We can't stop communicating - AI can help us to use this data for education!

We can’t stop communicating – AI can help us to use this data for education!

Thursday 08/06 16:00-17:30h

Workshop Space A

Abstract

Effective communication is a crucial skill in the 21st century, particularly in educational settings. Failure to incorporate communication skills in educational technologies is a missed opportunity. Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) offer the potential to enable technology to understand human communication, including both verbal and nonverbal cues. This capability has significant implications for technology-supported education. Specifically, it allows for targeted training of communication skills, empowering students to develop these skills independently. In our workshop, we will interactively work out relevant aspects of verbal and non-verbal communication and how this knowledge can be used for Education Technologies. Furthermore, participants get the chance to try out prototypes and get first practical experiences with AI-based communication analysis solutions. They get the chance to exchange ideas about verbal and non-verbal communication for Educational Technology and how to use those in their project.

Needs Analysis

Humans are communicating all the time, not only verbally but also non-verbally. Therefore, providing valuable feedback on body language, engagement, and attention is important. This information can also be used to improve teaching practices, develop more effective learning materials, and personalize instructions based on individual needs. On the other hand, verbal communication and its underlying models are also important because they can be used to analyze and understand text and speech, providing insights into language patterns, sentiment, and intent. This can help teachers to identify areas where students may be struggling, provide more personalized feedback, and develop more engaging and effective learning materials. With recent technology and especially AI-development, there are now more and more possibilities to machine-recognize natural human communication. This provides a whole new range of opportunities for Education Technology applications.

Learning Objectives

Participants will learn what verbal and non-verbal communication is and why it can be relevant in multiple Education Technology applications. They will work out the relevant aspects of (non-)verbal communication and how they are interconnected. Furthermore, they will get an overview of how those aspects might be relevant for different learning application scenarios. One of those scenarios is the actual training of communication skills. Participants will be able to discuss the problems with evaluating communication skills as well as possible solutions. In the end, they have a broad overview of (non-)verbal communication and the relevance for Education Technology. Furthermore, participants will get first impressions on how their previously gained knowledge can be practically implemented in Educational Software. They will gain practical experiences by experimenting with AI-based prototypes for assessing aspects of communication as well as knowledge about their benefits and limitations.

Pre-activities

The participants can attend our workshop without any special preparation.

Session Description

1) Getting to know each other
2) Introduction:
– Why is verbal / non-verbal communication important in the field of Education Technology?
– Why might it be relevant for your project?
3) Splitting up the participants into 2 groups: one on verbal and one on non-verbal communication
4) Per group: Interactive group activities (role play, interactive brainstorming, clustering & discussion)
– How does verbal / non-verbal communication work?
– How can we apply this in Education Technology? (Example: presentation skill training)
– How to assess communication skills?
5) Switching groups
6) Wrap-Up (main lessons learned, open questions, feedback)