Artificial Intelligence as an Emerging Educational Technology
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Artificial Intelligence is something we hear about much more in modern times and has a wide variety of uses to help enhance our lives and the efficiency of what we do every day. In this memo I will focus on the use of artificial intelligence and how it relates to teaching and learning. The issue is contentious as it is still an emerging technology, however, as you will learn from this memo, it is a technology that should not be ignored.
In researching artificial intelligence and how it is used in Education, I came upon an article and discussion posted by ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). The discussion was posted on their official Facebook page and included a link to an article from “USA Today” that includes more perspectives on artificial intelligence like ChatGPT. The article that is attached to the discussion, “This shouldn’t be a surprise' The education community shares mixed reactions to ChatGPT” written by Kayla Jiminez, is a compilation of her interviews with educators and their experience/opinions of ChatGPT. It seems from the discussion on ISTE’s page as well as the article show educators falling into 1 of 2 categories: Educators who do not understand and do not want to use emerging technologies OR Educators who feel it is futile to ignore this technology and want to push the technology to its limits to see what it is capable of. The discussion showed that most educators would like to see better uses for the technology to help their students.
Due to the opinions in the article by Kayla Jiminez, I researched other types of artificial intelligence and how they are being used in the Education setting. An interesting study was conducted by a group of students at Jimei University that focused on “Effectiveness of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Improving Pupils’ Deep Learning in Primary School Mathematics Teaching in Fujian Province”, (Yaping Qiu, Junjie Pan, Nor Asniza Ishak – June 2022). Their research focused on learners who were not successful in learning math topics on their grade level and utilized a piece of educational software that utilizes artificial intelligence to customize the students learning based upon given data and the students interactions within the software. The software was able to access information from the internet to make the content more engaging as well as access information about the math topic to give learners an output based upon different methods of solving or learning the math topic they are struggling with. Overall, the study conducted by this group showed the ability of artificial intelligence to focus on the individual learners' skills-based needs and present those learners with interactive and engaging ways to learn those skills.
A study was conducted “Supporting Inclusive Learning Using Chatbots? A Chatbot Led Interview Study” by two students from San Jose State University, Sambhav Gupta, and Yu Chen (December 2022) that also focused on the issue of inclusion and equity using artificial intelligence. This study acknowledged that there can be bias from artificial intelligence due to how information is scraped from the internet. The study noted that while there is still growth in that area, the focus of their research was about how AI like Chatbots still have benefits for students when it comes to equity and inclusion. Students have access to their own “personal teacher” through the chatbot all day and at any time. The chatbot is also discreet to encourage nervous learners to ask for help understanding certain information for their courses. The study found that students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, have experienced diverse life experiences, and those with different learning styles are supported with the use of chatbots.
The artificial intelligence referenced in this memo are not the only types available. Currently it does seem like there is a major focus on chatbot types of AI, but we should not ignore the ability to customize learning as well as easily integrate different methods of learning a specific skill that was referenced in the study on using “Deep Learning for Primary Math Skills.” AI can be a great tool to meet the needs of diverse types of learners as I have seen through the studies referenced above as well as the overall positive discussions from current Educators through ISTE. Artificial Intelligence is also becoming more common in our world, due to that, we have a responsibility to understand what is available now as well as where this technology could go in the future.
CITATIONS
Gupta, S., & Chen, Y. (2022). Supporting Inclusive Learning Using Chatbots? A Chatbot-Led Interview Study. Journal of Information Systems Education, 33(1), 98–108.
Jiminez, K. (2023, January 30). 'This shouldn’t be a surprise' The education community shares mixed reactions to ChatGPT. USA Today. Retrieved February 28, 2023, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2023/01/30/chatgpt-going-banned-teachers-sound-alarm-new-ai-tech/11069593002/?fbclid=IwAR3jl9TczbeJV6kfafraSiH2Z0OP1D30Wdk_jE-WwAN8th_gZ8cDM_OcGLI
Yaping, Q., Junjie, P., & Nor Asniza, I. (2020). Effectiveness of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Improving Pupils’ Deep Learning in Primary School Mathematics Teaching in Fujian Province. Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience, 2022(1362996), 10. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/1362996
