Expert systems in education: new opportunities, or threats, to the learning environment?

A more open curriculum and a new organization of education are needed to take full advantage of the opportunities, and avoid some of the difficulties, when using expert systems in education. This paper summarizes experiences from a number of projects where students use expert systems, or try to develop expert systems of their own, in different knowledge areas in school. Results show that students are motivated and stimulated when exploring a given knowledge area. They seek knowledge inside and outside school. However, school resources as well as the curriculum, and time itself, often constrain the exploration of new areas of knowledge. Demands are imposed on teachers which often require an increase in their knowledge and skills, if they are to have full control over the learning process. Most fundamentally there is a lack of clear strategies as to how students should “attack” new areas of knowledge.