Blog#3

Reading through this week’s posts I began to understand the importance of focusing on the future of edtech, particularly how we understand and use generative AI and the potential hopes and threats of edtech. I got me thinking about how when we talk about generative AI, we’re not just talking about a tool, but a force that will completely overthrow education right now.

Selwyn brought up an issue that I almost never think about; digital platforms rely on data centers, hardware updates, and energy consumption, with massive unseen environmental costs behind them. Online teaching has facilitated equipment updates (e.g., cameras, laptops, tablets). Mishandling of e-waste has also taken an ecological toll. At the same time not all educated people can afford the cost of these devices. Who should bear these costs?

I found the idea of “critical hope” in the article “Hope and Anxiety in the Face of Technology” to be very inspiring. As future educators, we should not just be users of technology, but thinkers and shapers of its development. I realized that the future of educational technology is not defined by a technology company, but should be shaped by educators and learners, as well as by technological change.

In the future, in the face of AI and other technologies in our teaching, we should neither be blindly optimistic nor reject them altogether, but also lead our students to explore the values and impact behind these tools. As educators we should stop using answers to test whether students have mastered what they are learning in order to minimize the laziness that comes with student use of technology, and educators should take the initiative to construct a future of AI education that is controlled and has ethical boundaries.