students talking in a classroom

Revolutionizing Education: AI, Virtual Tutors, and the Future of Learning

Join us as we explore the fascinating world of education technology with our esteemed guests, Dr. Brian Arnold and Dr. Scott Moss. In this episode, we discuss the transformative power of AI and virtual tutors in personalizing learning experiences, allowing students to engage without fear of embarrassment and reinforcing skills beyond school hours. Dr. Arnold emphasizes the importance of making humane technology choices that prioritize well-being over market demands, while Dr. Moss underscores the value of technology in fostering student creativity and meaningful learning.

Listen in as we address the ethical considerations surrounding the integration of technology in education. Dr. Arnold stresses the necessity of creating secure environments for educational data and highlights the importance of transparency and cautious data sharing. Both guests advocate for integrating computer science education at all levels to prepare students for future careers and discuss the ethical implications of using AI in education.

Join us for an insightful conversation about the future of education technology, where we discuss the impact of AI and gamification on learning. Discover how AI can streamline tasks for educators and customize learning experiences while raising questions about inclusivity and growth.

  • 0:02:32 – Emerging Technology in Education (83 Seconds)
  • 0:12:29 – Innovative Assessment and Feedback Practices (87 Seconds)
  • 0:16:33 – Ensuring Student Data Privacy in Education (116 Seconds)
  • 0:25:15 – Exploring Innovative Teaching Methods (61 Seconds)
  • 0:30:14 – The Role of Gamification in Education (45 Seconds)
  • 0:32:24 – Gamification in Educational Settings (73 Seconds)

0:00:01 – Announcer

You are listening to the National University Podcast.

0:00:10 – Kimberly King

Hello, I’m Kimberly King. Welcome to the National University Podcast, where we offer a holistic approach to student support, well-being and success- the whole human education. We put passion into practice by offering accessible, achievable higher education to lifelong learners. Hello, I’m Kimberly King, and in this episode, we’ll talk about how to be an innovator in education technology. Teaching remotely. That’s a skill that’s evolving in real time and with the emergence of artificial intelligence and virtual tutors, the opportunity to shape how students learn is here for those who embrace it. We have two experts today who will guide us through the latest ways teachers are using these new tools to shape the future of education. Shape the future of education.

On today’s episode, we’re discussing using innovations in education technology, and joining us is Dr. Brian Arnold.

Dr. Arnold is the Department Chair for Global Innovation, Social Emotional Learning within the Sanford College of Education at National University. He earned his PhD in educational technology and educational psychology from Michigan State University and spent the first half of his career focused on media arts films, games, design and then ended up in teaching and in administration in those disciplines. His current research interests focus on humane emerging technologies and one of his early career highlights include working as an editor for Nickelodeon Animation Studios in the late 1990s on shows like SpongeBob SquarePants. And we also welcome to National University’s Academic Program Director in Learning Experience, design and Educational Technology, Scott Moss. Scott has worked in K-12 education for 30 years and in higher education for 20 years, teaching at the elementary, middle and high school levels. He is a Google-certified innovator who has earned the Time Warner National Teacher and Classroom of the Future Foundation’s Innovative Educator Award, and he’s also received his MA in Educational Technology from SDSU and a doctorate in education from UCLA, and we welcome both to the podcast today. How are you?

0:02:34 – Doctor Brian Arnold

We’re doing great.

0:02:35 – Doctor Scott Moss and Doctor Brian Arnold

Thanks for having us.

0:02:36 – Kimberly King

Absolutely. This is a great topic. Why don’t you fill our audience in a little bit on your mission and your work before we get to today’s show topic?

0:02:45 – Doctor Brian Arnold

So this is Brian. I think the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is that humane emerging technology piece and that is trying to find ways to enhance the literacy of the academy so that we can make good choices about the technology we use, so that it empowers the well-being of our users and ourselves and is driven by those design choices rather than purely market forces.

0:03:16 – Kimberly King

I love it. I love the passion behind that too. And then what about you, Scott?

