Varsha Prasad
Editor, TeacherTribe.world
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the talk of the town today. There is no place, where AI is not talked about or where it is not being experimented with. Like the tagline that was once used by Hutch (currently Vodafone), ‘Wherever you go, our network follows’, today, wherever we go, AI follows.
Advancements in mankind, from the very beginning, have faced resistance in their initial stages. But once we start getting comfortable with these developments, the acceptance is greater. From the time the wheel was invented to the time fire was discovered, the possibility of what humans can achieve has seen no bounds. When machines were developed, jobs were made easy. But there was resistance as people feared that they would lose their jobs. But today, we cannot think of working without machines around us. From the development of basic personal computers to AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality), technology is growing beyond imagination. What was thought of impossible a few decades ago is now a reality.
The discussion on AI currently revolves around what it can do and what it cannot, how useful it is, and how or who it can replace. As with previous inventions, AI is here to stay. Referring to what Sir Ken Robinson said in one of his talks, digital tools are changing the planet. Technology needs to be built into the heart of education. Unlike the last few decades, technology is growing leaps and bounds, and we do not know what advancements will take place in the next 5 years. We, as educators, have the responsibility of educating children of the future, who will be the future citizens of the world. As none of us have a clue on what education and the technology is going to look like few years down the line, it becomes important to steer the children of today to become independent and creative thinkers, despite multiple tools like AI available at their fingertips.
Creativity and technology
In his viral TED Talk, ‘Do schools Kill Creativity’, Sir Ken Robinson speaks of how children are born with creativity and a mind for innovation. This is slowly weakened as they start growing up, due to the fear of going wrong or making mistakes. Connecting this to technology and developments, “tools provide opportunities to expand our minds to make it possible to do things that we were unable to a few years ago” (Sir Ken Robinson – ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity’). Here is where creativity plays a crucial role. There can be thousands of new inventions and advancements, but the human ability to innovate and think creatively to make the newer inventions possible, is what needs to be focussed on. That’s where teachers play an important role.
In schools and places of education, we need to start rethinking the fundamentals on which we educate our children. As already in place in multiple schools across the country, we need to start adopting technology as working tools for research, interaction and collaboration. Taking the example of AI, it can be used as a medium to learn newer things, research new topics and as a medium to enhance our creativity.
The right and wrong
All said, it is also important for teachers and parents to start educating children on how much to depend on AI and AI-driven platforms. Important as it is to keep these a part of the learning process, it is essential to learn to differentiate between dependency on technology as a tool and the use of technology for learning.
What teachers can do
While it is important to adapt AI and AI driven tools in classrooms in one way or the other, teachers can start focusing more on ‘non-technology’ related activities and exercises to bring in a balance. Sessions in class can involve creativity, solution-oriented approaches, out of the box thinking and brain games, giving a chance to the children to start using their grey matter.
Tech-free days can be introduced regularly, where the day will completely revolve around both teachers and students undertaking hands-on activities and classes which will only have conversations and lateral thinking discussions.
These can be a relief for everyone in school from the regular routine, and at the same time serving the purpose of ‘regular breaks from technology’.
Despite everything we do, technology and innovations will continue to evolve beyond bounds. How we work with it and around it is what will finally matter.
Do you have similar or other opinions on how technology can be used wisely in schools? Write to me at varsha@greycaps.com.