Since the introduction of AI technology to the technological world, a lot of industry has started to incorporate AI into their routine.
One of these industries is “the education sector.” In 2020, the whole world shut down for the first time since then the technology was introduced to the world system.
COVID-19 was the cause of this shutdown. At that point, physical education was also shut down. And this resulted in most schools switching to AI technological education.
As a result, a lot of schools have started to incorporate AI technology into their interface.
As a lot of schools are now using AI technology in their curriculum, more funds are pumped to improve that area. In 2021, education sector funding in AI technology on a global scale reach 1.82 billion dollars.
A study showed that at the end of 2021, the grades of most students in the United States who studied using AI technology got better.
In 2023, most schools in the States are working diligently to ensure they use more advanced AI technology to train their students.
There are some questions in a lot of people’s minds, some of them are; what are the pros and cons of AI in the education sector? Are there more pros than cons or is it the opposite?
Don’t worry, in this article I am going to shed light on these questions.
What is AI in Education?
This is the use of Artificial intelligence technology in the education field, to make education easier for people.
AI technology simplifies educational practices into simpler segments. It breaks the practices into segments for teachers, educators, and students.
For the case of an educator/teacher, it helps to give students automatic assignments grading.
This means the students get their assignments marked and corrected without much presence of the educator(s).
In the case of students, AI education technology breaks down the topic into simpler segments for easy learning.
So, AI in education has come to ease the workload on anyone in the education field. With the help of AI consultants, more schools will know more ways to use AI in their curriculum.
What are the general forms of AI technology?
Every AI technology created so far, use either one or more of these general forms of AI in their creation process.
The general forms of AI are not many, they are just 4 forms. Each one of the forms has its potential ability that is unique to it alone.
1. Assisted intelligence
This is a system created to offer valuable assistance to humans. It helps humans to perform different tasks more efficiently and accurately.
This technology is not created so it can take the place of humans. It is instead created so, humans can use the insights and feedback it provides to make the right decision.
Assisted intelligence can automate simple tasks, provide useful insights, etc.
2. Augmented Intelligence
This intelligence works using the information of humans. It gets better the more users use it. It develops based on human interaction and then provides the best insights.
This AI technology can be referred to as feedback technology. It takes in information from users, understands the concept of the information, and then relays back better feedback.
Without the input of a human user, it can’t generate better feedback. It is solely dependent on human information.
3. Automated Intelligence
This intelligence works by ensuring that a particular task can happen automatically. It automates routine tasks and non-routine tasks without needing human interference.
This intelligence has to be first introduced to the task and after which, it automates it easily. What the intelligence does is, it understands the task it is to automate, and then perform it at will.
4. Autonomous intelligence
This intelligence is an even more advanced form of automated intelligence. This intelligence does things automatically and also can adapt to new things around the task.
It operates with a mind of its own, even though it is a computerized one. Due to the high level of intelligence of autonomous intelligence possesses, it is mostly used in environments that need high-level intelligence.
Use cases of AI technology in Educational institution
With the general forms of AI technology already known, more AI use cases have been established.
There are now more new opportunities that students, educators, and schools themselves can utilize.
With that said and done, let’s get to know the opportunities provided by artificial intelligence in education.
1. Personalized learning experience
When it comes to learning, every student doesn’t have the same learning ability. Some students grasp things faster while others don’t.
As an educator, it can be very challenging, trying to make your students understand what you are tutoring them.
This is why this use case of AI technology is very helpful. It takes in the learning data of students, analyzes it, and then comes up with a final decision.
The final decision always comes with a personalized learning strategy that works solely for that student.
The learning strategies are always effective and accurate according to the data of the students. As an educator, this can help you in making your students understand the knowledge you are passing across to them.
2. Prediction of outcome of learning strategy
When it comes to learning, a lot of factors are important and these are academic learning style, behaviour in the learning environment, and lastly social interaction with other fellow students.
What makes it valuable is that AI intelligence can collect academic data according to the learning strategy of the students.
