THE PANEL:
• Geoff Stead, chief product officer, MyTutor
• Julie Kapsalis, principal & CEO, North East Surrey College of Technology (Nescot)
• Thomas Davin, director, UNICEF Office of Innovation, UNICEF
• Dr Fiona Aubrey-Smith, founder, PedTech
ON WIDENING ACCESS TO EDUCATION Starting with an international perspective, UNICEF director, Thomas Davin, briefly discussed AI’s role in helping to close the education gap and provide education at scale.
“Globally speaking, systems are failing children.
70% of 10 year olds who are in school cannot explain and fully understand the text that they read. There is a major learning poverty for children who are attending school, not to mention the 250 million children not going to school today. We’re looking at AI and we are very bullish about it as an opportunity for both teachers and students,” he said. Julie Kapsalis, who heads up Nescot, a technology
college supporting over 7,000 learners, and sits on the board of Artificial Intelligence in Education, shared how AI and immersive experiences are enabling inclusive learning. “My passion in all of this is the role that AI and VR
can play in helping to widen participation in education and improve accessibility. I’m also very interested in how it can de-risk situations and take learners into environments that we couldn’t do previously and how that opens their eyes to their potential and the opportunities in the world of work.” Kapsalis continued with some rich and current
examples of how AI and VR is opening up learning at her college. “I think you need to hear about our plumbers. I
have to confess, when as a college we started to invest in immersive classrooms and VR, I never thought our plumbers were going to be the pioneers but I was wrong. It has been so inspiring working with our teaching and learning coaches who saw the potential of using VR and immersive spaces. Teaching someone plumbing is very expensive – the cost of the materials, the cost of the copper. When you’re learning how to bed the pipes and you make a mistake, that costs a lot of money. If you can train that virtually to reach a level of competence and skill before students go into the workshop, that’s a huge cost-saving.”
96
But it’s not just about the cost, added Kapsalis. “We
work with learners who may suffer a lot from anxiety and don’t want to show themselves up in front of their friends, or perhaps struggle with maths. Any good plumber knows maths is a key skill when you’re getting angles right to bend the pipe and what we’re finding is that this method provides a safe, lower-risk environment for our students to learn.” The department is now working together with
industry bodies like the Chartered Institute of Plumbing & Heating Engineers to develop content, so students can take apart a ground source heat pump virtually. “It’s just so much easier, lower risk and cheaper in these AI-enabled settings. But for me, it’s ultimately about widening participation.” Technologist Geoff Space gave some further
examples of how AI is being used to widen participation. Referencing a World Bank report, he discussed how AI tutors are being successfully trialled rurally across countries in West Africa.
ON SUPPORTING TEACHING, LEARNING & ACCESSIBILITY Pedagogically-led technology expert Dr Fiona Aubrey- Smith raised the importance of a pedagogy-first mindset. “We’re all on a bit of a journey, and that’s one of
the most exciting things about AI. We are seeing some threads and trends in schools and they are commonly oriented around giving different stakeholders (children, teaching assistants, teachers and leaders) more of the things that they need to be the professional they want to be. Using generative AI to help with lesson planning, or interventions is not only saving time – that’s creating capacity for teachers and teaching assistants to provide more human time with their learners. That’s ultimately why we all want to be in education, to do that human work with young people.” Aubrey-Smith also discussed how AI can be
used to optimise learning. “Across lots of the schools and learning organisations I work with, one of the interesting things that has come out is the way that
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116
