Assessment should be like the conversation which includes engagement and interactions. Whereas, in functionality the assessments are mainly concerned with grades and the numbers rather than the conversation. There are different technological tools that can help to make assessment more interesting and engaging like a conversation.
Here are some ways that will help us to have a conversational assessment approach:
Feedback tools: These are the tools that helps the facilitator to provide the feedback in audio or video form to make the assessment more engaging. It makes the assessment to feel like a dialogue.
Peer review: Different online platforms can be used for peer reviews and it motivates the students to analyze and evaluate each other’s work. This will also help them to have a good conversation with each other and enhance the engagement level of students in the classroom.
Adaptive learning systems: As per this system the difficulty level and nature of the assessment should be adjusted as per the progress of the learner.
E-portfolios: This help the students to gather their work in chronological order and summarize their learning journey and give a broad reflection of their progress and development in the entire journey.
So these are the different ways that we can use to make the assessment process more interactive and engaging.
It is always interesting to talk and discuss about technology. Innovations and improvements are always updated just like a blink of an eye. I believe that technology can be applied in many fields and areas of people’s lives. As an educator, I always believe technology can contribute very well to education. Students should not only learn technology and computer-related knowledge in computer class but technology should be introduced in all aspects of lessons. It is a great insight from Gerstain in defining and combining the concepts of technology and education. He highlighted web 1.0 focuses on one-way information on and users have limited options for receiving and accessing information. It is in line with education 1.0 where students were having no options in terms of their learning activities. They needed to focus on what the teachers had given and told them to do. Some standards needed to be achieved in order to pass and successful in that course or lesson. Gerstain continued to explain about web 2.0 where more interactions and flexible options for the users. It goes quite similar to Education 2.0 where two-way interactions were the focus at that time. Lots of educators believe having communication, understanding, and collaboration between students and teachers will enhance students’ understanding which will lead to the success of the course or the lesson. Web 3.0 is quite unique with Web 2.0 and 1.0 where it is way more flexible and gives a clear line that creativity is limitless. Web 3.0 focuses on the users as the creators to create any kind of art, information, and stories to contribute in social life through internet that can be accessed by all people around the world. This is what Gerstain added that web 3.0 as the education 3.0. All people and students have the same rights to access anything using the internet. The presence of artificial intelligence gives more colors to web 3.0 and Education 3.0.
Gerstain’s metaphor is that education should follow the development of technology and web. The key factor is educating students based on the current and updated information so that students can relate with the current information and improvements. Lot of people and students are only become the “users”, but they do not know how to think critically in every task that they do. With the updated technology students face now, lots of assignments that they make, are with the help of artificial intelligence. I am not saying artificial is wrong, but there are certain tasks and activities that are designed to stimulate students’ critical thinking. If students are doing their assignments using the help of artificial intelligence, their critical thinking skills can not develop well.
The impacts of Web 3.0 in education will bring dilemmas for both educators and students. It is great that many students and teachers can have equal access in looking for information. On the other hand, students will be introduced to the concept of quick fix in doing their assignments. They can easily search the solutions and answers using artificial intelligence. It becomes a new challenge for teachers to really think and create unique assessment activities to check students’ understandings.
As the technology keeps changing, both teachers and students need to adapt with the current and updated situations as fast as they can. Based on my experiences, senior teachers tend to think that their teaching ways are already perfect and should not be changed or updated. It brings negative impacts to these group of teachers because without realizing it, they begin get confused with the improvements. For example, they used to teach using limited technology tools. With so much variety of technology tools nowadays, they might think those technology tools are not good enough to support their teaching activities, but actually they have not tried those technology tools yet. Teachers who do not want to improve will be left behind with the changing of technology day by day. It goes the same as students who do not want to learn new things will be left behind with the updated technology tools.
Raul and Stacey had highlighted the importance of technology especially about the updated Web. Web 1.0, and Web 2.0 In the article of global Social Challenges, I think Raul and Stacey made a clear connection that web 1.0, and 2.0 are just the platforms. The Internet is the one that connects everything. We can see how the internet changes the social life of people. Each person can be connected to the rest of the world. They can access information globally, find friends internationally, and even earn money by doing certain jobs.
When we talk about tools for distance and online education, people will not have a hard time thinking right away about all the technology applications, innovations, and software that are massively everywhere around us. For me, tools for distance and online education bring back memories of the COVID-19 pandemic time where I think that was the momentum for the rise of distance and online education all over the world. After reading online and distance learning article, I think there are always advantages and challenges in every technology and invention from humans. Distance and online education bring positive impacts in general in terms of its access for people in different locations. The idea that people can access education and learn everywhere, anywhere and anytime comes to reality. I do not think distance and online education is for everyone. The quality might not be as good as offline learning. As an objectivism person, I would prioritize myself to teach offline rather than online.
