Classroom AI is here, but is it too futuristic in current education climate?

In her official announcement of the 2019 matric results in Johannesburg earlier in January, education minister Angie Motshekga made reference to an e-learning program that will be used in the new robotics and coding curriculum.

Ms Zora is an artificial intelligence (AI)-based robotics and coding software tool that will serve both as a tutor to pupils and assistant to teachers, according to ITWeb.

It will be used at 200 schools where the new curriculum is being piloted in 2020.

The education department has made no secret of its ambition to fully embrace the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) and the use of new technologies in the classroom.

In North America and Europe, e-learning and AI technologies have been part of everyday learning for some time already.

An application called Bakpax, for example, has been designed not only to save teachers valuable teaching time but also give pupils immediate feedback on tests and projects.

Teachers simply take a photograph of their assignment or upload a PDF to the app.

Bakpax then converts the questions and answers to formatted, interactive text.

Pupils can use the same platform to hand in their assignments.

The AI is able to convert handwriting into easy-to-read text.

Based on what has been prescribed as the correct answers by the teacher, the software grades the assignment itself.

This also provides opportunity for pupils to receive their grades immediately, while making the need for educators to stay up all night marking papers obsolete.

On the face of it, the introduction of AI into learning practices is logical. Any tool or device able to assist both teacher and pupil would surely be welcomed.

But that is not where the problems lie, especially in a country like SA.

At the start of the 2019 school year, a quarter of SA’s 23,796 state schools were without adequate desks and chairs, while studies have shown 78% of the country’s grade 3 children still cannot read for meaning.

Wanting to implement strategies in line with 4IR is all very well and good, but when such challenges remain, there is a sense that SA should walk before it can run.

An Eastern Cape teacher, who is not authorised to speak to the media in terms of education department policy and so cannot be named, welcomed the addition of AI-technologies in schools, but said logistical issues were hampering their implementation.

“However, learning algorithms are a boon for subjects like mathematics as they can assist the [learning] consolidation process outside the classroom, and can help learners who do not have someone at home at home to assist with homework  and studying,” she said.

Dr Reuben Dlamini, a lecturer in educational information and engineering technology at Wits University, told the DispatchLIVE the 4IR was important if the country was to unlock its education system, “especially when there is uneven distribution of computing infrastructure in our schools”.

“This is not to say we should be paying scant attention to 4IR and ICT affordances without understanding our context and aligning our priorities with the realities on the ground.

“The challenge in SA is that most ICT initiatives are not informed by research, thus unsustainable because too often the initiatives follow personal interests and are regulated by vendors [service providers]," he said.

The question of training teachers to roll out and grasp the technology themselves was a challenge, Dlamini acknowledged.

“If the training follows a one-size-fits-all definitely it will be very costly and unsustainable, yet if we develop professional learning communities and 4IR/ICT champions that will be a different conversation.

“In some instances the infrastructure is there but teachers lack technological knowledge and technological pedagogical knowledge to things happen.

“This is not about training one teacher at a time, this must be positioned in the teaching profession as a must-have.”

Digital literacy among our educators was poor, he said.

“That is why  initial teacher education programmes would come to the party to make they graduate educators that are technologically savvy.

“However, 4IR/ ICT on its own do not have magical properties to contribute to teaching and learning.

“A systematic approach to ICT adoption, appropriation and integration must be put in place.”

Dlamini said government should not be the only one carrying the cost.

“Private entities must come to the party too through CSIs and those companies with various licences to operate in different communities must participate.”