This morning, how technology is leading

to a new kind of learning.

NBC's Craig Melvin is here with a look

at the classroom of the future.

Hey, Craig, good morning.

CRAIG MELVIN: David, good morning to you.

Savannah, good morning to you, as well.

From text books to tablets, have you

ever wondered what our classrooms

will look like 10, 20, even 50 years from now?

Well, some innovative thinkers are

unlocking new and powerful ways to teach our kids,

changing the way we look at our education system

in the process.

The numbers alone are staggering.

JOSE FERREIRA: The thing about the education system

is, it's a very impersonal system.

It's a factory model.

CRAIG MELVIN: One student drops out of high school

every 26 seconds.

Roughly 30% of kids each year will not

graduate from high school.

That's 1.3 million in all, falling

through the cracks of our education system.

Worldwide, the numbers grow exponentially.

A whopping 80% of kids will not get a high school diploma.

Experts say each of those kids is a lost opportunity.

How many DaVincis and Einsteins and Marie Curies and Michael

Jordans are we losing every generation

because we're just not giving them

the opportunities that some of us have.

CRAIG MELVIN: But what if that could be changed?

What if an internet connection was the difference

in getting a world class education.

Today, education is having that internet moment.

And a chosen few are taking some bold steps forward.

JOSE FERREIRA: I'm Jose Ferreira, the founder

and CEO of Newton.

We're trying to revolutionize education across the globe.

CRAIG MELVIN: Newton is an adaptive learning platform

that personalizes education based on each kid's strengths

and weaknesses.

In essence, students go at their own pace

and the software continuously adapts to their learning style.

JOSE FERREIRA: If you learn math best with medium difficulty

practice questions, we know that.

If you learn science best in 24-minute bite sizes,

we know that.

Everybody has a learning experience

that is unique to them.

CRAIG MELVIN: Ferreira started the company in 2008,

using his credit card.

Since then, Newton has grown by leaps and bounds.

They currently reach almost five million students,

and that number is growing.

JOSE FERREIRA: We want to end the access

problem for education.

We want every kid, whether you're in the inner city

or in the developing world, we want

you to have the best possible education you can get.

SAL KHAN: My name is Sal Khan and I'm

the founder of the Khan Academy.

CRAIG MELVIN: In 2004, Sal Kahn was tutoring his cousins

remotely from his then home in Boston.

The lessons started over the phone,

until a friend suggested he upload

educational videos to YouTube.

SAL KHAN: And I immediately said, no.

Videos and YouTube, that's for cats playing piano,

not serious mathematics.

But I gave it a shot.

And those videos took on a life of their own.

CRAIG MELVIN: Those videos became the cornerstone

of Khan Academy, a virtual library

of now more than 4,000 tutorials covering everything

from basic math to college level chemistry.

SAL KHAN: And our goal over the next 5, 10, 50, 500 years

is to go from the six million students that we're

serving every month now to 60 million, 600 million students.

CRAIG MELVIN: One of those students recently sent Khan

a video message from the unlikeliest of places,

an orphanage in Mongolia.

STUDENT: Hey, Sal.

Your lessons are so interesting and funny.

Make more lessons.

SAL KHAN: That by itself is pretty mind

blowing for us, this idea that the work that we get to do

can reach people as far as an orphanage in Mongolia.

CRAIG MELVIN: Two companies led by two visionaries, both

using the reach of technology to reimagine

the future of education.

And now Newton recently partnered

with education publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

As a result, more kids will have access

to their adaptive learning platform.

And we should note, Khan Academy's mission statement,

changing education for the better

by providing a free, world class education for anyone,

anywhere, that means all of their tutorial videos

are free of charge.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: That is pretty cool.

DAVID GREGORY: Great stuff.

Great model.

CRAIG MELVIN: Thank you.

Good to see you.

I'm looking forward to seeing you dance in a few minutes,

too.

DAVID GREGORY: Well, you never know.