USF Sarasota-Manatee campus Regional Chancellor Karen A. Holbrook has been on the front line of change at many institutions and is always interested in learning more about emerging trends that impact education. Recently, artificial intelligence sparked her interest and how it is impacting virtually every field, but in particular, how it is being employed in education.
The emerging technologies-artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), speech recognition, robotics, the internet of things (IoT), virtual and augmented reality and even blockchain-are so infused into all domains of society that we rarely recognize them as anything unusual. AI is often how we order food, call for a car (Uber), play our choice of music, get answers to questions, check into an airport or hotel and provide surveillance for our homes. Collectively, these “tools” are designed to accelerate and increase the accuracy of decision-making through analysis of massive amounts of data. In education, these technologies ease administrative processes, increase efficiencies and prepare students for a new world order of work.