0:03:21 – Doctor Scott Moss

Well, throughout my career I’ve been focused on the purposeful use of technology in K-12 education, both as a teacher and as a trainer-coach-administrator, also working in National University for 25 years, and I like to see technology being used primarily for student creation, creativity and really maximizing that use, and not using it just as a delivery system, but as a way to make learning more constructivist and more meaningful for students.

0:03:55 – Kimberly King

Nice. Today we are talking about using innovations in education technology, and so, Dr. Arnold, I’ll start with you: personalization. How are innovative merging technologies tools personalizing learning experiences for students with different needs and different learning styles?

0:04:12 – Doctor Brian Arnold

Well, I think that there are many ways that it will probably be realized as we move into the future, but for now there’s sort of the twin values of one. The learners can ask an AI or a virtual tutor a question in a way that they don’t have to risk being embarrassed in front of their peers or their teacher to get the answer, and for many of our learners, that’s the difference between learning and not learning, between mastering a fundamental foundational fact or just sort of faking it, as they go along. As these tools evolve, our ability to customize virtual tutors to support the learning outside of school hours or to reinforce skills that might need some help will continue to grow. It already exists, but it certainly still needs a lot of fine-tuning before it’s mainstream.

0:05:03 – Kimberly King

Interesting. That’s a really good point. We all learn differently, so this is- now with AI, this is a new territory. Talk a little bit about emerging technologies. What technologies like AI or VR do you see having a significant impact on education within the next five years? This is also to you, Dr. Arnold, and can you discuss the impact of virtual and augmented reality on student engagement?

0:05:29 – Doctor Brian Arnold

Yeah. So virtual reality as a teaching tool, as a place where people can meet and socialize and do business and live their lives fully and completely, has been right around the corner for the last 30 years, last 30 years. We are making some strides with the technology, where even AI-assisted VR might be a tool. Something that can moderate these vast spaces in real time in a way that humans would have difficulty doing will make it more feasible as a learning tool. We tend to simulate, for I have my short list of three reasons why we would want a virtual learning experience. One, the actual learning experience is too expensive. The actual learning experience is too dangerous or it’s just too rare. Like this just doesn’t happen a lot, and so if we can simulate it, there’s an opportunity for learning that wouldn’t otherwise be there.

Additionally, it’s just engaging in a way that’s new. There’s a novelty, there’s a fun element to it, and we’re already, as a culture, leaning into sort of XR spaces, extended reality spaces. You know, we remember the Pokémon Go where that’s augmented reality, where people were following and finding the secret caches, but really, like you know, Roblox and Minecraft and all these other, these are virtual worlds where people interact and socialize and build and they’re creative. So the metaphors are there, the business models are there. We’re just not quite there yet as a society to move in that direction. But you know fingers crossed it won’t be around the corner for 30 years more, but hopefully in the not too distant future that can become a place where not only will it meet the needs of those learners that are more difficult learning, that’s more difficult to get to, but those learners that are more difficult to get to, the ones that are rural, at a distance, they have an issue that prevents them from coming to the classroom. There’s just a lot of opportunities for equity and access within that medium.

0:07:33 – Kimberly King

I love it. And again, boy, technology is changing so quickly, isn’t it? So, yeah, hopefully it won’t be another 30 years with everything happening right now so quickly. And, Scott, I promise you I’ll get to you. I have one more question for Dr. Arnold, and then we’re going to flip it. So how can emergency technology innovations bridge the digital divide and, I guess, ensure equitable access to quality education for all students?

