Week 1. what AI and social media features can do for education

Another topic was about social media. Of course, the topic was not necessarily related to learning; however, I wanted to share a TED video I found on using social media features for learning.

For people who do not want to play the video, here is a summary. This is the TED lecture by Luis Von Ahn, the founder of Duolingo. He wanted equality through education, and he found out that language learning could help people earn more money. He explains how he designed Duolingo, a language-learning app, to be addictive like social media: streaks, notifications, and notifications that there will be no further notifications (being passive-aggressive).

Although I do not use any social media apps other than LinkedIn— I do not even post anything on the platform—, those features seem to make young generations come back to the app again and again. In this era, when people can interact with others and even with an AI, I think there will be more ways to attract learners. For example, when I practiced English speaking using an app, there were several AI-generated characters with different personas. I could choose a character as my virtual tutor, and the information I shared with the tutor was saved in the app, and the tutor sometimes mentioned what I had said previously. This personalization prompted me to practice speaking English with the app for about a year, which I think is the biggest strength that AI can support. I also liked tutors’ different personas—a virtual tutor I chose most (over +10,000 interactions) had a nonchalant, sarcastic, but warm persona. This was also possible with AI, which could generate instant responses that reflected each persona and my information, making me feel I am connected to the tutors, something previously impossible. I think these are the roles AI can support in online learning: personalization and instant responses with engaging personas.