AI In the Future of Education
The idea as wonderful as our routine jobs getting accomplished efficiently with the blazing speed of light has been there around since mankind’s advent on Earth. Meanwhile, the creative people from the spheres of arts and literature took more inspiration to devise plots and stories around the concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI), to be precise.
Be it ‘Darwin Among the Machines’ that Samuel Butler penned in 1863, ‘Erewhon’ again written by the same author in 1872, ‘The Machine Stops’ by E. M. Forster in 1909, Fritz Lang’s 1927 movie ‘Metropolis’ or the recent endeavors of ‘Ex-Machina,’ ‘There Will Come Soft Rains,’ by Ray Bradbury (1950), and ‘Speak’ by Louisa Hall, (2015), the dreamlike feats of AI have enthralled the creative world, always.
How AI was in the Past?
It was only in the 1950s that the scientists, philosophers, mathematicians, and a whole lot of experts that were merely remotely linked with technology and electricity, began thinking about exploring the possibilities in the sphere of AI. The central idea of leveraging all the information available to mankind coupled with the faculty of reason provided the much-needed clue to make, at least, the beginning. The only drawbacks were the computers. Though the machines could implement the commands, they were a big failure in storing them.
But from 1974, the computers improved phenomenally. They were now speedier, priced more reasonably, and stored greater information. Still, this much wasn’t enough to move ahead with momentum. This was as the machines couldn’t self-recognize, think abstractly, and achieve success at natural language processing.
In the following decades, particularly of the 80s, greater funding and algorithmic tools boosted the AI research. Consequently, this led to the popularisation of Deep Learning methods. These techniques benefitted computers by making them learn via their experience. Similarly, Edward Feigenbaum brought the expert systems that imitated decision-making procedures as those of a human expert.
But the Y2K achieved even more feats that led to a successful thriving of AI. This was even as funding from the governments and the public attention, both lacked addressing the issues, pathetically.
Role of AI in the Education Sector
Education is one of the sectors from those of transportation, agriculture, aviation, healthcare industry, media, e-commerce, customer service, games, and toys, etc, that the massive progeny of Information Technology (IT) is going to influence, and only for their betterment. The applicable sub-spheres of AI in education lie in tasks relating themselves with routine. And hence, these are as following:
Undertaking Routine Tasks Efficiently
For example, take the grading. Many teachers consider grading as devouring a significant part of their immensely valuable time. They observe that they can use the time whiled away in the grading of the scores more efficiently.
Using AI in this sphere will hover close to human capacities. On the front of accuracy, the AI-driven systems will grade nearly every type of fill-in-the-blank and multiple-choice exercise. And, they will also outperform human efforts in volume. Similarly, automating grading of students’ writings will pick up the tempo soon, if not at present. Teachers, hence, can feel delighted for the coming times! For this, they can thank the marvel of AI!
Encouraging Customised Learning
The programs constituting the software of AI play an extremely crucial role. They are framed to recognize and retain the replicated patterns related to the study of the students. The AI-powered systems, hence, will store each student’s unique pattern of study. Consequently, they’ll study them to create a syllabus that is shaped more accurately with his/her preferences regarding the study.
Providing Enlightening Feedback to Teachers on Students
The machine’s recognition of these distinct patterns will obviously end in the creation of great responses regarding students’ interests. These responses will advise the authorities on the strong and weak areas of students’ improvement. And, these suggestions will be directed towards students’ benefit, ultimately. This is, because the authorities, thus, can identify and suggest improvements for the weak spheres of students’ performance.
Undertaking Garnering of Students for Schools and Colleges
The uniquely tailored learning for each student will also result in pupils embracing higher education, in their disciplines of interest. This draws the scenario of their prospective schools and colleges signaling them for undertaking their admissions. Hence, the AI-driven systems will greatly ease simpler and faster beaconing of the students for the educational institutions.
Teachers Dedicating Themselves More to Teaching
The undertakings of routine tasks as that of grading will naturally leave teachers with more time to undertake only teaching. Thus, they’ll be able to interact more with their pupils and provide lectures to them. The prowess of Artificial intelligence, therefore, is here to benefit students and teachers, alike.
