Month: December 2024

This is the link to my presentation on my summary of learnings this past Fall 2024 semester. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIcnvl93i4Q

Thank you to everyone, including to Dr. Katia Hildebrandt, for making this learning journey in EC&I 833 an enjoyable one! Good luck to all of us as we continue our graduate studies and enjoy your December/Christmas break!

Artificial Intelligence, also known as AI, has been a buzzword for the past decade or so in our society. All this talk and news of how AI is changing our world, how is it used in today’s society, its effects on education, are all essential in linking AI and our society. But to define AI first, according to Heaven (2024), “AI is a catchall term for a set of technologies that make computers do things that are thought to require intelligence when done by people. Think of recognizing faces, understanding speech, driving cars, writing sentences, answering questions, creating pictures. But even that definition contains multitudes.” Another definition by Stryker and Kavlakoglu (2024) explains that “AI is technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem solving, decision making, creativity and autonomy.” In the field of education, AI refers to the use of computer systems that can perform tasks typically requiring human intelligence to enhance learning experiences, streamline administrative processes, and support educators.

From the definitions of AI in the preceding paragraph, it can be deduced that AI can be defined in a variety of manners and utilized in many ways. It is actually being used nowadays, though, depending on the part of the world and culture, it may or may not be used widely. This can be true for how AI is presently used in education. In my personal experience, I am not using generative AI at work, because where I work now, our company has its own set of propriety software. And as a former teacher (2010-2023), I avoided using AI to check my students’ work because I concentrated more on how they wrote essays and how I understood their essays, and some of my exams were objective (multiple choice) — I previously handled university students (usually freshmen). I am a PhD student now, and I do not use AI at all because I just follow the APA format when doing research and citing the work of others.

AI obviously has its advantages and disadvantages in society. Timbo (2023) mentioned its pros and cons. Its advantages include 1.) AI reduces human errors, 2.) provides 24/7 support, and 3.) automate repetitive tasks. Its disadvantages include 1.) AI does not understand the human experience, 2.) may lead to higher unemployment rates, and 3.) costly to create. It is true that for corporations, especially large corporations, AI can be able to streamline business operations, thus maximizing profit while minimizing costs. However, more people may be unemployed in the future because of AI and robotics, which is obviously a disadvantage to the employees affected. In education, AI programs and software can be used by students for cheating — not writing their own essays but by making certain software do it for them.

It is up to us, as human beings, to use AI responsibly. As employees, employers, teachers, and as students, we should use AI as a tool properly. Even though we are experiencing the rise of it and its inevitability to be included and utilized more and more in our daily lives, we should not let AI ruin our lives, rather, we must use it positively for us to have more convenient lives. By using AI in the proper manner, the world will be more productive, without having to affect human lives negatively.

The presentation by both of my classmates last week was very interesting and comprehensive, where I learned a lot about coding. Personally, I believe that coding is very powerful and useful in today’s society — it can give students the logical thinking and problem solving skills, as well as make them improve their creativity. According to Nduta (2023), coding can be defined as writing instructions for computers and other hardware. The computer is then able to read the instructions (also called programs) and do what one has asked it to do. This can be complicated because computer language is different from human language — a human needs to learn computer language (programming languages) to write programs that the computer can understand.

Presently, coding is used by large corporations like Netflix, Google, Amazon, and others in their businesses. However, even smaller businesses and organizations use code to build their websites and applications in order to improve their business growth, eventually. Thus, coding is significant in the business world as it affects our daily lives and how we go about our business.

Directly, one may think that not all students may benefit from learning how to code, since not everyone will want to pursue a career in computer science. However, indirectly, especially elementary and high school students, they may learn to think more critically and logically when they are taught coding in school. Coding boosts problem-solving skills, improves computational thinking, and helps teach digital literacy. The younger students can benefit in learning how to code because technology surrounds us; it facilitates communication, supports practically all our work, and supports nearly every business/industry in the global economy. Thus, as the younger children need to know technology, they need to be digitally literate.

In my case, I have not yet engaged in coding in my previous classes. I know it is essential in this modern technology-driven world, however, I did not exactly know before how to integrate it in my classes. Perhaps it is because I used to teach college students from different majors, and the subjects I used to teach were in the social sciences; subjects that are more theoretical in nature. Perhaps I think that teaching coding should be done separately (specific subject like Computer learning or Introduction to Computers) rather than to integrate it in social science subjects. It also holds me back because I am not a very technical person in terms of advanced computer skills like coding. Therefore, I believe that it would be very beneficial to both the educators and students if someone with a technical background should teach coding. Not everyone has to be a computer science major to teach coding; for example, a mathematics or statistics major, or an engineering major can teach coding with the proper computer programming background. Like the speaker in the Tedx Talk video below, Matthew Reynolds — he taught mathematics in various boarding schools in different countries, yet discusses the importance of coding and why students should learn to code. Someone with a technical background will appreciate more with regards to teaching coding, and the students will also learn more for their advantage in the future.