Intelligent assistant? | International Teaching Magazine

AI: The TA of the future??

Uma Shankar Singh tries to make sense of a bewildering number of new AI platforms being written for schools. Which ones are really worthwhile?

The speed of change

Amy Stapleton, a senior AI industry analyst at Opus Research commenting on the rapid advances in artificial intelligence technologies recently remarked,

“We are entering a new world. The technologies of machine learning, speech recognition and natural language understanding are reaching a nexus of capability. The end result is that we’ll soon have artificially intelligent assistants to help us in every aspect of our lives.”

So many resources – but what should we buy?

There is certainly no shortage of new AI-inspired software when it comes to education. The digital market is flooded with all sorts of AI apps that promise to solve a difficult task for teachers in a few seconds in line with Stapleton’s prediction.

And there are, indeed, many ways that AI is bringing benefits to the world of education, be it the personalized learning plans tailored to meet individual student needs, the automated grading that saves significant teacher time, ending repetitive administrative tasks or the 24×7 student support aspect that AI can provide. The futuristic problem solver already seems to be with us!

The number of resources available to teachers for developing personalized learning plans to meet individual student needs are a case in point. Here are just a few: Claned, Knewton, DreamBox, Smart Sparrow, Carnegie Learning, Century Tech, Squirrel AI, Querium.

In fact, in many ways, there are too many. We are being deluged: the burning question for us is:

“Which software should we buy, that can be safely implemented while preserving data privacy as well as being efficiently adapted to our curriculum needs?”

Making a start

To be truthful, there is no easy answer that will enable us to make quick, easy and reliable decisions. However, we do need to make a start – and what better tool to use than . . . AI itself?? I decided to write a prompt on Perplexity.ai to give me the advantages and disadvantages of the software mentioned above in order to compare systems.

“You are a 20 years-experienced software tester who has been assigned to analyse the advantages and disadvantages of AI personalized learning paths software. Provide an elaborate analysis of the current available software for personalized learning and present it in a tabular format with approximate yearly pricing for a user or for an organization.”

I also wrote similar, prompts to compare other platforms which conducted educational administrative tasks and software providing 24/7 student support to arrive at some initial conclusions in as logical way as I could, I was presented with answers in seconds!

Outcomes

I think the exercise is a start in helping to makes sense of what is available. For example, Perplexity AI provided key features of each AI personalized learning plan software, showing advantages, disadvantages and approximate cost based on data available on these websites in almost 10 seconds. The data seemed reliable, could be cross-checked and certainly offered quick insights into the nature of AI software and its suitability for large and small organizations while being succinct and without excessive data that may confuse decision-makers.

Further thoughts

I was certainly encouraged by the exercise and would be really interested in what other people think. It seems to me that generative AI continues to confirm its value as a tool. What the exercise also confirmed, in my view, is the importance of providing good parameters for a request by thinking through your prompts well – and then refining them as necessary.

However, as promising as AI may seem as the new teaching assistant, there are other considerations for us to think about. The most significant of these concern data privacy and security, especially while dealing with platforms that analyse sensitive student information. Using AI for student assessments or to construct content, has also in my view some way to go. Finally, of course, the teacher training it requires to use it effectively and ethically is going to be absolutely essential, But, when you think how far we have come since November 2022 – well, it’s just mind-blowing!

So far as sorting out the strengths and weaknesses of individual programmes and platforms is concerned, I will still place a premium on human assessment, review and recommendation. But of course, the more reviews we write and upload, the more reliable and valid the AI generated results are going to become, which perhaps is a reassuring thought.

Uma Shankar Singh is an MYP & PYP Design Tech & ICT Teacher at St, Johnsbury Academy, Jeju Island, Korea. He can be contacted on uma.singh@sjajeju.kr

FEATURE IMAGE: Unsplash+In collaboration with Philip Oroni

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