Distance and online education were established several years ago. Due to the limited technology tools and media at that time, television and radio were the common technology tools to be used in sharing information with people. In the article of development history, technology, and innovations will change the perspectives of education day by day. Unlimited information will give better and more options for the users to choose from in accessing information. When we relate to the *10 distance learning tools video, there are many websites, applications, and software that can assist educators as well as learners in their teaching and learning process. Kahoot, Quizzez, and Canva are websites that can be used by both teachers and students. Duolingo and other learning applications also play an important role in giving a variety of materials for learners to learn new things.
As an educator, I personally think that applications like Zoom and Google Meet are very important for the success of online and blended learning. The other things are computers, tablets, smartphones, etc. I have mentioned earlier in my previous blog that the Covid-19 pandemic marked my first online teaching to my students. I still remember how The school principal and other teachers spent months finding suitable ways to teach online. Not all students had laptops or tablets as technology tools to support their online learning. We sent worksheets and assignments to the students’ houses as well. These moments remind me that teaching and learning can be in any situation and condition. The thing that I am concerned about is the quality of the learning and teaching. I think that I could not maximize delivering my teaching virtually other than being present physically.
We have witnessed how technology changes situations, especially in terms of education. the Top Ten Learning Theories video, mentioned many theories that support the idea of tools to make people productive in their daily lives. Theories like constructivism, behaviorism, and other theories bring people to develop productive tools. When I hear productivity tools, I think about simple objects around me to help me with my activities. I directly think about pencils, pens, scissors, etc.
When we talk about technology, the common object that comes up in our minds is the computer. From the History of Computer article, we know that technology has a very long history that improves every time. Before we know productivity tools, technology like computers brings significant contributions to people’s daily lives. People used to type using a type machine which took longer and complex steps to do it. From that point, the presence of Microsoft Word, office, and PowerPoint changed people’s perspectives on working efficiently with this Microsoft software. I witnessed how technology has changed very fast. I still remember when I was in elementary level, There was a Pentium 4 computer in my house. It was thick and very big. This time, all computers, laptops, and televisions are competing to be as thin as possible with high-technology features in it. From this point, we can see people have the mindsets to make people’s lives easier day by day with the use of technology.
Productivity tools bring many pedagogical implications. I always support teachers and my colleagues to use technology in their teaching activities to bring new insights to students. Productivity tools are very helpful for educators in creating lesson plans, teaching and learning activities, as well as simplifying the teachers’ administration tasks. Educators need to maximize the use of gadgets, applications, and software in their daily activities. From the point of view of students, productivity tools enhance their creativity to express their understanding in different and unique ways. I once taught my fifth-grade students about social studies. I gave them an assignment for their final project to make a lesson summary as creative as they could. Some of the students created presentations using the Canva website and they decorated. Some of them created a storytelling in front of the class, and some of their presentations were uploaded in YouTube. We can see that students’ creativity should not be limited. We can see how creative they are.
By integrating coding in the classroom an educator can enhance the creativity, thinking power and learning abilities of the students. Learning coding in the schools help the students to shape their future in a better way.
Value of Coding for Students:
Coding help the students to face different challenges by breaking them into small parts and then solve them as a result it enhance their problem solving skills and make them more creative. With the help of coding students can innovate their own games, apps and animated creatures and can bring their thoughts into reality and get a source through which their imagination can turn into functionality. They become the creator of technology rather then just users. It also help them to prepare for their future careers in different areas such as health, education and finance.
Do all students benefit?
Although coding provides equal access and benefits but all students are not equally engaged with it. Students who belongs to the underprivileged areas are not having the adequate resources as a result they lack behind. As all the learners have different way of learning so, many learners are not able to adapt the learning style of coding activities.
Should only Techies teach coding?
I think that not only techies but educators can also teach coding in the schools. There are many platforms which help the educators to learn coding as well as to teach the same in the classroom side by side. It is a technique which facilitates the problem solving skills so the technical mastery is not the necessity. There are different resources available for the educators such as tutorials, coding camps which help the educators to boost their confidence of teaching coding.
As an early childhood educator AI is playing a vital role in my day to day life as it helps to increase my efficiency, creativity in my personal life as well as in my professional life. Here i am sharing my perspective on the use of AI and its future potential.