It collects the academic performance, attitude, and social behaviour of the students.
All these data are now used to generate a possible outcome. A school using this kind of AI technology will always know if their students are academically sound if any one of them might withdraw due to poor learning, and if there is room for improvement in academic teaching.
It is a valuable technology to use in school settings.
3. Automation of Educator’s Daily Task
Every educator has one or more educational tasks that they do daily. With the use of AI technology, tedious tasks such as; test evaluation, assignment grading, etc, can be performed easily.
Teachers just have to input the right information on the AI tool interface. With this done, these AI tools will be able to correct multiple-choice and true or false exercises.
Apart from the machine learning algorithms that allow the AI tool to be able to take in correct answers and grade them.
There is also a natural language processing model that can correct the grammar in the essay, speech, or written text.
In a general sense, this AI use case is mainly to make the tutoring job at hand easier to do.
4. Smooth Administrative Workflow
At the beginning of a new session, there are lots of works to do in schools. Administrative work like; the processing of student applications, enrollment of new students, maintenance of school facilities, recruiting of new staff, and many other tasks.
All these tasks can be very demanding. But with the use of this AI technology, all these tasks can be easily handled creating a smooth workflow for students, staff, and school board administrators.
5. Personal assistance for students with special needs
Among students, some other students have special needs. Because of these special needs, using the normal learning style for them might not be productive.
But with the use of AI technology, it is a different story. This use case of AI in the education sector gives an audience to this kind of student.
With this AI technology, students can easily give their needs to the AI, and a fast solution is provided to them.
Some examples of this use case of AI in education include the creation of text-to-speech AI software for visually impaired students, speech-to-text software for students who can’t hear or can’t hear clearly, etc.
6. Planning of Educational Resources
Every educational institution requires good proper planning of resources. With proper planning of resources, the school workflow won’t suffer a defect.
Everything will unfold exactly as it should. It can be difficult planning the resources of a very large educational firm. But with the help of AI technology, this task can be performed with ease.
Tasks like the right amount of learning materials to prepare for the next session, and also the best time of delivery can be left for AI to calculate it.
This use case of AI technology in the education field is very helpful when it comes to proper and adequate planning.
7. Designing Educational Curriculum
Creating a curriculum for an educational firm is a very difficult task to do.
As there are a lot of factors to consider like the student learning strength, the available materials for the topics in the curriculum, the time required to make the students understand the topics in the curriculum, etc.
All these require deep analysis and thinking for the right decisions to be made as regards the curriculum.
With this AI use case, it is a different story. AI tools can collect academic data from students and do in-depth analyses on it.
With this aid, it generates a personalized learning experience for students. Also, it takes note of the pain point of the students during the learning process.
It takes note of the topic that requires more tutoring and some many other information. This is what we’re trying to say.
With the fact that AI can collect academic data from students and analyze it, creating a curriculum for the school calendar will be an easy task for AI.
This way, schools can ensure that their students are taught the exact things they need for their academic growth.
8. Available assistant during learning
This use case of AI technology is a different ball game. The AI technology in this case provides steady assistance to students when they are studying.
Since this AI technology is embedded with natural language processing models and machine learning algorithms, they can always rely on its assistance 24/7, these AI technology tools are available for feedback and support.
They are very flexible to work with. The fact that they can break down complex topics into simpler segments makes them a fun learning guide to study with.
Another interesting thing is; this AI use case doesn’t judge students. So, students can learn at their pace without feeling any pressure of making mistakes.
Helpful Suggestion: Best AI Personal Robots To Buy
Pros and Cons of AI in Education
Pros of AI in Education
For Students
1. It offers a better learning experience
Students who use AI technology tools to learn always enjoy a personalized learning pattern. With these kinds of benefits that they enjoy, learning is going to be more fun for these students as well.
It gives them a level of control over their learning experience.
2. It offers improved self-educational skills
Having self-educational skills as a student is very important. Especially in this century, we are currently, where it is only the people who can think critically have more chances of success.
