AI Agents in Education: An Early Systematic Review of Emerging Roles, Potential, and Limitations

• Olimpius Istrate

In a world where ChatGPT writes essays and solves math problems in seconds, an important question emerges: who will shape the character and values of the next generation – cold and precise algorithms or teachers who understand the needs, potential, and sensitivity of human beings?

Recent advances in artificial intelligence, particularly the emergence of sophisticated AI agents like ChatGPT, have sparked intense debate about their role in education. While these technologies promise to transform teaching and learning processes, their rapid evolution and widespread adoption have outpaced our understanding of their implications.

This scoping review addresses a critical gap in current literature by systematically examining the potential, limitations, and challenges of integrating AI agents in educational settings. The review is particularly timely given the accelerated digitalization of education following the global pandemic and the subsequent proliferation of AI tools in classrooms. By synthesizing emerging research and empirical evidence, this study provides educators, policymakers, and researchers with a comprehensive framework for understanding how AI agents can effectively complement, rather than replace, traditional teaching methods.

Our analysis explores key dimensions including: the typology and functionalities of educational AI agents; their impact on student engagement and learning outcomes; their limitations in developing higher-order cognitive skills and social-emotional competencies; and the evolving role of teachers in AI-enhanced learning environments. This systematic examination helps identify research gaps, inform evidence-based implementation strategies, and guide future investigations into the long-term effects of AI integration in education.

The findings underscore the need for a balanced, nuanced approach to incorporating AI agents in educational practice, while highlighting critical areas requiring further research and development. This review contributes to the growing body of knowledge essential for developing effective policies and practices that maximize the benefits of AI in education while preserving the irreplaceable human elements of teaching and learning.

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Impactul utilizării aplicațiilor educaționale digitale asupra elevilor de clasa pregătitoare

• Mariana Elena Doman

The Impact of the Use of Digital Educational Applications on Students in the Preparatory School Year

Nowadays, digital technology has become an integral part of our daily life, and contemporary educational practices are strongly influenced by the use of digital educational applications that can be an innovative and interesting way to engage students in the educational process. However, there are still many unknowns regarding the impact of these apps on middle school students. Early on in their school years, as they enter primary school, issues still arise that they are already spending too much time in front of screens to no avail. It is in our power to help them to have a correct attitude towards technology, to find their balance, being aware of both the advantages and the potential risks. This balance must also be found in the classroom, where technology must be used in a balanced way alongside traditional learning methods to achieve optimal results.
Based on an evaluation research, the article contributes to the understanding of the impact of the use of digital educational applications on students of the preparatory class. It is a starting point for improving the educational process in schools, of interest not only from the perspective of educational policies and decision-making in education, but also for teachers and parents, for the immediate benefit of preparatory class students. The changes start from the awareness of the extraordinary impact that digital educational applications have on the motivation to learn and the level of performance of preparatory class students.

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Dependența de social media și izolarea socială a elevilor

• Florin-Adrian Dumitru

Social Media Addiction and Social Isolation of Students

The article consists of an essay that examines the growing problem of internet and social media addiction among teenagers and students, often referred to as „digital natives” or „iGen”. It explores how excessive use of digital platforms affects adolescents’ social behavior, brain functioning, and relationships with peers, teachers, and family.
Several studies show that increased screen time, often between 6 and 9 hours a day, is correlated with mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. Although the use of social media satisfies the needs of belonging and self-presentation, it can lead to a phenomenon of de-individuation among students. The article acknowledges the potential benefits, including access to global knowledge and building an online community. At the same time, it highlights significant negative effects such as reduced social connections, emotional instability and difficulty managing conflicts. In particular, the symptoms of addiction often mirror those of gambling addiction.
Teachers face increasing challenges with students’ short attention spans and declining academic performance. Excessive use of social media poses substantial risks to students’ mental health, cognitive capacities and social skills, a fact that teachers and parents must be aware of and act accordingly by implementing appropriate strategies based on the latest scientific evidence.

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Educația și conștientizarea etică a tehnologiilor IA și folosirea lor în mediul academic

• Carmen Cioranu-Rădulescu

Education and Ethical Awareness of AI Technologies and Their Use in Academia

The essay aims to contribute to discussions about the implementation of AI-based technologies in education, through a perspective that will stimulate the advance of ethical research and will overcome the classic “pro” or “con” controversy.
We will explore here, albeit not exhaustively (given the dimensions of this paper), aspects of learning that should be integrated into the analysis of how we evaluate AI technologies and design rules of academic integrity. We will review some directions for the development of AI technologies for education, the risks and benefits presented so far in the specialized literature, and we will endorse the idea that education and “ethical awareness” are basic presuppositions for the success of any model of academic integrity.
The conclusion will focus on the importance of adopting in the respective fields principles that are more relevant to the reality in which we live and that do not arbitrarily circumscribe the field, inevitably leading to the success of some underground models, opposed to integrity. Conversely, it would support those principles that foster the advancement of ethical research by integrating all aspects that affect the academic field, on the model: knowledge enables improvements and adjustments.

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Dezvoltarea în copilăria timpurie: Influența tehnologiilor digitale asupra proceselor și mecanismelor psihice

• Viorela Mihăilă-Popa

Early Childhood Development: The Influence of Digital Technology on Psychological Processes and Mechanisms

Despite the novelty and excitement of the promise that technology will revolutionize education, as it has revolutionized many other fields (medicine, industries), programs in recent years have shown that technology alone does not have the power to change education for the better (Blackwell et al., 2014, para.4). Still, people can do this, if they are willing to learn how, why and when. In other words, first, the devices were introduced and the infrastructure created, then administrators and teachers began to learn how to use it, with support in some countries, without support in others. Would a reverse approach have been more useful? For instance, specializing teachers and subsequently equipping schools with the necessary infrastructure? We are in a situation where there are sometimes early education institutions where there is equipment, but education managers and teachers do not have the full picture of how and when to use it, and what are the implications of this usage.
Given observations and studies carried out in the school environment, we wonder how equipping kindergartens with tablets and other screen devices would work? What makes digital technology really useful in early childhood education? What should be the motivation for the introduction of digital technologies in early education?
This paper provides psychological and educational benchmarks for the use of digital technologies in preschool educational institutions, as well as in the context of family education.