AI helps me a lot to plan my day as an early childhood educator. I can get a variety of ideas to plan the different engaging activities for my kids. Different activities can be planned for different age groups by using AI tools. AI also helps me to create age appropriate content and stories for my kids where I can customized the characters and content of the stories as per my requirement. AI tools also saves a lot of time by helping in drafting mails, newsletter and different documents required in our daily routine of work. AI also acts as a mentor for me as it helps me to solve different classroom problems by providing the deep information about child psychology and different ways of engaging students in the classroom.
As i talk about my personal life, so in that case also AI is helping me a lot. I love to do paintings and other creative things and for that i get plenty of ideas through AI which helps me to improve my skills. It inspires me to look at the new ways of doing the things and help me a lot in my personal growth. The major drawbacks of using AI is that sometimes the information provided by it is not correct so we have to be careful before using it, it also reduce our thinking and creativity power as we are depending on AI for all the ideas and the issue of data privacy is also there.
I can imagine the future of AI as our collaborative partner who will help us to enhance our capabilities and offer the personalized learning experiences to make the learning process simple and accessible for all individuals.
Artificial Intelligence is defined as; technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem-solving, decision-making, creativity, and autonomy. This week’s presentation was a game-changer as my entire perspective on AI has changed positively. Truthfully, most of the ways AI is used by classmates were completely new to me. I have used ChatGPT for lesson planning, writing letters, and creating meal plans. I have also noticed in my Google searches, that there have been AI-generated suggestions for multiple websites which I have grown to appreciate. Additionally, I use an AI-generated weather system on my phone to keep me abreast of the ever-changing climate. In my home country, the coldest temperature was 29 degrees Celsius, so there was never a need to check the weather until now.
Advantages of using AI in Education
When used in education, AI can be used to enhance the learning experience of students through personalized learning, streamline administrative processes and support teachers.
Personalized Learning
In a class, the teacher-student ratio is usually 1:25 or more. Using AI technologies can personalize students learning by adapting the content and pace to their individual needs. Given the ratio, this enables students diverse learning style, and learning level to be adequately and fairly catered for without the teacher burning out.
Streamline Administrative Processes and Support Teachers
While all task required of teachers are relevant, there are some that are repetitive and can be effectively done using an AI autogenerated response. This will advertently result in additional time for teachers to complete tasks such as personalized feedback, contacting parents, and providing more insight into students’ performance. Additionally, since AI is a data driven approach, it allows for more informed decision-making and tailored support for students.
Disadvantages of using AI in Education
Has AI evolves, its use and benefit is becoming more acceptable in education. Undeniably, AI has the ability to transform education and students’ learning experience, however there are also some disadvantages that become quite alarming if not managed. Few of those disadvantages are; data privacy concerns, being dependent on the technology, access, dehumanizing learning experience, and the most common one, cheating. Cheating is most frequently disadvantage as students tend to use AI to do their assignment, instead of using it merely support them. To combat this, it is imperative that the teacher educate their students on the ethical use of AI instead of prohibiting them from using it. Additionally, the teacher highlight the consequences of using AI in an ethical way.
The video below gives example and non-examples of how AI can be used in an ethical way.
In conclusion, as AI continues to evolve, it possess the ability to enhance learning experiences significantly. I am now excited as to what the future of AI holds, but presently I think AI can be beneficial to all when it used in an effective and ethical way.
Generative AI has become an indispensable part of my life now. Thinking from waking up to sleeping, it fits in our life in such a way that we become so dependent on it. As an Educator at BYJU’s, I have experience of using various AI tools like copilot, chatGPT to craft my insights for our educational website. With these AI tools I have solved various challenges in the education sector like reducing the cost of textbooks which were not affordable by people or making education easily accessible for all which was a barrier in learning for students. I have witnessed the power of technology in providing high quality education and making it accessible for all. AI plays an essential role in fostering inclusive education by promoting personalized learning and providing equal access for underserved communities. AI has helped me alot to identify the sensitive issues like girl education and reinforcing equitable education by considering the societal needs of individuals. Also, AI was successful in providing real time solutions for various challenges which came in our way to promote inclusive education.
AI has become an important part of my personal life. I am using various health related AI tools to monitor my healthy lifestyle and it motivates me to achieve fitness goals. Apart from health, these AI tools have been very supportive in performing my hobbies like exploring new things and photography. I get inspired from the ideas AI provides and these unique ideas help me to engage more in my hobbies.
If I think about the benefits of AI then I would say it organizes our tasks and enhances creativity and efficiency. AI helps me to think critically and solves many problems of mine. However, there are some disadvantages like we are getting over relied on AI for even simple work day by day. Additionally, I am concerned about my personal data whether it is safe or not.
Despite challenges, I believe AI has a bright future and has the potential to transform the different sectors like healthcare, education or entertainment. AI is incredibly responsible in making my journey interesting and full of experiences.
