Artificial Intelligence in Education

ETHAN MOLLICK,  OCT 12, 2023

I have been talking to a lot of people about Generative AI, from teachers to business executives to artists to people actually building LLMs. In these conversations, a few key questions and themes keep coming up over and over again. Many of those questions are more informed by viral news articles about AI than about the real thing, so I thought I would try to answer a few of the most common, to the best of my ability.

Continue Reading: What people ask me most. Also, some answers.

KHARI JOHNSON

BUSINESS   SEP 15, 2023 7:00 AM

Surveys suggest teachers use generative AI more than students, to create lesson plans or more interesting word problems. Educators say it can save valuable time but must be used carefully.

PHOTOGRAPH: KRISANAPONG DETRAPHIPHAT/GETTY IMAGES

TIM BALLARET ONCE dreamed of becoming a stockbroker but ultimately found fulfillment helping high school students in south Los Angeles understand the relevance of math and science to their daily lives. But making engaging class materials is time-consuming, so this spring he started experimenting with generative AI tools.

Recommendations by friends and influential teachers on social media led Ballaret to try MagicSchool, a tool for K-12 educators powered by OpenAI’s text generation algorithms. He used it for tasks like creating math word problems that match his students’ interests, like Taylor Swift and Minecraft, but the real test came when he used MagicSchool this summer to outline a year’s worth of lesson plans for a new applied science and engineering class.

Contine Reading: Teachers Are Going All In on Generative AI | WIRED

Rather than weaken student effort, artificial intelligence can help prepare students for the real world by encouraging critical thinking—with a few caveats. Here’s advice from psychology instructors about how to use ChatGPT and other AI technology wisely

By Ashley Abramson

Date created: March 27, 2023
9 min read
Vol. 54 No. 3

As technology advances, psychologists can find new opportunities to innovate in the field and in education. But the introduction of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI)—the simulation of human intelligence by computers—can feel daunting. For psychology instructors in particular, the advent of a rapidly evolving AI software called ChatGPT (and the updated version, GPT-4) has introduced new challenges—but experts say it’s also ripe with potential to help students learn in new ways and prepare them for careers after college.

ChatGPT, a chatbot software launched by the AI company OpenAI in November 2022, synthesizes online data and communicates it in a conversational way. Unlike a search engine, ChatGPT can write verse in the style of Shakespeare, dole out dating advice, and—especially concerning to educators—answer test questions and write essays. Early reviews of GPT-4, the next iteration of OpenAI’s large language model, indicate increases in the software’s capabilities.

Continue Reading: How to use ChatGPT as a learning tool

Writers are aggrieved by ChatGPT and other AI-written content not because it threatens our jobs, but because it’s so clear how and why it’s doomed to be a disaster.

By Jill DuffyJanuary 25, 2023

(Credit: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Nearly everyone who writes or edits for a living knows instantly what’s wrong with ChatGPT, the free AI tool that uses natural language input to produce text, answering prompts you give it. No, it’s not that it’s going to take our jobs. The problem with having ChatGPT or any other AI write articles is that it will be wrong or do a poor job, and it will lead to lawsuits.

Take the latest drama at CNET and Bankrate, two websites owned by Red Ventures that ran AI-generated content as informational articles without being transparent about it. Once readers noticed a small disclaimer and uncovered that bots had been doing the writing, internet backlash ensued. A few days later, according to The Verge(Opens in a new window), leadership at CNET told staff that the publication would pause its use of robots to write stories, implying it would resume once the hubbub had died down.

Continue Reading: Why Writers Know Using ChatGPT Is a Bad Idea | PCMag

By Jeffrey R. Young     Jan 24, 2023

Ascannio / Shutterstock

This article is part of the guide The EdSurge Podcast.

Colleges around the country have been holding emergency meetings of their honor code councils or other committees that govern student cheating.

The reason: a whole new kind of cheating that is suddenly possible, thanks to a new AI tool called ChatGPT. The technology, which emerged just a couple of months

go, can answer just about any question you type into it, and can adapt those answers into a different style or tone on command. The result is it generates text that sounds like a person wrote it.

As we explored in an episode of the EdSurge Podcast a couple weeks ago, students around the country at schools and colleges have figured out that they can easily ask ChatGPT to do their homework for them. After all, it’s tailor-made to craft the kinds of essays that instructors ask for.

Continue Reading: ChatGPT Has Colleges in Emergency Mode to Shield Academic Integrity | EdSurge News

Technology such as ChatGPT threatens only the information-centric type of schooling, which has become obsolete.

By Joe Ricketts and Ray Ravaglia
Jan. 23, 2023 6:08 pm

Journal Editorial Report: The week’s best and worst from Kim Strassel, Bill McGurn, Allysia Finley and Dan Henninger. Images: Zuma Press/Getty Images/Washington Post Composite: Mark Kelly

ChatGPT, the new artificial-intelligence technology created by Open AI, has many worrying about the future of education. The two largest public school districts, New York and Los Angeles, have banned the chatbot from their devices and networks, concerned that students may use it to cheat on assignments. Though ChatGPT’s capabilities are limited, it will likely continue to disrupt education as the technology advances.

But educators needn’t fear this change. Such technologies are transformative, but they threaten only the information-centric type of education that is failing to help students succeed. What young people need today is educational models that help them take ownership of their studies. They need instruction that equips them with real-life skills and prepares them for an economy in which rote, mechanical tasks will be increasingly performed by machines. AI may be a useful invention that hastens much-needed educational reform.

Read Full Article here: AI Can Save Education From Itself – WSJ

By Larry Ferlazzo — January 24, 2023 14 min readi

-iStock/Getty

Larry Ferlazzo
Opinion Contributor,  Education Week
Larry Ferlazzo is an English and social studies teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif.

(This is the final post in a three-part series. You can see Part One here and Part Two here.)

The question of the week is:

How do you think artificial intelligence-powered tools like ChatGPT are going to affect K-12 schools, and what are practical strategies teachers can use to respond to them?

Brett Vogelsinger, Gina Parnaby, and TJ Wilson kicked off the series.

In Part Two, Susan Barber, Andrew Cohen, Elizabeth Matheny, and Amanda Kremnitzer contributed their ideas.

Today, I share my own reflections, as do Samantha Parker, Kelli McGraw, and Nick Kelly.

Continue Reading: Educators Need to Get With the AI Program. ChatGPT, More Specifically (Opinion)