Artificial Intelligence is intelligence demonstrated by machines. (Wikipedia, 2020) In some AI textbooks, they define this area as the study of “intelligent agents”: any device that senses its environment and takes action to maximize its chances of success in achieving its goals. The term “Artificial Intelligence” is often used to describe machines or computers that mimic the “cognitive” functions of the human mind, such as “learning” and “problem solving”. (Wikipedia, 2020)

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In the past few years, AI has been used in the education area. The main purpose is to help develop skills and test systems. (Bernard, 2018) As AI educational solutions continue to mature, the hope is that AI can help hill gaps in demand for learning and teaching and allow schools and teachers to do more than ever. (Bernard, 2018) Due to the extensive application of artificial intelligence in the field of education, academia is becoming more and more convenient and personalized. This has changed the way people learn because all educational materials are available through smart devices and computers. (Alyssa, 2019)

From my own learning experience, the AI learning experience that impressed me most was when I was in high school. I used an application named “Homework Help”. It is a K12 online educational application launched by Baidu in January 2014, which supports Android and iOS platforms. It aims at school students using smartphones, takes photos and uploads pictures of homework questions through mobile phone cameras, and automatically uploads and retrieves answers in the “question bank” so that users can quickly get answers and explanations. There is also the function of synchronizing the practice questions of the course and answering questions from other users to earn points for exchanging in kind. Moreover, there is a “classmate circle” that can share the news and make friends with peers. I used it to take pictures and search for answers when I was stuck with some difficult problems in my homework and couldn’t get help from my teacher on time. Most of my questions were answered through it. I’d like to use the SECTIONS model to guide me through the analysis of this application.

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  • Student

There are three issues related to students that need to be considered when choosing media and technology: student demographic, access, and differences in how students learn. (Bates, 2019) As the application mainly targets K12 students. Students can choose their grades to get relevant learning materials and even online courses. However, only the users can access to the internet and mobile phones can use it. Therefore, it is a potential barrier when considering “access”.

  • Ease of use

In the process of use, users can search the answer as long as they take a photo of the question with their mobile phone. There are instructions for new users so that they don’t need to spend a great deal of time learning how to use or making the technology works. Also, the interface is clear and well-organized.

  • Costs

Users are not charged for most of the functions of help unless they want to experience additional online courses.

  • Teaching functions

Homework Help has lots of functions to use. In addition to taking photos to search questions, it also has a calculator, electronic dictionary, related exercises and “error notebook” to help users record mistakes. Also, there is a “classmate circle” that can share the news and make friends with peers.

  • Interaction

Interaction is important because a lot of research shows that students learn best when they are “actively” learning. (Bates, 2019) In Homework Help, students can share new and discuss in “classmate circle”. If they can’t find the answer to their questions, they can ask for help. Their peers or teachers who know the answer can add their comments on it. What’s more, they can clock in by posting their achievement. I think this is a good way to stimulate students’ interest in learning, encourage each other and share their learning experiences.

  • Organizational issues

The overall score of Homework Help is 4.6 which is a high rating. However, some of the issues are also reflected in user comments. The first is the about the result, which mainly includes the description such as the title cannot be found, the title found does not meet the user’s requirements, and the answer is wrong, accounting for up to 36.7%

The second problem is the flashback. About 16.7% of users report that flashback occurs in the use of photo-search questions, which is also a high-frequency problem.

At last, 16.7% of users also reported that there were shooting difficulties and landscape screen adaptation problems during the shooting process.

At the same time, the interdisciplinary problem is also obvious. It refers to the user taking pictures of mathematical problems and retrieving the English questions from the results, which is a kind of existence that stimulates the users’ experience. Users intuitively will feel that the system is “artificial mental retardation”.

Also, there is the problem of plagiarism, which mainly reflects that the convenience of taking photos and searching for questions brings the disadvantages of children to copy directly without thinking, accounting for 6.7%, which also reflects the double-edged nature of technology.

 

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  • Networking

In Homework Help, students can generate learning resources. Students can create resources, post question answers to help other students. Also, users have the opportunity to comment and interact with each other.

 

  • Security and privacy

Users can register with their mobile phone number or connect with other social media accounts to log in. Users are informed of a privacy policy before they sign up, which included what information will the application collect and how will it be stored, used, protected, shared or disclosed. At the same time, considering many minor users, they also provide the corresponding minor protection policy.

 

Artificial Intelligence gets people lots of conveniences. However, most experts agree that AI-assisted teachers- not AI-led classrooms. (Andrea, 2019) Human should always play a leading role in the classroom. Neil Selwyn, writing for the Australian Association for Research in Education, points out that humans can still do much better than computers in teaching from experience; making cognitive connections; making social connections; talking out loud; performing with their bodies; improvising and “make do” (Andrea, 2019) Therefore, instead of a race between humans and computers to see who can teach best, the AI’s role is to empower humans to teach and learn more effectively than ever before.

 

 

 

Reference:

Alyssa Johnson. (2019) 5 Ways AI is Changing the Education Industry. eLearning Industry. Retrieved from: https://elearningindustry.com/ai-is-changing-the-education-industry-5-ways

Andrea Kulkarni. (2019). AI in Education: Where is it Now and What is the Future? Lexalytics. Retrieved from: https://www.lexalytics.com/lexablog/ai-in-education-present-future-ethics

Bates, A.W. (2019). Teaching in a Digital Age – Second Edition. Vancouver, B.C.: Tony Bates Associates Ltd. Retrieved from https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadigitalagev2/

Bernard Marr. (2018). How is AI Used in Education — Real World Examples of Today and a Peek into the Future. Forbes. Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/07/25/how-is-ai-used-in-education-real-world-examples-of-today-and-a-peek-into-the-future/#26deddbd586e

Wikipedia. (2020). Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence