Today’s rough set of notes that focus on teacherbots and artificial intelligence in education

  • Chatbots: One of the technologies that’s mesmerized silicon valley
  • Humans have long promised future lives enhanced by machines
  • Many proponents highlight the qualities of bots vis-a-vis teachers
    • personal
    • personalized
    • monitoring & nudging
    • can give reliable feedback
    • don’t get tired
    • etc etc
  • Knewton: Algos to complement and support teacher (sidenote: as if anyone will be forthright about aiming to replace teachers… except perhaps this book that playfully states that “coaches (once called teachers)” will cooperate with AI)
  • Genetics with Jean: bots with affect-sensing functionality, ie software that detects students’ affective states and responds accordingly
  • Driveleress Ed-Tech: Robots aren’t going to march in for jobs; it’s the corporations and the systems that support them that enable that to happen.