On October 19th 2023 I had an excellent opportunity to talk with experts from different AI areas with different perspectives and points of view and exchange ideas with them as a part of the Council of Europe EduTalk@Council of Europe series. Let me share with you their one-sentence wrap-up (and the rest of the talk you’ll have to watch by yourself 🙂

🏵 Arjana Blazic: Embrace AI, never stop learning and remember to always use your professional judgement and expertise.

🌳 Christian M. Stracke: Please use them and use them carefully and think always about your pupils.

🌴 Francisco Bellas: Use AI to think with you not to think instead of you.

🌷 And mine would be: Think before you click. (I like being a moderator on my topics, so much to learn and share)

Thank the Council of Europe team for their time and support Ahmet Murat KILIÇ Arzu Burcu Tuner and Maria Benedita Santos Silva

The recording is available on CoE website, alongside announcements of next EduTalks and other news.

🎙️ I just wrapped up two insightful sessions at the EDUtech Europe conference in Amsterdam, where I talked about the intersection of AI and education, focusing on some, for me, important aspects.  🤖📚

🌟 Safeguarding Well-being and Mental Health with AI 🌟

Do students understand that at the other end, there are not humans but machines? How do you find the balance between AI magic and AI errors without developing dependence or addiction? In this age of rapid technological advancement, we must strike a balance between the benefits of AI in education and the potential risks it poses to the mental and emotional health of learners and teachers.

💡 Existing Frameworks for AI Regulation in Education 💡

We also discussed the existing frameworks and guidelines that provide much-needed support for AI in the education sector. As a leader of the European Digital Education Hub’s “AI in Education” squad, I proudly talked about our Briefing reports that cover different aspects of AI in Education such as teachers’ AI competences, supporting teachers for the AI age, AI curriculum development, ethical and governance considerations, and impact of AI on assessment, feedback and personalisation.

🤖👩‍🏫 What will we outsource to AI, and what will we keep to ourselves, human teachers?  🤖👩‍🏫

One of the most thought-provoking questions we explored was the balance between AI and human teachers. What aspects of education should we outsource (or offload) to AI, and what should remain in the capable hands of human educators? Which activity is worth our time and effort? Do our students deserve personal feedback from teachers? Or are we heading towards a scenario where AI creates tasks, students use AI to answer them, and teachers use AI to grade those answers?

🌐 Getting the Best from AI While Protecting Privacy and Humanity 🌐

Ultimately, our discussion revolved around the central question: How can we harness the full potential of AI in education without compromising privacy, the essence of humanity, the teaching profession, or the quality of education itself? It’s a complex challenge, but by fostering dialogue and collaboration, we can navigate this ever-evolving landscape successfully.

😍 I want to thank my fellow panellists for their interesting perspectives and the opportunities to learn from their experiences Laura Knight Tamara Ciobanu Timothy Kelley Botond Pakucs Darren Neethling Kearon McNicol

👏 A special thank you goes to Human Power, who made EDUtech Europe happen Alessandro Bilotta & Shamala Gowri Anbalaghan you are stars ✨

Let’s continue to work together to shape a future where we put the well-being of our students and the quality of education at the forefront.

#EDUtechEurope #AIinEducation #FutureofLearning #Privacy #WellBeing #AIinTeaching #AIEd

Watch webinar recording

I was honoured with the opportunity to present my reactions to the UNESCO Guidance on generative AI in education and research during the launch as part of the Digital Learning Week in Paris. Let me share with you some of my words. 💬

This is not AI generated feedback on the Guidance 😁 I read Guidance by myself and commented by myself because this Guidance deserves my time and effort.

🐾The same is with our teaching and learning – our students deserve our time, our expertise, compassion and support. We shouldn’t outsource teaching to AI. We should not get enfeebled or deskilled by the AI. Otherwise our years of expertise are wasted on prompting.

🤡 We should be honest with our students, our colleagues how we are using AI and why. If we can’t say why – we are already making mistakes!

The Guidance follows UNESCO path for #TechOnOurTerms helping us to answer questions Why tech, What we are aiming for…

⚖️ UNESCO Guidance pointed to important aspect of creating balance between regulation and promotion of generative AI, importance of age limit ( I would add age verification too). Importance of monitoring and validation, especially pedagogical validation, testing locally and building evidence. We had the opportunity to see some examples of how partnerships between researchers, government and education could answer those challenges. We know that those are complex issues, but this is not an excuse for not doing it!

🏋️‍♀️Unburdening teachers, solving teacher’s problems are some of the buzzwords we hear as promises of EdGPT – but how do they know what teachers really need? Do they have teachers in teams, have teachers been asked – or is this one more “big thing” dumped on the teacher’s shoulders?

