This year I had the chance to attend the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education Conference in Reno. There were several interesting sessions, but I found particular interest in a few that used AI conversation interactions with students.
- Engaging Adult Learners in Asynchronous Online Discussions – This session reported on a study that used AI powered conversations to enhance engagement among asynchronous adult learners. They found that AI was indeed a beneficial learning tool when students chose a job and interviewed Chat GPT to find out more about that particular job. However, the students also reported that there was no personality to the conversation and AI would often respond with just some basics or would respond that it didn’t have experience, but if did, it would say – and then gave some basic information.
This session made me wonder if my EAL learners would benefit from chatting – through typing or speech to text – with AI to get information, similar to how this study had students find out about different jobs. Speech to text is a good exercise to do with adult EALs because if their pronunciation isn’t clear enough, the sentences will not come out correctly. However it can be discouraging if they fail too many times.
2. Immersive Learning Through Virtual/Augmented Reality – This session was very interesting, and the speaker told us about how she used a VR and AR technologies to provide an immersive learning environment where students could actively participate in realistic scenarios.
This information made me wonder about EAL learners and if they could interact with language in several different situations, in a safe and nonintimidating environment of VR. It could provide conversation practice – asking directions for example – and following instructions. However, as with the session I mentioned above, once the excitement of using the technology wears off, I think students would find the AI lacking in personality and ultimately prefer speaking to another human.
There were so many other interesting sessions that I was privileged to attend. Not all sessions were about AI. Teaching new immigrants to Canada, from all over the world, I also attended talks on trauma and poverty which were very informative. I definitely recommend this conference to any adult educator.
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