#8: AI and Education

Ian Bowie
Hello and welcome to AI unfiltered with me Ian Bowie and our resident expert Michael Stormbom, where we will be talking about everything to do with AI in our modern digital society and what the future holds for all of us.

Today we’re going to be talking about AI in education, and all the ways in which you can help improve student learning and also as an aid for teachers. The world is changing at an unprecedented rate driven by quantum leaps in technology, and especially AI. So how can, Michael, AI be used to enhance current national curricula?

Michael Stormbom
Oh, I think there’s any number of ways and I think we can probably talk about it from from two perspectives. One is how it works within the sort of the current framework of education, so in that sense, more of incremental changes to the educational system, and perhaps also more, more discuss then how it can sort of revolutionize education. I think there are those two aspects can be we can probably talk about both in this episode.

Ian Bowie
Okay. Let’s take the incremental

Michael Stormbom
Well let’s take some concrete examples. I mean, one example is of course, a possibility for remote learning that we’ve all been having to contend with in the in the past few years. So I mean, just that, the ability to be able to learn things from afar, not that that in itself was particularly new. Now during the corona times, it’s more of us have been sort of exposed to it, but…

Ian Bowie
Of course, I mean, even that has its problems because, in the UK, for example, access to the internet is actually patchy at best. So this wasn’t necessarily actually a financial problem. It was simply we haven’t got an internet connection where I live problem.

Michael Stormbom
No, absolutely. And I mean we’ve been talking about this digital haves and digital have-nots. So I mean, it starts with everyone having access to the internet and having access to the internet on a reasonable level. So…

Ian Bowie
Yeah, I mean, like I said, you know, this is not about a lack of financial resources. In the UK, people are quite happy to work in the city, but they don’t actually want to live in the city necessarily, especially once they’ve got families. So they actually choose to move out into these rural areas, which unfortunately, don’t necessarily have access to good internet services. So you can have, you know, very wealthy children living in rural areas. And actually, they’re not receiving the standard of education, simply because there’s no internet service. Yeah, so it’s almost the opposite to what it’s like here in Finland.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah. So it’s not even it’s not even a question of not having a financial means it’s just making a choice as to where, where you are. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. But yeah. You know, in a way, you could argue you’re being punished for being rich.

Michael Stormbom
It’s very, very difficult to be rich. Certainly.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. As we know, yeah.

Michael Stormbom
That’s why my tiny, tiny violin is… the strings are all broken up. Yeah. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
I mean, where, you know, where do you put the onus? Does government have an obligation to ensure in the future that all children have access to a stable internet connection, irrespective of where they live?

Michael Stormbom
I would argue, yes. Because I mean, digital competence is that’s just going to be a must in the future. And I think, I mean, access to the internet is even considered a human right for good reason. I mean, it’s just an essential part of our daily lives. Yeah, it’s going to be ever more essential. We talked about this in previous episodes as well to, to sort of opportunities having access to the internet and what it’ll bring.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. Okay. So I mean, we’ve talked a little bit briefly about AI being used for remote learning. But what about actually in physical classrooms?

Michael Stormbom
Yes, I mean, there are of course, those sort of aspects as well, for example, more like individualized learning. I think that’s a place I see that AI can play a very big role in the future. Exactly that because people learn things in there learn in different ways. And having the ability to sort of customize the learning experience, based on how that person best learns. I think that can I think I see great potential there. I don’t know to what, well that to some extent, there are those sort of things already that use AI for that purpose.

Ian Bowie
Can it, can it be used to help children with learning disabilities, for example, dyslexia, for example?

Michael Stormbom
I would definitely, I would definitely say so. I mean, just the ability to individualize them to, to customize it, so as to fit your individual learning experience. I do think so. Yeah, definitely.

Ian Bowie
So do you think it will, perhaps, in the future, play the role of a teaching assistant?

Michael Stormbom
I would say so, and I mean, there are of course, those things as well, that sort of taking away all of the administrative stuff that a teacher has to deal with, so that the teacher actually has time to focus on teaching.

Ian Bowie
Now that’s actually going to be one of my next questions is, you know, how can AI be used to help teachers?