0:08:01 – Doctor Brian Arnold

That’s an amazing question. So one of the side effects of the AI and these new emerging technologies is they draw our attention to systemic blind spots that we’ve gotten comfortable ignoring. So the students that didn’t have access to Wi-Fi will probably also not have access to AI. So it’s a legitimate problem and that gap might widen. Alternately, it might be the call to action when whole countries and entire school systems understand that if they want their learners to be competitive, to be working to be learning to be productive citizens, this basic utility needs to be available, and it’s a higher priority than it was before. That also means the consequences of not having it are higher than they were before, so I guess, the stakes have raised, the problem remains the same, um, it seems to be getting a lot of attention, everything AI out there on the news these days. So it’s reasonable that, at least for now that it’s getting more resource and more attention. Hopefully that’ll be a sustainable piece as well and, Scott, please jump in if you want to.

0:09:07 – Doctor Scott Moss

Yeah, I would like to add one bit and build on what you said. One of the other things regarding the digital divide is not only access, but the level of tasks that students are doing. There’s research that suggests that students of lower socioeconomic levels and ethnic minorities, even if they have access to the technology, often perform lower-level tasks, more rote memorization type things, where others, you know, do more creative, higher level tasks. So that’s another aspect of the digital divide that we need to think about.

0:09:45 – Doctor Brian Arnold

Scott, if I can jump on that, I love where you’re going with that. There’s this sort of conflation that access is learning and by that definition, we all have access to Google, so we should all be really super smart. So access is that without access you can’t learn, Access doesn’t mean learning and that there’s a lot more complex piping that has to happen in the interim.

0:10:11 – Kimberly King

Yep, these are points that not everybody thinks about on a daily basis. I mean, this is especially with the addition of AI and just that access point. Scott, how can we best prepare educators to integrate these new technologies effectively into their teaching practices?

0:10:28 – Doctor Scott Moss

That’s a great and important question. I think it begins with leadership, that, whether it’s a school district or K-12 or higher ed level, that the leadership lays down the expectations, so everyone’s on the same page and knows what’s expected as far as the use of, and knows what’s expected as far as the use of technologies, what’s ethical, what’s effective, what is the direction that leadership wants to take the educators. And I think, just with you know, I’ve been involved in educational technology training for decades and I think AI aligns with the rest of them is in meaningful context, not just a one-shot deal. Here’s a tool you know and go on your way. You know, have the teachers let’s say K-12 teachers bring their lessons, their standards, their goals, and let’s see how these tools can support them in achieving those goals.

And I think, regarding AI, there’s really kind of two big tracks that training can take. And one is how do teachers use this as an assistant, a co-teacher, someone to help them design lessons, someone to help them differentiate materials and so on? And also, although there’s some obstacles here, how do we help students use AI? This is the world that they’re going into, so we need to prepare them. We’re actually depriving them if we don’t do this. So it’s important that teachers are trained with this. And the last piece is follow up, whether it’s a mentor or a buddy at a school, because typically what happens, as we know we, you know teachers engage in these one shot trainings here you go, see you later, goodbye and good luck. So it’s important that there’s some kind of follow-up and accountability, even if it’s just peers. I know it’s hard to you know, logistically sometimes it’s hard to do that, but it’s an important piece.

0:12:17 – Kimberly King

I love that follow-up part of it and, by the way, both of you can feel free, like you did this last round, you know, to jump in if you have a thought on that.

0:12:29 – Doctor Brian Arnold

I do! [Laughs.] I just want to add on to everything. I agree a hundred percent with everything Scott was saying. I think that that understanding that you’re adopting tools that are sustainable is key. I think also taking a proactive stance and looking at what are the needs of your learners, what are the needs of your faculty and admin, and approaching the vendors with those needs, rather than reacting to the vendor’s calls- hey there’s this cool new tool- this build it and they will come kind of mentality does not tend to work out well. So absolutely being proactive and designing the solution to your specific problems.

0:13:05 – Kimberly King

So what about- Dr. Arnold, what are some innovative ways emerging technologies is transforming how we assess student learning and provide meaningful feedback.

0:13:16 – Doctor Brian Arnold

That’s an excellent question. So it’s doing it slower than I think I would like. So it’s doing it slower than I think I would like. It’s pushing the envelope on what we consider assessment. So the tried and true essay is harder to trot out as a legitimate artifact representing learning, representing the things that it purported to do for many years. It shows the students know how to organize their thoughts, they know how to make an argument, they know how to communicate- because these things have been automated in a way that’s magnitudes more than the word processor, but not completely different.

