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5 Essential Applications of AI Technology in Education

Posted on by Tim Boltz

When growing up and sitting through math class, students often heard teachers say that students should not rely on a calculator to do their math for them. After all, they would never have a calculator in their pockets. Today, that statement could not be farther from the truth. Now, many students have an entire computer in their pockets with a calculator just a click of a button away. The growth of artificial intelligence (AI) has increased exponentially within the last few decades, and students and educators alike must embrace the latest in AI and education technology to keep up with the pace.

In all learning environments, students and teachers rely on modern technologies to enhance their experiences to be as informational, productive and efficient as possible. In recent years, hybrid learning and collaborative digital spaces became essential components of education for both K-12 and higher education organizations. With this development, education technology has evolved and expanded to include new and more advanced AI systems inside and outside the classroom.

The needs of students are always changing, and educators must constantly adapt to progressive ways of teaching and learn different technologies or platforms that can assist with their daily lessons. With the implementation of AI and numerous benefits of digital learning, all students and instructors can achieve a more wholistic and innovative education. These five topics demonstrate how AI is an essential tool in the learning process for various types of learners across K-12 and higher education.

Communication

Innovative trends in education technology have made it possible for students and staff to stay connected, whether through remote online learning or collaborative learning in the classroom. AI tools like SMS bots, predictive technology and ChatGPT can assist students in tasks such as navigating their school’s learning platforms, researching and preparing information for assignments and getting real-time answers to their questions. AI can also help teachers and professors orchestrate discussion points between students and guide next steps within small group collaborative projects.^[^]

Automation

For teachers, implementing AI can help automate repetitive daily tasks like grading tests and quizzes, and catching minor mistakes within written essays. This way they have more freedom and time to focus on in-depth feedback, creating comprehensive lesson plans and spending one-on-one time with their students. Additionally, AI tools can give students instant feedback on their work, allowing them to be more independent in identifying inaccuracies and recognizing successful projects.^[^]

Immersive Learning

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are becoming increasingly more popular in students’ everyday lives, so using these technologies as a learning tool is familiar and compelling for them to gain valuable experiences in the classroom. Immersive technologies can simulate real-world scenarios for students to gain hands-on experience with low risk, like medical simulations and technical experiments. It also can allow students to break the barrier between their physical space and complex concepts like observing the planets up close or enlarging and examining something microscopic.^[^]Not only do AR and VR create expansive opportunities for students to view and understand concepts in new and captivating ways, but they also create an additional, interactive and collaborative avenue of learning for students who may not be as responsive to traditional tools like textbooks and study guides.^[^]

Data-Driven Results

Throughout a student’s education, data is continually collected to better understand and predict their developing needs and most effective learning strategies. AI technologies can quickly and automatically analyze and report on this data, allowing teachers and professors to evaluate trends in an individual student’s or an entire class’s performance. Empowered with this knowledge, educators can tailor their lesson plans and take a more proactive approach to supporting students’ needs, ultimately increasing academic improvement for all.^[^]

Personalized Learning

Student’s learning styles can vary depending on many factors. For example, some students learn best through more visual and interactive experiences, while others may learn best through memorization and flashcards. Analyzing data collected by AI can help teachers be more informed and prepared educators for different kinds of learners. By applying the insights gathered from AI algorithms, educators can create personalized tracks for individual students, including aspects like adjusting the types of content, working with their comfortability, tailoring to their pace of learning and understanding their comprehension of learning objectives.^[^] Additionally, AI technologies can help teachers plan, schedule and produce suggested lesson ideas more efficiently so they can target instruction and reduce the time it takes to create activities that best support each student.^[^]

As AI becomes more common in education, maintaining academic integrity and validity within assignments of any kind will remain top of mind for educators. While earlier AI systems are designed to help students achieve academic success, newer AI systems are intended to empower teachers to optimize the use of artificial intelligence for students and encourage positive, ethical engagement with AI technologies.^[^] Fostering trust among educators to cultivate the most prosperous learning environment through the implementation of AI can further personal, social and educational growth for all students.

Explore ̽��Ƶ’s education technology solutions to learn how your organization can work together with our top innovative EdTech vendors to bridge the digital divide and meet the demands of modern education.

Resources:

[1] Office of Ed Tech. “AI and the Future of Teaching and Learning: New Interactions, New Choices.” Medium,

[2] Shonubi, Olufemi. “Council Post: AI in the Classroom: Pros, Cons and the Role of Edtech Companies.”

