Which is my idea of a break. I know, ive seen your instagram, youve been hitting it hard hmm. What have you been up to . Ive been exercising my brain, ive been trying these, um, Interactive Puzzle Books which ive become a bit of a fan of. On each page theres some sort of weird puzzle here and once youve worked out whats going on, you scan the Qr Code and it takes you to a website and tells you whether youre right or not. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my idea of fun. Goodness, and you must be cleverer than ever now . Dangerously intelligent, thats me. But anyway, its back to business now, and september means back to school. And hopefully the kids are going to get a whole year in the classroom. Yeah, but because the last 18 months have been so disrupted, schools and kids now face a big challenge and thats the fact that every child has had a different level of schooling and has different gaps in their education. But, it looks like Machine Learning might be able to help with the childrens learning. Four years ago we visited a school which had started using century al to bolster their teaching. This is software that assesses students as they learn, finding where the gaps are, and prompting them with Teaching Materials that suit their needs. What it will do is we track all your behaviours, and your Mouse Movements and how you learn. Have they paused, are they scrolling up or down, what words are they looking at, how long are the words, has the child been guessing, have they been skipping, are they hesitating, have they taken longer to answer this question versus another one . Well, you know if you know how long it takes for them to read across different subjects. So its trying to analyse and learn how the student is behaving across the content. The really clever part is that it tracks learning across different subjects, so it can differentiate between a student who is struggling with a mathematical equation, and one whos struggling with how the Maths Question is posed. In that case it may suggest more literacy tasks. When the pandemic hit, software like this became increasingly important as students were forced to learn from home. And during the first lockdown, united learning, one of the largest groups of schools in england, introduced another adaptive Learning Platform to 46 of their secondary schools. Sparx maths has thousands and thousands of questions and thousands and thousands of hours of exemplification as well videos explaining how to do certain operations. Now, that means that no teacher ever has to sit down and work out a specific set of questions for specific children to do, � cause the software understands at what point of learning those children are at. And also it marks those questions so the teacher doesnt have to sit for hours marking them in a book and correcting them as well, which i know from personal experience, can consume your entire life. Over the past 18 months weve all needed as much help as we could get as our kids have flipped between School And HomeLearning And Weve flopped into bed each night exhausted after being parents, teachers and workers. For some children, learning at home has helped them to blossom but for many, Tech Will never beat the teacher. Earlier in the year, i met andria zafirakou, the best teacher in The Universe and thats notjust according to her pupils, mind, she won the global Teacher Prize in 2018. The one thing that we have to bear in mind is that you know, by using technology in assessing young people, its not as good as that 1 to 1 teacher experience, and having that 1 to 1 knowledge with a Teacher Willjust open up their mind a little bit more, and push them a little bit more to thinking about things which theyve never thought about. There is No Doubt that technology can be extremely beneficial in the classroom, but choices made by ai could set a direction for the rest of a childs life. And ultimately tech can only augment teachers and free up time so that they can do what they do best teach. Of course, nothing can beat physically being in the classroom, but even pre pandemic, some students werent able to be at school for example, those with serious illnesses. But now, thanks to the help of some robots, some of these children might able to attend classes remotely. Jen copestake� s been finding out more. And can you blink your eyes . Thats so cool. Qasim is a student at seven Kings School in east london. He has a serious medical condition which means he hasnt been able to go out since the beginning of the covid pandemic, but comes to class instead in a robot avatar. How long have you been going to school like this, qasim . Well originally, it was to do with the lockdown and everything. Also i had a surgery so that was also one reason. Are you recovering from the surgery now . Yeah. I have the Impression Qasim is a brave person. You come across very well qasim. Oh, thank you. Laughs. Is this your first time working with a robot in this way or have you done it before . Oh, it has been several months already, isnt it, qasim . So did theyjust say youre going to be working with a robot instead of a child . Everybody was excited. There are 500 av1 robots going to school in this way across the uk and more than 1,500 in europe. Its controlled from a childs home via an app. Where are you talking to us from . Like, from my ipad at home. Oh wow. They can control the movement of the robot on the table, change facial expressions, raise hands, and even sleep. Is the blue meaning youre asleep . Yes. Do you ever put that on in the class . No. Laughter. Qasim, im just going to carry you to the next classroom. Sure. At The End of the day, qasim is put away to charge. Hes occasionally had to call his teachers to remind them to switch him on for class. Theres something