EU report on the impact of AI on Learning Teaching and Education #AI #education #EU #policy

The resently published report on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on learning, teaching and education gives a great outline on the realities of AI, the state of the art, and the challenges as well as opportunities for those of us with an expertise in learning in general, or learning in terms of learning theory. The report is part of the JRC Science for Policy documents, and it is very well written by Ilkka Tuomi (who is renowned for his expertise in Internet, data, AI and computer science). Ilkka recorded a brief overview of the report, which can be seen below. In the report-related video, he refers to current machine learning systems as datavors, he defines (and right fully so) the term of machine learning as an oxymoron and he puts current AI in very accessible parallel, namely the Artificial Instict (as current AI is mainly about behaviourist approaches and patterns).

A very interesting perspective is that Ilkka and the report stress the importance of having someone on board of AI for learning/teaching/education on board, who has expertise in learning and learning theory.

The policy challenges mentioned at the end of the report are:

• A continuous dialogue on the appropriate and responsible uses of AI in education is therefore needed.
• In the domain of educational policy, it is important for educators and policymakers to understand AI in the broader context of the future of learning. As AI will be used to automate productive processes, we may need to reinvent current educational institutions.
• In general, the balance may thus shift from the instrumental role of education towards its more developmental role.
• A general policy challenge, thus, is to increase among educators and policymakers awareness of AI technologies and their potential impact.
• Learning sciences could have much to offer to research on AI, and such mutual interaction would enable better understanding about how to use AI for learning and in educational settings, as well as in other domains of application.
• As there may be fundamental theoretical and practical limits in designing AI systems that can explain their behaviour and decisions, it is important to keep humans in the decision-making loop.
• The ethics of AI is a generic challenge, but it has specific relevance for educational policies.
• Human agency means that we can make choices about future acts, and thus become responsible for them.  AI can also limit the domain where humans can express their agency.
• An important policy challenge is how such large datasets that are needed for the development and use of AI-based systems could be made more widely available.

This 47 page report offers the following topics:

Introduction ...................................................................................................... 5
2 What is Artificial Intelligence? ............................................................................. 7
2.1 A three-level model of action for analysing AI and its impact ............................. 7
2.2 Three types of AI ....................................................................................... 10
2.2.1 Data-based neural AI ......................................................................... 10
2.2.2 Logic- and knowledge-based AI ........................................................... 12
2.3 Recent and future developments in AI .......................................................... 13
2.3.1 Models of learning in data-based AI ..................................................... 15
2.3.2 Towards the future............................................................................. 16
2.4 AI impact on skill and competence demand ................................................... 17
2.4.1 Skills in economic studies of AI impact ................................................. 18
2.4.2 Skill-biased and task-biased models of technology impact ....................... 20
2.4.3 AI capabilities and task substitution in the three-level model ................... 21
2.4.4 Trends and transitions ........................................................................ 22
2.4.5 Neural AI as data-biased technological change ...................................... 23
2.4.6 Education as a creator of capability platforms ........................................ 23
2.4.7 Direct AI impact on advanced digital skills demand ................................ 25
3 Impact on learning, teaching, and education ....................................................... 27
3.1 Current developments ................................................................................ 27
3.1.1 “No AI without UI” ............................................................................. 28
3.2 The impact of AI on learning ....................................................................... 28
3.2.1 Impact on cognitive development ........................................................ 30
3.3 The impact of AI on teaching ....................................................................... 31
3.3.1 AI-generated student models and new pedagogical opportunities............. 31
3.3.2 The need for future-oriented vision regarding AI .................................... 32
3.4 Re-thinking the role of education in society ................................................... 32
4 Policy challenges ............................................................................................. 34

Below is the 20 minute video of Ilkka Tuomi which explains the report in easy terms.

Free report on #digital competences of educators #EUpolicy #education @EU_ScienceHub

This 95 page report on Digital Competences of Educators was brought to my attention by the fabulous Yannis Angelis, who is also a great twitter networker (@YannisAngelis). This recently published report offers a European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators and is written by Christine Redecker and Yves Puni.

This is a really strong framework (really good read) and it does touch all the competences a contemporary educator should have (and already has in many occasions). I think this framework can easily be tailored for practical use inside educational institutions. Another thought that crossed my mind: look at the competencies and than try to come up with any profession that includes all of these competencies as well... not easy, as it implies communication skills, technological skills, social skills and pedagogical skills.... and all in an increasingly complex world of learners. So what I hope is that this report will see the start of a reappreasal of the educator in the whole of society... I mean, you got to love the teachers!

The tagline of the report is: the European Framework for the Digital Competence of (DigCompEdu) responds to the growing awareness among many European Member States that educators need a set
of digital competences specific to their profession in order to be able to seize the potential of
digital technologies for enhancing and innovating education.

