AI in education: Between ethics, detection and innovation
How should the education sector deal with new AI technology such as ChatGPT? Ban it, allow it freely, or is there also a golden mean to aim at? And what should students do with teachers who don't know either? Ann Fastré, researcher at itec KU Leuven, weighs the possibilities, and decides that learning is the key! With colleague Rani Van Schools, she developed the online course "AI in Education" to provide an answer for teachers.
My twin daughters go to secondary education. They're both bright girls, very independent and dutiful.
When they come home from school, one is furious.For a group work in history, she and her group members all got 5 points less because 1 paragraph of their submitted assignment - unbeknownst to her - came straight from ChatGPT. This is plagiarism and should be penalised with a 0, but since it was the first time they had come into contact with it, teacher X thought leniency was still appropriate.
Furious, she cried out in boundless wrath on the suspected guilty group member: "How could I have prevented someone from being stupid enough to copypaste from ChatGPT? Surely everyone knows you have to rewrite it."
“ They can't prove that, can they? When you use ChatGPT? ”
When I replied that apparently not everyone knows, I saw her sister shuffle somewhat uncomfortably: "They can't prove that, can they? When you use ChatGPT?"She hadn't gotten her results yet, and was clearly worried that she and her group members might suffer the same fate.
We asked ChatGPT whether it can recognise its own copy ↓
“ So how are teachers supposed to know? ”
"Then how are teachers supposed to know?", she wondered. Pertinent question, which we left rhetorical.
So we did not talk about the cat-and-mouse game of detection software, nor about watermarks being built into the generated text, and certainly not about meaningful homework assignments that allow students to make use of available technologies and that prepare them for a future in which AI is inevitable.
We weren't talking about all of that, because I knew that after teacher X, there would also be teachers Y and Z, looking for an appropriate approach to these (r)evolutions.
Expectancy came true for X, Y, Z, and quite a few more letters of the alphabet. Teacher Y devised an alternative assignment with less text and more images, for which the resourceful teenagers ended up simply using Bing Image Creator for which they received rave reviews.
Teacher Z frenetically banned it, ignoring reality.
Meanwhile, my standard response is, "Do you see how your teachers are looking for the right way to interact with AI? Give them the registration link to itec's 'AI in Education' course, it might speed up their search. And in the meantime, tell your classmates to make sure that what they create with ChatGPT looks like something a 14-year-old might actually write."
How can educators deal with AI?
Do you recognise yourself in the quest of teachers X, Y, Z and the rest of the alphabet? Or are you intrigued by new educational technology and its implementation in education? Then register now for the new free online training course 'AI in Education': an engaging course where academic insights and practical examples alternate.
During the course, we will delve deeper into exploring the relationship between AI and education, including its history, definition, an overview of the broad spectrum of AI, and various applications of the technology. We also cover the 'black box' of AI, discussing the role of data and AI techniques. In addition, we bring up the challenges of implementing AI in education, including the ethical issues involved. Finally, we explore 'tinkering' with AI in education as a sustainable prospect, which is more realistic than fearfully banning or thoughtlessly rolling out AI technology. Once you have completed the course, you will face the future of AI in education positively, inspired by a lot of concrete tips & tricks.
Ann Fastré
Sinds 2019 werkt Ann Fastré voor i-Learn, een project van de Vlaamse overheid dat digitaal gepersonaliseerd leren in het leerplichtonderwijs wil uitrollen en ondersteunen. In i-Learn coördineert zij vanuit haar onderwijstechnologische expertise het KU Leuven-team dat instaat voor de didactische onderbouwing. In nauwe samenwerking met de collega's van imec & itec bouwde ze mee aan een portaal voor online leren op maat, met een bijhorend professionaliseringsaanbod voor leerkrachten. Het motiveert Ann om in een hecht team te kunnen toewerken naar een onderwijstoekomst die álle leerlingen laat groeien.
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