The explosion of AI technologies into our society has come with great fear across the education sector. Many teachers are afraid of what it will do to learning and assessment, with fears of academic dishonesty rife. In our traditional methods of assessment and learning, teachers have relied heavily on written tasks to demonstrate knowledge. Students now have at their disposal bots that can write essays in seconds, solve complex problems and answer questions (Chiu, 2023). This new technology, often deemed either angel, or devil, has given motivation for my own reflections on the value of written assessment and the potential for these new platforms to invigorate learning.
Oddone et al. (2023) in their article, Navigating Generative AI: The teacher librarian’s role in cultivating ethical and critical practices, undertake research using 3 different AI platforms, utilising the CATWOE framework methodology. Of particular interest was the implementing TL’s worldview – which is based upon ‘their own beliefs about learning, teaching and their understanding of the tools ‘capabilities and limitation’ (Oddone et al., 2023, pg. 16, para.2). My own worldview is to utilise and explore new technologies and what they can offer students as an asset and additional method to build creative and critical thinking. My only detriment is often the time it takes to explore and learn these new platforms. I am aware, however, that for other educators in my school, this may not be their worldview. I can only approach this with sensitivity, and offer support and education around these tools. New technology can often be a scary process for people, such as the arrival of calculators or citation generators – which many thought would be the antithesis of student learning (Dobrin, 2023). I appreciate the work done by Furze (2023) and the information he provides for schools via the article Teaching AI Ethics. This work provides me with an essential overview of what I need to take into consideration when educating others around the use of AI and its many implications. The infographic he provides for educators in this article provides this overview in a way that can spark conversation for a deeper dive into each of these issues: AI Ethics Infographic
As we broach the topic of AI in my current school, we can either go two ways – to ignore and silence it; or to teach students the critical skills they will need as they continue to live in a world where AI (and it’s continual evolvement) is a reality. I believe balance is key. Teaching students the critical use of these tools sits alongside other methods of information – such as databases, books, online articles and interactions with their teachers is one way to move forward.
My current challenge is to:
- allocate time to explore the many different AI platforms – getting to know their settings and purposes and how they could be utilised in a school environment
- Consider the needs of the teachers in my school – what do they need to know? Do they need to learn the language of these tools, or given a broad overview of the ethical considerations when using these tools in the classroom (especially with students being under 18)
- How could these tools be used in the assessment of learning? What consideration and ideas could we look at that may invigorate the methods we have traditionally used to assess student learning? Are these methods encouraging critical thinking? Are they preparing students for the world beyond the classroom?
References
Chiu, T. K. (2023). The impact of Generative AI (GenAI) on practices, policies and research direc-tion in education: a case of ChatGPT and Midjourney.Interactive Learning Environments,1–17.https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2023.2253861.
Dobrin, S. I. (2023).Talking about generative AI: A guide for educators. Broadview Press.https://sites.broadviewpress.com/ai/talking/.
Furze, L. (2023) AI Ethics. https://leonfurze.com/2023/01/26/teaching-ai-ethics/
Oddone, K., Garrison, K., & Gagen-Spriggs, K. (2023) Navigating Generative AI: The teacher librarian’s role in cultivating ethical and critical practices. Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association, https://doi-org/10.1080/24750158.2023.2289093
Thank you for sharing your worldview. I am finding that I too need to be sensitive with others when leading from the middle in technology. We recently moved to World Book online as our encyclopedia and it allows students create a secure log in without giving private details to be able to save their research and timeline creations. I approached leadership about implementing and teaching the students the process to do this as a way of building digital literacy skills (creating safe passwords and usernames). Unfortunately, I was denied this as they were afraid it would be unsafe still.
Your considerations you mentioned are good reminders for me. I too need to think about what does the school need to know about these databases? I feel I also need to learn more about the tools I use so I can be a better advocate!