Content of the report
The report focuses on 22 competences, organised in 6 areas:
Area 1: Professional engagement, using digital technologies for communication, collaboration
and professional development.
Area 2: Digital Resources sourcing, creating and sharing digital resources.
Area 3: Teaching and Learning Managing and orchestrating the use of digital technologies
in teaching and learning.
Area 4: Assessment using digital technologies and strategies to enhance assessment.
Area 5: Empowering learners using digital technologies to enhance inclusion,
personalisation and learners’ active engagement.
Area 6: Facilitating learners’ digital competence, enabling learners to creatively and responsibly use digital technologies for information, communication, content creation, wellbeing and problem-solving.

For each of these competences more information is given, including a description of what the authors define the competence to be, and how to achieve it.

Nice side note: self-regulated learning is part of the competences of an educator. I really like the addition of this aspect to the teaching and learning competence.

Take into account competence levels of the educators
Another nice point of attention used in this report is the levels given to the competences in relation to the digital experience of the educator: in the first two stages of DigCompEdu, Newcomer (A1) and Explorer (A2), educators assimilate new information and develop basic digital practices; at the following two stages, Integrator (B1) and Expert (B2), educators apply, further expand and reflect
on their digital practices; at the highest stages, Leader (C1) and Pioneer (C2), educators pass on their knowledge, critique existing practice and develop new practices.
The labels for each competence level were selected to capture the particular focus of digital technology use typical for the competence stage. the descriptors also relate to an educator’s
relative strengths and roles within a professional community. And within the report a clear proficiency progression by area is also provided (page 31). Adding examples to make this theoretical framework a practical document (e.g. finding digital resources and what this entails for all 6 competency levels). A lot of work is put into making this theoretical framework accessible for practical implementation, an aspect I really appreciate and like a lot.

background of publication
This publication is a Science for Policy report by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission’s science and knowledge service, which you can follow @EU_ScienceHub. It aims to provide evidence-based scientific support to the European policymaking process, but it also offers great insight into what policy makers find of interest, and where they think educators will benefit from in order to ensure digitally competent education.


Abstract from the report
As educators face rapidly changing demands, they require an increasingly broader and more sophisticated set of competences than before. In particular, the ubiquity of digital devices and the duty to help students become digitally competent requires educators to develop their own digital competence. On an international and national level a number of frameworks, self-assessment tools and training programmes have been developed to describe the facets of digital competence for educators and to help them assess their competence, identify their training needs and offer targeted training. Based on the analysis and comparison of these instruments, this report presents a common European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu). DigCompEdu is a scientifically sound background framework which helps to guide policy and can be directly adapted to implementing regional and national tools and training programmes. In addition, it provides a common language and approach that will help the dialogue and exchange of best practices across borders.
The DigCompEdu framework is directed towards educators at all levels of education, from early childhood to higher and adult education, including general and vocational education and training, special needs education, and non-formal learning contexts. It aims to provide a general reference frame for developers of Digital Competence models, i.e. Member States, regional governments, relevant national and regional agencies, educational organisations themselves, and public or private professional training providers.

Module on open education: policy, accreditation by George Siemens #openEd

This is a course I saw passing by, that I just cannot keep in my mail box, as it might be of interest to many. It is however a paid for course organised by Athabasca University (yeah!). But if you are interested in a short cut to know all about open education through great content, shares, as well as direction and guidance by a great researcher: consider registering. From the mail:

This Fall 2015, the Centre for Distance Education will be offering the course MDDE 622: Openness in Education taught by CDE Faculty member Dr. George Siemens.  

Dr. Siemens is best known for his pioneering work on Connectivism, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and Learning Analytics.  He acts as the Associate Director of the Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute (TEKRI) at Athabasca University, has authored many books and articles including Knowing Knowledge and the Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning, and is the founding member of the Society for Learning Analytics Research.  More recently, Dr. Siemens was invited to the White House to share his research on Innovation and Quality in Higher Education.  

More information about this exciting course can be found below.

MDDE 622: Openness in Education

Openness in content, data, government, and access is influencing organizations of all types. Education is influenced heavily: open educational resources and open teaching hold potential to disrupt the full spectrum of education: policy, learning development, delivery, and accreditation.

This course will offer a detailed overview of the history of openness in education, current trends including legal and technological developments, as well as future directions. Educators in all sectors (primary, secondary, and higher education), as well as administrators, will benefit from being well informed of trends and the organizational impact of open education.

