New report urges caution when it comes to using AI to shape curriculum and reporting

As the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector continues to explore the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for a variety of purposes including preparing documentation about children’s learning and completing compliance based assessments, a new report from the Australian Network for Quality Digital Education has called for a cautious approach. 

The Australian edtech sector generates annual revenue of $3.6 billion. To drive change, edtech – including AI-enabled applications – needs to be well designed and effectively used, but in a rapidly growing sea of applications, it is almost impossible to know when that’s the case, a dilemma which prompted the authors to look more deeply into the issue.

Released last week by the Chair of the Australian Network for Quality Digital Education the report calls on policymakers to urgently build a national quality assurance process for digitally enabled teaching and learning resources (‘edtech’), with clear criteria and a robust and transparent assessment process, to ensure Australian children at all levels of education can benefit from the highest quality learning tools and curriculum resources.

Authored by Network Chair Professor Leslie Loble AM and Director of Edtech and Education Policy Dr Kelly Stephens, the paper advocates for criteria that, at minimum, ensure edtech is backed by evidence and provides support for quality (educator) use, is true to the curriculum, is inclusive of all students, and ensures safe and ethical use of data.

Digital resources that support all students to access and succeed in curriculum-aligned learning should be the priority for quality assurance, Professor Loble said, with teachers playing a central role to help develop criteria and assess resources.

“Teachers and parents are overwhelmed by choice from a booming edtech market, with 500,000 learning apps available online and more marketed directly to schools (and early learning settings), but there’s no independent, comprehensive source of information about the quality of these resources in Australia,” she continued.

“Edtech decision makers currently select and implement technologies with far too little information about what is likely to work in their schools. We are consequently spending untold amounts of money on edtech that may be overused, underused, or ineffectively used. We know for certain it is inequitably used.

“The lack of clearly articulated quality expectations creates a significant risk that our students and schools may fail to benefit from the increased use of edtech. Additionally, we still lack system-wide regulatory standards and controls to prevent the tracking and scraping of children’s data from edtech platforms.”

Australia, she believes, is “falling behind other jurisdictions in implementing quality assurance processes in response to the growing reliance on edtech.”  

The report was welcomed by Sarah Davies AM, CEO of the Alannah and Madeline Foundation , who said: “Children’s data privacy and security must be the foundation of all quality edtech and cannot be left to individuals to assure. We know that the most vulnerable children in our community are also the most vulnerable online.”

To access the report please see here.