Michael Stormbom
So I mean, it can be used, for example, for helping to assess how good a student or pupil is doing, assessing how well they have learned the material, how well, how well they understand. So in that sort of helping the teacher in that manner with, through really assessing where the student is at learning-wise.

Ian Bowie
So that can reduce the workload for the teacher. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I remember back in the day staying up till midnight, reading through student essays and writing feedback on 30 kids essays. Do you think we’re near the stage where AI can be used to actually scan children’s essays and provide feedback and a mark? Take that away from the teacher.

Michael Stormbom
So fully automatic? I think that’s quite a way to go there still, but I do think that AI can help in providing a sort of an initial assessment. I mean, there of course, those things that can be assessed with with relative ease, for example, grammar and vocabulary, and…

Ian Bowie
Could it be used to assess reading skills?

Michael Stormbom
Well, I mean, certainly, I think so. Do you have a particular thing in mind there?

Ian Bowie
Oh, all right. For example, English is not a phonetic language. So the way that we try to monitor children’s progress in terms of reading and also understanding how to pronounce different words, is by having basically reading aloud practice in class. So once or twice a week, we’ll get the kids to read a passage from a book and just go around the class. And you’re listening for fluency obviously, but also for pronunciation. I mean, I remember when I was about, I think seven years old. Alright, this is gonna sound fantastic, but you know the one word that I mispronounced ever was the word “island”, i-s-l-a-n-d, I pronounced it “Iceland”, and I still remember the teacher just saying “island”. There was no big deal about it, though. That’s wrong and all the rest of it. Just she just repeated it back to me, “island”, and I’ve never forgotten that. That’s gone very deep with me.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I remember one mistake I made when we were studying Finnish. So I mean, I’m from the Swedish speaking part of Finland. So we study, study Finnish, and boy, was it a delight! But then I remember probably fifth grade or something, and we were reading something and then a teacher asked us, “Oh, so what is the word for bad?” And, well, I said very confidently, I said “paska”! I guess it’s a pseudonym I guess you could say. Anyway, but not the word she had in mind. And yeah, that’s just the one thing I remember from the sort of embarrassment afterwards when I realized what I had actually said.

Ian Bowie
No, I don’t think there shouldn’t have been a need for embarrassment. I mean,

Michael Stormbom
I mean that’s how you learn.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. And that is another problem. I think, you know, especially when we come to languages. You know, if a child feels embarrassed by giving a wrong answer, then the likelihood of them putting their hand up to give another answer in the future diminishes quite substantially. So I’m a little bit thinking, that can AI be used to improve children’s experience of learning. So without the negativity or the fear of being made to look silly in front of a class of your peers?

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I think that’s an interesting one and we talked about or rather you asked about whether, so using AI to help with your pronunciation so using it to assess your pronunciation. So I think that that’s certainly possible. I don’t know if there is such systems available, but certainly on a theoretical level, it certainly is possible to just analyze the audio and yeah, and compare it to the sort of or like a reference. Yeah, the other thing I want to do say on that is of course, you can sort of design the you know the teaching system in order to learning system to be sort of encouraging, giving sort of positive reinforcement. I guess that’s part of it as well.

Ian Bowie
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, I remember certainly from my school days you know, quite a lot of the teachers were fast approaching retirement age, and they were tired but you know, after 35 years of teaching teenage kids, you probably are going to be tired. Whereas I guess with AI, it never gets tired. In fact, it probably only gets better. Am I right? Or…

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, no, indeed. And I mean, if you set it up to learn over time, then certainly it should, should at least theoretically get better the more you use it

Ian Bowie
Yeah, you know, I mean, AI doesn’t think Oh, God not this lot again.

Michael Stormbom
Not yet, but maybe we should add such a feature…

Ian Bowie
Yeah, indeed.

Michael Stormbom
But I mean, of course, you can also use AI to analyze the material that’s being used to… or the teaching material, and sort of see what material works and what doesn’t and so as to help in improving the actual learning material. As well as you can sort of analyze for example, did the students understand this chapter and understand these concepts in the chapter and, sort of use that as basis for sort of revising the learning material as well. So under that sort of analysis, okay, as well could be could be a possibility.

