SAIL: State of Research: AI & Education
The state of AI and education research is proceeding briskly and only expected to accelerate if it matches the hype trend lines of big tech and AI. The USA is leading. EU is sort of playing. Canada and Australia have assumed their usual laggard positions (though they both benefit enormously from a robust education sector, heavily supported by international students) with neither having a defined AI and learning program of research. UK is dealing with emotions and regret and I'm not aware of any AI and learning research center being funded at the scale that USA/EU are doing. JISC has a national centre, but it appears to be more of a declaration of interest in AI, than a well-funded research centre. I'm also unaware of AI and learning research centres in Latin American, African, or Asian regions. If astute readers are aware, please let me know!
These are the current AI and Learning Labs:
Engage AI Institute: "narrative-centered learning technologies, embodied conversational agents, and multimodal learning analytics to create deeply engaging collaborative story-based learning experiences" (USA, NSF Funded)
National AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education: "the development of novel AI theories and techniques for enhancing the quality of adult online education" (USA, NSF Funded)
Student AI Teaming: "AI Partners that collaborate with teams of students and their teachers to promote development of AI literacy, STEM competencies, and 21st century learning practices of collaborative problem solving and critical thinking" (USA, NSF Funded)
AI Institute for Exceptional Education: "AI, human-AI interaction, and learning science to improve educational outcomes for children with speech and language related challenges." (USA, NSF Funded)
Inclusive Intelligent Technologies for Education "seeks to fundamentally reframe how AI-based educational technologies interact with learners. We develop AI techniques to track and promote skills that underlie successful learning and contribute to academic success: persistence, academic resilience, and collaboration." (USA, NSF Funded)
National AI Education Lab "innovative products in the field of artificial intelligence will conduct research on smart digital education innovation". (EU funded)
Education Updates:
We have a GRAILE workshop in Denver next week. We still have a few registrations available. Details here.
Sensemaking Lecture series are continuing, next one is July 19 with Mike Sharples presenting.
Nearly half of Harvard Faculty are pessimistic about AI in education. I am too - but mainly because I see the sluggish response to AI as a leadership problem. Most higher education institutions do not have the vision or leadership needed to meet this moment.
AI to change social science research "There are a number of possible ways AI could be used in social science research. First, unlike human researchers, AI systems can work non-stop, providing real-time interpretations of our fast-paced, global society."
Russell Group announces AI principles "A new set of principles has been created to help universities ensure students and staff are ‘AI literate’ so they can capitalise on the opportunities technological breakthroughs provide for teaching and learning."
Technology
Google stopped pretending. "Google updated its privacy policy over the weekend, explicitly saying the company reserves the right to scrape just about everything you post online to build its AI tools. If Google can read your words, assume they belong to the company now, and expect that they’re nesting somewhere in the bowels of a chatbot."
How to talk about AI "I asked some of the best AI journalists in the business to share their top tips on how to talk about AI with confidence." Good, though simple, list.
How do people feel about AI? Excellent resource.