AI in education - two sides to the coin

 There is a large corpus of literature on AI and its contributions or its deleterious effects on education. Most report on the school or higher education context. The number of articles commenting on AI in education has increased markedly across 2023, much of which  being the reactions towards the advent of Gen AI. 

The article by Hamilton, William and Hattie (2023)  -the future of AI in education: 13 things we can do to minimise the damage - paints a dystopian picture, positing that school education especially, needs to do a major rethink as to its purposes and roles given the ways AI could replace the need for human thinking. There is also the need to evaluate how AI/human synthesis will work, and what needs to be done to prepare the children today, for the future where synergistic relationships between non-human and human intelligences, are the norm.

This op ed by Oxford University Press - AI in education, where we are and what happens next - takes on a more pragmatic view. Firstly doing an overview of where things are now with regards to the global picture, Ai's impact on teachers, possible impacts on learning, the challenges of the digital divide and AI, and  outlines recommendations for going forward. These include: supporting, not substituting teachers, seeking the highest quality resources to back AI, empowering teachers to use technology in the classroom, equipping students with the skills to be able to complement the affordances of AI, with a priority on ensuring there is good understanding of how AI can or cannot contribute to learning. A pragmatic viewpoint.

Therefore, going forward, there is a need to ensure Gen AI literacy becomes part of academic / digital literacies. Only then can educators and learners understand and use AI rather than have AI foisted on us by the powerful corporations developing the tools/apps that make Gen AI accessible. 

AI in Learning: Designing for the future - some relevant chapters

 AI in learning: Designing for the future is an open access book published by Springer. The editors are and international group of scholars with H. Niemi (Finland), R. D. Pea (U. S. of A) and Y. Lu (China). The book was published at the beginning of 2022, thus the concepts, frameworks etc. proposed are 'pre-Chat-GPT'. However, the premises are sound, based on the large corpus of existing research around AI. However, it is important to read the chapters in the book, with the proviso that things have since moved on somewhat.

After the introductory chapter and a last chapter by the editors, the book has 18 chapters, organised into 4 parts. They are:

- AI expanding learning and well-being throughout the life

- AI games and simulations

- AI technologies for education and intelligent tutoring systems

- AI and ethical challenge in new learning environments. 

There are several chapters of relevance to my present projects/work.

The first chapter on "AI innovations for multimodal learning, interfaces and analytics' by M. Worsley was the route into the rest of the book, having turned up in one of my searches for 'AI in vocational education'. The chapter brings up opportunities for using AI to support project-based, inquiry-driven and problem-solving approaches to learning. Examples are provided of technologies which can be used by learners across modalities to showcase their learning; tools (audio/video) offering insights into how group work is enacted; and guides as to how learning analytics from these multimodal platforms can usefully inform teaching and learning research. 

The chapters in section 3 - education and intelligent tutoring systems - offers concrete ways to usefully deploy AI for personalised learning. The chapters include one on 'training hard skills' by T. Korhonen, T. Lindquist, J. Laine and K. Hakkarainen. 

The chapters in section 4 - AI and ethics - are all useful as they inform on various perspectives with regards to AI ethics.AI augments learning but can also be used as a surveillance tool. The tensions between assistive learning and 'big brother' needs to be balanced with social and cultural norms shaping the way AI is deployed. Some social cultures may find AI surveillance to be a normal course of life but others will find surveillance to be invasive of personal privacy. Ethical considerations are therefore context dependent. What is taken as the norm in one country, is considered challenging in others. 

The last chapter by the editors 'reflections on the contributions and future scenarios in AI-based learning' - summarises the themes introduced and discussed through the book.

As the book is open access, it is a good resource for anyone interested in how AI may enhance education but with the caveat that there are also many issues with regards to how AI is introduced and utilised. The potentialities for personalised learning, drawing from analytics and AI algorithm driven interventions are emergent technologies, with much promise. Ethical issues become crucial in ensuring AI is used as a tool for equitable access to education, and not as a surveillance instrument by the state. 

Effortful educator - a resource for teachers to apply cognitive science to teaching

 I came across this blog while catching up on the work of Professor Paul Kirshner though this blog 'ask a researcher' . The blog Effortful Educator is a good resource as it collates many seminal resources informing teaching and learning. The main focus of the blog is to summarise learnings on cognitive psychology and connect them to the messy world of teaching and learning. 

A good place to start is the blog on 'five essential article for teachers'. It has been extended by several additions /contributions from others, but the five essential articles are very useful as a start to better understanding the precepts of cognitive science as they apply to learning. One of the links brings you to 'the retrieval practice library' which provides good resources for understanding these concepts.

The Effortful Educator blog series on 'ask a researcher' is also a good way to understand how contemporary researchers approach their work and has summaries and recommendations from each researcher.

As always, the context is formal education with clear lines to follow through into higher education. However, careful reading of articles and resources archived in the blog will provide good material for application to the vocational education context as well. 

NZ Association for Research in Education (NZARE) blog

 Although mainly with a school-based learning slant, the blog (Ipu kereru) maintained by the NZ Associaiton for Research in Education (NZARE), provides for an overview of research undertaken in this discipline.

Of note is the recent work undertaken to address racism in Aotearoa, use mobile technologies effectively in teaching and learning, and the 2020 summer reading list. These reflect the current emphasised themes within the Aotearoa NZ educational research community around equity, the commitment to meet the partnership enshrined in the Tiriti o Waitangi, and technology's influence and integration into learning and teaching. 

The blogs draw on recent/current research studies and provide a good overview of work undertaken by Aotearoa researchers.