In a groundbreaking development that blends the realms of physics and artificial intelligence, physicists have crafted a new digital holographic microscope. This innovation comes at a time when AI is transforming various sectors, including education, by extending human wisdom and physical capabilities.
*Image: Intelligent Robot (Source: VCG) *
The Emergence of AI+Education
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence is profoundly altering human society and the world at large. In July 2017, the Chinese State Council issued the New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan, highlighting the need to launch national intelligent education projects, integrate AI-related courses into primary and secondary education, and gradually promote programming education. This initiative laid the groundwork for intelligent education, setting a clear direction for AI+Education.
In April 2018, the Ministry of Education of China issued the Higher Education Artificial Intelligence Innovation Action Plan and the Education Informationization 2.0 Action Plan, accelerating the pace of AI+Education development. Education is a pivotal application field for AI, which not only impacts the content, mode, methods, and systems of education but also brings new opportunities to reshape educational forms and reinforce the essence of education.
The UNESCO report, Artificial Intelligence in Education: Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Development, also states that AI technology can support inclusive and ubiquitous learning access, ensuring fair and inclusive educational opportunities, promoting personalized learning, and enhancing learning outcomes. The International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Education held in Beijing in May 2019 outlined the development of education in the AI era and proposed a global cooperation framework for AI+Education.
AI+Education Development and Application Models
AI+Education relies on AI technology, builds upon Internet+Education, and features innovation-driven, reshaped structures, intelligent services, and self-evolution. Here are four application models:
-
Real-time Tracking and Feedback through Intelligent Assessment
Intelligent assessment uses automation to measure student development, replacing some tasks previously handled by humans, including physical, mental, or cognitive work. AI-powered automated assessment can track learners’ performance in real-time and provide appropriate evaluations. For instance, the online automated evaluation system, known as Batch Correction Network, uses natural language processing and corpus techniques to analyze the distance between students’ English compositions and standard corpora, offering instant scoring and improvement suggestions. This AI-based immediate evaluation method goes beyond traditional closed-form assessments, providing effective feedback and evaluation for student work akin to essays.
-
Educational Robots
Educational robots are increasingly common in teaching. They can develop students’ computational thinking, with schools introducing them as innovative learning environments to enhance higher-order thinking skills, motivation, and understanding of abstract concepts. These robots aid in solving complex problems and provide a multidisciplinary learning environment, helping students better understand scientific knowledge and play a significant role in STEM education. In STEM teaching, robots assist teachers in applying real-world engineering and technology concepts, concretizing abstract scientific and mathematical concepts, and enhancing critical thinking, teamwork, communication, and innovation.
-
Intelligent Educational Assistants
Intelligent educational assistants, driven by AI, offer lightweight educational applications to assist teachers, students, and managers, providing convenient intelligent educational services. For example, the Chinese company Songshu AI provides a full set of standard systems and quality systems MCM (learning ability, thought, method) for teachers and AI adaptive learning systems, completing the entire teaching process of teaching-learning-evaluation-testing with data collection throughout. Songshu AI covers all subjects from primary to high school.
-
Higher Education Search Engines
Companies like Schoolargeek, an Israeli firm, offer the world’s first and only global online search engine for universities and scholarships. Serving 192 countries, 8,646 institutions, 10,669 scholarship programs, and over 200,000 academic courses, its AI technology is reflected in its personalized matching system, helping users find the right learning plans and scholarships based on their academic and personal backgrounds. The company also provides intelligent agents services, offering customized recommendations for projects, scholarships, and other support services.
Other Impacts of AI+Education
AI technology is driving the rapid development of educational informatization. While AI has brought transformative changes to the education industry in areas like voice assessment, automatic grading, and photo search for answers, deeper user needs reveal that in scenarios with clear result-oriented, strong intervention, and strong interaction, particularly in teaching with clear objectives, such as SAT, ACT, CAF exams in the West, and subject tutoring and children’s English in China, AI technology plays a relatively auxiliary role. The role of human teachers remains indispensable, and the positioning of AI in education prompts further thought.
As AI education applications advance, many specific issues require exploration
Views: 0