What we assess and how we assess it is going to have to change and as an educator, I like to think that everyone has these aha moments where they realize things. What I’m seeing more and more is people need to have their uh-oh moments where they just realize this doesn’t work anymore, and that’s when they start to look at some alternatives. So people are going to double down on the methods that have worked for them, the way that they’ve learned in the past, until it’s no longer viable, and that’s going to result in a lot of discussion about plagiarism and some other seemingly important issues. But the bigger piece is that how we assess learning and what we consider learning is going to change and what we expect of our students will elevate. They have this amplifier, this multiplier, so we can expect more of them using these tools.

0:14:56 – Doctor Scott Moss

And if I could add on one other thing to that, is, as teachers start to rethink their assessments and they look at okay, let’s, as Brian said, let’s not use an essay for this they start to think, well, what is the purpose of this assignment in the first place? And sometimes, especially teachers who’ve taught for years and years, we do these activities and we forget, why do we do this activity again? So, having teachers look at their assignments, think of the purpose and think, well, does this purpose even work, especially in this new context, in the world of AI? I think that could be a real benefit of rethinking assessments.

0:15:36 – Doctor Brian Arnold

If I can, yes and really quick- Instructors are going to need some space to try and to fail. They’re going to need some space to spend time learning tools, to be supported in that process. If they’re on a very rigorous schedule- teaching to the test timeline kind of situation- it’s a very poor investment of their time to take a risk with these new tools, and so they’re going to have to be backed up by their leaders and their administrators to say, hey, we’re going to have to take a step aside and fumble around in the dark for the light switch a little bit, and then we’ll get there.

0:16:15 – Kimberly King

That’s such a good point. And again, another point that people really don’t think about, but again it’s a new territory. So, you know that allowing for failure only to breed success down the line, I think that’s what you said. So, Dr. Arnold, how can we ensure student data privacy and security while leveraging the power of educational data?

0:16:41 – Doctor Brian Arnold

So I think it’s a two-step process, he said, oversimplifying- One is ensuring that the people that manage your IT systems have created some sort of closed walled garden space where the data, the tools, only learn the information that you want it to and they don’t report it out. Alongside that, the users kind of have to meet that halfway and understand what the affordances of the tool are. So, they need to understand that if they upload a student’s assignment on ChatGPT to get some notes and some ideas and some feedback, regardless of how you feel about that process, you shared personal information with a public source and so it’s tricky and it keeps changing. But the best bet is to be really transparent and to be careful with what you share and where, so that you can respect FERPA, you can respect student rights and you can respect privacy issues. Scott, you want to jump in on that?

0:17:48 – Doctor Scott Moss

Well, one way I talk about this is that, you know, for us- probably all of us listening- we have Google accounts, we have Amazon accounts and we know that they are mining our data and we’re giving up some aspects of privacy, but we accept that because of the services that they provide. But we don’t want to do that to students and give up student data and that’s going to go who knows where because they have not agreed to it. And then Brian also mentioned laws such as FERPA and COPPA and so on, which would be a violation of those laws. So it’s an important thing to keep in mind.

0:18:28 – Kimberly King

So what are, Scott, some of the most engaging emerging technologies tools that are like really motivating and fostering a love of learning for students? How can those emerging technologies help connect a classroom learning to real-world applications and prepare students for future careers?