Through review of literature, participation in group discussions, online lectures, and related open education resources, students will be able to:

1. Define openness in an educational context and describe its various instantiations in different educational sectors
2. Identify the potential of openness to contribute to systemic change in higher education and policy
3. Plan, search, deploy, and integrate open educational resources (OERs) from design to delivery phases of learning
4. Analyze current research views on how openness influences higher education enrolment, course design costs, and the distinctions between peer-developed resources (“crowd sourcing”) and centrally curated resources (expert).
5. Describe the history of openness in education (including early literature on open universities in the 1960’s) and detail the impact of technological developments on openness
6. Evaluate prominent intellectual property and copyright systems, detailing the influence of each on scholarship.

Students can register for this course online or by contacting the CDE office at mde@athabascau.ca . 

Have a great day!

#UNESCO is looking for your #mLearning policy ideas !

The driven Steve Vosloo, who is currently the UNESCO Programme Specialist in Mobile Learning at UNESCO has put together a set of guidelines for mLearning policy. These guidelines are now open for public review, so grab your chance and add any ideas, suggestions you might have by either posting your comments with the 'postreply' button on the webpage here which will get you (after registering) to the UNESCO discussion boards or e-mailing to se.vosloo@unesco.org

When reviewing the guidelines please keep their purpose in mind:
• To raise awareness, put mobile learning onto the ICT in Education agenda.
• To promote the value of mobile learning, and consider related challenges.
• To make high-level recommendations for creating policies that enable mobile learning.

All input is valuable and considered for inclusion by the Advisory Team assigned to the task of developing the policy guidelines. Please note, however, that it is not possible to include all input (informed by the UNESCO team).

You can download DRAFT UNESCO Policy Guidelines on Mobile Learning v2 (13 pages, references and content table included).: http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/E/pdf/UNESCO_Policy_Guidelines_on_Mobile_Learning_DRAFT_v2_1_FINAL__2_.pdf (PDF, 500KB)

My two cents: general comments and policy guideline comments:

General comments (policy comments follow below)

In the section: build new communities of students: with regard to open, online courses, three major online sites are mentioned: Coursera, Udacity and edX, but they are all N-America driven. And resulting from that there is a predominant teaching/learning format connected to those platforms. This does not embrace culturally related, nor digital illiterate or challenged target groups (of any region). If you look at the courses that are provided, the content is also more high-brow: nothing on vocational level, or getting to grips with the crisis etcetera. The courses are clearly aimed at educated people, as such not that relevant for all the UNESCO target groups.  A screening of the background of the students enrolled in these course platforms will be of interest.

The focus on 'student': throughout the report there is a focus on the word 'student' which seems to have the classic profile of a younger person within a schooling system. However, the examples mentioned are much less traditional student profiles, so it feels like a discrepancy. I would move from 'student' to 'learner' as this is a much broader definition and not pinned on school system learners. Educational change does not happen in the school alone, this is a societal change, one that embraces families to enhance their relevant knowledge, collaboratively learning, not just the youngsters in a family.

One pedagogy for all: when going through the guidelines, I had the feeling that apart from the
In my view their should be a flexibility or a guideline linking traditional learning/teaching with contemporary regional teaching/learning. Each region has a long-lasting culture of learning/teaching, some more collaboratively oriented, some more one-on-one mentor type (Indian guru), some more oral (les griots), other textual (monk teachings), some learning from elders (indigenous people), some learning via discussions (old theological schools)... it would be of interest to give those other pedagogies a place within the new learning formats. Culture is rooted deeply in all of us, learning-to-learn is affected by these cultures and backgrounds and as such new learning should be flexible to different pedagogical formats.When looking at local mLearning projects, many of them worked because they fitted the locally reigning pedagogy or hierarchy of learning.

Policy comments

Link mLearning policies with the predominant, as well as the traditional pedagogies or learning methods used in your own region.

In the section gender equality

It is not enough to 'get women and girls involved', the content of courses, and the dynamics of mLearning courses should be addressing gender preferenced content. Adding active female characters in the examples, ensuring women visibility both in text and visuals. Similar addressing local gender issues and representing them to enable learners to connect with the material on a cultural level as well.

Cultural identity
The risk of providing content for the masses, is that identities get lost and that only the societal, predominant identity is represented in both the texts, as in the visual material of the course content. This has a profound effect on learning, as identification is connected to motivation and learning.
So similar to the above gender remark, content should be diversified or - when targeting a specific region - specified to enable identification and empowerment.

Educate people (community leaders) in mobile literacy
Train community leaders in mobile literacy: linking to an above comment: all members of a community benefit with understanding the importance of getting educated, getting digitally literate to enhance personal and family empowerment. Training the trainers is one part, but getting everyone empowered is something else. Every age has wisdom, it is the sets of all these wisdoms that make a community, as such the wisdom of all should be enabled sharing via mobiles, and as such all of the community should be reached.

Listening to the learners as drivers for policy
Embedding participation from targeted learners into the policy development to decrease the digital divide between the policy makers and the targeted audiences. 

