Keynotes and Panel

Dr. Kristen DiCerbo, Chief Learning Officer at Khan Academy

How Generative AI Has Changed Everything and Nothing in Education

What changes in a world with generative AI in education and what remains the same? This talk will examine this question from multiple perspectives, addressing both how students learn and how we know if they have learned it. There are fundamental, well-replicated findings about how students learn that new technology does not change. However, new technology can change the emphasis on what knowledge, skills, and attributes we deem important for students to learn. Generative AI also changes the capabilities we have at our disposal to support learning. Does it help us address some of the seemingly intractable challenges that education technology has faced in learning and assessment? Or do those challenges remain unsolved? What new challenges does generative AI introduce? I will explore all of this using the lens of lessons learned in the development, implementation, and evaluation of Khanmigo, an AI-powered tutor for students and assistant for teachers.

Dr. Kristen DiCerbo is the Chief Learning Officer at Khan Academy, where she leads the content, assessment, design, product management, and community support teams. Time magazine named her one of the top 100 people influencing the future of AI in 2024. Dr. DiCerbo’s career has focused on embedding insights from education research into digital learning and assessment experiences. Prior to her role at Khan Academy, she was Vice-President of Learning Research and Design at Pearson, served as a research scientist supporting the Cisco Networking Academies, and worked as a school psychologist. Kristen has a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Arizona State University.

Prof. Maria Mercedes T. Rodrigo,
Ateneo de Manila University

The Technopolitics of AIED: A Developing Country’s Perspective

In the IJAIED opinion piece “Is the AIED Conundrum a First-World Problem?”, I argued that educational systems in developing countries such as the Philippines could greatly benefit from AI-based teaching and learning because such technologies can augment these resource-poor environments and provide students with consistent quality of instruction. The rise of generative AI and the increasing availability of extended reality applications and technologies has increased this potential for benefit. However, equity continues to be a problem. In this keynote, I will discuss the GenAI and XR developments in the Asia-Pacific, showing how these boost learning and the learning experience. I will note how innovation and use differs among developed vs. developing nations. I will discuss challenges to sustainability and scaling, e.g. a lack of hardware, software, connectivity, and teacher training as well as an inability to keep pace with changing software authoring tools’ pricing models. Finally, I will discuss the implications of LLM diplomacy on developing countries. The launch of DeepSeek and similar open, free applications provides entry points for AI participation to those of us who are resource-constrained. However, we are also aware that these platforms are values-laden, and that using them for education specifically gives their creators influence over students’ and teachers’ values and world views. Developing nations have to balance economic and political pressures against opportunities for technological progress, deciding what tradeoffs they are willing to make in order to expand their participation in AIED.

Maria Mercedes (Didith) T. Rodrigo is a professor at the Department of Information Systems and Computer Science. Her research interests include learning analytics, artificial intelligence in education, technology in education, and educational games. She is the head of the Ateneo Laboratory for the Learning Sciences and co-lead of the Ateneo Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality Laboratory. Her research work focuses on artificial intelligence in education, learning analytics, and educational games. In collaboration with colleagues and students, Dr. Rodrigo’s publications focus on artificial intelligence in education, learning analytics, and educational games. She serves on the editorial boards of several high-impact journals including Artificial Intelligence in Education, the Internet and Higher Education and Research and Practice in Technology-Enhanced Learning. Dr. Rodrigo is on the Executive Committee of the Artificial Intelligence Education Society. In 2021, Dr. Rodrigo received the Distinguished Researcher Award from the Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education (APSCE). She is President of APSCE. Outside of her academic work, she writes books for children. She won the National Children’s Book Award Kids’ Choice Award for Made Perfect in Weakness in 2016. In 2018, she won the 12th Cardinal Sin Catholic Book Awards for Cave Dweller. Her book, Blueplate, won the 2024 National Children’s Book Award Kids’ Choice Award and was a finalist for the Cardinal Sin Catholic Book Awards.

Francesca Pozzi, Director of CNR – Institute for Educational Technology

Beyond the Algorithm: Participatory approaches to the use of AI to support
inclusive and ethical education

The evolution of technology has always gone hand in hand with the evolution of learning
theories. In the 1950s, when behaviorist approaches spread, the first teaching machines
were developed. During the moving to the 1970s and 1980s, cognitive and constructivist
ideas became widespread, alongside the proliferation of microworlds and educational
software. In the 1990s/2000s, socio-constructivist strategies were accompanied by the rise
of the World Wide Web and computer-mediated communication. Finally, in the last decade,
we have witnessed the boom of social media and MOOCs, alongside connectivist ideas.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no exception: this technology, too, has a decades-long history,
closely linked to the evolution of pedagogical theories, from its inception to the so-called
‘first AI spring’ and beyond to the third.
Every technology (AI included), therefore, emerges at the intersection of learning theories
and – going beyond the algorithm in itself – is neither inherently ‘good’ nor ‘bad’, rather, it is
the way we use it that can produce either positive or negative effects.
The debate on AI highlights the potential of this technology in terms of innovation, while
also warning us about the possible risks of a tool that, by generating responses based on
the vast amount of data at its disposal, does not necessarily provide an accurate reflection
of reality. Since the data on which AI operates can be biased, unequal, and predominantly
sourced from so-called ‘data-rich’ regions, its responses tend to reflect the values and
norms of ‘data-rich’ countries, potentially marginalizing ‘data-poor’ ones and further
weakening already disadvantaged communities and individuals. Moreover, we cannot
ignore AI brings about the design choices of private companies developing it.
The focus of this talk, therefore, is to reflect on how AI should be used in schools and
universities to maximize the common good rather than exacerbating inequalities for the
exclusive benefit of wealthy and powerful minorities.
Specifically, I argue that by promoting a participatory use of AI based on social
constructivist approaches and leveraging AI interactions to encourage student exchange
and discussion, we can foster the construction of new, shared, and equitable meanings.
This approach can also help students reflect on and recognize the ethical risks embedded
in AI systems. Promoting the use of AI as a sparring partner rather than as an expert that
completes the task can lead to the enhancement of cognitive skills rather than their
replacement. Discussing AI-generated results with others can encourage reflection on the
structure and value of the output and can be used to stimulate students to do better than
the algorithm. Additionally, it helps foster critical thinking about how misinformation can be
created.
However, to achieve this, educational systems need to be radically rethought and
transformed in their organizational, structural, curricular, and methodological dimensions to
return agency and centrality to learners and teachers need to be trained to shift their role
and guide this process with due awareness. The alternative approach, consisting of simply shutting the door to this technology, would lead to schools that are even farer than today
from the external reality and to students prone to all the risks as soon as they leave the
protected and artificial, although not intelligent, school environment.