Dr Bruce Mathew
Dr Bruce Mathew is at the Department of Computer Science and Applications at Mar Elias College, Kottappady.
Education is an important part of life for everyone, and a good education plays a vital role to have a successful life. In order to improve the education system for the students, there are always a lot of changes happening around the world, ranging from the way of teaching to the type of curriculum. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a thriving technology that is being used in almost every field and is changing the world. Artificial Intelligence in Education has become a hot topic because it changes how we learn quickly. Now, AI is being used by different schools and colleges across different countries. AI in education has given a completely new perspective of looking at education to teachers, students, parents, and of course, the educational institutions as well. AI in education is not about humanoid robots as a teacher to replace human teachers, but it is about using computer intelligence to help teachers and students and making the education system much better and effective.
What is Artificial Intelligence
The term Artificial intelligence was first used by John McCarthy in 1955 and he defined it as “making a machine behave in ways that would be called intelligent if a human were so behaving”. Artificial intelligence is based on the principle that human intelligence can be defined in a way that a machine can easily mimic it and execute tasks, from the simplest to those that are even more complex. The goals of artificial intelligence include mimicking human cognitive activity. Researchers and developers in the field are making surprisingly rapid strides in mimicking activities such as learning, reasoning, and perception, to the extent that these can be concretely defined. Some believe that innovators may soon be able to develop systems that exceed the capacity of humans to learn or reason out any subject. But others remain sceptical because all cognitive activity is laced with value judgments that are subject to human experience. As technology advances, previous benchmarks that defined artificial intelligence become outdated. For example, machines that calculate basic functions or recognize text through optical character recognition are no longer considered to embody artificial intelligence, since this function is now taken for granted as an inherent computer function.
AI is continuously evolving to benefit many different industries. Machines are wired using a cross-disciplinary approach based on mathematics, computer science, linguistics, psychology, and more. AI is used extensively across a range of applications today, with varying levels of sophistication. Recommendation algorithms that suggest what you might like next are popular AI implementations, as are chatbots that appear on websites or in the form of smart speakers (e.g., Alexa or Siri). AI is used to make predictions in terms of weather and financial forecasting, to streamline production processes, and to cut down on various forms of redundant cognitive labor (e.g., tax accounting or editing). AI is also used to play games, operate autonomous vehicles, process language, and more.
AI in Education
Global adoption of technology in education is transforming the way we teach and learn. Artificial Intelligence is one of the disruptive techniques to customize the experience of different learning groups, teachers, and tutors.
1. Personalize Education
Artificial Intelligence helps find out what a student does and does not know, building a personalized study schedule for each learner considering the knowledge gaps. In such a way, AI tailors studies according to student’s specific needs, increasing their efficiency. To do it, many companies train their AIs, to define and represent the knowledge gaps, taking into account the complexity of scientific concepts relations between each other (one can stimulate the learning of another or become a basis for filling in the gap).
2. Produce Smart Content
• Digital lessons
Digital learning interfaces with customization options, digital textbooks, study guides, bite-sized lessons, and much more can be generated with the help of AI.
• Information visualization
New ways of perceiving information, such as visualization, simulation, webbased study environments, can be powered by AI.
• Learning content updates
Besides, AI helps generate and update the content of the lessons, keeping the information up to date and customizing it for different learning curves.
3. Contribute to Task Automation
Administrative tasks simplification: grading, assessing, and replying to students is a time-consuming activity that could be optimized by the teacher using AI. Do you remember the hints Gmail provides in the messages you compose based on the overview of your current and past messages plus the business vocabulary essentials? It would be great to have such an option on any Learning Management System or learning platform envisaging the feedback.
Entrusting a set of routine tasks to AI helps teachers make room for something more important: concentrating on grading the assignments impossible to delegate to Artificial Intelligence, self-education, upgrading the quality of the lessons.
4. Do Tutoring
Continuously evolving personal study programs considers student’s gaps to fill during individual lessons. Personal tutoring and support for the students outside of the classroom help learners keep up with the course and keep their parents from struggling to explain algebra to their kids. AI tutors are great time-savers for the teachers, as they do not need to spend extra time explaining challenging topics to students. With AI-powered chatbots or AI virtual personal assistants, students can avoid being embarrassed by asking for additional help in front of their friends.
5. Ensure Access to Education For Students With Special Needs
The adoption of innovative AI technologies opens up new ways of interacting for students with learning disabilities. AI grants access to education for students with special needs: deaf and hard of hearing, visually impaired, and even people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Artificial Intelligence tools can be successfully trained to help any group of students with special needs.
6. Gamification
AI-powered gamification can make learning more engaging and enjoyable by using game elements such as points, badges, and leaderboards. Gamification can motivate students to learn and help them to develop important skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking.
Benefits Of AI For Students
24/7 Access To Learning
With AI helpers based online, students always have access to learning. They are free to plan their day without being linked to a specific place. They can study on the go; at any place and time they want. They can build their schedule based on their most productive hours.
Better Engagement
Individualized schedules, custom tasks, interaction with digital technologies, and personal recommendations are part of the personal approach each student gets using AI. Besides, a personal approach helps students feel special, increasing their engagement and raising interest in studies in such a way.
Less Pressure
Lessons tailored to the needs of different learning groups allow students to stop comparing them to each other. Earlier, a student should have asked a teacher for help in front of the class. Now, it’s enough to type a query using a personal virtual assistant and get an instant explanation. These opportunities offered by AI tools make personal progress come to the fore, reducing the pressure in the classroom. Less pressure means less stress and more enthusiasm to study.
Applications of AI in education
1. Knewton: An adaptive learning platform that can provide personalized course materials to students.
2. Dialogflow: A Google-powered chatbot development platform that can help
educators create their own chatbots for various educational purposes.
3. Carnegie Learning: An AI-powered math education platform that can adapt to
individual student needs and provide personalized instruction.
4. Open edX Insights: A free, open-source learning analytics platform that can
help educators track student progress and engagement.
5. Google Cloud Speech-to-Text: A speech recognition API that can be used to
develop voice-controlled educational applications.
6. Classcraft: A gamified learning management system that can help educators
engage students and promote positive behavior.
7. OpenCV: An open-source computer vision library that can be used for a
variety of educational purposes, such as robotics and digital art.
8. Kahoot!: A game-based learning platform that can be used to create quizzes
and other educational games.
Prominent Global AI Companies in the Education Sector
• Google AI
• Microsoft Ai
• Squirrel AI
• Carnegie Learning
• Cognil
• Nuance
• Blippar
• Century Tech
• Querium
• HowNow
• KidSense
• Practically
• OSMO
Conclusion
AI has the potential to transform education by providing personalized learning, improving student outcomes, and enabling educators to be more effective. The main role of AI in education is the automation of both academic and administrative tasks, personalized learning, smart content, and all-time accessibility. Over the course of time, AI has resolved the issue of accessibility in several fields like health, environment, etc. India’s potential for AI growth has made it unavoidable for the country to integrate technology into education in order to take advantage of it and better educate India’s young people for the future.
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