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ED-Sense, platformă tehnologică pentru educație personalizată în era digitală bazată pe inteligență artificială și conținut interactiv

• Marius Petruț Ivanov, Ana-Karina Nazare, Alexandru Stanciu, Dragoș Sebastian Cristea, Mihai Vlase

ED-Sense, technology platform for personalized education in the digital age based on artificial intelligence and interactive content

The article analyses the current platforms for digital education, identifying the key needs of participants in the educational process and presenting innovative solutions, based on recent research and well-founded theories, to respond to these needs effectively. The EdSense platform addresses the challenges of digitizing education with a creative approach, integrating artificial intelligence and augmented reality to create a ubiquitous, accessible and personalized learning environment. Gamification elements and augmented reality enrich the learning experience, turning it into an engaging and collaborative adventure. Adapting flexibly to the school curriculum and individual student needs through its artificial intelligence component, it offers an adaptive, interactive and deeply personalized learning style. The analysis of similar approaches, as well as the integrative, complex, but well-modularized architecture of the system, profiles EdSense as a reference model for the future of digital education.

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Școala online în ciclul primar: Perspective ale profesorilor, elevilor, părinților

• Laura Ioniță

Online school în primary education: Perspectives of teachers, pupils, parents

Part of the life of the society in which it develops and on which it has an impact perhaps not always fully assumed and respected, the school benefits both from the scientific structure and from the tendency – natural and necessary – to investigate the new. So how do we deal with the digital reality that students live in and that even the most conservative of teachers can’t dissociate themselves from? Here is the plot of this work!

In this context, the purpose of this work is to investigate and assess the impact of online schooling on Romanian grounds, following the opinions of the three active educational performers immerged in it the most: teachers, pupils, parents. The inquiry has followed the primary education learning path, as part of a deeper concern for this field, with an open eye towards both achievements and challenges. The questionnaires have given the possibility to all three categories to express personal perspectives and conclusions.

The reasonable deduction of the present educational approach is that online courses represent a milestone in the functioning of Romanian schools, providing us with the ability to acknowledge the importance of both direct interaction and need to develop acquires in terms of technology.

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How to cite ChatGPT and AI products

• Olimpius Istrate

In the context of increasing access to tools that use artificial intelligence, the outcome of debates about intellectual property is important because it allows us to set the limits in which we can appropriate or refer to a product we have created with the help of AI applications, constructed as original or derivative work, using in its turn, indiscriminately, a large amount of original works protected by copyright law as a source of inspiration.
At this time, texts, images or sounds generated at your request by an artificial intelligence tool cannot be attributed to it. Content generated with artificial intelligence applications does not carry intellectual property restrictions – it can be used freely, for any legal means, including commercial use. The partial or exclusive contribution or intervention of artificial intelligence in the development of a text, image or any other product cannot be detected with certainty. To acknowledge the AI contribution, it is recommended to add a note in a visible place.
Artificial intelligence is not ”concerned” about truth or originality, it is concerned with constructing a plausible product, generating the most likely sequel for each sequence of text, image or sound, using as a benchmark a database of similar digital products. Therefore, the result must be checked carefully.

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Digitalised Interactive Educational Experiences with EdSense’s Digital Smart Pages

• Mihai Vlase, Dragoș Sebastian Cristea, Marius Petruț Ivanov

Recently, there has been a significant evolution in digital educational content that involves transitioning from the simple presentation of information in written form to the inclusion of innovative technology. This alteration is intended to facilitate the ease of integrating educational content.
This article describes the concept of Digital Smart Pages (DSP) within the EdSense educational platform context and proposes a design for this educational component. By observing user actions within the DSP and utilizing various components to process these actions, users can have a customized experience within the platform, experience that will lead to a more accessible and enjoyable assimilation of educational content.

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Experimentul Ariadna. Rolul inteligenței artificiale în științele educației

• Olimpius Istrate, Simona Velea, Doru Ștefănescu

Rolul IA în modelarea și remodelarea conținutului științific este notabil în mai multe domenii științifice. Ariadna (Artificial intelligence advancement to nurture social science areas) este un studiu longitudinal inițiat în 2022 cu scopul de a estima valoarea adăugată a inteligenței artificiale în domeniul științelor sociale; o anumită parte a științelor educației a fost aleasă, pentru a beneficia de cantitatea mare de conținut-sursă nou și disponibil gratuit: pedagogia digitală, restrânsă și mai mult la o serie de 27 de teme teoretice și practice.

Experimentul Ariadna încearcă să scoată în evidență contribuția inteligenței artificiale (IA) la dezvoltarea științelor sociale. (1) O aplicație de IA pentru chat a fost folosită pentru o conversație ghidată, cu scopul de a estima capacitatea IA de a produce conținut științific inovator. (2) Un număr de 27 de texte pe teme din științele educației au fost generate, în decembrie 2022, folosind cele mai avansate instrumente de IA disponibile gratuit. Aceleași solicitări vor fi folosite și în 2023 pentru a genera din nou conținutul. O comparație a rezultatelor va fi făcută în următoarele faze ale experimentului Ariadna. (3) Unele dintre articolele generate au fost comparate cu texte științifice elaborate de cercetători, pe aceeași temă, în aceeași perioadă.

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