0:18:48 – Doctor Scott Moss

Yeah, well, there’s a lot there. Really, one of the things and going back to having students create, you know, one technology that I’m really excited about is this text-to-graphics and text-to-video technologies that are emerging and that really empowers students to, you know, practice their language skills, learn media literacy skills and get that instant feedback. Two of the things that kind of are lacking in a lot of K-12 situations are control and rapid feedback, and that’s what we need. Okay, that’s what students need, all of us need. You know, when you write a pay, I heard there’s a speaker named Ian Jukes who said when you get your essay back four days later, that’s an autopsy. You, we don’t, you don’t even care about it anymore, right, so we need that quick feedback and then the AI tools give you that immediate feedback that sometimes the teacher can’t give. Again, the creativity piece not only with, you know, with chatbots also maybe give me some ideas or help me structure this screenplay or this play, or there’s all kinds of ways that, especially with idea generation, that these AI tools can really help, and I think that students also need to learn about the AI itself.

One of the things I’m a big proponent of is having everyone teachers, students, everyone learn a little bit, just a little bit of computer science. It doesn’t have to be a lot, because there’s been a lot of movements to really promote computer science education. But a lot of that kind of ends with okay, the students are going to take the advanced placement computer science education. But a lot of that kind of ends with okay, the students are going to take the advanced placement computer science exam. Everyone doesn’t need to do that Some people should, of course, but I think everyone needs a little bit. You need to learn about the technology itself. You know, third graders learn about circuits and light bulbs and other technologies because they’re integrated into our world, and so here’s another example of that. So I think it’s vital that even you know. I know that I’ve seen presenters talk about teaching algorithmic literacy to kindergarten, first grade, second grade, so it can be done at all levels.

0:20:57 – Kimberly King

That’s a good point. So, Dr. Arnold, what are some of the ethical considerations we need to address as we integrate more technology into education? And again, this is, I feel, like a loaded question. All of these are just because this is unknown territory. But yeah, ethical, I think it’s a huge deal.

0:21:15 – Doctor Brian Arnold

Well, I think the first consideration is that Scott’s getting Scott and I’m getting Dr. Arnold, so I don’t think that’s particularly fair to you. [Laughter.]

0:21:22 – Kimberly King

Oh, okay.

0:21:24 – Doctor Brian Arnold

I’m going to go with Brian. So my big point with ethics is there is a very easy tendency to conflate ethics with rules or morals or right and wrong, and ethics is specifically designed to say, given a particular value, freedom, protection, something different, belief in student success, whatever that value is, here are the implications of making a particular choice, whereas rules or sort of right and wrong is you can do this, you can’t do that, this is right, this is wrong. And so there’s a lot of talk about the ethics around AI and then there’s a lot of not ethics being trotted out as ethics. So this is my first concern. But I think, ethically, the trick is to find a way to have open, transparent discussions with the stakeholders as much as possible, to pull back the curtain, to make mistakes together to say be transparent, don’t sneak your AI, show what you’re using and how you’re using it, and let’s talk about how that’s working and how that’s not working. Then let’s make some rules and just call them rules.

There is a desire to have rules when you don’t know if it’s okay to do a thing or not right. So I want to use some AI to write a report, right? Is that allowed? I don’t know. I better not tell anyone, right, or on this paper, and so people are sneaking their AI. So they want rules. We don’t really know enough to make particularly good rules. Rules we don’t really know enough to make particularly good rules. So most of the time, what we’re going to do is we’re going to take old rules and change the word internet to artificial intelligence and we’ll try that out for a while, and so that’s okay. That’s sort of how we proceed, but then we also need to expect that those rules or those ethical boundaries are going to change and evolve as we gain deeper understandings.

0:23:29 – Kimberly King

Yeah, and ethical is a tricky situation. There too, I think I mean we are again. It’s people get away with saying things and doing things, and then with the addition of AI. Dr. Moss, what are some effective strategies for integrating technology into traditional teaching methods?