Ian Bowie
Absolutely. No, yeah. No, I mean, it’s it’s sometimes very difficult to, to know what’s gone in and what hasn’t gone in, and who’s understood what and who hasn’t? So yeah, absolutely. I would say that’s a massive benefit. But just going back now to the idea, you know, it’s all technology based. So, how relevant Do you think it would be to start teaching kids about coding? Because, you know, I look at coding, I mean, you try and read a page of code. It’s impossible for somebody like me. I know I could never be a coder. So if coding was offered on the curriculum when I’d been at school, I think I’ve probably would have found it one of the most boring subjects on the planet. But what do you think is it relevant to offer basic coding in schools?

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I’m a little bit in two minds on that one. You know, politicians suggest that, you know, coding or programming languages, should be your first foreign language like what does that even mean and… And I mean, not all of us can be programmers. I mean, that’s just, that’s just a fact. Some of us also have to do podcasting. And so, yeah, I don’t know, I think it can probably be taught on some level. And, of course, just the very notion of thinking algorithmically is of course, it can of course be sort of like useful and…

Ian Bowie
Is that something else that AI can help with? You know, you mentioned just earlier that you know, we all do we all learn in different ways. We all have different kinds of intelligence. Is AI capable of identifying people’s dominant intelligence and then saying Right, okay, well, you know, these guys would probably be rather good at coding. But these guys would be much better at doing something else.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I would think that that’s definitely a distinct possibility where AI can can play a role that sort of like skills assessment in a way.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, exactly. Skills…

Michael Stormbom
Or strength assessments.

Ian Bowie
Exactly, strengths and weaknesses and etc. Yeah. So, actually, in the future. Using AI, do you think it’s actually possible to provide an individually tailored curriculum for every child?

Michael Stormbom
I would say that’s a distinct possibility, and I think that would be very excellent use of AI really. So just this sort of like individual learning experience and tailor to your strengths and yeah, absolutely.

Ian Bowie
What then would the role of the teacher be?

Michael Stormbom
That is a good question so we would say that the AI it is like a conversational kind of a system that you interact with and sort of virtual teacher in a way.

Ian Bowie
So we need flesh and blood teachers at all? Because how do you teach? I mean, you know, for me, one of the most important things that kids can take away from school is social skills, and an understanding of ethics, morality, social interaction. And I personally, I don’t believe you can get that by interacting purely with a machine.

Michael Stormbom
No, absolutely. I mean, just the ability to discuss and understand different viewpoints and disagree with other viewpoints in an intelligent manner.

Ian Bowie
And debate.

Michael Stormbom
And debate. Yes.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Stormbom
I think those skills are sorely needed if you just peruse the social media.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, I mean, I think perhaps we’re actually seeing what happens when individuals spend far too much time on their own. Interacting remotely via a computer screen or a telephone.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, it says sort of depersonalized you’re not like you would never go, I mean. Considering all the things that being said on the internet, you would never go up to a person be that nasty to a person to their face.

Ian Bowie
What about the idea of taking sort of a deep dive into a subject and perhaps bringing it to life? But do you think that AI in the future can perhaps be used to create virtual environments where the students actually feel they’re almost there while they’re studying a specific subject?

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, I think the use of virtual reality can play a very, very interesting role there. I mean, of course, virtual reality is not yet all that close to photorealistic, but certainly, I mean, it’s a complete different, different experience if you can be there. So I do think I think that sort of, that sort of thing, could definitely play a role. And then I think the other one, the other thing would be to sort of, for example, interacting with historical figures.

Ian Bowie
Yeah, I agree. I mean, I’ve always thought it’d be very cool. If you could actually walk up to an historical figure that interests you, and be able to ask some questions, and have a conversation

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, there is that American company whose name I’ve forgotten but they do this for like virtual avatars, they make a 3D model of a person, fictional, or alive or dead, and any, you know, with speech recognition and speech synthesis so you can sort of talk to the person so that sort of…

Ian Bowie
But what’s not being used for at the moment? I can’t believe that’s…

Michael Stormbom
I guess it’s a little bit on the gimmick level.

Ian Bowie
I was about to say yeah.

Michael Stormbom
No but there are actually, these sort of like virtual news anchors. So you don’t actually have a person reading the news, but you have a virtual, virtual news anchor…

Ian Bowie
So you could have Mickey Mouse reading the news?

