Scenarios Where AI in Education is Taking Us
Jill Watson and VERA bring to life rich possibilities for artificial intelligence to enable new and engaging avenues for teaching and learning.
{SHARING KNOWLEDGE} 
Fred is a creative kid with a passion for physics. As a hobby he likes to create Youtube tutorials to demonstrate physics for other kids his age and share his knowledge. Other kids from around the world like his videos and ask him questions about physics in the Youtube comments. Fred would like to answer all the questions but he just does not have the time. Fred needs a tool to answer the questions and to engage more followers when they are online looking at the videos.
{FEELING INCLUDED} Fredrika is taking an online algorithms class. It is a notoriously difficult class; she is very nervous. After logging into the class forum she introduced herself and an AI-powered agent replied immediately informing her that there were other students with similar interests in the class. Through the social agent Fredrika was able to join a study group of people of a similar age and available time slot. The study group had a big impact on the quality of her learning and ultimately her final grade. The social agent helped Fredrika because it personalized what would have been a very impersonal online course.
{FOCUS ON LEARNING} Rachel is a graduate student in New Zealand and the only working member of her family. She must support her old mother and two siblings. Between her two part-time jobs, classes and homework, projects, a teaching assistantship in a course that has 400 students, and household chores, she has close to no spare time. She then learns about Jill Watson, a virtual teaching assistant that can answer students’ questions about the course syllabus. Rachel can focus on the more creative aspects of the course and use Jill Watson to quickly find answers to administrative questions.
{PASSION FOR TEACHING} Charlie is a 32-year-old social worker that is extremely passionate about educating the less privileged. His non-profit organization in Edinburgh, Scotland, is extremely successful in educating youngsters. He travels to different parts of the UK to teach and inspire thousands of young children. His vision is for everyone to have access to good quality education at a very low cost. In an attempt to find ways in which he can reach millions across the world, he stumbles upon Jill Watson, a Q/A agent that can be created for any subject or topic.
{LIFE-CHANGING EXPERIENCES} Growing up in a small village in Vietnam, Thanh is the only child in her family. When Thanh was 17, her parents died in a tragic car accident and left her growing up with her grandmother. Her grandmother couldn’t afford Thanh’s education, so she had to drop out in high school, which was the biggest regret in Thanh’s life— she missed the time when she could form study groups with her classmates and communicate ideas.Thanh is now 25 years old and works at a garment factory, but she still wants to continue her education. 
After working nonstop and overtime for three years, Thanh finally saved enough money to enroll in an online degree program. Thanh was amazed when she was welcomed by a social agent when she first enrolled in a class for mobile application design and development. Thanh shared information about her background, interest, and learning goals, and the AI agent quickly matched her with students who had similar interests. Thanh noticed that the students the agent recommended to her all come from different background, ranging from history to computer science. During that class, Thanh teamed up with the students the agent recommended. Thanh’s creativity was sparked through communicating with her teammates and understanding each other’s unique perspectives, experience, and backgrounds.
{ENABLING ACCESS} Pablo is a gifted 12-year-old living with his single mom in Bolivia. Although Pablo is gifted and interested in science, a career in science seems out of his reach: his school has no science lab and no one in his family can answer his questions. He is beginning to lose hope. But one day while surfing the internet for science libraries, he comes across first Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) and then through EOL he discovers VERA, the Virtual Research Assistant. Suddenly a new world opens up for Pablo: VERA provides him with a virtual laboratory and EOL gives him access to a virtual library. Through VERA, Pablo figures out why the fish are dying in the nearby lake. On his 13th birthday, Pablo tells his mom he wants to be a scientist.
*These are hypothetical scenarios that are currently possible with the emprize AI agents.