{"id":353,"date":"2024-04-15T10:47:36","date_gmt":"2024-04-15T17:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0275\/?p=353"},"modified":"2024-04-15T10:47:36","modified_gmt":"2024-04-15T17:47:36","slug":"introducing-ai-tutors-or-chatbots-to-an-online-asynchronous-course-team-3-blog-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0275\/introducing-ai-tutors-or-chatbots-to-an-online-asynchronous-course-team-3-blog-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing AI Tutors or Chatbots to an Online Asynchronous Course \u2013 Team 3 Blog Post"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Image attributed to: Articulate content library<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Team 3 will be applying what we have learned so far during our MALAT courses<\/a> with a Critical Inquiry perspective as we\u2019ve been learning in the first two weeks of the LRNT526<\/a> course. For our project, we will explore the topic of AI-enabled Tutor and Chatbot technology. Early last week we found an article published in the New York Times entitled Will chatbots teach your children? <\/em>(Singer, 2024)<\/a>. We are already aware of competing EdTech companies in this space, including IBM Watson and NoodleFactory, and are interested to learn more about their claims, which are rooted in sound pedagogy, and which hold less promise. Overall we feel this subject holds promise as a complex, timely, and polarizing topic for critical analysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will be applying our critical inquiry of AI tutors and chatbots to a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) from Saylor Academy<\/a> entitled Time and Stress Management<\/em><\/a>. Since the four of us work in a variety of contexts (two in corporate learning, one in higher education, and one at an international school), we chose a general interest course which we could apply to each of our varying work environments. We had previously considered a course on Khan Academy, reading in Singer\u2019s article (2024)<\/a> that this platform was starting to pilot an AI-enabled tutor bot called Khanmigo in some of its courses (Singer, 2023)<\/a>. Unfortunately this technology is not yet available on all of Khan\u2019s Academy\u2019s courses, and when it is available it is only with a paid subscription. Since the purpose of our course is to examine the \u201c\u2018real-life\u2019 contexts\u201d of AI technology and its \u201csocial, cultural and political\u201d implications (Selwyn, 2010, p. 67)<\/a> we felt the Saylor Academy\u2019s open (free!) model and clean content would be a good choice. Since there is more course content (12 hours) than we would need for this project (Time and Stress Management<\/em>, 2023)<\/a> we have chosen to examine just the first hour of the course. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although we are early in our research, the readings we have completed have helped us to narrow down our research focus above. We found Selwyn\u2019s article (2010<\/a>) to be especially helpful developing a critical mindset which will help us to examine whether technology always has a net-positive impact on learning (p. 68 – 69), consider the \u201cmessy realities\u201d of learning in technology-enabled spaces (p. 69), considering both the micro- (learner) and macro-level (societal) implications of technologies (p. 70), and looking for areas of opportunity (p. 71) within our chosen AI tutor and chatbot technology. We found Singer\u2019s two New York Times articles (2023<\/a>, 2024<\/a>) helpful in providing us context to what the larger society might be thinking about these technologies. Finally, Bayne\u2019s article (2015<\/a>) has helped us contextualize this application of technology from the educator\u2019s perspective. We look forward to sharing further insights with the class as we continue to explore this topic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we explore this topic further, here are the questions we\u2019ve already identified we\u2019d like to explore while critically examining the potential application of AI tutor and chatbots to the online asynchronous course we\u2019ve chosen: <\/p>\n\n\n\n