With the use of AI as a study guide as a student, in no time, you will be able to develop your critical thinking skill.
AI technology provides you with swift answers to your questions. You can also twist the question and still get your answers as well.
With AI technology, you can try out different scenarios and get your answers. This helps you to see things from different angles.
For Educators
1. It provides more efficient schoolwork
With the use of AI as a personal assistant to educators, educators are freer to do some other tasks.
What that statement means is that, using AI to do routine-task like assignment grading, class exercises, etc, gives educators more time to think outside the box.
Making them able to do more productive things with students, like giving them engaging activities without worrying about insufficient time.
2. It offers better engagement
AI technology helps educators on how to teach students better. The only way to teach a student better is to make him have an interest in the topic you are about to teach.
Using AI technology to gather information on what students might find attractive in the topic helps a lot in introducing the topic.
Using the provided information from the AI tool helps educators in creating better engagement with the students.
This way, these students will feel more valued and that their interests matter to you their educator.
For Parents
1. It helps parents to monitor their ward(s)’ academic progress
Being a parent is not easy at all. Your constant presence is needed in your child’s education to ensure that your money is well spent.
A 2022 statistics show that students whose parents are more involved in their educational life are more likely to be more focused on their academics.
With the help of the prediction ability of AI software, parents can easily know the academic strength of their child.
And with AI insights, they know the next move to take that will improve the academic strength of their ward.
For School Management
1. It helps school administrators in making an easy decision
With the help of the insights provided by AI educational tools, school administrators can make more informed decisions.
They can make decisions that will positively impact the academic grades of students.
Most especially, decisions on enrolment requirements, school curriculum activities, etc, can be well discussed using AI-driven data as the base of discussion, before a decision is made.
2. Optimized Resources Allocation
Using AI technology in streamlining the complete resources for a school management setting is faster and more efficient.
When using human efforts in resource allocation, more time and energy is spent causing a slowdown in the activity of the school. With AI tools, all that stress can be avoided.
3. It reduces overworking staff
Using AI technology in school settings helps in reducing the workload of the staff. AI tools are instead set to perform administrative tasks like assigning new students to their classes, etc.
This way the staff can focus more on the major tasks at hand like tutoring the students, etc. And this will also reduce the rate at which staff resigns from working in school settings.
Cons of AI in education
Just like there are pros of AI Education Tools, there are also cons as well. Either way, knowing both the pros and the cons is important as well.
Here are some of the cons of using AI in education;
1. It creates more room for cheating
With the invention of smart educational tools like Google Bard, ChatGpt, etc, students can easily cheat during online tests as this smart software can answer almost all school topics.
2. It is quite costly to use
It is mostly expensive as it is not easy to design AI technological tools. It requires plenty of time and resources to develop these AI tools in which both are expensive. Most of the finished products always have a high price tag attached to them.
Looking at the amount it takes to purchase the best ones and the necessary tools that work with it.
Most schools always find it expensive for their budget and therefore don’t include it in their to-purchase list.
3. Tendency of Security Breaches
Since most of this AI software is operated online. Without proper protection, students’ data stored in the memory of the AI software can get hacked and used for the wrong purposes.
4. Lack of technical knowledge
Most educators don’t have full knowledge of AI education tools. They don’t understand how the AI education tools operate, all they mostly know is that these tools are good for school work.
They can’t explain the operation process to students when they ask for it.
5. It doesn’t escape the risk of algorithmic bias
The fact that these AI software are trained by human software developers and operators. There is a tendency that the data the AI software produces at times might be biased.
Its contents also can be limited as it doesn’t have enough information to answer some specific questions.
Types of AI Technology in Educational Institutions
Just like when there are forms of general AI technology. There are also types of AI technology in educational institutions.
1. Virtual reality AI technology
Virtual reality is an advanced technology tool that generates a 3D simulation of reality. It makes the experience more vivid like it is in reality.
