First was the fear cycle: “AI will take all the teaching jobs!” Then there was the hype cycle: “Crypto, scratch that, AI will completely revolutionize our daily existence!” Today’s announcement by heavyweights Khan Academy and Microsoft Education may hopefully signal the onset of the reality cycle: Actual AI tools baked into current technologies that can make educators’ lives easier at no cost. I was excited to score a conversation under embargo with Khan Academy’s Chief Learning Officer Kristen DiCerbo and Microsoft’s VP of Education Deirdre Quarnstrom for a look under the hood. Have a listen:
Some details from the announcement:
- Microsoft is enabling Khan Academy to provide free access to its AI assistant, Khanmigo for Teachers for US K-12 educators. We know educators are overworked and 55% of teachers think about leaving the profession due to burnout. By making Khanmigo’s Teacher Tools available for free, teachers can now save time on planning and administrative tasks without any costs to them.
- Due to the steep costs associated with running generative AI technology, Khanmigo for Teachers was previously only available to educators as a paid subscription. Microsoft is donating access to Azure AI-optimized infrastructure, making the availability of Khanmigo free for U.S. K-12 Teachers, which will now be powered by Azure OpenAI Service.
- Khan Academy and Microsoft will also explore opportunities to improve math-tutoring in an affordable, scalable and adaptable manner with a new version of Phi-3, a family of small language models (SLMs) developed by Microsoft.
- Khan Academy content will now be integrated into Microsoft Copilot and Teams for Education, to bring high-quality AI-powered resources to more learners.
For more information, go to Microsoft.com/education.
To access Khanmigo, visit khanmigo.ai
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