real about it its got a head, it moves, it talks. Its almost like qasim is embodied in the robot so its brilliant it feels absolutely fine actually. So we get quite used to it and we call the robots actually by the childs name, and because the Childs Voice is coming out of the robot, and theyre quite often laughing and joking with us, it feels like a perfectly natural relationship its normal. So its the first time id seen a Robot Interacting in this way in a classroom and it was quite unexpected. It really did feel like qasims presence was coming through that robot, and the children in the classroom seemed to enjoy it too. The first prototype av1, 3d print, first prototype comp, which is a Computer Screen with a robot body. The idea of interacting with robots as avatars rather than Video Screens came from Karen Dolva and her team at no isolation in oslo. Raspberry pi in there. Camera, microphone. So if a child raises a hand, these lights will light up. These are tiny led lights. Then you have the antenna for good reception. You have the 4g Module in here, you have the Camera Board so this is what will sit in the forehead of the robot and let you actually stream. Karen found her experience at university to be isolating, and difficult to make new friends. This led to a period of loneliness and depression. I at least isolated myself. I dont think i realised how much id pulled away from everyone else until people started literally trying to get me back, which im very gratefulfor today. Karen started looking at Isolation And Loneliness in pensioners before redirecting attention to children in hospitals who couldnt get to class. They were using Video Conferencing to get lessons, but she wanted to make a more private way. We were out observing and actually saw a reaction where a kid logged on and everyone in class is saying, like, youre looking ill, then the kid logs off again which is heartbreaking, like, you dont want that to be the experience you have when you show up in class. Qasim is now looking forward to getting back to class in person, and should be able to start again this autumn. How long have you been away from school, qasim . I left some time in february, i think. January, february sometime. Then i stopped again. I havent been in quite a long time. Whats that been like to shield for such a long time . Eventually, just, its like, quite annoying i guess because you cant do anything. Since the pandemic, weve really been amazed by the broad range of use cases weve seen, but also weve seen an extreme rise in the level of anxiety amongst students. And just by having that window into the classroom, they gain more confidence, theyre able to speak with their peers and their teachers, and the idea of returning to school becomes less daunting. What do you guys think, having qasim interacting like this . I think that its good from his point of view. Hes able to ask the teacher for questions if he needs help. If we didnt have this robot. Then i dont think he would be getting the same education that hes getting now hello and welcome to the week in tech. This week we learned that apple boss, tim cook, recently received 5 Million shares in the company that he has now sold for over 750 million. Google yet again postponed a full return to the office, announcing that its employees can work remotely until at least 2022. And vauxhall� s Managing Director said that the global shortage of Computer Chips will continue to be a problem for the Auto Industry for the rest of the year. Staying with transport, toyota has restarted operations of its autonomous vehicles at the paralympic village in tokyo. Services were halted after one vehicle Hit A visually impaired athlete last week. Big news for gamers in china. The Countrys VideoGames Regulator that said gamers under the age of 18 will be only allowed to play for an hour each day on fridays, weekends and holidays. The move is part of a recent crackdown by the chinese government on the pastime, with a State Media Outlet calling online games spiritual opium. And finally, if youre worried about robots taking all ourjobs, look away right now. Agility robotics have showed off their latest bipedal creation digit. The company claim that the weirdly Headless Automaton is well suited to highly repetitive tasks and it is meant to allow us humans to concentrate more on creative endeavours. I just hope someone told the robots that. Insects are a sustainable, protein rich food source, and i have already seen them grown vertically to feed chickens although i am not sure it was that thrilled about it. Oh my god, there is millions in here but this much smaller smart Insect Farm has been designed to work in schools. It can fit on a Kitchen Counter and filters mealworms by life stage. This is one that is kind of in use right now. They lay their eggs through these holes and once they are big enough, then they will be able to actually crawl out of here. A Heating Pad warms from underneath. There is a sensor below that aluminium plate. While other sensors keep humidity in check. It will turn a fan on so it draws off any excess. As well as leftover veg, mealworms can eat things like stale bread, old coffee grounds, and even polystyrene. Even their waste is not wasted. You can use it like this for putting it in your plants. The students in Hong Kong are some of the first to use the device to grow edible insects. They have been making bug burgers, and learning that larvae can become lunch. What is your favourite thing about the worms . My favourite thing is eating them. Because the flavour of the mealworms are very funny. It is crispy and the flavour is like peanuts. Like peanuts wow. Has it made you think about the environment and about animals more . Yes, because the mealworms use less land than cows or pigs. Given