In a push to help educational institutions expand individualized learning opportunities, Steven Butschi, head of education for Google Cloud, announced that the company is expanding its portfolio of Student Success Services with a new Google Cloud artificial intelligence (AI)-powered learning platform, which includes an interactive tutor.
In a blog post, Butschi said that the platform will “provide new ways for educators to share curriculum and will bring more on-demand learning opportunities to students.”
Butschi added that with Google Cloud’s new AI-powered learning platform, students will be able to learn in “highly individualized ways,” and the platform will enable educational institutions to scale their efforts to meet student needs.
The platform from Google Cloud is a suite of applications and application program interfaces (APIs) that can be integrated into an institution’s existing infrastructure. Butschi explained that “educators build competency skills graphs that feed the platform, which then uses AI to auto-generate learning activities for students.” Students can then access the interactive tutor and the educator-created activities via an app.
Butschi said that the interactive tutor uses APIs to present a chat-based experience for students, incorporating AI-generated learning activities. He added that the tutor provides individualized, scalable, guided practice, and coaching for reading comprehension and writing. For example, Butschi said, the interactive tutor can generate targeted questions based on reading materials to help students understand and practice concepts in a way that meets their individualized learning needs. Currently, the interactive tutor offers four types of learning activities that students can choose from: short-answer questions, multiple-choice questions, paraphrasing practice, and guided note-taking.
Butschi said this approach provides educators with greater bandwidth to work directly with students who require additional hands-on support.
