Robots in education? Edubots!

Is it really colliding? Is there a future in this? The automation is going hard, very hard! One reader is getting eager, wants more, bigger, better and we're just getting started, so it's possible! With each development that comes with it, the possibilities are many times greater.

The other one's scared, what's this gonna bring? We are already living in a time when we are more and more hidden behind our screen and the contact has been minimized to a glance at a screen with typed or spoken words. Is this at the expense of personal interaction, physical contact?

That's what I wanted to get you guys to think about. Now I focus on chatbots for a moment, but when you google, you come up with opportunities within education that are many times broader.

#educatie #edubots , #chatbots

Image of Gerd Altmann via Pixabay

Edubots,

Our computers are becoming more intelligent. They are increasingly able to 'understand' what we want from them.

So computers can also more and more easily give the right answer to questions I ask.

Where you used to have to ask exactly the right question to get the right answer, our computer (or actually the program) is now struggling to read between lines, weigh alternatives and come up with an answer that is exactly the answer needs the keyboard.

We now also use this in education. Years in a row, students have asked questions to teachers, years in a row the teacher gives the same answer in different terms.

But if this has been happening for years in a row, can we not automate it?

Yeah, you can. All questions from the past few years, with the related answers, we can load into a Chatbot. When the chatbot now gets a question from a student, the teacher does not have to dive into the matter first, interpret the question and formulate the most appropriate answer. Because because of all these questions of recent years and the corresponding answers, the computer is now able to formulate the same answer. Increasingly better, because every year new questions are added that contribute to a growing database. Mind you, this is mainly about knowledge questions!

The above is a fact that has already taken a considerable flight within the business community. In many cases, you will find the same answer with your questions from a health insurer online (with a chatbot). The same answer. which is also formulated by the lady or gentleman you are trying to call and after 45 minutes in the queue finally caught.

In today's education, students search for answers in a different way, online, they communicate with each other, deliver products, even give peer feedback here and there (i.e. to each other). Now let the computer run an analysis and map what students get stuck on, what they excel at or how they try to tackle the problem, then he can provide the teacher with great tools to adjust the education, at student level but possibly also at teaching or educational level.

This is what is being searched for in today's education. The tools that can do this without sacrificing the privacy of the student. Much is already possible, but much more is going to come.

Training is becoming more and more a product that can also be done automatically.

And now the question: Is this an improvement?

I do not know the answer yet, I have doubts about the risks of having to go through a route more and more impersonal. A route, within which not only your profession is formed, but also you as a person, as a student. It is precisely in the present time that I notice how poor I am because of the lack of personal contact with colleagues and also students.

But how great is it, that this is possible, how nice is it not that these kinds of tasks can be taken out of my hands? Can I finally focus on personal contact, do I have time to optimize education? More and more, the teacher becomes the coach that enables the student to find his or her route.

I'm curious to see what you think of this.

eduBots

1. https://limo.libis.be/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=LIRIAS2785962&context=L&vid=Lirias&search_scope=Lirias&tab=default_tab&lang=en_US&fromSitemap=1 (PDF download or view online)

2. https://www.nextlearning.nl/e-blog/chatbots-de-toegevoegde-waarde-voor-leren-opleiden-en-onderwijs/