You’ve probably heard the news – ChatGPT has forever changed how students, teachers and schools function, and millions of workers will soon be obsolete as they are replaced by faster, cheaper, and some would claim, better AI chatbots. Not surprisingly, the reality is more complex.
“Digital art of a group of high school students learning with a teacher helping in the era of artificial intelligence” by Geoff × DALL·E Human & AI
ChatGPT is one of many and probably the best-known of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots that have been trained on large language models. Many students and teachers at Esquimalt High School and other schools in our community are looking into how we can use best use these new tools in our learning and teaching.
Mr. Orme, Esquimalt High School’s teacher-librarian, is working with students and teachers to help everyone understand both the exciting potential and the concerning limitations of ChatGPT and other AI services. Mr. Orme is working with his teacher-librarian colleagues at other district schools to:
- Provide resources and tools that can help students and teachers navigate the complexities of AI technology.
- Provide professional development opportunities for teachers to learn about AI and how it can be used to support learning in the classroom and at home.
- Collaborate with teachers to create lesson plans that make appropriate and meaningful use of AI technology.
Mr. Orme is currently participating in a webinar about the emergence of these services and the many ways they can be used in education. Hundreds of other teacher-librarians, and librarians at colleges and universities, public and research libraries across North America have been engaged for the last few weeks in this work. The opportunities and challenges are enormous.
One of the key learnings to date is that it is important to remember when we use these services that they are built to respond based on language predictions, not a thorough analysis of the logic of a statement. This has real implications when these chatbots can appear so convincingly “intelligent”. The algorithms that make them work are amazingly complex, but they routinely return junk information and make errors. Learning how to use them effectively, and consider the limitations and costs is going to require that we all learn together.
Stay tuned for updates coming soon!