Artificial Intelligence in Education Meets Inclusive Educational Technology—The Technical State-of-the-Art and Possible Directions

Abstract

Adaptive educational technologies as well as inclusion are two research fields that have a huge impact on current educational questions. Nevertheless, they are seldom seen together, which explains why there are not too many results in the intersection of the fields yet. This contribution discusses possible directions for combining Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) and inclusive educational technologies and shows some emerging practices. The introduction presents a state of the art on the history of adaptive learning technologies and on assistive technology (AT). A section that highlights the impairment/disability dimension of inclusion follows. Furthermore, emerging practices that combine accessibility/inclusion with Artificial Intelligence (AI) are discussed. The next section focuses on cultural dimensions of inclusion and the impact on AI in learning technologies. We then discuss the origins of cultural biases in technology and how to address this issue. Gender and ethnicity are connected to this cultural dimension and therefore are considered in this discussion as well. The conclusion describes the requirements for combining AI and inclusive learning technologies in the future. There is a need for more awareness of possible biases when creating learning systems and training algorithms with suitable data sets.