Using virtual reality to teach students is one of the best AI technology used to tutor students. There is a saying, “Experience is the best teacher. “
Using virtual reality to create a real-life scenario makes the students understand the concept of the topic you are tutoring.
2. Augmented reality AI technology
Augmented reality works like virtual reality but the two technologies aren’t the same. It uses digital information to form physical objects.
It helps students to be able to experience the diagrammatic object in their textbook in reality. The teacher inputted the description of the object into the AI tool for augmented reality.
Students can learn in a more detailed and engaging manner. It gives an experience like an excursion in the real world.
3. IoT AI Tool
IoT is an advanced AI technology tool that contains a network of physical devices. It is embedded with devices like sensors, electronics, software, and connectivity that take data from the surroundings, both external and internal environments.
With this AI technology, educators and school management can get real-time data from lecture rooms. Data ranging from lecture room lighting, temperature levels, noise level, etc.
With this data, school management and educators can know how the student’s learning environments are.
Examples of AI in Education technology tools
If you are wondering what AI in education tools are available for either students or educators or school management, here are lists of some of them.
Best AI writing Assistants technology tools
Having an AI writing assistant when writing an academic project is very helpful. There are times that you are just short of words to write down.
With the listed tools below, you can overcome that writer’s block and even scan the group of text you have written for grammatical errors.
1. Rytr AI-writing tool
Rytr is an advanced AI writing tool that helps students who are writing resume assignments, project writing, etc.
In a few seconds, you can get long content that contains both an engaging introduction, body content, and a well-ending conclusion.
It even allows users to add specific keywords that are meant to appear in the content. It cost $29 per month.
2. Grammarly AI-writing tool
Grammarly is one of the best writing assistants you can use for your writing process. Grammarly helps you to check your whole content.
It checks the accuracy of the text, ensuring that they are correctly spelled. It also ensures the text is arranged in the right structure, such that it won’t be difficult to read.
It cost $30 per month for the premium plan which offers plagiarism detection as well. The free plan offers other writing benefits apart from plagiarism detection.
3. StudyCorgi Essay reworder
StudyCorgi is a good essay rewriter tool. It is mostly known that students love shortcuts. That is what StudyCorgi Essay Reworder provides for you.
This writing AI tool provides you with a paraphraser. This paraphraser helps you to rewrite an essay that has been written before.
With just a few clicks, you get an original high-quality essay that appears just like when a human writes it down. This software does not cost any fund.
Best AI Tools for Studying
This is another AI educational tool you can use as a student. This AI tool helps you to study easily most especially during the period of tests and exams, when you want to study very fast.
With this study software, you can make easy-to-read summaries from your school materials to prepare for your exam and test.
Here are a few of the study AI tools;
1. Explain Like I’m Five AI Tool
This is AI software that is embedded in a website. It is programmed to simplify topics that are difficult into simpler forms.
It simplifies the content such that a five-year-old can understand the concept of the topic.
This AI software helps students in understanding difficult topics easily. It is a reliable tool when it comes to understanding difficult school topics. It is not free to use; it cost $3.99 per month.
2. Quizlet AI technology tool
Quizlet is an advanced AI software that is integrated into a free website. Quizlet just as its name portrays knows how to generate quizzes.
The quiz it generates helps students to be able to prepare for tests and exams. It provides flashcards, games, and expert-developed memorization methods that help students in grasping the content in their school materials. It is free to use.
3. StudyCorgi Summary Generator AI technology tool
StudyCorgi Summary Generator is a software that uses artificial intelligence technology to summarise long content.
The summary appears concise and on point. Not excluding the main points of the content. It also allows users to choose the number of sentences they want to appear in their summary. It is free to use.
Best AI-Powered Language Learning Apps
Learning new languages has now become easier with the introduction of technology. There are AI tools that pose as great assistants in language learning.
They create an engaging environment on their interface. They give out the task to users from time to time and the task is based on the language training on their interface.
