Tag: education

Today’s AI capabilities are yesterday’s science fiction — AI technologies can now generate text, images, music, and video with simple prompts. As they evolve, the world of what is possible keeps changing at breakneck speed.

In education, AI technology has already started to influence how students learn, teachers teach, and, ultimately, what our educational system will come to look like in the years to come — revolutionizing teaching and learning as we know it. AI-powered tools and strategies will personalize learning and may even improve student outcomes by better preparing students for success in the digital age.

Sal Khan, founder of the Khan Academy, a nonprofit that provides free, world-class educational tools for use by all, boldly declared in his 2023 TED talk that AI has the potential to catalyze “the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen.” He sees a new era in education, where every teacher has an AI teaching assistant, and every student has access to an AI-powered personal tutor.

While there are ethical concerns around bias, plagiarism, appropriate use, and fears that AI will enable the spread of misinformation and cheating — issues that AI developers will certainly need to address — a growing group of educators are enthusiastically looking to a future of education that includes AI.

The challenge? Harnessing the immense positive potential while mitigating or avoiding harm.

Universities Build Their Own AI Tools

Taking these concerns to heart, colleges and universities have begun developing their own Chat-GPT-like tools for faculty and students to overcome concerns about intellectual property rights, equity, and privacy. The University of Michigan, Harvard University, University of California San Diego, UC Irvine, and Washington University have all created their own version of Chat GPT for use by students and faculty in the past year.

WashU GPT was launched last year, spearheaded by Albert Lai, deputy faculty lead for digital transformation at Washington University. They, along with the University of Michigan and UC Irvine, built their AI tools using Microsoft’s Azure platform, which is based on open-source software available for free to mitigate equity concerns. Proprietary platforms, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, on the other hand, impose upfront fees. What’s more, having a closed system can provide faculty with peace of mind that their intellectual property remains protected. “Any faculty member — including myself — would be very uncomfortable in putting a lecture and exams in an OpenAI model (such as ChatGPT) because then it’s out there for the world,” shared Ravi Pendse, University of Michigan’s Chief Information Officer.

Art Schools Get Creative About AI

AI is no longer just for computer scientists analyzing massive data sets and conducting predictive analytics — artists, designers, animators, musicians, video artists, and other creatives are now using it to enhance their creative processes and sometimes even generate new work. While there is a push/pull relationship between the technology and artists, leaders at top art institutions are starting to see AI as the next logical step in the digital revolution with the meteoric rise of visual AI platforms like DALL-E and Midjourney.

“This is as organic and logical as it gets, that an art institution is exactly primed to integrate this,” shared Griffin Smith, who teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design. “RISD is the most punk art school, and I see this as one of the greatest punk opportunities we’ve had.”

When generative AI burst onto the scene, Jane South, Chair of Fine Arts at the Pratt Institute, looked past the ethical and copyright concerns and hoped that this technology might be the next big thing for artists and creative industries. “I thought, ‘Goody, goody.’” South sees the dawning of AI as “one of those moments — [like] when the printing press was invented, when photography came along — that art thrives on. Because it makes us think about what it is we do.”

Some liken attitudes around AI to those that surrounded Photoshop when those powerhouse programs burst onto the creative scene. “I think as soon as Photoshop became ubiquitous, faculty have been having conversations with students about Photoshop, and using it as a tool, and the difference between making all of your work on Photoshop and printing it out onto a piece of paper or projecting it onto the wall,” said Smith. “All of those conversations, I think, are very easily transferable to AI.” However, some creatives caution that there’s a big difference between what skilled creators can make using Adobe Creative Suite tools versus those without artistic skills or training.

South emphasized this point in a recent New York Times article, saying previous technological inventions that critics feared might upend creative professions only ended up strengthening them. “Photography was supposed to be the end of art, and then the Xerox machine came along, and that was supposed to be the end of art, too.”

AI as a Tool — Not a Replacement — for Creatives

Increasingly, schools are looking at AI as a multi-use tool — much like Photoshop or the camera before it — and many now see that it qualifies as its own medium for making art. For some, a consensus is forming that the act of limiting the tools available to create art is a bad practice for artists and for creativity.

To Nate Harrison, the Dean of Academic Affairs at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), “concern” about AI is no longer relevant because it has already arrived. In other words, AI is here. “We cannot fight AI, students are already using it, many very organically and intuitively and naturally.” For him, the question should be: How can we equip students with smart approaches to using AI?

Some art schools, like Ringling College of Art and Design, are incorporating AI into their teachings instead of cleaving it off as a separate course. In one of their costume design classes, for instance, students use AI to find inspiration before crafting actual costumes.

RISD is now offering courses that prepare their students to code with machine learning and employ programs like Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and DALL-E, encouraging their use as foundational tools for creative projects that may ultimately involve traditional mediums like painting and illustration.

Creatives in marketing and advertising know that their work rests on the meaning of the ideas underpinning their concepts, and they’re worrying increasingly less about how the images that correspond were created and more about what they communicate to clients and others. As inventor Buckminster Fuller, best known as the creator of the geodesic dome, once said: “We are called to be the architects of the future, not its victims.”