that Animal Agriculture is behind 87 of Greenhouse Gas emissions, Insect Cooking lessons could be the education we all need. I think in the world, or in Hong Kong, we have to promote this idea of Green Eating habits. But there are other curricula benefits too. All types of students can be involved. So it makes them more popular and general education for all the kids. Schools around the world are already experimenting with different projects. Nordic students have been coding the device, complete with light up alerts. Green, blue. Kids in quebec dug into mealworm treats, as did gontrand, the blue dragon lizard. Of course there is nothing stopping people using these kits at home either. You just have to have space in the kitchen and, well, the stomach for it. That was paul. I actually ate roasted mealworms from a prototype Insect Farm when i was in china a few years ago. What did they taste like . Crispy, meaty and not that bad really. Oh, but still. Now its time for a lesson in can you guess the gadget what do you think this is . Insect toaster. What do you take me for . No, it does this. He has knobbly knees and turned out toes and a poisonous wart at The End of his nose that is my dating profile. Its also a well known childrens story. Of course it is, the gruffalo, love the gruffalo. This is yoto, an Audiobook Player for kids, which you just pop these card into. It is hands on for kids to use solo but also it has an app that lets parents play content from their phones, or send stories to play from the device. But with so much free content out there, you do wonder why people may want another platform or another subscription service. A lot of it comes down to the actual user interface, so we built yoto from the ground up for children, and there really was nothing else available without a screen that parents could reallyjust trust their children with. The child is fully in control of the player, they put in the cards that they want, they can change the volume, they can do everything without the parent intervening. And the parent at the same time knows that its a safe and secure environment. The Yoto Player has 400 cards already but it can also play radio, be used as a bluetooth speaker, or be programmed to help with sleep training. Of course there are other devices that do similar things, as well as the streaming giants which have their own offerings. Like spotify kids, an app which is just for kid friendly music and stories. There is also Amazon Kids Plus which has books, movies, tv shows, Educational Apps and games. Bell rings. That is the school bell, which means we are moving onto our final of the day. And its history. Oh no i was always a bit scared of my history teacher. Oh no, it is really interesting isnt it, how the teacher makes a definite difference to whether you enjoy the subject or not. But no, this is a historical mystery with technology doing its bit to help. Sound good . Yes sir. Laughs. 0k. Simon hancock picks up the trail. The town of warwick in the heart of england. I actually grew up near here, and let me tell you, it is absolutely dripping in history. From its Famous Castle to the market square, everywhere you look, there it is. Small wonder then, that its Pored Over by historians, amateur and pro alike, who all try to take these visual clues and Re Conjure the stories that happened here in the past. But today, i have been asked to help with an historical mystery deep underground. Through this very small hole, through which the Fire Brigade are going to winch me. So. Oh, my goodness. 0k. Are you afraid . Afraid of what . I am not brilliant with enclosed spaces, shall we say. But. Yeah. You didnt mention that before. Well, you didnt mention it was like this small, thats why. Under here, going metres down, there is a well which near the bottom has an entrance to an unexpected and unexplained tunnel one which some think could be part of a wider network of tunnels under warwicks streets. There have always been whispers around here about the existence of tunnels, butjust how many are there, and what were they used for . Its these questions which have hooked the Harvey Brothers. It is like a little puzzle, it is like a puzzle with bricks in and rocks in and a well, and a lot of people in warwick are like, they just want to talk about tunnels and never really want to investigate, they prefer to have the myth. I dont want to have the myth, i want the facts. Alex and joe bring more than their passion to this quest, though. They also run a Vr Company called rivr, and they think vr can help figure out why this tunnel is here. The Fire Brigade cant always be on hand, and so today after my Safety Briefing i will be helping to capture images from the tunnel to help build up a photogrammetric 3d Model of it. I am in good hands here, but at The End of the day you are being winched down a very small hole. He we go, all right. Wow. You can see on the sides of these tunnels, the Hack Marks which are obviously from when it was made. No one really knows when it was, but you just get a sense that it must have been hundreds of years ago. It really is very tight, but the Fire Brigade are a reassuring presence. They were Pump Air down here to keep it safe and wow, it really is something. Imagine the effort it took to hack through all this sandstone. Whoever made these tunnels really wanted to do it. But nobody knows what they were for. This is the section im to take images of. It is really hard to pick up, but on the Ceiling Someone has used a burning candle to graffiti their name. 20 metres down the tunnel its blocked by rubble, so frustrating. Just what lies beyond . Some think it may lead to the Church Cryptjust 100 metres away, but one local historian thinks there may have been a more prosaic use for it. I think we would