<h2><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-future-of-artificial-intelligence-two-experts-disagree-79904">Artificial intelligence</a> (AI) enables Siri to recognise your question, Google to correct your spelling, and tools such as <a href="https://utscic.edu.au/projects/uts-projects/collaboration-analytics/">Kinect</a> to track you as you move around the room.</h2>
<p>Data big and small have come to education, from creating online platforms to increasing standardised assessments. But how can AI help us use and improve it?</p>
<h2>AI has a long history with education</h2>
<p>Researchers in AI in education have been investigating how the two intersect <a href="http://iaied.org/journal/#vol26http://iaied.org/journal/">for several decades</a>. While it’s tempting to think that the primary dream for AI in education is to reduce marking load – a prospect made real through <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_essay_scoring">automated essay scoring</a> – the breadth of applications goes beyond this.</p>
<p>For example, researchers in AI in education have:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>developed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_tutoring_system">intelligent tutoring systems</a> that use student test responses to personalise how they navigate through material and assessments, targeting the skills they need to develop;</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>investigated <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.ijhcs.2012.01.004">automatic detection of affect</a> – including whether students are bored or confused – and used that to adapt materials they use; and</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>built conversational agents or chatbots that can engage in discussions with students, even to <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&;lr=&;id=GEK93NUHdXYC&;oi=fnd&;pg=PA383&;dq=conversational+agents+to+support+collaboration+%22artificial+intelligence%22&;ots=Rsn6bn8y9Z&;sig=n352V2BotxK68Z2VjMNXpHhKY5A#v=onepage&;q=tutorial%20dialogue%20as%20adaptive%20collaborative%20learning%20support&;f=false">support student-to-student collaboration</a>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Artificial intelligence or intelligence amplification?</h2>
<p>These are new approaches to learning that rely heavily on students engaging with new kinds of technology. But researchers in AI, and related fields such as <a href="http://solaresearch.org/">learning analytics</a>, are also thinking about how AI can provide more effective feedback to students and teachers.</p>
<p><a href="http://radix.www.upenn.edu/learninganalytics/ryanbaker/STS-Baker-IJAIED-v15.pdf">One perspective</a> is that researchers should worry less about making AI ever more intelligent, instead exploring the potential that relatively “stupid” (automated) tutors might have to amplify human intelligence.</p>
<p>So, rather than focusing solely on building more intelligent AI to take humans out of the loop, we should focus just as much on <a href="https://theconversation.com/rise-of-the-humans-intelligence-amplification-will-make-us-as-smart-as-the-machines-44767">intelligence amplification</a> — or, going back to its intellectual roots, <a href="http://www.dougengelbart.org/about/vision-highlights.html">intelligence augmentation</a>. This is the use of technology – including AI – to provide people with information that helps them make better decisions and learn more effectively.</p>
<p>This approach combines computing sciences with human sciences. It takes seriously the need for technology to be integrated into everyday life.</p>
<p>Keeping people in the loop is particularly important when the stakes are high, and AI is far from perfect. So, for instance, rather than focusing on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_essay_scoring">automating the grading of student essays</a>, some researchers are focusing on how they can provide intelligent feedback to students that helps them better <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40593-016-0121-0/fulltext.html">assess their own writing</a>.</p>
<p>And while some are considering if they can <a href="https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/2010-11/ComputersMakingDecisions/robotic-nurses/index.html">replace nurses with robots</a>, we are seeking to design better feedback to help them become <a href="https://utscic.edu.au/health-sim-lak/">high-performance nursing teams</a>.</p>
<p><amp-youtube data-videoid="0Y7XkWocuVc" layout="responsive" width="1000" height="563"></amp-youtube></p>
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<div class="fluid-width-video-wrapper"> UCL Professor Rose Luckin on artificial intelligence and the future of learning.</div>
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<h2>Impacts on what we teach</h2>
<p>But for the use of AI to be sustainable, education also needs a second kind of change: what we teach.</p>
<p>To be active citizens, students need a sound understanding of AI, and a critical approach to assessing the implications of the “datafication” of our lives – from the use of Facebook data to <a href="http://theconversation.com/can-facebook-influence-an-election-result-65541">influence voting</a>, to Google DeepMind’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/05/sensitive-health-information-deepmind-google">access to medical data</a>.</p>
<p>Students also need the skills to manage this complexity, to work collaboratively and to innovate in a changing environment. These are qualities that could <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.18608/jla.2016.32.2">perhaps be amplified</a> through effective use of AI.</p>
<p>The potential is not only for education to be more efficient, but to think about how we teach: to keep <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ido_Roll/publication/295681662_Evolution_and_Revolution_in_Artificial_Intelligence_in_Education/links/56db21ca08aebabdb412e15b.pdf">revolution in sight</a>, alongside evolution.</p>
<p>Another response to AI’s perceived threat is to harness the technologies that will automate some forms of work, to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLOF7tBP24lAdx-EE9OVY-ogbAIljBhicq&;v=F13g_RsjMBA">cultivate those higher-order qualities</a> that make humans distinctive from machines.</p>
<h2>Algorithmic accountability</h2>
<p>Amid <a href="http://datasociety.net/">growing concerns</a> about the pervasive role of algorithms in society, we must understand what “<a href="https://utscic.edu.au/algorithmic-accountability-learning-analytics/">algorithmic accountability</a>” means in education.</p>
<p>Consider, for example, the potential for “predictive analytics” in flexi-pricing degrees based on a course-completion risk-rating built on online study habit data. Or the possibility of embedding existing human biases <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/aug/14/problem-with-algorithms-magnifying-misbehaviour">into university offers</a>, or educational chatbots that seek to discern your needs.</p>
<p>If AI delivers benefits only to students who have access to specific technologies, then inevitably this has the potential to marginalise some groups.</p>
<p>Significant work is under way to clarify how <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.18608/jla.2016.31.2">ethics and privacy principles</a>can underpin the use of AI and data analytics in education. Intelligence amplification helps counteract these concerns by keeping people in the loop.</p>
<p>A further concern is AI’s potential to result in a de-skilling or redundancy of teachers. This could possibly fuel a two-tier system where differing levels of educational support are provided.</p>
<h2>What does the future hold?</h2>
<p>The future of learning with AI, and other technologies, should be targeted not only at learning subject content, but also at cultivating curiosity, creativity and resilience.</p>
<p>The ethical development of such innovations will require both teachers and students to have a robust understanding of how to work with data and AI to support their participation in society and across the professions.</p>
<p><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-5426 tie-appear" src="http://www.school-news.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/creative-commons.png" alt="creative-commons" width="88" height="31" />This piece was written by Simon Knight, Lecturer in Learning Analytics, University of Technology Sydney; Simon Buckingham Shum, Professor of Learning Infomatics, University of Technology Sydney. The article was originally published on <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/artificial-intelligence-holds-great-potential-for-both-students-and-teachers-but-only-if-used-wisely-81024">The Conversation.</a></em></p>

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