Generative AI usage in the classroom is growing and teachers are adapting, but educational technology firms face new privacy regulations and other novel challenges
The increased use of generative AI in K-12 classrooms is not only posing challenges for students and teachers, but for edtech and educational publishers as well. In its recently published report, AI In the Classroom 2023-2024: Promises and Perils, Simba Information, the leading provider of market intelligence for instructional materials publishers, identifies these new and complex challenges.
The most serious one is a surge in state and federal activity to try to create greater limits on the amount or kind of data companies may collect on students. While data privacy is not a new issue, the increase in data collection software products in the classroom is creating a greater sense of urgency and more scrutiny and a push for more regulations.
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In a recent interview, Robert Berkman, Managing Editor of Simba Information, and author of AI in the Classroom: 2023-2024, noted, “the tricky part with education use of data is that in order to customize and personalize and make the AI effective, it does need some data about students or a group of students to be able to make it work well.” This presents a dilemma and a challenge to educational publishers to make the case as to what specific circumstances are appropriate or even necessary to do a certain proscribed level of personal data collection. Berkman also noted that although the jury is still out, it is these student personalization applications where AI has shown some of the greatest promise for enhancing student learning.
Another challenge educational publishers face is ensuring that they become “an ally” of teachers. “Teachers are already so stressed out,” Berkman added, “so publishers need to make sure that their new AI products are not just going to be one more thing to deal with…they need to make their lives easier, not harder.”
One way it is already becoming harder for teachers is their increasing difficulty in sorting through and selecting the right classroom teaching solution among the plethora of new and competing AI-enabled products–and then figuring out how to use them effectively. This problem though also presents opportunities for educational publishers to become that ally and make that job easier through effective product design and training.
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As for what educational publishers should look out for in 2024 and beyond, Berkman brought up “EdGPT” which he explains is a form of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)– AI trained on a specific domain. EdGPT is the form of RAG that has been trained specifically on vetted educational materials. This process, he says “has the potential to radically and positively enhance and advance the use of generative AI in the classroom.”
EdGPT was the featured topic of Simba’s February 2, 2024, Education Market Advisor, its bi-monthly newsletter. That article, EdGPT: The Next AI Horizon for Teachers, Students, EdTech and Educational Publishers also includes a discussion of early experiments with EdGPT in classrooms in China and India. It also includes an interview with New York City-based Merlyn Mind, a company that is making headway in creating and implementing EdGPT in schools. One emerging topic of discussion that will be of particular interest to publishers is how future EdGPT systems may integrate traditional print and digital textbooks.
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