Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Education

Origin of AI

The concept of artificial intelligence (AI), or imitating human intelligence, has a long history. Following the end of World War II, in the 1950s, scientists sought to simulate the ability to think through software and machines. As a preliminary step, in 1956, Alan Turing proposed the concept of “machines with the ability to compete with human intelligence.” This laid the foundation for AI, and from that moment onward, this field developed at an incredible pace.

At present, AI technology has invaded a wide range of fields, such as auto steering assistance systems in vehicles, voice recognition applications, and language translator applications.

Artificial Intelligence and Education:

For generations, educational activities related to teaching and learning were considered activities that should be carried out only through human intervention. Teaching lessons, preparing question papers, and marking them were considered activities that should be done by humans. The computer was assigned tasks that required more time than tasks done by humans, such as storing and analyzing scores and making predictions based on them.

However it only took a few decades for the roles to change.

AI in Education: For Students

The artificial intelligence’s influence on both students and teachers is gigantic.

In today’s knowledge society, artificial intelligence (AI) has opened up a number of opportunities for students. Education is being completely transformed by AI capabilities.

AI analyzes each student’s learning path individually, where personal talents, qualifications, and objectives of the particular student are taken into account. This technology is able to create lesson plans and learning experiences that suit the needs of each student. This is a challenging task that is difficult for a single teacher to achieve in a traditional classroom.

Artificial intelligence applications transform students’ idle learning patterns into active learning. AI analyzes a student’s performance in real-time and adjusts the difficulty level and content of lessons to suit their individual needs. It ensures that students do not get bored with excessively simple learning materials or frustrated with exceedingly complex concepts.

The AI-based mathematical platforms like “DreamBox Learning,” which can adjust the difficulty of math problems presented to a student based on their responses, can be cited as an example. If a student shows weakness in fraction-related problems, the AI system can provide more simple fraction problems and targeted problems, and if they demonstrate competency in them, it can move on to more challenging exercises.

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies powered by AI allow students to easily comprehend even complex concepts. Expert training systems provide detailed feedback and are also capable of providing 24-hour educational support. It also enables the provision of personal guidance and support to the student. For example, virtual reality (VR/AR) simulations can enable students to traverse inside the human body while remaining in their seats or to embark on an interstellar journey that humans have never embarked on before.

Further, this technology also has the capability of fulfilling the educational needs of disabled children who have difficulty accessing the regular school system from the comfort of their homes. To achieve all of these objectives, all that is needed is to provide fast internet access to the classroom or home and to provide every student with a computer or tablet with AI capabilities.

Grammarly, QuillBot, Elicit, Consensus, Jasper (Jasper.ai), Quizlet, Anki, Socratic by Google, Wolfram Alpha, Duolingo, Memrise, Gamma.app, Tome.app, etc. can be cited as some of the AI applications that students can easily use. These applications can be made use of to perform many activities, including language translation, grammatical error correction, automatic presentation creation, and mathematical problem solving.

However, there are several things to be aware of when using this technology. While there is a risk of losing the ability to maintain human connections through the adoption of this approach, factors such as protecting data privacy and providing equal opportunities for all students must be taken into account. Furthermore, as more and more students use artificial intelligence applications, there is a risk that their creative skills will not be developed.

In conclusion, it can be said that artificial intelligence is a new way of education, and by delivering it to students in a well-managed way, it can be transformed into a technological revolution that opens up unlimited opportunities for students.

AI in Education: For Teachers

The advent of artificial intelligence applications into the educational field offers teachers a wide range of benefits. Teachers are able to manage their time through automated administrative tasks. By automating multiple-choice question marking, assignments, and other tasks, they have been given the opportunity to utilize their time to develop more effective educational plans and maintain closer relationships with students. Using applications like ChatGPT, teachers are able to easily perform tasks such as preparing letters to be sent to parents, summarizing results, and researching subjects they are unfamiliar with.

AI-powered chatbots are also designed to provide automated answers to common questions that parents and students may have. This saves the teacher from losing their free time due to calls being made to them at any time of the day after school hours. Also, AI-powered language translation systems enable teachers to maintain communication with students who speak any language.

Automatic facial recognition systems can be used to mark student attendance, report student absences to parents instantly, and generate annual attendance summaries. AI-powered analytics dashboards allow teachers to gain unique, clear insights into student performance. This allows them to provide more personalized support to their students.

It is important for teachers to be aware of technological tools in order to develop lesson plans and to prepare educational materials using AI technology. These tools assist them in finding and analyzing educational resources available on the internet.

Some of the applications powered by artificial intelligence that teachers can use to increase their productivity include MagicSchool AI, Eduaide.Ai, Gradescope, Quizizz, ChatGPT, Gamma.app, Tome.app, Otter.ai, Diffit.me, Curipod, ClassPoint AI, and Brisk Teaching. Although almost all of these services are payment-based, there are free versions of them, which can be made use of to make their work easier.

Future role of teachers and artificial intelligence

The responsibilities of teachers in the future will transform. They will transition from a lecturer to a facilitator role. They will need to develop qualities like empathy and creativity that are difficult for artificial intelligence to achieve. Teachers should become more proficient in information communication and computer literacy while also gaining extensive knowledge of AI technology applications and developing skills in utilizing such knowledge to meet the educational needs of their students.

Teachers should contribute to communication discussions about the ethical use of AI technology within the educational field and be committed to protecting students’ privacy and creating digital equality in the digital space. It will be essential to attend conferences, workshops, and online courses on the latest trends in AI and education targeting professional development and stay updated.

Retaining the human sensitivity of education within oneself will be a more important task than ever before.

In summary, it can be said that while artificial intelligence can immensely support in numerous ways the core purpose of education, that is, the true teacher-student relationship, it can never become a substitute for it.

• The support of ChatGPT and Gemini artificial intelligence applications was obtained in securing information for the preparation of this article.
• The Claude AI application was used to translate some complex sentences into simple Sinhala.
• The meaning of certain words given in the information was found using the Google Translate application.
• The photograph was created using an artificial intelligence application called Leonardo.ai.
• The article was typed using the Helakuru Voice Typing app.

Donald Wickramathanthri,
Science Teacher,
R/Sri Sumana Maha Vidyalaya, Rathnapura