Here are a few of the best language-learning apps powered by AI technology.
1. Memrise AI technology tool
Memrise is an advanced AI technology tool that teaches users different languages in real-world contexts.
The AI technology is embedded in the website. And it is very intelligent such that it also keeps the learning progress of the users.
Also, when teaching the users it allows them to practice the speaking aspect as well. The speaking feature, allows users to be able to communicate with the AI conversation partner. It cost $8.49 per month.
2. Doulingo AI technology tool
Duolingo is a language learning tool with an AI-technology. It gives its users quick lessons that don’t take too much time.
It provides cool language learning features to users and then poss fun challenges to them. The challenges are set based on the language training they undergo.
The language learning process is made to be more fun as its interface is very friendly. It is free to use.
3. Busuu
Busuu is an AI platform that provides users access to language training sessions from experts and native speakers.
The training session is very interactive such that users can practice how to pronounce the language correctly.
The training is very effective such that users who learn language through this app can converse accurately with the right intonation like natives. It cost €11,99 per month.
Best AI tools for Students who have Learning Disabilities
These AI tools for students are excellent solutions for students that have learning disabilities. With these AI tools, they can make more improvements in their academic performance.
Here are a few apps that can be of good help in this area.
1. SnapType Pro AI Software
This smart Software is a helpful learning app for students who don’t know how to write correctly or have other learning disabilities.
Just as its name implies, it allows users to be able to take snapshots of any worksheets easily. It also allows users to be able to make drawings and add text with no stress.
It is a good AI app for people with learning disabilities. It cost $4.99
2. Ghotit
Ghotit is a smart software that helps people with writing disorders and learning disabilities to become independent workers and readers.
It uses advanced phonetical, grammatical, and context-aware algorithms as its main AI technology. These AI models are the technology Ghotit uses to produce error-free text. It cost $199/year.
3. Web Captioner AI software
This smart software provides accurate speech-to-text transcription. And the generated transcript fonts can be adjusted not excluding the colors and the chroma key backgrounds.
All these features help students who have impaired hearing to comprehend information faster. These features also help people in users who have ADHD to stay focused. It doesn’t cost any price. It is free.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is AI Transforming Education?
The use of AI technology in the education sector has been one of the best moves ever. Since the integration of AI into the education field, it has changed the way education is being delivered.
It has made a lot of students discover their inner learning abilities. And this has made them able to study and learn anything they want.
AI is helping students to create a personalized learning experience and also allows easy setup of assessment.
AI usage in the education sector has been of great help to generate personalized content for each individual who is a student.
With the generation of personalized content, students can identify their knowledge capacity and their learning strength. This help in building more improvements in the educational field.
What is the future of AI in the education sector?
With the current ability of AI in the education sector, it is sure that a lot of people are looking forward to the future of AI technology in education.
AI has made it known that it can transform the way knowledge is passed across. It has made it known that learning can be much easier than it is.
AI has proven that it can assess students’ performance, measure the possible results of a study pattern, and then make decisions that can improve the learning quality and the final results over time.
These are just a few bases of the promising future that AI is a valuable asset in education.
With the kind of benefits tasted from the current upgrade in AI education technology and the fact that it’s just in the beginning stage.
This gives people in the education sector hope for a great future with AI technology.
Don’t Miss: Best AI Virtual Friend Apps and Companions
Conclusion
With the presence of AI technology in the educational sector, a lot of students who don’t understand what their educator talked about in the lecture room can use the help of AI.
The effect of AI technology in the educational sector has both its advantages and its disadvantages. When looking at the advantage gotten from the usage of this technology, it is quite enjoyable.
But we can’t deny the fact that the disadvantages are also disastrous as well.
So it is best when using it, caution should be taken. Another thing is the fact that only the developers of this software and learned AI technological experts understand the internal aspect of this technology.
With limited information about the software of AI technological tools use in the education sector, most parents won’t want their children to use it.
But as said earlier, when approaching this smart software, caution should be taken.
