OTAN News
The Three Es for Your AI Learning Strategy: Equity, Ethics, and Educators
There is much to talk about when it comes to Artificial Intelligence in not just our society, but in Education. With this new technology, there’s a “growing demand for AI literacy” which has increased opportunities for “equitable, evidence-based, innovative solutions in digital skills education, teacher professional development and ... implementation.”
World Education attended the UNESCO Digital Learning Week (DLW) and participated in discussion with “digital learning experts about AI and its impact on learning, teaching, and education systems.” This opportunity along with their AI for Learning and Work Initiative created the idea of “the three Es” “when seeking to develop or use AI for Learning strategies and tools: equity, ethics, and educators.” Shared in this OTAN news item are a summary of central ideas.
Equity
The fear with AI is the widening of the digital divide. So far, the only people with access to AI are those with the correct resources. Other concerns include the methods to train GenAI models. “Bias in training data and protocols can introduce new forms of discrimination.”
"How AI reduces the world to stereotypes" by Victoria Turk
OTAN reported further on AI’s bias in the following news items.
How AI Reduces the World to Stereotypes
Call to Action:
- Advocate for policies that address the digital divide and promote equal access to AI-powered solutions.
- Encourage efforts to investigate the impact of AI and edtech integration on educational equity.
- Establish mechanisms for reporting exclusion, bias or discrimination by AI apps in education .
Ethics
ChatGPT “reached over 100 million monthly active users in January 2023, yet according to a survey done by UNESCO, only one country had released regulations on GenAI as of July 2023.” Technology providers and private interests do not generally follow ethical practices without governance. Equally problematic is when an agency evaluates this technology without really understanding the pedagogy to protect user privacy and safety.
Call to Action:
- Align the use of AI to authentic educational needs and contexts.
- Be transparent about the ways AI is used in your work.
- Give learners “voice and choice” in how they leverage AI.
- Evaluate all digital tools thoroughly and critically before adopting them. (See Workforce EdTech evaluation criteria)
Educators
Educational professionals need “technical skills, knowledge and strategies to use AI tools safely and responsibly.” A resource which could assist is Use Scenarios & Practical Examples of AI Use in Education first introduced by the European Digital Hub’s (EDEH). Each person using AI needs help in learning about it. Many are worried AI will replace the need for educators and other occupations. This quagmire necessitates the reason to empower “educators with the resources to prepare learners for the technical aspects of understanding, using and developing AI.”
Call to Action:
- Engage teachers and students in critical conversations about how AI already impacts them.
- Adopt open educational resources that teach AI.
- Develop training plans to support educators to develop AI literacy.
- Integrate AI literacy as an extension of existing digital literacy and resilience efforts.
Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash