The Future is Here – Bots in the Classroom
There’s a wave of change starting to lap at the doors of the school… Bots. This post will cover a lot of material, including:
- The use of both physical and virtual bots at schools today
- Costs related to emerging technologies
- Suggest a rethink of the existing framework
- Digital Learning Twins
- New Age Identity And Privacy Framework
- Roles, Data Privacy, And Liability
- Virtual Students
- Human And Bot Teachers
- Teaching Bot Singularity
- Ethics And Schools
- Assessments
- Wind Of Change
We are Already Using Bots
Bots are now entering schools, physical and interactive. Examples include, but are not restricted to:
- Social bots
- Composing chat
- SPARC: Increasingly Autonomous Robot Competencies Overseen
- Robo-teacher kindergarten
- North of Softbank
- Casper
- Vex robot
- Bee-bots
- Instructor hiring bots
- Botsify
- Chatbots from college
- The Bot
- Ranking documents
Bots Improve Education Quality
Both of the examples above are “using technology to chip away” at aspects of the existing education system, what I call in my head. They’re trying to rethink parts of the structure from several different perspectives.
Some of them yield observable learning outcomes, but from the viewpoint of an educational leader, many of them do not minimize the costs to the budgets of the current system. Instead, they add additional capital/operating expenses to the budget in addition to the educators, the biggest cost centre in schools.
About my premise? It is important to rethink the school system in such a way that each student is addressed equally and costs are reduced.
Time to Change How We Education Children
I went out for a coffee with the former superintendent of my school district many years ago. Together, we have made several different improvements by using technology. I informed him that we’d failed. He stared at me like I was a dummy, rattling at the many things we did, wondering why would I say anything like that?
I answered that the underlying structure had not been modified by us. A student shows up along with 20-30 other students on the first day of classes. The teacher at the front does not know them, their shortcomings, and their strengths in learning. The system’s conveyor belt starts to move (i.e., time). Students, such as myself, who can learn quickly, excel. Others who have various learning disabilities, so to speak, are starting to slip off the waggon.
He asked me, after some thinking, what was I proposing? Before a child enters a school, I said, the first prerequisite is to do an in-depth evaluation of them. This involves their physical ability (e.g., motor, vision, sound abilities, etc.), skills, abilities to learn, abilities to work with others, etc.
Take this and then start developing a per-child learning schedule. At different times, for different subjects, etc., it will possibly require a wide range of different strategies, resources, people, and technology. Do continuous evaluations, then.
Digital twins, AI, technology to track/predict the behavioral/biometrics of individuals, and bots, both physical and virtual, were all in their early days at the time of our discussion.
Bots and Digital Learning Methods
The first thing is to understand the learner before any equipment is used, or any teacher starts to teach. In “Digital Identities, Students & Privacy,” I present the concept of building a digital twin for learning. Technology is evolving, enabling what I told my friend about to be produced. Instead of trying to rethink the whole method, it should be done in simple, iterative phases, since both the post and this thought paper[10] layout.
Privacy in the Age of Bots
“Digital Identities, Students & Privacy”Digital Identities, Students & Privacy It also addresses ensuring that all data obtained about the student is expunged after the student graduates from the commercial systems used. The liability style questions raised in the humanoid robot paper [11] will begin to be answered with these new-age legal methods.
Protecting Data and Educator Liability
This paper “Humanoid Robots as Teachers and a Proposed Code of Practice [11]” discusses, proposing a code of practice, the role of bots and teachers in the classroom going forward. It also touches on the protection and responsibility of student data.
I plunge into the same waters in “Digital Identities, Students & Privacy,” Bots, of any kind, carry AI with them, plus the capacity for continuous behavioral/biometric tracking. All of which leads to whopper-sized databases that can be used long after they have graduated to predict the behaviour of a student. Notice that this subject isn’t mentioned in any of the examples above.
Students in the Virtual World
“Digital Twins/Virtual Selves, Identity, Security & Death, “Digital Twins/Virtual Selves, Identity, Security & Death. It merges previously online and offline worlds with the introduction of AI/AR glasses. A chaotic universe of entities, both real and virtual, moving towards the classroom is all I can see in my mind. As an old man, this is what I see as the coming to life of this old Star Wars scene where Princess Leia sends a letter.
Which Teacher is Better – A Human or a Bot
For each student, the digital learning twin will continuously propose personalized learning pathways. The new system must be able to provide each student with the best learning for them at a lower cost, going back to my previous point about budgets. Thus, at various points in the learning journey of a student, various degrees of automation can be used as and when it works.
Teaching functions can shift, as the research paper mentioned above states. Some of the time, an instructor will still teach some students. Physically, the teacher may be in the same classroom as the student, or on the other side of the world. It’s a mind-shift that most teachers do not think about.
Bots, both physical and virtual, will be used for each student at the correct place and time, provided the learning plan of each student. Bots can promote group work, independent teaching, etc.
Bots and the Singularity
I approach bots working together in singularity in the “Artificial Intelligence & Legal Identification [12],” thought document. The capacity for the singularity to function together isn’t here yet, but it’s coming. What the era of science fiction once was, is now on our doorstep.
It then raises the question of how teaching bots would be able or unable to work together. Since the impact on privacy over time would be stunning, a lot of thought needs to be put into this.
Morality of Bots in our Schools
Ethics enters into both of the above. What ethics need to be taught in our schools in a fast-changing environment due to this curve? There is a lot of controversy about AI, gender, race, et al. ethics at present. Can bots “teach it” in an impartial way, setting aside what ethics must be taught for the moment?
The probable response today is no. But in the not so far future, with the rapid speed of development, it’s not inconceivable that they might. To include requirements for ethics teaching, the current code of practice referred to above needs to be changed.
Test Taking and Bots
I analyze the present arms race in “AI, Cheating & Future of Schools/Work,” using AI, wireless et al to cheat. “Given the rapid change, instead of trying to prevent Jane Doe from cheating on an exam, essay, or HR assessment, why not consider rethinking schools [10]and business with new-age tools to rethink learning, assessment, and work? Leverage the technology, rather than try to swim against it.”Given the rapid change, why not consider rethinking schools[10]and business with new-age tools to rethink learning, evaluation, and work instead of trying to prevent Jane Doe from cheating on an examination, essay, or HR evaluation? Leverage the technology rather than trying to swim against it.
Conclusion
“Wind of Change” Take me to the magic of the moment, on a glory night, where the children of tomorrow dream away, in the wind of change. “Take me to the magic of the moment, on a night of glory, where the children of tomorrow dream away, in the wind of change. “When you look at it up here, you get an appreciation of our world is a beautiful place, and we do need to take care of it. “When you look up here, you get an appreciation of our world is a beautiful place, and we need to take care of it.
We’ve got options. We can let technology guide us, or we can lead it to make the most of the lives of our children so they can live their dreams. It’s time to reconsider our learning structures, planet-wide, from the viewpoint of the child learner.