Learning Curve

Classroom AI proves valuable to teachers

Teaching is stressful. The nonprofit RAND Corporation found in 2021 that educators reported job-related stress at double the average rate of all other professions. Surely, the some 9,500 K-12 teaching vacancies in Florida have added to the burdens on instructional staffs.

Destin resident Matthew Pace, the senior director of enterprise information technology and security for New York-based Merlyn Mind, believes AI can help.

With over 25 years of experience in the tech industry, Pace oversees AI development at Merlyn Mind. Previously, he worked as the IT director for the City of Destin.

Pace understands classroom challenges from the teacher’s perspective. He comes from a long line of educators.

Merlyn Mind gave Pace an opportunity to give back to teachers. Merlyn Mind’s first product, Merlyn, is described on the company’s website as an “AI-powered digital assistant purpose-built for education.”

Technological implementations such as Canvas and SMART Boards are commonplace in the K-12 environment. Unfortunately, as much as these tools assist teachers, they can also interfere with instruction due to technical difficulties or teacher unfamiliarity.

A University of Phoenix study found that 43 percent of teachers rate themselves as “average or below average” in dealing with technology.

The Merlyn digital assistant was developed in an effort to create a seamless, integrated classroom experience. The Symphony Classroom is Merlyn Mind’s hub device, a minimalist computer that connects all the different devices in a classroom into one intuitive platform. Teachers would no longer need to fiddle with remotes to find the correct input for their display; instead, they would ask Merlyn to “change to my overhead projector.”

Using its natural language processing, Merlyn recognizes voice commands.

“If you have a presentation queued, whether it’s Google Classroom or Microsoft PowerPoint, you can say, ‘Open my presentation on whales,’ and it will pull up,” Pace said. He explained that teachers can toggle through slides using their voice rather than a clicker or mouse. A student asking about the world’s largest ocean would be given the answer in a moment.

When asked how Merlyn might detect commands coming from a student, Pace said that although the AI is unable to discern a teacher’s voice specifically, “there are ways to turn off the microphones that are on the unit.”

Preliminary research shows promise for the burgeoning product. According to a study conducted by Creativity Labs, teachers at a Southern California charter school reported having “significantly more time for teaching and learning than a matched control group.”

However, in that same study, some teachers reported the device did not understand their inputs due to their English pronunciation. Given the diverse spectrum of educators in the country, as the study notes, this implicit bias could present an obstacle to Merlyn’s wider adoption and usage if left uncorrected.

Parents and educators may hesitate at the thought of AI being implemented in their children’s classrooms. Pace believes that concerns about AI, stemming from science fiction or the possibility of job loss, are likely to prove unwarranted.

“AI is a computer program,” he said. “Humans are programming it to do a task we want it to do.”

Elaborating further on job security for laborers, Pace said that he sees AI helping with “menial tasks” and “increasing efficiency across the board.” His capstone project for Rutgers University explored how a chatbot could help the staff of a public entity by decreasing the time spent answering common questions from citizens.

Pace does not see AI as mitigating human development, either. He compared AI to a calculator. In his eyes, both are simply tools meant to assist people in completing work
and research.

“You can do things faster, but you still have to show your work,” he said.

Pace believes people should “focus on the benefits of AI and making sure we have regulations in place” to ensure we make the most of the industry’s inevitable growth. He wants people to make an effort to get acquainted with upcoming technology and artificial intelligence.

“Understanding it is better than fearing it,” he said.