Some of the research methods and findings from 2009 – 2018 have impacted our field of education. Therefore, I have selected two important findings from the period that I see continuous improvements in the future.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) was first coined in 1956 when John McCarthy had his first academic conference (Holmes, 2019). However, whether machines can think began before in Vannevar Bush’s seminal work and later Alan Turing’s insights into what became known as “artificial intelligence,” where machines can simulate human beings and do intelligent things. Such as playing chess. Drawing on Edward Thorndike’s law, he argued that immediate feedback was essential for tests to support learning. Immediate feedback was not possible with handwritten corrections.  However, the machine approach could ensure that learning opportunities happened immediately, and feedback was received promptly.

In 2015, Microsoft Bill Gates, joined by prominent tech gurus and scientists, revealed their thoughts on the dangers and consequences of AI on human civilization. Some debated whether AI would achieve unprecedented human achievement. Gates and others believed that in a brief period, intelligent machines would benefit. They expected a future with more advanced super-intelligent machines could be a threat to human existence and security and surveillance. 

The advances have happened over the years, and artificial intelligence has made our lives easier while AI allows the software to perform human capabilities such as thinking, reasoning, planning, communication, and perception effectively while being at the lowest cost. AI helps educators identify learning disabilities, Automated online proctoring, intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), and the health care industry used as personal assistance.

According to IBM, AI will assist, collaborate, coach, and mediate by early 2030.

Cloud computing: is defined as a pool of virtualized computing resources that allows users to gain access to applications and data from any place and at any time. The concept launched in the mid-1990s, cloud computing mainstreamed in 2010 with the google cloud platform, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web services. The concept of resource sharing with business in mind catered increasingly to developers. Although in 2010 cloud emerged, 2020 is named “the decade of cloud” with the rapid rise of COVID-19 pandemic people worked from homes, and presently 80% of companies want to start making work from home a part-time fixture. With the COVID-19 pandemic, cloud computing provided an excellent platform to service educational institutes.

With the rate of technology changes, there will be great pressure on organizations’ budgets for continuous software and hardware upgrades. Cloud computing is a cost-effective solution. Cloud offers educational institute opportunities to concentrate more on teaching and research than Information Technology (IT) configurations and software system management, including multimedia-based e-learning materials. To improve efficiency, cost, and convenience, educational institutes are interested in establishing connections to cloud systems because Cloud computing will lower the cost to the organization that will be scalable, flexible, and with automatic updates

The significant risk could be the target cyber-security threats affecting cloud service

With cloud computing, educational organizations can have virtual classrooms. Students can group activities, extensive cost-saving as learning resources be available in the cloud with secure data storage and minimal hardware requirements. Some challengers are data security and privacy due to vendor lock-in organizations adopting cloud technology services from multiple providers.

References

Abdullah, E. K., & Al-Khlaifawi, S. A. A. (2021). Cloud computing in education: a COVID-19 Perspective (No. 6779). EasyChair.

Borenstein, J., & Howard, A. (2021). Emerging challenges in AI and the need for AI ethics education. AI and Ethics, 1(1), 61-65. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43681-020-00002-7

Chandra, D. G., & Malaya, D. B. (2012, March). Role of cloud computing in education. In 2012 international conference on computing, electronics and electrical technologies (ICCEET) (pp. 832-836). IEEE.

Dignum, V. (2021). The role and challenges of education for responsible AI. London Review of Education, 19(1), 1-11. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10121456/

Holmes, W., Bialik, M., & Fadel, C. (2019). Artificial intelligence in education. Boston: Center for Curriculum Redesign, 2019, 1-35.

Raji, I. D., Scheuerman, M. K., & Amironesei, R. (2021, March). You can’t sit with us: Exclusionary pedagogy in ai ethics education. In Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (pp. 515-525). https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3442188.3445914

Sultan, N. (2010). Cloud computing for education: A new dawn?. International Journal of Information Management, 30(2), 109-116. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0268401209001170

Yfantis, V., (2021) What is cloud technology and what are its benefits. https://www.parallels.com/blogs/ras/what-is-cloud-technology/