The above definition of Education is very vast, sweeping and cuts across the breadth and width of human civilization. So far we were depending on the human route to enable transfer of skills and knowledge from one generation to the next. With increase in population and the vastness of knowledge that needs to be transferred along with the multiple branches of knowledge that exists today, the correct streamlining of this knowledge, information and skills to the multude of people across the different continents of the world is very daunting. Can AI help to solve this crisis and how ?
I happened to go through couple of international publications in this regard. Ron Schmelzer in July '19, Forbes (click here) shares some ideas of applications of AI in education.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help education in many striking ways. It can be used in the following ways.
1. Personalised learning - Instead of providing a single syllabus for all the students, learning will be personalised. What to learn personally, divide learning into small convenient modules for asynchronous learning and asynchronous testing, preparation of custom learning modules and learning material for students. This will also include online interface and feedback from teachers and Professors
2. making use of AI Personal Assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Microsoft Cortana, Apple Siri to provide conversation interaction to students that assists in collecting teaching material, educational assistance, setting reminders, alarms, to help answer small queues of students and to help in adaptive learning.
Adaptive learning, also known as adaptive teaching, is an educational method which uses computer algorithms to orchestrate the interaction with the learner and deliver customized resources and learning activities to address the unique needs of each learner. Wikipedia
3. aiding in administrative tasks like admission, examinations etc. that take faculty time away from students. This time can be reallocated to students increasing the faculty student interaction time. With AI Personal assistants taking the rote tasks of admission, institutional information seeking, arranging for field visits , placement activities etc more time is available for faculty to interact with students.
4. breaking barriers, cutting across the quality of the institution, teachers etc., AI systems can help ensure impartial decision making based on academic merit, improving the fairness and quality of the admission process.
Chat bots that interacted with students in the University of Mursia in Spain helped improve the motivation levels of students by 91%. Understanding student interest and preferences, new courses and experiences were introduced to improve student learning, educational experiences, delivering the right knowledge and skills to improve later adult life professional accomplishments.
Chat bots can also help give mental health counseling to students.
The challenges that were observed were
1. preparing students for tech based world
2. preparing students for digital transformation
3. AI cannot help in imparting creative, cognitive and emotional intelligence skills. This requires human intervention.
Only Professors can help students by providing guidance, support, mentoring, understand the importance of what is being learnt and its practical applications. AI cannot help in this area.
With the invasion of AI in education, students need to understand how
1. Algorithms use data to make decisions,
2. how the data should remain private,
3. how the data is being used and
4. the design and development of AI systems.
A human-AI hybrid machine only can finally benefit humanity as a whole ..
George..
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