Artificial Intelligence And Big Data Technologies To Close The Achievement Gap.

We observe achievement gaps even in rich western countries, such as the UK, which in principle have the resources as well as the social and technical infrastructure to provide a better deal for all learners. The reasons for such gaps are complex and include the social and material poverty of some learners with their resulting other deficits, as well as failure by government to allocate sufficient resources to remedy the situation. On the supply side of the equation, a single teacher or university lecturer, even helped by a classroom assistant or tutorial assistant, cannot give each learner the kind of one-to-one attention that would really help to boost both their motivation and their attainment in ways that might mitigate the achievement gap. In this chapter Benedict du Boulay, Alexandra Poulovassilis, Wayne Holmes, and Manolis Mavrikis argue that we now have the technologies to assist both educators and learners, most commonly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects (STEM), at least some of the time. We present case studies from the fields of Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) and Big Data. We look at how they can be used to provide personalised support for students and demonstrate that they are not designed to replace the teacher. In addition, we also describe tools for teachers to increase their awareness and, ultimately, free up time for them to provide nuanced, individualised support even in large cohorts

Artificial Intelligence and Education. Guidance for Policy-makers

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to address some of the biggest challenges in education today, innovate teaching and learning practices, and ultimately accelerate the progress towards SDG 4. However, these rapid technological developments inevitably bring multiple risks and challenges, which have so far outpaced policy debates and regulatory frameworks. This publication offers guidance for policy-makers on how best to leverage the opportunities and address the risks, presented by the growing connection between AI and education. It starts with the essentials of AI: definitions, techniques and technologies. It continues with a detailed analysis of the emerging trends and implications of AI for teaching and learning, including how we can ensure the ethical, inclusive and equitable use of AI in education, how education can prepare humans to live and work with AI, and how AI can be applied to enhance education. It finally introduces the challenges of harnessing AI to achieve SDG 4 and offers concrete actionable recommendations for policy-makers to plan policies and programmes for local contexts

Exploring the Effectiveness of AI Algorithms in Predicting and Enhancing Student Engagement in an E-Learning

The shift from traditional to digital learning platforms has highlighted the need for more personalized and engaging student experiences. In response, researchers are investigating AI algorithms' ability to predict and improve e-learning student engagement.  Machine Learning (ML) methods like Decision Trees, Support Vector Machines, and Deep Learning models can predict student engagement using variables like interaction patterns, learning behavior, and academic performance. These AI algorithms have identified at-risk students, enabling early interventions and personalized learning. By providing adaptive content, personalized feedback, and immersive learning environments, some AI methods have increased student engagement. Despite these advances, data privacy, unstructured data, and transparent and interpretable models remain challenges. The review concludes that AI has great potential to improve e-learning outcomes, but these challenges must be addressed for ethical and effective applications. Future research should develop more robust and interpretable AI models, multidimensional engagement metrics, and more comprehensive studies on AI's ethical implications in education

What Can You Do with Educational Technology that is Getting More Human?

Proceeding of: Tenth IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON 2019), 9-11 April, 2019, Dubai, UAE.Technology is advancing at an ever-increasing speed. The backend capabilities and the frontend means of interaction are revolutionizing all kinds of applications. In this paper, we analyze how the technological breakthroughs seem to make educational interactions look smarter and more human. After defining Education 4.0 following the Industry 4.0 idea, we identify the key breakthroughs of the last decade in educational technology, basically revolving around the concept cloud computing, and imagine a new wave of educational technologies supported by machine learning that allows defining educational scenarios where computers interact and react more and more like humans.The authors would like to primarily acknowledge the support of the eMadrid Network, which is funded by the Madrid Regional Government (Comunidad de Madrid) with grant No. S2018/TCS-4307. This work has also received partial support from FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades-Agencia Estatal de Investigación through Project RESET (TIN2014-53199-C3-1-R) and Project Smartlet (TIN2017-85179-C3-1-R). Partial support has also been received from the European Commission through Erasmus+ projects, in particular, projects COMPASS (Composing Lifelong Learning Oppor-tunity Pathways through Standards-based Services, 2015-1-EL01-KA203-014033), COMPETEN-SEA (Capacity to Organize Massive Public Educational Opportunities in Universities in Southeast Asia, 574212-EPP-1-2016-1-NL-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP), LALA (Building Capacity to use Learning Analytics to Improve Higher Education in Latin America, 586120-EPP-1-2017-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP), and InnovaT (Innovative Teaching across Continents: Universities from Europe, Chile, and Peru on an Expedition, 598758-EPP-1-2018-1-AT-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP). UNESCO Chair "Scalable Digital Education for All" at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid is also gratefully acknowledged.Publicad

DESIGN KNOWLEDGE FOR VIRTUAL LEARNING COMPANIONS

Conversational agents (CAs) are getting smarter thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, which opens the potential to use them in educational contexts to support (working) students. In addition, CAs are turning toward relationship-oriented virtual companions (e.g., Replika). Synthesizing these trends, we derive the virtual learning companion (VLC), which aims to support working students in their time management and motivation. In addition, we propose design knowledge, which was developed as part of a design science research project. We derive nine design principles, 28 meta-requirements, and 33 categories of design features based on interviews with students and experts, the results of an interdisciplinary workshop, and a user test. We aim to demonstrate how to design VLCs to unfold their potential for individual student support

A Comprehensive Survey of Deep Learning: Advancements, Applications, and Challenges

Artificial intelligence's "deep learning" discipline has taken off, revolutionizing a variety of industries, from computer vision and natural language processing to healthcare and finance. Deep learning has shown extraordinary effectiveness in resolving complicated issues, and it has a wide range of potential applications, from autonomous vehicles to healthcare. The purpose of the survey to study deep learning's present condition, including recent advancements, difficulties, and constraints since the subject is currently fast growing. The basic ideas of deep learning, such as neural networks, activation functions, and optimization algorithms, are first introduced. We next explore numerous topologies, emphasizing their distinct properties and uses, including convolutional neural networks (CNNs), recurrent neural networks (RNNs), and generative adversarial networks (GANs). Further concepts, applications, and difficulties of deep learning are all covered in this survey paper's thorough review. This survey aid the academics, professionals, and individuals who want to learn more about deep learning and explore its applications to challenging situations in the real world

Conversational Agents in Education – A Systematic Literature Review

Conversational Agents (CAs) are widely spread in a variety of domains, such as health and customer service. There is a recent trend of increasing publications and implementations of CAs in education. We conduct a systematic literature review to identify common methodologies, pedagogical CA roles, addressed target groups, the technologies and theories behind, as well as human-like design aspects. The initially found 3329 records were systematically reduced to 252 fully coded articles. Based on the analysis of the codings, we derive further research streams. Our results reveal a research gap for long-term studies on the use of CAs in education, and there is insufficient holistic design knowledge for pedagogical CAs. Moreover, target groups other than academic students are rarely considered. We condense our findings in a morphological box and conclude that pedagogical CAs have not yet reached their full potential of long-term practical application in education