AI Revolution in Education: Insights from BETT 2024
At the BETT education tech show this year, one theme was unmistakable: Artificial intelligence (AI) dominated the landscape. We found that everywhere we looked, there was a reference to AI. It's clear that AI is the 'it' thing of the show, echoing its pervasive presence in technology.
But its role in education is particularly striking, emphasised by Lord Jim Knight in his presentation "AI in education: From Insights to Impact" alongside Rowena Chung, Product Designer in Education for Goodnotes. Lord Knight said, “The reality is AI is here to stay,” and labelling it “highly naive” to think otherwise.
Lord Knight went on to say, “30% of white collar tasks are likely to be replaced by AI. That doesn’t mean that jobs are necessarily going to be replaced by AI, but the things that we do are likely to be replaced. That’s challenging for us in education.”
He urged a rethinking of education's purpose: “We have to think differently about what the purpose of education is; in a machine-enabled world, we’ve got to train our kids to be better collaborators with machines, better collaborators with each other, their competitive advantage will be as humans, not as people who can recall knowledge. We’ve got to be more ambitious, I think.”
The conference showcased a plethora of suppliers demonstrating how their AI adapted tools could assist teachers. But the question arises: How does this impact the teachers at the chalkface?
A recent poll by Teacher Tapp shows 42% of teachers have AI tools like ChatGPT to help with school work.
Echoing this poll, the use of AI in reducing teacher workload and enhancing wellbeing was another significant theme at the conference. In his presentation ‘Leading Innovation and AI from the Classroom to the Central Trust Team,’ Sir Mark Grundy spoke about his trust's endeavour to use AI to “kill the work pressure applied to staff.”
He shared their success in drastically reducing the time to mark end-of-year assessments in KS3 - from over an hour to a mere three minutes and forty seconds, using generative AI and gap analysis software, with a review revealing zero errors in two hundred papers.
Other presentations delved into the future of AI in assessment and education, such as “How will generative AI shape the future of assessment in Further and Higher Education?” and “From potential to practice: how generative AI is improving education for students and educators.”
The takeaway from this year's BETT show is clear: AI is not just a fleeting trend in education; it's a force that is here to stay. However, for schools to effectively harness the power of AI, they must prioritise the needs and wellbeing of their staff and students in all decisions.
As AI continues to evolve, it's crucial that its integration into education is handled thoughtfully and humanely, ensuring that it serves as a tool to enhance, not replace, the invaluable human elements of teaching and learning.
