From 21 to 23 October 2020, the European Distance and E-learning Network (EDEN) organized a three-day research workshop on the topic “Enhancing the human experience of learning with technology”. The conference, which was supposed to take place in Portugal, was moved online due to the Covid 19 pandemic. The project partners of the Taccle AI project presented a paper with recent survey results.
The data for the paper Artificial Intelligence and vocational education and training – perspective of german VET teachers was collected in June 2020 by an online survey among vocational school teachers from vocational schools in Lower Saxony and Bremen.
The overall aim of the online survey was to get a first picture of the role artificial intelligence plays currently and for the future in vocational training in the region of Lower Saxony/ Bremen. It was of interest to find out what actually takes place at vocational schools in the context of AI as well as the individual opinions and assessments of vocational school teachers on the topic of AI in general and in vocational schools.
In summary, there are isolated AI projects in schools, but these have not yet reached the wider community and should therefore be considered pilot projects. Of the projects identified, 60 % are carried out in cooperation with external partners. The initiation of AI projects could therefore promote cooperation between learning locations. It can also be concluded that vocational school teachers are quite open to the use of AI-based learning applications in vocational school. On the one hand, they can imagine themselves using AI-based applications. On the other hand, they expect that AI-based learning applications, such as Adaptive Learning, Machine Learning Tools and Apps and Learning Analytics will gain importance in vocational school as a whole and that teaching and learning will change fundamentally.
The submitted paper was nominated for the “Best Research Paper Award” and will be published in the Conference Proceedings at the end of November.
Survey results can also be found here on our project homepage under reports.
