Listening to Dr. George Veletsianos’ podcasts answered our questions, and a few things made me pause and listen to what he said a few more times.
The first time was when he discussed certain technologies in education, where his views shifted. He brought up two: pedagogical agents and open education. The former is not a term I was initially aware of, but as he described it, these agents reminded me of the video game characters that pop up when you first start a video game as they give you hints. What made me double-take was that Dr. Veletsianos had said he was more critical of open education than initially.
As a student in the MALAT program, I was surprised to hear something like this; we are an open education university at Royal Roads and discuss Dr. Veletsianos’ work quite a bit. As he answered, he pointed out how he believed that while it is beneficial to cut costs for students, it tends to benefit people in power more. I asked myself: is there a way to have open education help those who need it more than those who already are in powerful positions? Are there people taking advantage of open education for their gain while not crediting others? How can we protect intellectual property in open education?
This brings me to my second pondering; Dr. Veletsianos discussed the topic of AI and the romanticizing of it all. He mentioned how people sometimes have rose-coloured glasses when seeing technology within education; I think I am one of those people. I love looking at technology’s potential to help students learn, and I believe the possibilities can be endless. On the other hand, as Dr. Veletsianos pointed out, technology tends to get domesticated. This means we adapt the technology to us; we don’t adapt to it, using YouTube as an example. Upon reflection, I think Dr. Veletsianos made various interesting points, and that while it is ok to have an open mind and be optimistic about the newest educational technology, we should also attempt to look at how it will be used in reality and the potential it can have (AI or otherwise). This brings me to ask: is AI just another passing trend in educational technology, or is it here to stay? All I l know is this: I will be more careful in thinking about my rose-coloured glasses outlook and continue to research and reflect.