[3] Dick, Ellysse. “The Promise of Immersive Learning: Augmented and Virtual Reality’s Potential in Education.” Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

[4] Dani, Vishal. “How Augmented Reality Creates Interactive and Engaging Classrooms.” Kitaboo,

[5] Gururaj, Tejasri. “10 Examples of Artificial Intelligence Improving Education.” Interesting Engineering,

[6] Dani, Vishal. “9 Trends in Education Technology That Will Have a Major Impact.” Kitaboo,

[7] Office of Ed Tech. “AI and the Future of Teaching and Learning: Engaging Educators.” Medium,

Why AppExchange Use Offers Agencies Untapped Opportunity

Posted on by Bethany Blackwell

In our first Insider’s Guide, we’re pulling back the curtain on the world’s largest cloud app marketplace, the Salesforce AppExchange, to offer a look at what it is, how it works and how it can provide value to agencies in extending their investment in the Salesforce platform. With the government’s increased focus on improving service delivery — particularly public-facing services per the presidential administration executive order on customer service — taking advantage of possible software-as-a-service integrations with the Salesforce customer relationship management platform makes logical sense. Download the guide to learn how AppExchange helps organizations increase productivity, eliminate risk and save time.

Nintex DocGen for Document Creation, Automation and Management

“A great example would be voter registration cards. Every year, you need to update it. We make it really easy to go out and maintain it with our solution and not have to go into code to make updates. It becomes easy to create, easy to maintain going forward and not having to spend budget on development cycles or development resources to build these solutions. The alternative is to write and maintain custom Apex code, which requires an advanced skill set and takes more time. This is a faster way to develop it and an easier way to maintain it.”

Read more insights from Steve Witt, Director of Public Sector at Nintex.

FormAssembly for Secure Online Forms

“Specifically, we’re the most secure and compliant platform in the entire marketplace. That is how we go to market, that’s what we pride ourselves on: being good stewards of our data, being thought leaders in that space. Government organizations should use us because, doubling down on the security and compliancy, we’re tailored for highly sensitive data. We’re built for that. We hold the distinction of being the only FedRAMP-ready platform on the marketplace in this category. We also hold SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS and GDPR compliance. And really, what that means for our customers and partners is that we’re experts in this space, and that will mitigate any risk and collecting data for your organization, whether it’s here in the United States or abroad.”

Read more insights from Paul Lazatin, Director of Partnerships at FormAssembly.

WalkMe for No-Code Digital Adoption

“What makes us unique is that we have the ability to overlay on any enterprise application in the tech stack, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS), government off-the-shelf (GOTS) or custom-built. By doing so, we’re able to create better user experiences, drive employee productivity and monitor digital adoption on any enterprise application that’s being deployed out to the federal government, whether those applications are internal to employees or externally facing for taxpayers and constituents.”

Read more insights from Carl Wright, Director of Public Sector of Federal Sales at WalkMe.

Odaseva for Enterprise Data Protection

“Many federal and state organizations have questions that need answers when it comes to managing their Salesforce data. How do Salesforce users archive data that is no longer needed? How do they comply with regulations such as those from the National Institute of Standards and Technology or in the California Consumer Privacy Act? That’s why we at Odaseva consider the data management lifecycle. Odaseva helps organizations comply with the strictest data regulations and guard against data failure — all with precise control on a field-tested platform to scale with ease. And we deliver this with the strongest data security features that exceed the requirements of even the most complex, highly regulated businesses in the world.”

Read more insights from Matt Carstensen, Senior Solutions Engineer at Odaseva.

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Conga Apps for Contract and Workflow Management

“Conga offers a flexible platform and set of solutions built natively on top of Salesforce that address a broad set of needs for federal, state and local government entities. Our products include Composer, the number one downloaded application on Salesforce’s AppExchange. Conga Composer allows public sector customers to automate document generation to get work done faster and easier in Salesforce. Users can create documents with dynamic data from Salesforce in the correct template, then send it, store it and trigger the next business process. Conga Sign is a modern and highly secure e-signature solution. We now offer a FedRAMP-certified version of our e-signature solution, which is getting quite a bit of attention.”

Read more insights from Eric Daggett, Vice President of Sales for Public Sector at Conga.

Download the full Insider’s Guide for more insights from these AppExchange leaders and additional interviews, research and infographics.

AvePoint Adds Governance, Management, Data Protection and Migration Support for Microsoft Power Platform

Posted on by The ̽��Ƶ Team

̽��Ƶ partner AvePoint Public Sector recently announced its support for the governance, management, migration and data protection of As more organizations adopt Power Platform to automate processes, build digital solutions, analyze data and create virtual agents, IT leaders need strategies that support their unique governance, security and compliance requirements.

AvePoint’s support for Power Platform helps organizations:

Provide scalable management and governance: Access management and risk assessments allow organizations to quickly drive impactful collaboration and sustainable Power Platform adoption. Best practices and productivity can be achieved through automated governance and policies, enforcing proper control of data access and functionality.
Protect critical workspaces, apps and flows: AvePoint’s automated backup for Power BI workspaces, Power Apps and flows makes it seamless to avoid accidental data deletion, user error or ransomware. This way, organizations can ensure they’re protected, compliant and prepared for business continuity when using Power Platform.
Seamlessly migrate data: Building on AvePoint’s award-winning migration capabilities, organizations can now migrate apps from an environment within the same tenant or between tenants – giving organizations more opportunities to successfully use Power Platform.

