Being a disruptive technologies the Internet of Things , AI, and 3D printing will impact several aspects of our teaching-learning experiences. It triggers both hope and fear. It will disrupt instructional strategies , administration of schools, monitoring and prediction of students learning status through automation. Technology influences human thinking, information processing , and relations with other humans and the world. Hence , what an disruptive technology like AI will do to students , the digitods is an important question. The exposure to the digital world does not begin in the school alone. It begins at home. The impacts of such an exposure is a mixed bag. There are a good number of benefits but also there are great dangers to health as well as other risks if these technologies are not under the supervision of the care givers. AI-enabled education can have considerable impact on the wellbeing and emotional health of the digitods. Hence, educators and the parents have the challenge to make more intelligent use of AI.
There are cognitive, emotional and behavioural impacts of AI. Cognitive impacts of the use of AI are on attention , perception, memory, problem-solving, language, handling of cognitive load and reasoning. The use of AI does trigger emotions like trust, anxiety, fulfilment, joy , fear and autonomy. AI can impact relational skills leading to social isolation as well as hyper social engagement on the social media. AI enhance cognitive load management as well as information processing among the students. AI cannot replace personalized learning. AI can produce personalized learning experiences but learning still remains the job of the students. But an over reliance on technologies might affect cognitive abilities like attention, perception and critical thinking. There is therefore need of techno-I Q that will enable the digitods to make an intelligent use of AI .
The techno-IQ requires social and emotional intelligence. Emotional and social intelligence enables the social and emotional wellbeing of an individual. It regulates self-awareness, self-esteem, empathy and social competence. AI can stimulate emotions leading to ethical concerns over authenticity, privacy , security and loss of control. AI has emotional benefits that can enhance motivation and confidence of the students. The coming of AI in the learning environment can change habits and attitudes of the students which then will affect their skill of human relations. AI in bad hands can cause serious damages for our society and hence , the challenge is to curb malicious use of AI for academic achievements among students. Hence, accompaniment, monitoring and regulation of AI is required for its optimum use for educational goals.
AI driven feed-back loops, wearable devices , social media networks, mobile applications, influence the motivation and wellbeing of the digitods. While there are several benefits of these AI systems, there are also real dangers of technostress, addiction, loss of autonomy and
burnouts etc. Hence, educators have the challenge to factor in ethical, psychological as well as pedagogical issues in the framing of guide lines and policies for the use of AI in our educational system. Besides, a special attention has to be given for the cultivation of techno-IQ among the students.
Techno-IQ requires us to cultivate an ability of distantiation and take a position that is able to stay above the workings of AI. Distantiantian is a form of stepping back to view things wholistically and critically. Hence, distantiantion in the context of AI in Education puts us in a critical position wherein we can keep a watch on the system and processes of and AI intervene when required and evaluate their outcomes and their impacts . Distantiation, thus, enables us to keep ourself free and save our autonomy and not get carried away by almost magical works of AI. Techno-IQ will enable us to keep AI our servant and not our master. Any technology is a good servant but a bad master. Hence, the challenge is to remain human while AI appears to outsmart us. AI like all technologies has to promote human flourishing. AI being a disruptive technology, requires us to adopt an ethics that will promote AI for human proves as well as social cohesion of humanity. To let the interaction of AI with humans be one that promotes the good of humans and the natural world order , we need to cultivate techno-IQ. Like IQ, EQ and SQ , we need techno-IQ to flourish on the wings of AI and allied technologies.