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Bottomline

While many have described the rise of AI as “unprecedented,” that’s not exactly true. Disruptive technologies have often been seen as potential destroyers of industry before they settled into being seen as tools, just like the camera. As AI continues to become more fact than fiction, many in the creative fields are coming to the same conclusion: Yes, things will change, but new doors will also open, much like the advent of the internet.

If your team wants to infuse AI tools into your own creative work, we can help guide the way. Creative Circle has a strong bench of creative consultants who can help you craft the most adaptive and strategic way forward for your brand.

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, online degree programs, such as those at the University of Phoenix, was a steadily growing trend in education. Once the pandemic took hold, however, with almost all grade school, middle school, high school, and university students taking at least some classes online, forcing education to make a major pivot to fully embrace digital disruption and its associated tools – tools which continue to bring immense changes to how students are provided instruction today. University websites have been upgraded and their functionality expanded, with portals for faculty and students.

This sea change isn’t particular to any one grade or institution, with schools of all education levels and sizes evolving to leverage the benefits of digital disruption — and to keep up with its incredible pace. More than 70 percent of higher education leaders believe digital transformation, as spurred by digital disruption, is a top priority for their schools, and global expenditure on digital transformation at higher education institutions is expected to reach approximately $3.4 trillion by 2026.

Digital disruption is bringing education into the 21st century, and institutions worldwide are undertaking this complex and crucial journey to personalize learning and improve student experiences. The key benefit of digital disruption in education is making more of a school’s instruction and services available to more students, and the first step in this direction is often rebuilding websites.

A Virtual Welcome Mat

University websites can span thousands of pages, everything from course catalogs to student resources and recruitment. Still, many universities lack the time and expertise to make their websites powerful digital tools, and sometimes people without creative, web development, or marketing experience are the ones maintaining these websites. According to Ernst & Young, digital reaches across the university community to include students, parents, alumni, employers, faculty, and staff. This of course includes websites, which are typically digital disruption’s first stop: An incomplete or ineffective website is often an Achilles’ heel for universities, as their websites serve as their virtual welcome mats — and their front doors.

Many university website reboots require dedicated content creation and web development teams with the expertise to complete CMS migrations, comprehensive site refreshes in line with university branding, development support, maintenance, web audits, web crawls, and more. Those institutions without in-house web development experience need professionals who can take full ownership of larger projects, everything from migrations to complete builds. And, once these websites have been built, refreshed, or updated, seasoned marketers are needed to make sure these websites are effectively conveying the right messages to the right audiences.

There have been some early adopters and participants who have found success when it comes to digital disruption. Early in the pandemic, NYU needed to overhaul its website to accommodate the rapid changes required to implement remote learning and enable its students to continue their studies. The university rehauled its portal and the portal’s associated digital tools, and it continues to refine them in response to evolving faculty and student needs. NYU was able to accomplish all of this with external support from content creation, marketing, and web design experts.

Digital Disruption Provides Better Outcomes for Learners with Disabilities

Core to the digital disruption of education is video and web accessibility, and this includes students with disabilities. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology is dedicated to the development of policies that ensure learners with disabilities have the necessary platforms and technology they need to access and engage with educational materials alongside their peers who don’t have disabilities. The Department’s ultimate objective is to make sure students with disabilities have the same educational outcomes as students without disabilities.

On April 24, 2024, the U.S Attorney General signed a final rule with specific requirements based on WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards . The ruling revised the regulation implementing title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) “to establish specific requirements , including the adoption of specific technical standards, for making accessible to people with disabilities the services, programs, and activities offered by State and local government entities to the public through the web and mobile applications.” The rule takes effect on June 24, 2024, and applies to public schools, community colleges, and public universities nationwide.

The Department of Justice is now establishing technical requirements to provide concrete standards for state and local entities, including public educational institutions, on how to fulfill their recently updated obligations under Title II. This secondary wave of digital disruption will bring enormous changes to public education throughout the U.S., as public schools and universities look to build and deploy the tools disabled students need too.

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Bottomline

The changes digital disruption continues to bring to education are oceanic in size. The creative, marketing, and web development teams at public universities will need best practices and upskilling support, as well as auditing materials, to make sure they make all the necessary updates to their websites and apps to fulfill these federal requirements. As universities look to provide the best possible digital experience to all of their stakeholders, they need the right creative and marketing support to make it all happen.

Creative Circle’s customized service models and scalable solutions are designed to help you reach your targets and build brand awareness as you update your digital presence and meet all of the new ADA requirements for these resources. Our studio & flex bench, agency services, talent acquisition, and consulting capabilities are the perfect solve for universities looking to add heft to their digital teams and leverage the power of digital disruption to stay ahead. We’ve got incomparable talent who can help your institution embrace the sea change digital disruption has brought to education. Let’s sail through the present — and into the future — together.