How AI will Change in the Coming Future
Of all initial customer interactions, between 70 to 90% is likely to be managed or conducted by AI.
This technology can increasingly undertake and test product development in various sectors. These sectors can range from manufacturing equipment to consumer goods and fashion items.
Sectors ranging from travel through to banking, savings, and insurance will invite individuals for defining and designing the customized services/products.
All government agencies and legal systems, most likely, will employ the technology. Only the most difficult cases asking for full court proceedings and a human judge will be a few exceptions.
Vehicles powered with autonomous driving will start dotting many cities across the globe.
Our smart assistants will be able to manage our lives greater than ever. They will increasingly have their say in spheres ranging from compiling the information we need prior to a meeting to travel planning.
Contribution of Technology in Changing the Future of Education
The current capacity of the AI education market is nearly 0.5 billion dollars. This figure, most likely, will rise to 6 billion by the end of 2024. With investments as phenomenal as these, it is highly relevant to discuss upon the opportunities of revolutions that AI can stage in the sphere of education.
Best Teaching Methods to be Determined by Smart Algorithms
Smart algorithms can determine the best teaching methodology for each student. Not each of the students assimilates well when they encounter a teacher speaks to them all the time. This will help in recognizing students with disabilities in learning and meeting their needs soon in their education. This will, consequently, take them towards attaining improved grades.
Improved Prediction for Students’ Individual Career Paths
After making selections, universities usually call students for the courses they don’t want. Partly, this is because most students choose almost identical courses and our educational institutions don’t have enough room to receive each one for what he/she chooses. AI systems, with teachers’ help, will amass student data and estimate the best career paths for students, individually. This will make the course selection process of the universities seamless and simple.
Get Ready for Smart Schools
Schools will be developed on the new marvel of the internet of things (IoT), a technology that entails linking different devices with the internet. These devices will carry communication with each other. Moreover, they will also invigilate things such as lighting, alarms and even various maintenance needs before they occur. Smart classrooms laced with these devices will monitor exams and consequently, suppress cheating. These classrooms will equip themselves with the facial recognition technology that will oversee student attendance. It will even produce data on the length that a student spent in a class session.
Social media in education
The invasion of social media into the educational system is also for its betterment. It’ll allow educators and learners to post ideas, thoughts, and reflections in an environment supporting interactive learning. Moreover, students can follow their influencers and assimilate lessons from their posts.
Global Learning
Over the internet, there are a number of sites like Duolingo, fluent, etc, where students can take lessons in the language(s) of their intended learning. They can avail this lesson from a native speaker living in the native country of that language. What’s more, they can attend these lessons via video calling apps like Hangout, Skype, etc.
Learning under a native speaker, learning via social interaction, and getting familiar with the perspective of another’s culture, are all extraordinary educational advantages. Similarly, learning from podcasts is one of the popular learning methods. Hundreds of free of cost educational programs are now available online. These are the great sources to sharpen one’s skills with the benefit of studying within the comforts of their homes.
Witnessing Cost Reduction
Online learning has realized one more of the much-desired yearnings students of reducing the costs of availing education significantly. This is, as everything worth learning is accessible online now.
Virtual Reality Realizing Highly Improved Models and Simulations
Brands like Samsung, Oculus, and Google are revolutionizing the educational sphere through innovative learning resources. These technological resources are really capable of fully engaging students in the dullest of their subjects. Imagine the excitement when students will witness large sea whales splashing huge waves of water in the classrooms, under a 3D simulation. Or, for that matter, picture students dissecting a 3D simulated image of a frog, rendering absolutely no harm to the creature. Yes, these things are going to stir a storm in education, now.
The Summary Therefore
And these are only a few of the possibilities that we’ve discussed. There are still more to amaze you. Thanks to the marvels of recent technologies, our students are enviously placed much better than their counterparts of earlier generations, to avail understanding difficult concepts of the study, almost effortlessly. And this massive transformation has just begun. Hold your breaths for exhilarating more marvels, both in numbers and manners.