Using transparency to get citizens alert and active, or how Christian Kreutz influenced my thinking

It has been a very hectic period over the last couple of weeks. A tight workshop, planning a facilitator training, a short course with a lot of online activity, budget hassles, my master starting up … and this kept me from writing posts on a regular basis. I was also in an existential dip on blogposting.

Lucky for me I had one fresh and inspiring encounter at the middle of these chaotic weeks: meeting Christian Kreutz. His blog has been an inspiration for the last couple of years and all of a sudden I had the chance to meet him in Brussels.

Engaging citizens by analyzing (internet) data – civil society
We had an informal meeting, but a lot of what I learned from him made sense and sharpened my overall thinking on the use of websites and the internet to get civil society moving.

So what did Christian say that I found so enlightening? He simply said that we have all this data at our fingertips (google statistics, geo information, …), and all of these available data could be used for the better of society and its citizens.
In the past he has been writing about it. He wrote on metrics for social networks and what really happens, focusing on knowledge sharing and learning, he wrote about 6 innovative mashups for transparency, in which you could see the impact certain decisions have on the social fabric of regions (I was especially struck by the Healthcarethatworks – website that shows the New York City wide status for hospitals and its disproportionate impact that recent hospital closures have on low-income communities.) and his most recent post was on maptivism as a new approach of activism (based on the estimate that as much as 80% of data contains geo-referenced information. So, a lot of information can be displayed through maps. Digital maps allow easy ways to present large amounts of data and reduce complexity.)

The internet started out as a Utopia for me. It would benefit people around the world and make the globe a better place. With the increased absorption of internet initiatives into corporate environments, some of that euphoric belief in the WWW disappeared. But after reading the possibilities posted by Christian and after our talk in which he put forward the extra’s a transparent use of existing data (both on regional, national and international level) could bring… I am again a radiant believer. He gave a wonderful and simple example to get people interested in their own social environment. What if we take the data from a specific part of a city and open this data up to the citizens, e.g. people could see where trash bins are located, light poles are implemented, benches are placed... if city council than wants to change the outlines of that specific areas, or do something to create a better living space for all its citizens in that location, it could show the citizens what is already there, and ask them how they think their living area could be improved. I agree that a lot of debate could come from this, but coming to a consensus as a group can also adds to the social fabric of a region. All this data is already available, but in many occasions very little is done with it.

Christian Kreutz blogs qualitatively, which makes his blog a gem, check it out. He is thinking about going fully into consulting, so if you feel the need for a very professional, citizen-oriented web-analysis-expert, send him a note.

If you know of any data being used to make society more transparent, let me know, I would love to get more ideas.

Why mobile learning is on the rise and benefits diverse populations

In January 2009 Carly Shuler (a fellow at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center) came out with a fabulous paper on the benefits of mobile learning entitled: pockets of potential - Using Mobile Technologies to Promote Children’s Learning.
Although the document focuses on mobile learning for children, you can easily deduct the benefits for all learner groups. Carly Shuler recently graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education with an Ed.M. in Technology, Innovation and Education, where she studied how new media and emerging technologies can be used to effectively educate children.

The document is 56 pages so you can read it easily on trolley or bus.
Some of the issues talked about are known to most of us:

1. Encourage “anywhere, anytime” learning Mobile devices allow students to gather, access, and process information outside the classroom. They can encourage learning in a real-world context, and help bridge school, afterschool, and home environments.

2. Reach underserved children Because of their relatively low cost and accessibility in low-income communities, handheld devices can help advance digital equity, reaching and inspiring populations “at the edges” — children from economically disadvantaged communities and those from developing countries.

3. Improve 21st-century social interactions Mobile technologies have the power to promote and foster collaboration and communication, which are deemed essential for 21st-century success.

4. Fit with learning environments Mobile devices can help overcome many of the challenges associated with larger technologies, as they fi t more naturally within various learning environments.

5. Enable a personalized learning experience Not all children are alike; instruction should be adaptable to individual and diverse learners. There are signifi cant opportunities for genuinely supporting differentiated, autonomous, and individualized learning through mobile devices.

But what I found very interesting and useful was the section with the Goals for Mobile Learning. In this section she touches a point on 'Understand mobile learning as a unique element of education reform' which is VERY important in our current educational environment. In many schools mobile devices are banned, and as such young learners do not get the necessary responsibility to enable them to work with this new tool that offers immediate contact to knowledge and content. She dives deeper into this topic in the paragraph 'Engage the public and policymakers in defining the potential of mobile devices for learning'.

If you are into mobile learning or you think about adding mobile learning into your learning environment, this gives a good overview of the issues that are currently being discussed worldwide and the advantages it offers. It also offers great resources.