This is how Roblox will change Education in Africa

The traditional concept of Education, where a teacher stood in front of students is set to change sooner rather than later. The gradual inclusion of technology in our daily lives will allow students to engage in studies in very different ways.

The versatility of a virtual space for engaging creative minds and giving persons the opportunity to experiment their ‘crazy’ ideas will push educational boundaries.It has been known over the last few months that Roblox has engaged more students than traditional school in developed countries  including but not limited to the UK, USA  and Canada  A majority of what is taught today in primary and secondary classrooms is based on a mid-19th-century Prussian model of education.

Around 170 years ago, this model became immensely popular in the west as it sought to unify students under a common national identity as well as train them for lifelong employment in factories. This resulted in what we consider to be norms in schools today: uniforms for students, a bell system that demarcates different activities during the day, a hierarchal grading system that determines if a student passes or fails, and a standardised curriculum geared towards creating like-minded citizens instead of developing the strengths of the students involved.

A Roblox educational experience starts off with teachers using prebuilt templates to customise game levels and interactive tutorials for their students around the topics they want to teach. They then invite students to play these Roblox levels (either as groups or individuals), learning complex concepts such as chain reaction simulations in the process.

These subjects are not just a significant departure from what is commonly taught in classrooms today. Thanks to Roblox’s learn-as-you-play approach, they are also far more engaging for students than a typical Zoom session.

The platform has not been popular with instructors in the past, primarily due to the social networking side of the experience that allowed strangers to connect with children. But with improved security in place combined with the pressures of the pandemic, school teachers have increasingly adopted Roblox to teach subjects like coding, animation, and digital civility. Roblox itself has also leaned into education and lists over 300 partner educational institutions on its website.

Further reading: Fastcompany