Chad Edwards
Matthew Craig1/ It’s out! @chadedwards & I had the chance to contribute the chapter “#HMC in the #Educational Context” in “The SAGE Handbook of Human-Machine Communication” ed. by Andrea Guzman, Rhonda McEwen & @sjones
2/ #HMC can interrupt a lot of our pedagogical techniques and has the opportunity to change what #education looks like for many.
3/ Using robots in the classroom is not a new thing. From social robots as stand-ins for math tutoring, working w/ students identified w/ Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), to telepresence robots—there are various uses for robots & they don’t need to be overly sophisticated either.
4/ We wrote this before the release of #ChatGPT. But we did write about the ability for AI to disrupt the classroom and impact learning. AI can be used as tools to facilitate learning on an individualized level. But—we need stronger regulations pertaining to privacy & its use…
5/ When considering adopting #AI, we must understand who is involved in its development and adoption and how these systems can and do harm those most often marginalized (echos @timnitGebru). HMC scholars need to be interdisciplinary and holistic in their research about AI in edu.
6/ #VR (#VirtualReality) and #AR (#AugmentedReality) systems have great use in the classroom, especially regarding public speaking. These techs have a great opportunity for enhancing instructor content by providing immersive experiences for students (and instructors too).
7/ Regarding HMC and instructional communication research we highlighted three important instructional communication variables and how they can be used in HMC for encouraging positive interactions in classroom settings (immediacy, credibility, and teacher clarity).
8/ Human-to-human research demonstrates the importance for immediacy/closeness in the classroom and their positive effects on learning. If we wanna bring machine actors into the classroom, scholars should examine how immediacy occurs in those contexts.
9/ Credibility has also been well researched in human-to-human Edu contexts & has great importance to interactions w/ machine actors as already demonstrated by existing research. We should continue to explore how credibility & trust are built with machine actors in the classroom.
10/ There’s a lot of work to be done in teacher clarity in the HMC context as we consider using HMC tech in the classroom. We should look at how machine agents in the classroom can be more or less clear and how this leads to desired instructional outcomes.
11/ To wrap, #HMC, is concerned about how meaning is created between people & machines. Our ch is a very bird's eye view of that in the classroom. W/ considering applications of HMC in edu there’s much to consider even beyond our ch (e.g., anthropocentric bias, AI-hype).
13/ We hope you enjoy reading our chapter and encourage you to recommend the handbook to your library! 🧵