Learning Ecosystems

Student Voices: Technology as a Future Learning Partner — from campustechnology.com by Mary Grush
A Q&A with Eli Blouin and Mark Frydenberg

Key Takeaways

• With advanced technologies, we’re moving from accessing learning resources to participating in technology learning partnerships.
• Technology learning partners participate in the learning process by asking questions and giving feedback, not just information search results.
• Tomorrow’s technology learning partners will understand the whole learner — including knowledge gaps and personal learning style.
• Student experiences with AI and other technologies today will inform the next generation of human/machine learning partners.

Grush: What do you think may be among the most meaningful changes in, say, the next five years? 

Blouin: When I think of what will improve in the next five years — and I truly believe it’s where we’re ultimately heading — I think it will be the technology learning partner’s ability to gain a full picture of the learner. The technology will be able to take absurd amounts of context — and data — and understand the learner as a whole: where their gaps are, what they need to learn, how they learn, and how to create content tailored to a particular student. In an instant it would be able to assess, to test knowledge, and know the student as a whole person. That would be an ideal learning partner.