This book by Professor B. Mairēad Pratschke, arrived late last week, just in time for a wet weekend. It is a Springer brief of just over 100 pages, making it a quick but worthwhile read.
The book has 7 chapters.
Chapter 1 covers the historical evolution of AI in education, a good overview of Gen AI (GAI is used in the book) and a summary of the tenets of digital pedagogy (including connectivism, social constructivism). The chapter closes with the call and rationale for all educators to attain GAI competencies and that its introduction into learning must be teacher-led, not as directives from above.
The second chapter undertakes the unpacking of the implications of GAI on the learning ecosystem. The term AI ecosystem is used to describe how GAI is integrated into teaching platforms and tools, the implications for undertaking this type of innovation, and provides some indications of how AI will impact on education as a whole. We are already able to customise AI bots but in the very near future, embodied AI and the opportunity to not just integrate GAI but to create new forms of education.
In the third chapter, the concept of human-computer hybrid is explored. In doing so, humans (and AI) draw on each other's strengths, leading to true synergy between biological/human and digital/machine/AI. The developments already available are summarised - including ways Gen AI is trained, the role of prompt engineering, Khan academy's experiments with personalised learning using AI, Poe and Hugging Face as the options to create your own bot, expert systems and examples in deploying Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). A refresh of TPACK is proposed to become TPAIK, whereby 'knowledge' is shifted to be 'intelligence'. This leads to thinking about the relationships between technology/ntelligence/knowledge and how these are part of the learning design. Who creates intelligence/knowledge and what is the role of technology in the co-relationship?
In chapter 4, learning design to bring about the connections between educational theory, and digital pedagogy and practice is proposed. The concept of Generativism is proposed to bring GAI into the design, delivery and assessment of learning. The ABC learning design framework (with the learning activities of acquisition, collaboration, discussion, investigation, practice and production from Laurrilard's work) with GAI added, is provided as an example of how GAI contributes to each of the learning activities.
Chapter 5 undertakes an exploration and discussion of the impact of GAI specifically on personalised and peer learning. Intelligent tutoring systems, adaptive learning platforms, integrated assistants and tutors, standalone assistants and tutor, along with aspects of social learning, the implications of affective computing, social AI, intelligent communities and collaborative learning (see Sharple's work) are all introduced, discussed and evaluated. Each has a role, the importance is in selection and emphasis and of the roles of AI supporter and learner. Who has autonomy and what is the role of the educator when personalised learning environments become the norm.
The next chapter focuses on assessing learning. Congruent to the findings from our own AI projects, the emphasis in the AI age, is to place importance on the process of learning, rather than the outputs of learning. The ABC framework is again used, to provide guidance as to how assessments change due to AI and how AI can be used to support the assessment process.
In the last chapter, 'embedding AI', the many themes and threads across the book are brought together. Actions for educators and administrators are provided to help move education into the GIA age.
In sum, a good book providing a summary of what has occurred thus far with good advice on the way forward. The book is short and therefore not too daunting for the practitioner/teacher/academic leader/head of school etc. to read through. There are good discussion anchors throughout the book and these will be useful as the difficult conversations with on GAI's role in education begin to take place in earnest.
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