I am delighted to share an interview I had about Adaptive/Personalized Learning with Caroline Brant, Director of Client Services at Zoomi, Inc. According to the Zoomi website, it is “the first and only automated personalized learning technology and provides actionable eLearning data to companies with more than 250 proprietary algorithms.” Zoomi was launched in 2015 by two university researchers who teamed with a “seasoned technology entrepreneur.”
LS: Caroline, tell us about Zoomi’s target audience.
CB: We work with K-12, higher-education, and corporate clients. Our partners include LMSs, content development platforms, and consultants.
LS: Please tell us more about what makes Zoomi unique.
CB: Zoomi identifies weaknesses in understanding and provides personalized content to meet each individual learner’s needs. We capture learning patterns and behaviors, which we like to call “Learner DNA.” Data is great, but if you can’t do anything with it, it’s useless; organizations can now gain instant insights into the data being captured and determine that this person is getting it and this person isn’t. And, we can show how the learning is impacting business outcomes.
LS: How is Zoomi using artificial intelligence?
CB: Zoomi is an AI-informed learning analytics company, bringing together the disciplines of predictive and prescriptive analytics, machine learning, and data mining to glean insights and intelligence about a learner’s behavior, cognitive, and engagement preferences. Many companies claim to be utilizing AI, and they may be, but it’s likely rules-based, where Zoomi is utilizing true Artificial Intelligence.
LS: How would you define Artificial Intelligence for Learning?
CB: At Zoomi, Artificial Intelligence is using machine learning algorithms to capture and interpret user behaviors and preferences, and combining them with a granular understanding of course content, to provide automated, real-time, personalized training.
LS: What are some other benefits of adaptive learning?
CB: There are many. Increased completion rates, improved courses’ effectiveness, reduced training costs, increased employee productivity and improved learner engagement. Adaptive learning allows us to deliver the right content, at the right level, at the right time, to each individual learner.
LS: Is there anything else that would be helpful to understand about how AI helps learning?
CB: Artificial intelligence allows educators, researchers, and other stakeholders to extract and interpret as much information as possible (via machine learning and other advanced analytic and data extraction methods) about human learners from their behaviors in a course. These methods allow stakeholders to pick up on subtle patterns that may indicate significant learning trends that might otherwise be missed without these advanced AI techniques.
LS: Thank you very much, this was very informative.
CB: Glad to contribute.