Michael Stormbom
Yes, if that tickles your fancy, sure.

Ian Bowie
Alright, so we’ve been a little bit talking about AI in education, how it can be used to help teachers how it can be used to enhance learning for students and also to individualize learning for students. But one other thing, at least that’s coming to my mind is when AI starts to take over, tasks that we ourselves have been doing in the past. Is there a danger, actually, that eventually we might actually become more stupid? I mean, I’m thinking about for example, speech to text. So you start talking, the AI program starts writing. So suddenly, why do we ever need to learn to write, even type? So is that a danger that it might actually dumb us down? Eventually, because it takes over all of those kinds of mundane tasks.

Michael Stormbom
Well, I mean, a concrete example is how frequently do you do manual calculations?

Ian Bowie
Yeah, well, actually, I do because I was never very…

Michael Stormbom
Well bad example.

Ian Bowie
I was very good at mathematics and, and I’m determined not to let the machine take over, you know, very basic stuff. I mean, basic percentages, multiplication, division, subtraction, addition. Yeah, I still do that sometimes. Because I know there’s a danger otherwise that suddenly you know, you’re in a shop, and you’ve got to quickly work out what a 30% discount on an item price at 160 euros and you can’t do it.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, so you just pull out your mobile phone.

Ian Bowie
And well, yeah, and the battery’s dead. So then you’re screwed. But yeah, I know. I’ve seen it. I mean, you walk up to the cashier, and you have an item that’s on sale, and sit right there you go. And then they’re looking at 30% and you can see them trying to figure it out. Some of them don’t even know how to work it out on the calculator.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, no, I can believe that. And then the other example that comes to mind is that we don’t really have to know things anymore, or remember things because it’s all there. You can just Google it or look up, look it up on Wikipedia. I’m not sure I don’t know how many times I’ve looked up the same fact on Wikipedia that I just don’t retain it anymore because I don’t need to because I’ve outsourced the memory banks to the internet. Yeah.

Ian Bowie
Yeah. And then also okay. I guess another example is map reading. Yeah. Understanding directions. Do you really need to, we’ve got Apple Maps, Google Maps. Get your Garmin out?

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, you don’t you don’t necessarily need to have a, have any sense of of where you are exactly anymore.

Ian Bowie
We’re not being paid by Garmin by the way. It could have been any any other

Michael Stormbom
Sponsored by Nokia.

Ian Bowie
Yeah absolutely. But it’s true, isn’t it? Yeah. People don’t…

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, no, indeed. So to the to the point of using speech to text so yeah, no, I definitely. Definitely you don’t you don’t necessarily need to learn to to spell or write at all, necessarily.

Ian Bowie
Actually. I came across some quite an interesting app the other day, and I can’t remember the name of it, but it’s one of these apps, and they read the books for you. And then they condense them down. And at the moment, I suspect they’re using human readers. But I am sure the day is not very far away. When they basically just put a whole book through an algorithm and let the algorithm decide what’s important and what’s not.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah it’s called summarization, text summarization. There are those algorithms that do exactly that

Ian Bowie
They already doing it there. There you go, you see.

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, you’re saying, but yeah, I mean, I think that comes down to the we’ve talked about the instant gratification society as well. No one, no one wants to put the time to, to read the books.

Ian Bowie
Nobody wants to put the time, of course, everybody says I haven’t got the time. And that’s probably another another symptom of the fact that technology is really taking over our lives. But again, you know, if, if you don’t read the books, and you’re just letting a machine tell you what is important we suddenly lose our autonomy, don’t we?

Michael Stormbom
Yeah, no, I mean, we’ve become we’ve become this sort of passive passive creatures, with just just input a no no output.

Ian Bowie
So a very, very quick question. Do we actually want AI in education?

Michael Stormbom
And I think the conclusion is no.

No, but. Well, I think I think it’s something that we we discussed him in many episodes that there are there, there are those positive aspects and there are those negative aspects too, and need to be aware of both, so…

Ian Bowie
We need to remain aware we need to remain conscious of where and how we’re using this technology.

Michael Stormbom
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, and that should definitely be taught in schools.

Ian Bowie
Absolutely. And on that happy note, and with that, happy thought we shall leave you for today. Thank you for listening.

Michael Stormbom
Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai