The next wave building

Its been attributed to Bill Gates that we overestimate the role that technology can play in the short term but we seriously underestimate its influence in the long term. The quote by Ray Kurzweil is equally prophetic:“If we look at the life cycle of technologies, we see an early period of over-enthusiasm, then a ‘bust’ when disillusionment sets in, followed by the real revolution.”The following article is thought-provoking at best and wildly optimistic at worst. Yet its basic premise will be accurate: the coming wave of artificial intelligencenbsp;will be more profound than any change wrought by technological innovation thus far. The article may be a shameless plug for the writers mate but theres no doubt that artificial intelligencenbsp;will transform industries and professions and education will ultimately be no different. Rather than fear that change, the only option will be to embrace that change - we have to ensure that we shape it before it shapes us. We are just at the start of understanding the possibilitiesnbsp;of differentiated learning, what it might mean for our students in the future and what it will mean for our role as educators. Canvasnbsp;learning managementnbsp;has recently introduced learning mastery pathways with conditional branches depending on marks attained: this is just a nice little start in scratching the surface of what will be possible.Churchill once said that We shape our buildings after which they shape us. Look at how the (online) medium is now the massage; the era of artificial intelligencenbsp;has barely started - facial and object recognition are both here in our online photo libraries. Speech and even gait recognition (for demographic data) are here too. Equal access to education may well be the defining challenge in the world today. Successful schools and systems will be those who can leverage these digital opportunities the most effectively in their vision for the future. That includes not only harnassing AI in the daily operation of a school but also using it to promote learning. Perhaps just as importantly will be teaching students to understand what AI is, how it works, and how educators can use it to better prepare students in a world with ever-increasing human-computer interaction and ever-present ethical challenges.Those incremental changes start now. https://thelearningcounsel.com/article/value-spring-technology-vies-seat-alongside-apple-google-artificial-intelligence-table