Content area
Full Text
* This article focuses on contributions that AI can make to address long-term educational goals. Challenges are described that support: (1) mentors for every learner; (2) learning 21st century skills; (3) interaction data for learning; (4) universal access to global classrooms; and (5) lifelong and lifewide learning. A vision and brief research agenda are described for each challenge along with goals that lead to development of global educational resources and the reuse and sharing of digital educational resources. Instructional systems with AI technology are described that currently support richer experiences for learners and supply researchers with new opportunities to analyze vast data sets of instructional behavior from big databases that record elements of learning, affect, motivation, and social interaction. Personalized learning is described that facilitates student and group experience, reflection, and assessment.
Artificial intelligence affects growth and productivity in many sectors (for example, transportation, communi- cation, commerce, and finance). However, one painful exception is education; specifically, very few AI-based learn- ing systems are consistently used in classrooms or homes. Yet the potential exists for AI to have a large impact on educa- tion: As described by the articles on education in this and the previous AI Magazine issue, AI-based instructional software now routinely tailors learning to individual needs, connects learners together, provides access to digital materials, sup- ports decentralized learning, and engages students in mean- ingful ways. As a society we have great expectations for the educational establishment (for example, train employees, support scientific and artistic development, transmit culture, and so on) and yet, no matter how much is achieved, socie- ty continues to expect even more from education. The cur- rent environment of fixed classrooms, lectures, and static printed textbooks is clearly not capable of serving a digital society or flexibly adapting for the future. Classrooms and textbooks are especially inappropriate for people who use mobile and digital technology every day. For example, digi- tal natives learn and work at twitch speed, through parallel processing, and connected to others (Beavis 2010). For digi- tal natives, information is instantly available, change is con- stant, distance and time do not matter, and multimedia is omnipresent. No wonder schools and classrooms are boring! Research into the learning sciences and neuro- science provides essential insights into the...