In the IT world the phrase “minimum viable product” is often used to indicate the point at which a new product or service is good enough to go to market, but by no means the finished and polished product. The issue in enterprise environments is the need to be first to market, complete with the competitive advantage this results in. But would we use the same phrase in education and in particular in relation to teaching with technology? Wouldn’t we want the best for all of our students?
This question came to me following a number of webinar events focussed on AI in education where I saw some really great stuff being demonstrated. I saw ways for teachers and students to bring their work to life, animating, creating video or imagining what a given piece of textual content might look or sound like. And that’s the tip of the iceberg and it was inspiring stuff. My initial reaction was one of, how do I achieve that or where can I use that.
But then the day to day tasks and activities got in the way. I didn’t have the time to visit and sign up to the various apps, and to learn how to use them to do all of these amazing things. I didn’t have time to consider the pedagogical and content side of things in terms of how someone might teach through and using these tools. The demos where amazing, but the people doing the demonstrations didn’t really share about how long they spent finding and learning the tools, how long it took them to build up the confidence that was so apparent in their presentations. And I think building confidence in tools is a key issue and one which is often not fully considered. As is experimentation, but this takes time. I would also suggest that where people do present great examples of tech tools, they are often eager motivated individuals with an interest in technology and exploring ideas and solutions.
When we seek to scale all of this up we therefore hit challenges. Not all people have the interest and motivation to explore technology tools, including AI tools for example, and therefore either they are unaware of what is possible or they simply don’t have the time to experiment and gain confidence. And with quite so many different tools being demonstrated I also think staff can find it difficult knowing where to start. Which tool is going to represent the best value, giving me the greatest impact but with the least effort. So, selecting a lesser subset of tools and training all staff tends to be what happens, the minimal viable product, but it therefore misses out on some of the jaw-dropping opportunities which AI advancements can now provide. There isn’t anything wrong with this, but is it the best we can achieve?
Maybe the issue here is my point of reference which is that of the teacher. What if, rather than the teacher seeking to learn all these apps and tools, we empower the students to explore. This fits better as the students are exploring tools which relate to their work and are doing so for their own benefit. A teacher would however need to be comfortable in supporting students with tools where they don’t necessarily fully understand their use. This would be a bit of a shift for the traditional view of “sage on the stage” teaching, and more towards coaching and mentoring, asking the right questions rather than showing students the facts or what to do. This feels right to me, albeit possibly uncomfortable, although it is through challenge and a bit of discomfort that we often achieve the most.
AI tools are providing such great opportunities at the moment and it is great to see the art of what is possible but I cant help but feel we should be supporting the students in this exploration. This therefore means that the role of the teacher needs to be different, focussing on asking questions as to age requirements, privacy, intellectual property, ethics and the like in relation to the tools, rather than being the one using the tools or teaching the students how to use specific tools. We need to explore why students are seeking to use certain apps and what they hope to produce. Maybe this is the new minimum viable product in education. Maybe this is what we need if we are seeking to develop creativity in students as well as the critical thinking to help them stay safe and secure.
Technology and Learning