AI has been on the mind of folks for a long time. Isaac Asimov published I, Robot in 1950, and he started the conversation on the ethical nature of artificial intelligence in our daily lives. Alan Turing also drew up the concept of a computer thinking in his titular paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”, also in 1950.

Fast forward to 2022, and ChatGPT dominates many conversations on how it can and will disrupt traditional classroom instruction. ChatGPT - or Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer - is a chatbot that was launched by OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research and deployment company, in November 2022. It is a language model that can generate realistic, human-like text.

It even has Google on high alert. Some districts like New York City Public Schools were quick to ban the tool from use in classrooms with an exception of those explicitly teaching AI in the classroom. On the other hand, some districts and teachers have started to harness its use equitably and found that it can help their students achieve more and even help with SEL.

Companies and individuals are helping on how to support educators as they try to figure out how to manage the existence of AI that can complete many assignments teachers have traditionally done. TurnItIn.com is working to ensure that students are submitting unique materials, but even the company admits that it is not 100% effective on catching the AI bot’s output in classroom materials. A senior at Princeton has developed an app called GPTZero to help detect the use of ChatGPT in submitted assignments, but it’s still not 100% foolproof since its launch at the beginning of January.

Hate to say it, but you're going to put in more work trying to figure out if it's from an AI source than trying to think of a different way to teach.

And all of the pictures so far were created by the AI software, DALL-E 2 which can create realistic images from natural language.

One of the key benefits of ChatGPT is its ability to understand and respond to student questions in real-time. This means that educators no longer have to spend hours answering the same questions over and over again. Instead, they can simply direct students to ChatGPT, which can quickly and accurately provide the information they need.

Another benefit of ChatGPT is its ability to generate personalized feedback. This can be especially useful for educators working with large classes, as it allows them to provide individualized feedback to each student without having to spend a lot of time grading assignments.

In addition, ChatGPT can also be used to help create lesson plans and educational materials. By analyzing student data and understanding what information they are struggling with, ChatGPT can help educators create more effective lesson plans that target specific areas of difficulty.

AI is and has been here, and cheating is nothing new to the educational space.

Banning it won’t make it go away, and repressing the existence of the tool will only further the divide between harnessing the tool for good and using it for malicious purposes. As with any service, students will find a way to use it if they want to use it, and there will be another tool that does something similar that's already out or soon will be.

Focus on the assignment, not how to prevent cheating.

Is it a low-level assignment that can be easily completed by a Google search, or are you asking a critical thought that only can come from the perspective and psyche of a student?

Are you looking for memorization & recitation, or are you asking them to apply that knowledge to make a creative end product?

Are we personalizing what students need in 2023, or are we teaching them how we learned?

It always seems to be a holiday. Check here for some resources about holidays coming up!

Jackie Robinson's Birthday-January 30

• Jackie Robinson Flocabulary Video and Activities
• Nearpod VR Lesson (Gr. 5-7)

Black History Month-February 1-28

• Black History Month Exploration Room
• Black History Month Calendar of Digital Activities
• BHM Choice Board

National School Counseling Week-February 6-10

Safer Internet Day-February 7

• Resource Website

Valentine's Day-February 14

• Scratch off Valentine's Card Template
• How Many Hearts? Seesaw Activity
• Candy Heart Maker
• Digital Valentine's Day Word Search
• Wakelet Collection of Valentine's Day Activities

Digital Learning Day-February 23

Winter Activities-Use them until it's above freezing!

• 8 Google-y Wintertime Activities
• Holiday Stop-Motion Video Creation
• Build a Snowman with Google Slides

Want a peek at what's ahead? Check these updated calendars!

Holidays and Seasonal Events for Teachers (TeacherVision)

Yearly Theme Calendar (Learning Technology Center)

What do you call a slow skier?

A slope-poke.

Contact me to collaborate on your next project, troubleshoot what you do currently, or to just answer a question you have!

Email: bkrause@ltcillinois.org
Website: https://calendly.com/bkrauseltc
Phone: (815) 362-4791
Twitter: @bmkeducation

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