 5.1 surround sound speaker systems will not

deliver the results, as the microscopic time delays

in sounds arriving at your ears are vital to creating

That was super, super scary and spooky and atmospheric.

If you are expecting the kind of like sideshow act of jumping

around sound that really wows you, this is not what this is about.

This is about a subtle experience of placing

you in a three-dimensional soundscape.

The reason why this episode lent itself so brilliantly

to the binaural mix is because of it being a kind of horror -

playing with the horror genre, and the tropes of that,

and a lot of what makes things scary is what you don't see,

and building up the atmosphere to that moment of scare is really

We were told 3-D TV was going to be the next big thing.

The reason why binaural is really taking off now is because we're

in the age of the smartphone and the tablet.

People are consuming their media with headphones.

Even in my family, my kids will sit down

watching their own content, that they're interested in,

with a pair of headphones so as not to disturb each other.

I think what will happen when people experience binaural audio with TV

content, radio content, and then they go back to stereo,

And you think, "I want that other sound, please.

It was binaural, let me have some more of that, please."

I think that is where we will start to see binaural really take off.

This spooky episode will be broadcast with regular sound on UK

I'm afraid viewers from the rest of the world will have to wait.

For the binaural experience, watch it on iPlayer.

I recommend a darkened room, some decent stereo headphones,

And remember, if you do hear knocking sounds in the night,

And that's it for the shortcut of Click for this week. The full-length

version is up on iPlayer to watch right now. Follow us on Twitter

throughout the week @BBCclick. Thank you so much for watching and we'll

see you soon.