Featuring sessions with technology leaders from across the state and the country, topics ranged from the use of digital tools like Canva, which allows users to create graphic design features and presentations, to how students can learn skills while helping their school districts as information technology interns.
One topic given particular attention, considering its novelty and the potential it has to reshape education, was artificial intelligence.
Fears surrounding AI are common, according to TSD Chief Technology Officer Kelly Sain, but the technology exists and is widely available to students already, so it is incumbent on schools to teach them to use it wisely.
“Our students are in a digitally connected AI world,” she said. “How do we make sure they’re prepared for this world when they graduate TSD?”
One of the fears that often arises is that AI will reduce students’ capacity to think critically. If students have access to a robot that can answer questions for them at all times, what is the incentive to reason for oneself, the argument goes.
The keynote speaker of the event, educational technology blogger Matt Miller, hosted a breakout session several times throughout the day where he demonstrated ways for teachers to use AI to promote critical thinking.
Asking students to predict what an AI chatbot like ChatGPT would say, and what it might miss was one suggestion, which he demonstrated by asking the chatbot for suggestions for tourist destinations in Loveland. Having students make their own lists, compare them to the chatbot’s, and brainstorm why the two might be different is one way to encourage them to think about how and why certain answers are given, rather than simply taking them for granted.
He also offered other novel uses for AI that teachers could take back to their classrooms. He told a story about classic “Choose Your Own Adventure” books that he would compulsively read from his local library as a child. In the books, readers experience part of a story, and then can choose how to proceed, turning to a specific page in order to make their decision.
Miller wanted to replicate that experience for his students when he was a classroom teacher, and spent hours preparing a PowerPoint slideshow to do so. To his disbelief, after all his work, his students had finished the activity in a matter of minutes.
After AI chatbots were introduced to the public, he began experimenting with ChatGPT and asking it to write such a story for him, which as he demonstrated for the audience, took only a matter of seconds. The prompt he used to create his adventure asked for a historically accurate story that would teach the student about ancient Mesopotamia, and after a short pause a detailed narrative of a scribe cataloging the various lifestyles of people in a city between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, with different choices the student could make, appeared on the screen.
In addition to being a fun classroom activity, he said that this could also be a good way to encourage students to think critically about artificial intelligence.
Mistaken information or fabrications, referred to as “hallucinations,” are not uncommon with AI chatbots, and learning to spot them is an important skill for students to have in an age where AI is common.
“I think you could just say ‘source check on any of this stuff,’” he said, referring to several towns, temples and other landmarks mentioned in the story.
He added that source material was important, and should be explored before using any AI tool for learning.
“How can you vet something, how can you sniff out hallucinations or things that are just a little bit off, if you don’t have that foundational knowledge?” he continued.
TK, a special education teacher at Lucile Erwin Middle School, said she was particularly interested in AI’s ability to create images in real time. During the choose your own adventure demonstration, she asked if it was possible to create an image of a barge the young scribe was taking.
“My kids don’t always have the ability to read paragraphs, so can I go back and embed illustrations as needed?” she wondered.
In a few seconds, the chatbot had done so.
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