AvePoint and Microsoft Integration Blog Embedded Image 2023

Some organizations are already taking advantage of the AvePoint’s Power Platform support. “AvePoint’s support for Power Platform has helped us empower employees to safely build solutions that will enhance their work,” Mike Fettner, Principal Office 365 Engineering at Regeneron, said. “As an organization, this allows us to continue taking smart risks because we know robust governance solutions will put the right guardrails in place, and data protection will ensure none of our data or workflows are lost.”

Connecting Customers with AvePoint and Industry Solutions

It has never been easier to count on ̽��Ƶ and AvePoint. We can help your agency with:

Quick quote turnaround and smart spending
Industry-expert cloud computing product recommendations
24/7 live assistance to get you up and running faster

Contact a member of the ̽��Ƶ and AvePoint Public Sector team today and discover how we can support your organization.

3 Ways to Address Developers’ Productivity Concerns

Posted on by Barry Duplantis

From modernizing software development to creating Zero Trust cybersecurity architectures, the federal government has ambitious plans for 2023. But those plans will only reach fruition by removing the barriers that get in the way of developer productivity.

Government agencies have made great strides to bring IT teams, including developers, closer together over the past few years. For example, they’ve made significant investments in that are rooted in DevOps cultures. And the Department of Defense clearly recognizes the benefits of collaboration between cybersecurity and development teams, making it a core facet of the agency’s .

But as a recent Mattermost survey discovered, more must be done to break down communication and collaboration barriers that inhibit developer productivity.

For , 300 software developers were surveyed to find out what’s keeping them from being as productive as possible, and what can be done to accelerate productivity. Their responses showed that although organizations have tried to build more collaborative development cultures, there’s still some work to be done in certain areas.

Let’s dig into some of the challenges—and what you, as a government IT professional, can do to address them.

“Poor communication across teams” is a big productivity challenge

Poor communication practices are the biggest obstacles to productivity and collaboration, with 29% of survey respondents citing “poor communication across teams” as an inhibitor. Their biggest issues are around “lack of process and documentation” (27%) and “lack of clarity around project prioritization” (25%).

General-purpose collaboration platforms that other teams use aren’t helping. Thirty-seven percent of respondents said there are “too many distractions from non-developers” using those tools while 25% said they “don’t fit their workflows well.”

“Information spread across too many tools” (46%) and lack of integration with other tools” (45%) are making it tough to collaborate and find information

Having to work with different tools is also making it difficult for developers to collaborate. Indeed, the developers surveyed said that information silos were among their biggest concerns.

These silos are making it frustrating for developers to find what they need when they need it. Thirty-two percent of respondents said they spend 3 to 5 hours per week hunting down information while 18% spent 6 to 8 hours.

Remote work “somewhat improves collaboration” but continues to be a source of tension among some developers

Remote work might be the norm, but developers aren’t entirely taken with it. Forty-three percent of respondents stated that remote work “somewhat improves collaboration” while 33% believe it makes collaboration worse.

That number is down from our 2021 survey, where more than half of respondents said that remote work was a net gain. The fact that the number has fallen is likely a reflection of the deterioration of communications practices and lack of integration, both of which contribute to poor project clarity.

What government agencies can do to improve developer productivity

Our survey respondents sent a clear message: Give us tools and processes that allow us to collaborate more effectively, break up information silos, and share knowledge easily. There are three things you can do to satisfy these needs.

Invest in software built for developer workflows.

Since open source is easily customizable, it’s simple to integrate different development tools. This will make it easier for developers to share code and resources, manage workflows, and communicate with each other without interference from other teams.

Create a central repository for knowledge sharing.

Having a “single source of truth” that developers can refer to when looking for information can save enormous time. Invest in a repository that pulls information from different teams and tools. Provide developers with greater visibility and access to the information they need to do their jobs more efficiently.

Automate information sharing and workflow management.

Automatically input new information into the repository once it’s received so developers don’t have to look for it. Automate workflow processes, too, by using a system that automatically checks off tasks when they’re done, alerts developers when it’s their time to work on a project, and more. Help your developers spend less time focusing on these tasks and more time building applications.

The success of accelerated investments in software factories and modernization initiatives in 2023 will depend in large part on developers’ abilities to be productive. Right now, there are obstacles getting in the way of that productivity. But you can eliminate those obstacles by improving collaboration and information sharing.

Want to learn more about developers’ productivity concerns and what you can do to address them? Check out .

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