all like to believe, and we would all like to imagine that these are secret tunnels that connect a kind of murky underworld of residents from times gone by. I think the reality is traditionally that tunnels that have been discovered in and around warwick have had a very functional purpose, and that is principally as culverts to move Waste And Water out of the town, out of the roads, out of houses, into wells and into waste. Whoa. Laughs. You know, you still get the feeling, dont you . The next day i am checking out my work at the vr studio. It really does feel like i am back underground. Its a very lifelike experience. And theres that graffiti we couldnt see yesterday. You see on the roof here, the graffiti was made candlelight. It says 0. Tibbits, 1894. Could this reallyjust be a Waste Tunnel . Our historian has never been down himself, but now its been scanned, it can. What do you make of it . Yeah so my first impression is across the two different types of construction in here. Ifind it quite interesting, up above we have this red brick, large parts of warwick were completely gutted by fire in 1694 95, and so this would certainly correlate to this being built maybe when the houses up above were demolished and rebuilt after the fire. Of course what really interests me is down below, this sandstone tunnel, because this looks like it has been really carved quite aggressively and quite vigorously into the rock. If this is just a Waste Tunnel, why is it so big . You know what, its a very good question. My instinct before coming down here was that it was carved quite large because of course people would be coming down here, so they are not going to crawl around carving, they will need space to really kind of chip in. It is far larger than i expected, and i think that does question whether this was solely and indeed originally only for waste. So the mystery continues, but the Harvey Brothers are in this for the long game. I see this project going on quite a long time. | ifeel like i couldnt really put it to bed until we have scanned the whole of warwick, above and below ground. Its fascinating seeing the correlation, for me, fascinating when i see the models, where you see the tunnel underneath the ground, and now we can determine where the buildings on top of the ground are in relation to the below ground. Alex and joe are already using their Vr Tunnel to bring history alive for local schoolchildren. Still, for some, vr can never quite beat the real thing. Thats a tourist attraction, isnt it . I can see people doing that. Anyway, thats it from us for this week. As ever you can find the team on social media, on youtube, instagram, Facebook And Twitter at bbcclick. Thanks for watching, class dismissed bye bye. Very quiet on the Weather Front out there right now and quite warm, too, after a hot tuesday for some of us. Heres a reminder of the temperatures we had on tuesday in a selection of places. These are the hotspots up to 31 celsius in 1 2 spots in wales, close to 30 in many other areas, for example, across the midlands. And wednesday is going to be another hot one, with tonnes of sunshine on the way. But we are starting to see a breakdown of this sunny weather in the far southwest of the uk. Theres just the possibility of some showers early In The Morning in cornwall, maybe even the Odd Crack of thunder. But for many of us, its sunshine right from The Word Go and warm 17 celsius In The Morning. Now, the reason the weathers going to be changing over the next 2a hours or so is this low pressure which is approaching us. In fact, you can see itjust on the bottom of the screen there. Showers and thunderstorms are expected to creep, gently creep into southwestern parts of england and wales. They wont make much progress during the course of wednesday. In fact, by the afternoon, theyre just into southern wales, just across the west country, maybe a shower possible in northern ireland. But look at the weather across the rest of the uk hot and sunny. I wouldnt be surprised if temperatures hit 30 celsius once again on wednesday. Now, even through the evening on wednesday, you can see these showers just about moving a bit further north into the midlands, into central, southern england, many of us remaining dry. But a risk of downpours certainly possible, and that risk will continue into thursday because this low pressure will come closer. Its going to park itself over us. The winds will be light in the centre of this low pressure, and that means that these showers circling the low will be slow moving, so the possibility of long lasting downpours and even some Flash Flooding across parts of wales and england. Some eastern areas may escape the worst of the showers. And here, still a little bit of warmth left, maybe 2a in hull, 25 in norwich, but out towards the west, were talking about temperatures maybe not even making 20 celsius on thursday. So the hot spell will come to an end on thursday for all of us. And you can see in the outlook the temperatures come the weekend will be barely making 20 celsius across many parts of the uk. Thats it from me. Welcome to Bbc News im lewis vaughanjones. Our top stories. In afghanistan, the taliban announce their new government. None of the cabinet officials are women and their new Prime Minister is on a un terrorism sanctions list. Earlier, the group fired Warning Shots on the streets of kabul, as hundreds took part in protests condemning the taliban and criticising pakistan. This is the biggest challenge to the Talibans Authority that weve seen so far, and its not coming from a militia force. Its coming from peaceful protesters, from both women and men. President biden visits New York and Newjersey Inspecting the damage caused by hurricane ida, and using it to Sound The Alarm on climate change