0:23:47 – Doctor Scott Moss

Well, one of the traditional teaching methods it may not even be that traditional that I think this really helps with is what’s called the flip teaching model, and the flip teaching model is where students get the content delivered remotely. It’s not the teacher doing a lecture, but it could be a video, it could be the AI, it could be some other way, and then the class time is used for collaboration with other students or individual time with teachers. So that’s one kind of traditional way that technology can help. But I like to think that the AI empowers us to look at new teaching methods and new ways and try things that haven’t been tried before. So you know, if we were just sitting around talking, we’d say, gosh, I would really like to design a lesson that is interdisciplinary, addresses SEL components, addresses their financial literacy and media literacy and universal design for learning the list goes on and we would say, yeah, that’s a great idea, but who’s got the time to plan a lesson like that? Well, guess what? Now we’ve got help, where we could put all that into a prompt with the content, upload standards, rubrics, whatever it is, and then we’ll get a great head start on those kinds of lessons and those kinds of, and then the AI can also suggest methodologies, if you want to emphasize, I want this to be as authentic as possible. I want this to be as collaborative as possible.

AI can really help with those kinds of things, and I’ll give you one example that I worked at. I worked supporting a school that did thematic learning and one of their themes was responsibility. And the teacher’s asking me I’m teaching mitosis, how can I integrate responsibility with mitosis? Like I don’t know. Put it in ChatGPT. Hey, it came up with some pretty good stuff and again, it’s a starting point. It’s not just going to be a copy paste, but it spurs thought and can really help all of us kind of learn some new ideas and try some new teaching methods.

0:25:53 – Kimberly King

I’m going to have to remember that. That’s interesting and you know, and I think when you talked about the flip method, didn’t that kind of happen or come onto the scene a little bit before the pandemic? I remember hearing about that, but it’s really kind of I like it. I like you know that there are different types of methods and I remember hearing about that early on. How do you see the role of teachers evolving with the rise of ed tech tools? Scott, I’m going to say how do you do that?

0:26:25 – Doctor Scott Moss

Well, I would say, you know I mean going back throughout my career, you know I think we’ve heard the expression more of the you know be the less of the sage on the stage and more of the guide on the side, and that I think that’s going to hold true for the AI as well. But I think teachers really are going to have to think about that and think about, ok, what can the AI do and what is my strength? And I think what you keep hearing is that, okay, this is going to free you up, to give you more time to build relationships and work with students and get to know them. And I think that’s important and in getting to know them, I think one role that teachers are going to take over time is prompt- you know being prompt engineers and knowing a student.

Now I can go in there and I can say, okay, create a lesson on you know we’re doing geometry and create a scenario using monster trucks or a fashion design or a music creation or something that really resonates with the student, so that you can connect with a student. And the other part of that is as you get to know the student. It helps get us away from that deficit thinking that’s been, that’s so prevalent is honoring the student’s knowledge, even if they, you know, just moved from another country, don’t know English. Well, just to honor what they know, honor what they bring to the table and then connect content with that. Because if you look at standards, you can connect that with real world all over the place. But it’s something that’s kind of hard to do, but the AI can help us with that.

0:27:59 – Kimberly King

Interesting, yeah, and again, really finding. I mean, we’re all so different and when you get the cultural part of that, you know and honor that. I think that’s so key. Brian, the road ahead, looking forward what are the most exciting innovations you see happening in the world of emerging technologies? The future of classrooms how will emerging technologies tool and reshape the traditional classroom environment and learning models?

0:28:26 – Doctor Brian Arnold

Well, that’s a lot. So I think that there’s going to be the growing pains, there’s going to be the adjustment, there’s going to be the time where we refer to everything as AI this and AI that, and, just like e-learning, it’ll just become learning, just like movies that were called talkies are now just called movies. So we’ll eventually get there where it’s just, you know, no one has to report that they used a word processor on their paper. You know we’ll get to that. But I think in general, it’s going to amplify human ability, which is the purpose of technology, and we’re going to be able to do more with less. We’re going to do it faster. Now. Can we visit those gains onto the people who are earning them? Can we free up more time for teachers to do their jobs better? Can we take that productivity boost and benefit both the institution and the worker?

