#275 - Preparing Young People for their Future with AI

What's in this episode?

Delighted to launch this new 5-episode miniseries on AI in education, sponsored by Nord Anglia Education, host Professor Rose Luckin kicks things off for the Edtech Podcast by examining how we keep education as the centre of gravity for AI. 

AI has exploded in the public consciousness with innovative large language models writing our correspondence and helping with our essays, and sophisticated images, music, impersonations and video generated on-demand from prompts.  Whilst big companies proclaim what this technology can achieve and how it will affect work, life, play and learning, the consumer and user on the ground and in our schools likely has little idea how it works or why, and it seems like a lot of loud voices are telling us only half the story.  What's the truth behind AI's power?  How do we know it works, and what are we using to measure its successes or failures?  What are our young people getting out of the interaction with this sophisticated, scaled technology, and who can we trust to inject some integrity into the discourse?  We're thrilled to have three guests in the Zoom studio with Rose this week:

• Dr Paul LeBlanc, President, Southern New Hampshire University
• Dr Kate Erricker, Assistant Director of Curriculum, Nord Anglia Education
• Julie Henry, Freelance Education Correspondent

Talking points and questions include: 

• We often ask of technology in the classroom 'does it work'?  But when it comes to AI, preparing people to work, live, and play with it will be more than just whether or not it does what the developers want it to.  We need to start educating those same people HOW it works, because that will not only protect us as consumers out in the world, as owners of our own data, but help build a more responsible and 'intelligent' society that is learning all of the time, and better able to support those who need it most.  So if we want that 'intelligence infrastructure', how do we build it?
• What examples of AI in education have we got so far, what areas have been penetrated and has anything radically changed for the better?  Can assessment, grading, wellbeing, personalisation, tutoring, be improved with AI enhancements, and is there the structural will for this to happen in schools?
• The ‘white noise’ surrounding AI discourse: we know the conversation is being dominated by larger-than-life personali