The Guidance correctly put more responsibility for GenAI on the providers and institutions not individual teachers.

🎨In the chapters about facilitating creative use of GenAI, the Guidance present excellent examples, among which I suggest automated feedback and assessment should be added (Do we know how students react to AI feedback? Do our students know that we use AI to write feedback for them?)

🌌 The Guidance on generative AI in education and research finish with ideas about GenAI and Future of Education. 🌑 My comment was that one of the possible futures is with a human teacher available only for the rich while the rest of us are stuck with an artificial teacher. I hope that this Guidance and our collaborative effort will steer us away from that version of the Future of Education.

🎉 Thank you Fengchun Miao for the invitation and opportunity to contribute to DLW. Looking forward to the implementation of the Guidance.

✒️ Now is you turn! Read the Guidance (or ask some AI tool to read it for you 🤓) and do your best to create better future of education.

Recording of the panel

EDEH Squad “AI in Education” learning journey

Nowadays, we are overwhelmed with news about artificial intelligence, its impact on our work and daily lives, and its potential benefits and threats. What impact does AI have on education? How can we employ it for good and avoid negative influence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to computer systems that, given a set of human-defined objectives, can influence real or virtual environments through predictions, recommendations, or decisions. AI systems interact with us and have direct or indirect effects on our environment. Often, they appear to operate autonomously and can adapt their behaviour by acquiring knowledge about the context. (UNICEF, 2021)

Connections between AI and education are multiple, AI has the potential to support education by providing personalized and adaptive learning experiences to students, automating administrative tasks, analysing large amounts of education data, to identify patterns and trends that can inform decision-making. AI role in Education is usually described as teaching or learning with AI, about AI and for AI. While only a small percentage of a population of learners may wish or be required to learn about AI in order to become AI designers or developers, the suggestion is that all citizens should be encouraged and supported to attain a certain level of AI literacy. (CoE, 2022)

As AI systems continue to evolve and data usage rises, it is of the utmost importance to develop a better comprehension of their impact on the world, especially in education.  Educators and school leaders must have a fundamental understanding of artificial intelligence and data usage in order to interact positively, critically, and ethically with this technology and to maximise its potential. (EC, 2022)

But often we are facing some common misconceptions about AI, including that it is too difficult to comprehend the functionality of AI systems, that AI systems cannot be trusted, that AI has no place in education, or that AI will undermine the teacher’s role. Rather than replacing teachers, AI can support teachers, enabling them to construct learning experiences that empower students to be creative, to think, to solve real-world problems, to collaborate effectively, and to engage in activities that AI systems cannot do on their own. (EC, 2022)

Some of already existing examples of the AI use in education are:

• Tutoring system – the learner follows a step-by-step sequence of tasks through conversation.
• Teaching assistants – AI recommendation engines are used to recommend specific learning activities or resources based on each student’s preferences, progress and needs.
• Formative assessment – Learners are provided with regular automatic feedback.

However, it is important to note that the use of AI in education also raises ethical concerns, such as privacy and security issues, potential biases in algorithms, and the potential for automation to replace human teachers and staff. Therefore, it is important to ensure that AI is used in a responsible and ethical manner in educational settings.

In February 2023, European Digital Education Hub Squad “AI in Education” is founded in response to recent AI-related developments. From February until the end of June 2023, the “AI in Education” Squad worked intensively to discuss various aspects of AI use and its impact on Education. The result of these discussions is the creation of seven briefing reports.

As a leader of the European Digital Education Hub’s “AI in Education” squad I would like to assist you in discovering the benefits and risks of AI and learning about AI to be able to teach with AI. Please review Squad’s briefing reports, which cover topics such as teachers’ AI competences, supporting teachers for the AI age, AI curriculum development, and ethical and governance considerations; and join us on this learning journey.
Briefing reports by AI in Education EDEH Squad:

1. Teachers’ competences
2. How to support teachers to use AI in teaching
3. Use scenarios & practical examples of AI use in education
4. Education about AI
5. Influence of AI on governance in education
6. AI and Ethics, human rights, law, education data
7. Teaching with AI – assessment, feedback and personalisation

I would like to thank to all Squad members who contributed to these reports: Riina Vuorikari, Jessica Niewint-Gori, Dara Cassidy, Francisco Bellas, Madhumalti Sharma, Ari Laitala, Cristina Obae, Yann-Aël Le Borgne, Anne Gilleran, Petra Bevek, Oksana Pasichnyk, Elise Rondin, Johanna Gröpler, Gordana Janakievska, Bertine van Deyzen, Martina Weber, Robbe Wulgaert, Alexa Joyce and Lidija Kralj; supported by Leon Koch