Educational technology is the use of both physical hardware, software, and educational theoretic to facilitate learning and improve performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources. In EdTech, the most significant uses of AI are in content recommendation, AI-powered teaching assistants such as chat-bots performing specific tasks and accessibility functions such as text to speech and voice recognition. When used effectively, these tools are empowering teachers. Continual, formative assessment data is used as input for adaptive algorithms that power an output that is a work programme. This data can also be shared with the teacher, saving them hours in manually collecting the data and giving them eyes on the strengths and weaknesses of students.

Helping children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to focus in the classroom can be a major challenge. Educators might find themselves constantly prompting and redirecting students to perform routine tasks. It can be frustrating for the student and their classmates when their need to move around the classroom disrupts the learning experience. Gains in assistive technology could help to promote better learning for students who struggle with ADHD. Teachers who are growing weary of the constant motion and redirection required for students with ADHD might want to investigate some of these breakthroughs.

Researchers at CHILI Lab (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) in Switzerland and GAIPS Lab (University of Lisbon) in Portugal have recently developed an autonomous system designed to assist children in improving their handwriting skills. The system they created, presented in a paper published in Springer's International Journal of Social Robotics, entails the use of a social robot in one-to-one learning sessions with children. For some children, handwriting can be a difficult skill to acquire, yet it is a fundamental stepping stone in their academic path. In fact, poor handwriting can negatively affect a child's academic performance, self-esteem and learning motivation. To master handwriting, a child needs to learn to coordinate cognitive, motor and perceptual abilities, thus he/she might also require a considerable amount of practice.

Technological advancements in the medical field are vital to improving the way patients receive care. In many cases, there is a need for more resources to be directed towards patient care. But the current reality for many patients, especially children with chronic illnesses, is that medical professionals and families are often forced to carry a heavy load in caring for them. To address this need within the healthcare sector, there has been an uptick in the size of Australia's medtech startup community, with the NSW government expecting the industry to create 28,000 jobs and add AU$18 billion in gross domestic product to Australia by 2025. Among the medtech startups in Australia is ikkiworks, which developed a companion robot that helps soothe and monitor the vital signs of children with chronic illness while they are away from the hospital.

A child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) might have trouble communicating verbally, paying attention to others, or controlling their stress and anxiety. These difficulties can affect the child's social life and their success in school. Now, a team of researchers from robotics startup LuxAI have created QTrobot, a bot designed to help children with autism learn valuable social skills. They plan to present the results of a QTrobot study at RO-MAN 2018, a symposium on robot and human interactive communication, on August 28. QTrobot is just over two feet tall, with a humanoid body and a screen where a person's face would be.

Give us your feedback Thank you for your feedback. In classrooms around the world, teachers are starting to use robots to enhance learning experiences. In the United Kingdom, for example, Priors Court school for children and young adults with autism has been using an interactive humanoid robot, named Steve, to help pupils develop their social skills. With no facial expressions or tone in its voice, many of the severely autistic children are able to interact with the robot more easily than a human teacher. "It can engage children with communication problems, providing a tool for teachers to reach these children in a way that was not previously possible," says Carl Clement, founder of Emotion Robotics, the technology company that programmed the robot. Robots are being used to help children with their studies outside of the classroom too. Norwegian start-up No Isolation has created a robot to help children who are unable to attend school due to long-term illness. The robot works as an avatar, sitting in on the class, allowing the pupil to watch and participate at home via a tablet device. The benefits of robots are also being explored in early years education. Kibo is an open platform that enables children as young as four to build and programme their own robot. It is currently used in schools in the US and Singapore. We asked readers, researchers and FT journalists to submit ideas with the potential to change the world. A panel of judges selected the 50 ideas worth looking at in more detail. This third tranche of 30 ideas (listed below) is about new ways to handle information and education. The next 10 ideas, looking at advances in healthcare, will be published on March 5, 2018.

Give us your feedback Thank you for your feedback. In classrooms around the world, teachers are starting to use robots to enhance learning experiences. In the United Kingdom, for example, Priors Court school for children and young adults with autism has been using an interactive humanoid robot, named Steve, to help pupils develop their social skills. With no facial expressions or tone in its voice, many of the severely autistic children are able to interact with the robot more easily than a human teacher. "It can engage children with communication problems, providing a tool for teachers to reach these children in a way that was not previously possible," says Carl Clement, founder of Emotion Robotics, the technology company that programmed the robot.

The findings of the study are evolutionary, not revolutionary, as views towards artificial intelligence have become more refined over the years. These findings reflect the growing acceptance of robots in the classroom and elsewhere by children, millennial parents, and teachers. Robots were initially used in the classroom to help children with autism and have now been in classrooms as teaching assistants or tools for several years. A separate study by the IEEE found that teachers, "had numerous positive ideas about the robot's potential as a new educational tool for their classrooms." These robots, however, were not true artificial intelligence and required programming to perform specific educational tasks.

Some children are born with their oesophagus in two segments, so the tube doesn't connect to their stomach. A new robotic implant might help treat this serious condition, known as oesophageal atresia. The robot consists of two steel rings, some sensors and a motor, all sealed in a protective waterproof skin. The device is attached to the outside of one section of the oesophagus and gently elongates it by moving the rings apart. Once the organ is long enough, the two segments can be stitched together.

A common theme among some of the most notable advances and new devices was the integration of artificial intelligence in smart and innovative ways. Despite a handful of flubs, AI-powered technologies still helped make the world a little smarter, kinder, and more innovative this year. Here are some of the moments when AI really shone in 2017. Earlier this month, NASA announced it used machine learning to discover two new planets. Researchers used old data from the Kepler space telescope to locate the two new additions to our galaxy. This wasn't the first time researchers applied AI to sift through the massive amount of data NASA's telescopes collect, but it is a promising example of how neural networks can find even some of the weakest signs of distant worlds. Thanks to AI, we have now discovered a planetary system that ties our solar system in the number of planets it has, which brings us one step closer to discovering more of the mysteries the giant void around us contains.