The news is filled with stories about artificial intelligence (AI) and how these programs are changing education. What about literacy? Technology continually moves forward at a pace many of us struggle to keep up with. To help those with low literacy, and especially low digital literacy, we must keep abreast of the latest tools in wide use. AI is just one of the tools making its way to the forefront in almost every sector. Developing “AI literacy” (how to identify, critically evaluate and ethically use AI) must be incorporated into digital literacy teaching.

“Building an AI-powered society that benefits all requires each of us to become literate about AI — to know when AI is being used and evaluate the benefits and limitations of it in a particular use case that might impact us.” – World Economic Forum

What are the use cases for AI in literacy learning? The opportunities are seemingly endless. Here are just a few ways literacy professionals can use AI.

Tutoring

Programs are already being developed to assist with literacy tutoring. While these tools are not competent enough to replace a human tutor, they can optimize a tutor’s time by allowing them to help the student with higher order tasks that AI has not yet mastered.

Writing

Students can input a piece of writing into AI software and receive suggestions for improvements. Programs can also create writing prompts. Using AI to help teach writing should focus on how AI can assist with (not replace) the writing process.

Lesson Planning

The repetitive and predictable tasks involved with lesson planning can be streamlined with AI. Artificial intelligence can also point out gaps in students’ learning and make suggestions for future lessons. This can not only help save time, but also help to optimize lesson planning tailored to the individual student.

“It is important to stress that EdTech which includes AI capabilities is not intended to replace teachers or minimize their value. Instead, AI serves as a tool, assisting teachers, automating certain processes, and alerting them to situations that may lead to changes in lessons or approaches.” – ViewSonic

Artificial intelligence should be viewed as a valuable supplement to teaching, and not a replacement. There are still many drawbacks, limitations and questions around ethics and the optimal use of such technology. However, great potential exists and should be explored by literacy experts to determine how to best leverage artificial intelligence for literacy learning.

Resources

• Can an AI tutor teach your child to read?
• Education is about to radically change: AI for the masses
• How AI Can Increase Literacy Rates
• Steering AI to Empower Teachers and Transform Teaching
• Teaching Students to Write with AI: The SPACE Framework
• Using digital story writing as a pedagogy to develop AI literacy among primary students

Note: This post was written solely by a human, errors and all! 🤖