And why not? World economics works that way. The more resources and technological advancement a country has, the more influential and rich it becomes.

Today, it is about AI. Artificial intelligence, in its various forms, has promised an overall cost-benefit despite the high initial investment. It is why only wealthy countries can afford to bring AI into their systems, which can potentially widen the gap between richer and poorer countries.

For instance, AI adoption in automobiles is a big bet. It won’t be long before we see the widespread commercialization of self-driving or flying cars.

Artificial Intelligence in Education

The Ed-Tech industry has agreed with artificial intelligence amiably. The use of artificial intelligence to make learning more accessible, engaging, and advanced is our personal favorite.

Students are already comfortable with technology, and they are more curious to make friends with anything more advanced that might come up.

The Ed-Tech space is so vast that it can encapsulate almost every aspect of education, including curriculum development, lesson delivery, and assessments. The VR sets, merge cubes, augmented reality mobile apps, etc., all give amazing augmented reality and learning experiences.

A merge cube showing parts of the human body through the Mr. Body app. Source.

Students can learn about the universe and solar system using a virtual reality set.

China, Technology, and AI

It is no news that countries have used various methods to come up as the top power in the world. Earlier it was only muscle power with higher investments in manpower, arms, and ammunition. Now, technology is the new power weapon in this new era of computers and robots. So, countries have been leveraging this soft power to make themselves global power leaders, making other countries reliant on them.

Harvard Professor of Economics, David Yang, recently enlightened us about the US ranking of the top companies with the most accurate technology in facial recognition. Out of nearly 50 companies, the top five were Chinese companies.

                     The graph demonstrates the percentage distribution of Facial Recognition Technologies in China.

China has been making tremendous and aggressive investments in digital technology, focusing on creating outstanding AI infrastructure to compete with other more significant economies like the US.

China is already ahead in many areas, which is a no-brainer. The most used app in the world is TikTok, and the Chinese are the majority of smartphone users worldwide. 

China-based TikTok has been the most used application in the United States.

A renowned think tank, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, discovered that China leads in 37 out of 44 technologies, including hypersonics and electric batteries, and also leads the US in AIgorithms, machine learning, and many more.

China and Ed-Tech Lead

Like any other sector, China also wants to lead in implementing education technology. They want to upskill their citizens with the latest and best knowledge to take a global lead in economic development.

Many recent developments point toward this thought. China’s Zhejiang has already introduced artificial intelligence into school curriculums and made it a compulsory subject. It is also learned that the city plans to create nearly a thousand AI experimental schools by 2025.

The Chinese have also been experimenting with various tech-based products in classrooms, like the brain wave tracker, which tracks distractions. In 2019, a primary school experimented with the product and faced backlash as the headband was used to track the engagement levels of students. The report was directly used to go on the computers of teachers.

The Chinese have also been experimenting with students’ engagement levels and their behaviors, like checking phones or yawning in classrooms. This has been done with parents’ consent to research the use of AI in education. 

        A still from the video that shows AI experimentation in Chinese classrooms. 

With these research exercises, China’s way to leading into the Ed-Tech space with the advanced use of AI is clear.

Indulging in Artificial Intelligence to Improve Education

China seems ahead and determined to improve its educational space by leveraging AI, big data, and cloud computing. We have been reading about how China has set up vocational training schools that use AI to capture students’ behavior and teachers’ teaching styles. This information is later used to improve the teaching styles of educators.

The integration of AI has occurred progressively in different countries, with China leading the way, followed by India and Singapore. Information Source: IBM 

An article published last year talks about how China uses AI to reduce the educational gap within the country. It also mentions that over half the Chinese labor force needs a high school degree. 

You may also like to read: Influencing the Future of Education with AR/VR

The country has boosted many AI-based technology startups to aid the education sector. The country’s major focus on building AI infrastructure, as disclosed by the Chinese State Council, is to become the world’s top AI innovation center by 2030.

Why China may lead in AI Implementation in Education

The Chinese government is authoritarian and may not think twice before using AI technology that might compromise the privacy of the citizens. So, it has been open to widely experimenting with AI products like AI-based cameras that capture student behavior in classrooms and help teachers and parents to improve student grades. 

According to The Guardian, 48.49% of the world’s high-impact research papers were published in China in the past five years. Source.

The government has supported the firms bringing AI-based products that can disrupt education or promote them with financial incentives, infrastructure, research grants, resources, etc. China may lead in AI implementation in education because:

1. China is a competitive economy and has made an aggressive moves in almost all sectors to assert its world dominance. China holds the manufacturing units of many high-worth companies. It has pushed its country’s sportspersons to train from a very young age and bring as many Olympic medals for the country as possible. AI would be no exception as well. The country has been leading in publishing AI-based research papers.
2. The Chinese education system is organized at the centralized nature of policy-making. It is unlike free democracies, where privacy concerns and citizen discretion are given prime importance and can be questioned. Therefore, it is also about the country’s overall development rather than success in merely one sector.

All that Glitters is not Gold

Just because China has been vastly open to accepting AI implementation and experimentation in its country does not guarantee that it is leading the world. The country still faces a shortage of qualified teachers and established AI labs.

The pace of including AI in education is more straightforward in China because the country already collects a large pot of citizen data. One of the concerns shared by David Yang, Associate Professor of Economics at Harvard, is that this AI technology that might develop in China to understand people’s behavior may be exported heavily and used by other countries to accelerate their autocratic rule.

