CLEMELLE L. MONTALLANA, DM, CESE
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR III
It would be unwise to disregard the signs of the times , it would be disastrous not to prepare for the same .
When Nokia was on the top of Cellular Phone business in the late 90s and early 2000s I was thinking that no phone will be ever made other than that Finland brand . In my mind it was the epitome of great engineering hard, durable , ingenious ,functional and effective . But we knew the story , as Android Operating System came , Nokia , refused to adjust and now they are mostly gone .
Maggi Noodles was staple in every Filipino household , it was the main noodle soup and the market share was huge . In 2011 , suspicion of Salmonella contamination was there and Maggi Noodles was recalled and today no Sari sari store shelf has that major staple . Maggi , failed to prepare for a safety issue and that ultimately ended its reign .
Nokia and Maggi are immensely popular in their heydays and now they are extinct .
At present , the education system is obviously to a large extent dependent to Information Technology. From Hardware (computers, PCs , Laptops , Projectors ,recording devices , memory sticks , camera etc…) to Softwares ( Windows OS, Linux etc…)Education also has Search Engines in Google, Bing etc…Applications Canva , Video Recording Apps. Zoom, Teams , Google Meet etc…
In a nutshell , our education ways and means now are dependent on Information Technology and we cannot say for certain that it’s a dependence to a large extent or to a certain significant extent , but we can say for certain that we are not joking that indeed the dependence is there.
What would happen if the dependence become more intense and more significant ? What would happen if the education as we knew it change to be more Computer based and less human based ? Right , now Artificial Intelligence had became more involved in our lives than ever before and it may take over our jobs in the future .Appearing in Sensorium a Blog posts this alarming title 10 Signs that AI will Soon Replace (And Those That It Wont )
- Customer Service Representatives. …
- Receptionists
- Accountants/ Bookkeepers
- Salespeople
- Taxi and Truck Drivers
- Retail Services
- Proofreaders and Translators
- Security and Military Personnel
And soon enough , Teaching and of course teachers . Will Robots or Artificial Intelligence take our jobs away ? It may be sooner than expected . For teachers like me , it may be something we may not welcome but it is an inconvenient truth that will come .
How can we mitigate its take over ?Let me count the ways …
- Educators must waste no time in reinventing itself as Educators . Human Touch in Tactile and Emotional Sense is something that AI cannot easily replicate nor provide , humans can take consolation on the fact that we are capable of that more than AI.
- Harness the power of AI and use it to make teaching relevant and wonderful . Instead of fighting the trend , harness its advantage to be more relevant .
- Find the niche beyond the knowledge level and go beyond. Since knowledge or information is nearly in abundance in our search engines , we can go to mindfulness , philosophy and other humanistic pursuits , Artificial Intelligence cannot easily out ran there .
For now this looms as a real challenge and these list is an informal list subject to the realities that will change it . Let us never stop moving ahead .
