Immersive Intelligence and Education: Challenges & Opportunities

Advances in AI have been accelerating in the past few years especially deep learning models that have gone viral during 2022 where millions have been experimenting with Ai systems such as Dalle-2, Midjourney and ChatGPT. This resulted in a heated discussion around whether to embrace such technology and transform education or ban such models for cheating potential. As these applications have major implications on education, the goal of this panel is to address educators’ concerns and possible ways to leverage AI in education and revolutionize the way we teach and learn. This panel hosts academic and industry leaders in machine learning and education to address concerns and potential opportunities of using Ai in education. Panelists will discuss how these technologies work, and address educators and instructional designers' concerns and provide guidelines for the use of generative AI in education.

About the Panelists: 

Chris Dede, session moderator/panelist:

Chris Dede is a Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and was for 22 years its Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies. His fields of scholarship include emerging technologies, policy, and leadership. From 2001-2004, he was Chair of the HGSE department of Teaching and Learning. In 2007, he was honored by Harvard University as an outstanding teacher, and in 2011 he was named a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. In 2020 Chris co-founded the Silver Lining for Learning initiative (https://silverliningforlearning.org). He is currently a Member of the OECD 2030 Scientific Committee and an Advisor to the Alliance for the Future of Digital Learning, sponsored by the Mohammed bin Rashid Global Initiative (MBRGI). Also, Chris is a Co-Principal Investigator and Associate Director for Research of the NSF-funded National Artificial Intelligence Institute in Adult Learning and Online Education. His most recent co-edited books include: Teacher Learning in the Digital Age: Online Professional Development in STEM Education; Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Realities in Education; Learning engineering for online education: Theoretical contexts and design-based examples; and The 60-Year Curriculum: New Models for Lifelong Learning in the Digital Economy.

Lidija Kralj, session panelist:

Lidija Kralj is an international analyst and expert in data and AI in education, she is a member European Commission’s working groups on Artificial intelligence and data in education and training, digital education and safer internet; UNESCO and Council of Europe workgroups on AI and education, and author of digital learning resources and textbooks, as well as an advisor and teacher trainer. She had been working at the Ministry of Science and Education in Croatia, where she led reforms in the area of digital education, learning analytics, data-based decisions in education and comprehensive curricula reform. Lidija is eLearning and project manager, and a lecturer in Mathematics and Computer Science with 30 years of experience, currently works as a senior analyst at European Schoolnet.

Keram Malicki-Sanchez, session panelist

Keram founded Constant Change Media Group Inc., the VRTO Spatial Media World Conference & FIVARS festival. He contributed to the Handbook of the Global Impact of Immersive Technologies and the 2022 PEW Research Report on the Metaverse. In addition to his industry contributions, Keram teaches Blender for WebXR design at UCLA Extension, where he designed the first workshop around generative AI art. He won Creator of the Year at the 2022 Poly Awards.

Sandra Okita, session panelist: 

Dr. Sandra Okita is the Director of the Gizmo EdTech Lab at Columbia Teachers College, New York. Dr. Okita's current research interest is focused on the learning partnership between individuals and technology, and how technology intersects with learning and instructional processes. One characteristic of Dr. Okita's work is the use of technological boundary objects as a threshold to learning, instruction, and assessment. Here, Dr. Okita defines boundary objects as computational artifacts where animate and inanimate features overlap between fantasy and reality (i.e. robots, agents in virtual reality environments, mixed-reality). Dr. Okita's interest in boundary objects is due to their strong social component that enables students to build a peer-like relation with technology that reveal new insights to the role of social relationships in learning.

Other interests include designing technology assisted learning/intervention in formal/informal settings, and children's interpretation and conceptual development in relation to technological boundary objects. Theoretical research interest areas include self-other monitoring, learning by teaching, learning by observation and its influence on behavior in the domain of biology, math, and agency.