Giving Compass' Take:

• A digital learning chat included discussions about the potential uses and challenges of artificial intelligence in higher education.

• Have you seen higher education institutions implementing AI near you? How can philanthropy bring awareness of effective AI programs in education?

• Schools are already considering incorporating technology and personalized learning into their education system to achieve a 'classroom of the future'.

Do anthropomorphized forms of artificial intelligence serve students better than hidden bots? Will students receive AI-manifested messages through wearable devices in the future? How do we create frameworks for the ethical creation of artificial intelligence?

There were a lot of big questions and a lot of big ideas at #DLNchat on Tuesday, March 27 when special guest Bryan Fendley, Director of Academic Computing at University of Arkansas, Monticello, guided our discussion: How Could Artificial Intelligence Shape the Future of Higher Education?

#DLNchat-ters voiced the need to create algorithms and other AI systems within carefully construed ethical frameworks. Fendley, our special guest, suggested that such frameworks may need to be government regulated. How do we keep algorithms in check?

Kent Darr suggested that “Parsing large data sets could help the instructor and instructional designer make quicker, more informed decisions about course content, tasks, and assessments,” work that “may otherwise prove to be time-consuming for the instructor/ researcher.” That is particularly true when institutions want to include data from other fields and organizations.

In addition to behind-the-scenes algorithms, the #DLNchat community also discussed artificial intelligence that interacts with students, faculty and other individuals. Kent Darr put it this way: “AI can quickly interpret qualitative data to show us large trends in classes, colleges, or entire student bodies. Humans can more easily assign context and meaning.”

Whether through front-end interactions, or back-end operations, it seems that we will continue to see the use of artificial intelligence grow on campus.

Read more about AI in higher education by Michael Sano at EdSurge.