I think that we’re going to get more and more into situations where we can really customize learning and with most of these tools, there’s almost always an opportunity cost, right? So let’s say we wanted to create an environment that was very engaging and interesting and welcoming to me. It would also exclude all of the things that would force me to think or confront my prejudices or possibly grow due to stress or grit or some of these other pieces. So I think that we’re going to be encountering new questions that we didn’t think about as much before, or we’re going to be thinking about them a lot more, but the ability to customize learning and all that that entails, I think, is going to explode, and I think that it’s going to have both pros and cons that come along with it.

0:30:14 – Kimberly King

Let me go back, the role of gamification. This is kind of interesting. So what are your thoughts on the growing trend of gamification in education and what are the benefits and challenges? And actually it’s interesting it’s not necessarily the gamification, but my next door neighbor builds robots and they just won an international competition, which was amazing. They’re in high school. But my kids grew up playing soccer and football and the kids that would come over were all soccer and football players. And now I see these robotics kids that are just it’s mind blowing what they’re putting together and they’re winning these international competitions. So I you know, maybe in the role of gamification, but just what they can do now at such young ages.

0:31:00 – Doctor Brian Arnold

Fantastic. Scott, did you want to take a swipe at it, or do you want me to jump in?

0:31:02 – Doctor Scott Moss

Yeah, thank you. Well, again, gamification it adds engagement to students and I think that the AIs can really support that. So if you’re just again, if you have a standard or if you have goals and you have student interest and you kind of throw that into AI and say you know, create a game, here are the materials I have, here’s how much time I have, and so on, it’s really useful for doing that. And also there are a lot of one of the things that are becoming more accessible to the general population are these AI chatbots. So if you have ChatGPT 4.0 or some of these tools like school AI, where you can create something where this individual student or multiple students have access to their own little GPT or something and it could be a game, you could have a prompt in there where, okay, I’m going to practice using the past tense and, if I use it correctly, give me a point, if I use it incorrectly, deduct a point, and so on. So there’s a lot of potential there for creating games using AI.

0:32:19 – Doctor Brian Arnold

Excellent. May I add to that? So it seems like such a loaded question. The gamification. So gamification is adding game-like elements to something that doesn’t already have game-like elements to it. But classrooms have points and you get those to earn a grade which is a reflection of your status on the leaderboard, like it’s already a game. Additionally, gamification at first adds novelty. And then, once that novelty fades, then it comes into that. Can you customize the gamification to meet the needs of your players, slash learners.

So people are like oh, add game-like elements, that’ll make everything much more engaging. But it’s like saying do you like food? I like food, right, but we don’t like the same food. We’re not talking about the same thing.

So you know, there’s the four types of gamers according to Bartle- the socializer, the achiever, the killer and the explorer. And people tend to be some combination. There’s like 16 Yee types, Nick Yee being a researcher. There’s all these different ways of looking at it, and someone who really likes to socialize as part of their gaming is going to be looking for different gratifications than someone who wants to kill things or get onto a leaderboard or explore or any number of these things. So as we dive in, the ability to differentiate with the AI will be very important as we start to learn the nuances of what people prefer and the idea of learning styles. Learning styles don’t particularly exist in terms of comprehension and mastery, but they do in terms of people’s preference. So if the learner is engaged, they might learn. If they’re not engaged, they’re definitely not. So these are some other tools we can through in there. You’re really into dinosaurs. You’re really into cooking. Let’s customize it and gamify it in that way and see if that’ll get you further in, so that you can develop an actual interest in the topic, and then that will be your motivation that drives you moving forward.

0:34:16 – Kimberly King

I think that’s so interesting and I can’t wait to see you know, once we get this out there and we’ve done the studies, what happens to this learning type. You know, I mean it’s almost like a personality test but also the way you learn and really just piecing it together but individualizing, and I think that’s it is super fascinating. What a great show today. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and if you do want more information, you can visit National University’s website at nu.edu. And thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for your time.

0:34:49 – Doctor Scott Moss and Doctor Brian Arnold

Thank you.

0:34:53 – Kimberly King

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