‘AI is fundamentally a technology for prediction”, he says.

Therefore, autocratic countries would always be the first ones to grab hold of these technologies that allow them to have maximum control over their citizens.

Recently, many leaders have echoed concerns about the potential unethical use of AI without proper regulations. We hope that responsible governments make conscious efforts to leverage technology, but not at the expense of citizens’ privacy or safety.

The post How China is Trying to Outpace the World in AI appeared first on Test.Evelyn.

This is how Brad Waid is encouraging everyone to utilize digital technology to its best advantage. 

In recent years, virtual and augmented reality have gained popularity in education. Students have shown interest in learning because of AR/VR. 

A report conducted by ResearchGate and drafted by E. Demirtas, “Reality Technologies and Use in Education” mentioned some exciting facts about virtual reality. 

According to this report, the market for VR reached $5.5 billion in the year 2019. However, it is expected that, by the end of 2026, the VR market will reach approximately $18.6 billion.

Students and teachers are inclining more towards online learning than traditional ones, as tech-based learning provides students with an opportunity to understand difficult concepts in a fun and interactive way. 

Since the pandemic, there has been an immense increase in the usage of technology in education. This fact has been highlighted by another research report published by Research Gate in the year 2022.

The report features a graph representing the AR/VR users in the United States. There were nearly 60 million users of AR and 35 million users of VR in the year 2018. But, during and after the pandemic hit the entire world, there was a drastic increase in the number of AR/VR users. By the end of the year 2022, AR users had crossed the mark of 95 million, while virtual reality users were more than 60 million. 

Graph Representation of AR/VR Users in the United States 2018-2022

We had the pleasure of speaking with Brad Waid in our series “Ed-Insights by Evelyn.” He discussed the changes in student learning that have occurred in recent years due to the inclusion of technology in education. 

Brad is an award-winning emerging technology leader, international keynote speaker, educator, and author. He is a visionary who specializes in AR/VR/XR, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.

Brad is recognized as one of the top 20 global futurists and keynote speakers by TAFFD. Furthermore, he is also recognized as the #14 influencer in augmented reality (AR) by Onalytica worldwide.

Brad Waid appeared on our 4th episode of Ed-Insights By Evelyn. Watch the Full Interview here.

The blend of technology and education has increased in recent years. Can you give us some examples of the fundamental changes in student learning due to the inclusion of AR/VR in education?

I’ve seen two radical changes in student learning. One of the changes came around 2011-12 when the iPad was introduced. The introduction of the iPad threw a wrinkle in education. We got access to tools, which have now completely changed what we are doing. The second and most important change is the expectation that students will use technology in education. They are using online learning platforms such as phones, tablets, and laptops as part of their online learning sessions. Nowadays, students don’t know a world without devices. They don’t know a world without technology. 

The inclusion of AR and VR in education has made students more engaged in their learning. Traditionally, teachers used to lecture to share all the information about a particular topic. Eventually, students had to memorize that information and respond.

You may like to read about: Influencing the Future of Education with AR/VR

Now, we have a lot more integration of technology in education. The method of teaching has also changed. Teachers share an idea and then students have to research and investigate it. The change that we are seeing is a jump from simple memorization to an active approach to research and coming up with unique ideas.

Do you think it is a concern that we might replace actual books sometime in the future?

I don’t believe that AR/VR is going to replace all books because nothing can replace a classic book. But at the same time, what an ordinary book is used for might change. Reading something motivational, informative, fiction, etc., would still be done with a traditional book.

What augmented reality in education can do is add a digital representation. Imagine you’re reading about a museum in a textbook. Now, with the help of AR, instead of just reading about that museum, you can look at the artifacts in the museum, check its size for scale, and also read a little history about it. augmented reality is not going to replace a book, but it can enhance the classic books we use in education. 

What is your idea about what lies beyond 2022? Are we looking forward to some exciting newer trends or better technology in 2023? 

AR/VR is starting to take a foothold and it’s being used all over the world. The two big things that are coming shortly are artificial intelligence and metaverse. Both AI and metaverse will come under a blanket of Industry 4.0. 

Industry 4.0 will defeat the traditional way of learning and teaching. This change would inculcate curiosity among students by shifting the responsibility of learning from teachers to them. 

Inclusion of Technology in Education is Inevitable and the Key to Moving Forward

AI and metaverse are starting to cause some more wrinkles in modern education, but I’m always going to look at their benefits. Students would use AI as a tutorial that will help and assist them. Moreover, metaverse is going to have an impact on students’ learning. However, it’s not going to give them an environment where they can explore. Still, it’s also going to be a new place for students where they can meet people from all over the world. 

AI and metaverse are the two big things that we will see in the future. They are already here but will be further developed for better use in education.

Would you like to give a message to our audience?

I want to encourage everyone to use technology in a way that will benefit humanity. Automobiles, airplanes, computers, etc. are built for the welfare of humankind. Teachers should be open to new technology and try to understand it more with the help of their students. 

Students can play a big role in helping us understand emerging technology and also assist us in moving forward. They are the ones who took us into this new world. We are living in a great time where modern technologies like AR/VR can help all humankind.

The post Emerging Technology is an Intersection of Humanity and Technology: Brad Waid on AR/VR appeared first on Test.Evelyn.