The world evolves tremendously fast, driven by technological progress that reshapes our everyday lives. Artificial intelligence (AI) has now become an essential lever in many sectors, and the world of education is no exception. And yet, these evolutions can sometimes trigger concern, particularly among teachers that need to adapt to new teaching methods. 

Film your lesson and publish it online? Record short educational videos? For a lot of teachers, it is a real challenge. And yet, we’re talking about a method accessible to anyone and that allows us to answer one of the questions that's almost always on a teacher's mind: “How can I better engage my students?”.

Especially since the success of video lessons is undeniable! Many students use video to better understand the key concepts of their courses as illustrated by the success of Yvan Monka’s YouTube channel, a teacher who started making videos to explain maths lessons in a simpler way and who  has almost 3 million subscribers!

But the case of Yvan Monka is certainly not a majority, and video learning still struggles to find its place in the world of education. But then, how do we help teachers to share their knowledge easily and engage their learners? We believe that a part of the solution lies in the use of artificial intelligence.

To mark the release of the new update to UbiCast’s video platform Nudgis, which now integrates a connector to Aristote (an AI developed by the French institution Centrale Supélec), we would like to highlight the concrete benefits of AI in the creation and streaming of educational videos. 

📌 A true ally to boost teachers’ creativity 

What is the first issue that teachers face when they are asked to record a course and post it online? Probably creativity! We need to realise that traditional teaching doesn’t prepare teachers to create video content.
Being a good teacher doesn’t necessarily mean knowing how to record and edit engaging content. They need to think about how to frame, organise the content (the famous educational script), make the video dynamic, and most of all, to find practical ways of keeping students focused. The first step is to support teachers in creating engaging videos.

1️⃣ Structuring and making educational videos more dynamic

Creating a good educational video demands a specific range of skills. And for that purpose, AI can be used as a guide to better structure and make content more dynamic. If we take a closer look at concrete examples, teachers can benefit from: 
Scenario suggestions: AI can recommend suitable structures to make the lesson more smooth and target the key points to be covered.
Writing assistance: generating scripts and introductions to avoid blank page syndrome. 
Rhythm analysis: recommendations to switch between explanations, pauses and interactions in order to catch students’ attention for as long as possible.

It can be difficult for teachers to get feedback on the quality of their courses, making it all the more difficult to improve. AI would here allow them to get immediate feedback on the content of the lesson and the way it is presented, along with practical advice to improve. So there’s no need to pretend to be an expert: thanks to AI, teachers now benefit from personalised monitoring to guide them and show them what to do to offer the best possible content for their students. 

2️⃣ Automatically generating interactive activities

Learning is more efficient when students are active rather than passive. And the good news is that AI makes it possible for users to enrich their videos with interactive resources to maintain students attention and encourage comprehension: 
Automatic creation of quizzes based on the video content, allowing students to test their knowledge in real-time.
Synthesis of key-points to facilitate memorisation.
Integration of smart annotations to explore certain concepts in greater depth.

Far from replacing the teacher, AI acts here as a teaching assistant to help the teacher make the most out of his lectures. Able to target key concepts, AI brings learning to life and makes it more fun for students. But it also saves the teacher precious time!

📈 Using AI to improve accessibility and searchability 

1️⃣ Subtitles and automatic captions 

One of the most exhausting tasks when producing video content is adding captions or subtitles. And yet, it is an essential task if we want the video to be shared as much as possible and make comprehension easier for students. AI already allows us to generate subtitles instantly. No need to manually transcribe each sentence anymore, subtitles are generated and synchronised automatically with the video!
Another advantage is that it improves comprehension for non-native speakers and students with a hearing impairment!

2️⃣ Smart indexing and improved navigation

When a student is looking for a specific piece of information in a video, watching it entirely just to find the moment he or she needs can take a really long time. And again, in that situation the use of AI is a real time-saver!

Automatically generating chapters and segments to better structure the video makes it easier to follow, we don’t lose sight of the subject and students can find the part of the video they are looking for easily.
With the search by keyword, students can type a word into the search bar and directly access the moment  he or she was looking for thanks to the transcription  previously made.

These features contribute to capture students' attention so they can concentrate on the subject that interests them most!

🎯 AI, a tool meant to help teachers, not to replace them

One of the main concerns when it comes to AI is the fear of it replacing teachers. I really believe it isn’t and won’t be the case: most students appreciate on-site classes because it allows them to have a real exchange with their teacher. An AI would be unable to recreate this human discussion between the student and the teacher.

Moreover, teachers are often adjusting the way they present the class from one year to another based on their students' feedback. The content of the class in itself doesn’t need to be altered. So the aim is simply to help teachers to take their first steps in producing  short educational videos and offer them new tools to enhance their videos. 

AI needs to be perceived as a substantial time-saver, to focus on what is essential: interacting with the students. AI automatises repetitive tasks and optimises the learning experience through making videos more accessible, interactive and engaging. 

By adopting tools like Aristote, teachers can take full advantage of advances in AI without losing their freedom to teach!

🚀 Conclusion: an educational revolution in the making 

As a former student, I sincerely believe that using AI can be useful on many levels, and even be the solution to some educational issues that still remain sensitive. 

I’m mostly thinking about students with attention disorders. Following a two-hour class in a classroom without having any stimulating interaction often doesn’t allow them to absorb all the content of the lesson, and it can be too complicated for these students to efficiently take notes. 

In my opinion, using artificial intelligence can enable these students to be stimulated during the course thanks to quizzes that ask them direct questions, to focus on the notions they might have missed thanks to the keyword search, and also to re-watch the class and take notes more efficiently thanks to the automatic captions and subtitles.

On the teacher's side, using AI allows them to delegate time-consuming tasks such as creating quizzes, chaptering their videos, or even generating a transcription, so that they can focus on the content of their lecture and nothing more!

However, rest assured, AI is still far from replacing teachers (and it won’t, trust me!). Students still need to have an educational interlocutor who they can turn to. 
But the use of AI can make it easier to create more attractive and interactive videos for students and allows them to explore new ways to share knowledge. So, why not try it?