Part 2 Fireside Chat with Sal Khan and Hadi Partov

My experience so far has been minimal.  I have learned a great deal today and I plan to utilize and incorporate AI in my daily lessons and working with my students moving forward.  

Educators can evolve on how they assign homework. More can be done in the classroom with the use of AI as a tool, where there is constant feedback given to the student from AI. All students will now has access to "personal tutors", and it closes the inequity gap for all students to access this assistance. Tools like Khanmigo help students become more independent learners, and give feedback to both teachers and students.

Educators can combat cheating by adjusting what is assigned to students as well as expectations on what kids do at home.  Kids can do more in school and use AI as a tutor at home.  All kids can have access to personalized tutors instead of just the wealthier kids.  Educators can use tools like Khanmigo to help students individually and monitor the AI that students use.  

1. I think as teachers we need to change and evolve what we think about homework and the work that we assign our students out of the classroom, etc. Because if we just continue assigning homework the way that we have been previously doing it, then yes, students can and will certainly use AI to do the work for them. So we need to create and come up with more creative and thought-provoking ways to assign our work. I did like the thought and idea of how students who can't afford a private tutor or have working parents or have parents but they're not educationally involved can use AI to their benefit.

2. I have used chatGPT to generate itinerary for our upcoming Disney trip/vacation this summer, a training regiment when I was training for my first ever 5k, and coming up with a list of 100 key terms and their definitions that are commonly used on the US History and Government Regents Exam. As well as other technology tools and devices that I use on a daily and weekly basis without even realizing that and how the AI technology is already built into it... Netflix, Prime Video and Music, Spotify, Siri, Alexa, Google Maps, etc.

Educators can use AI in a way that may combat cheating and can really be beneficial. AI is a huge time saver and can do things a little outside of the box.  I like the idea of evolving the way we do homework sometimes, and can incorporate Chat GPT. It can be a low cost tutor, especially if students miss class instruction here and there. It is important to realize and communicate to students that the results are not going to be perfect and will need to be doublechecked for validity, or edited for grammar.

I have used chat GPT to help design an outline of information. Also Quizlet has a an AI function that turns a document into study flashcards. Both were very easy to implement and saved me a ton of time. Though in both circumstances, the result was not perfect and needed editing and tweaking to get the result I wanted. I also have used it on Instagram and Facebook.  That function is a bit annoying to me because it is so built into the search function and sometimes I just want to search something basic. 

For me, this video emphasized the need to engage in more conversations about the purposes of education- among ourselves as educators, with parents, and definitely with students.  Through those conversations, we can better understand- or even determine- what is ethical, what is cheating, and what is useful.   Many students don’t understand the process is usually more important than the product.  There are lots of quick and easy ways to get the product, but most of those shortcuts don’t help us actually learn anything.  Being mindful of what we are actually grading comes into play, and I think completing assignments in class is crucial to cutting down on cheating.  

I’m not even sure what I’ve used that includes AI.  Some people mentioned Siri and Maps, and I use those.  I use Duo Lingo, and I know that uses AI.  Beyond that, I’ve just played around with a few things at Tech Tuesday sessions.  The Padlet and Adobe Firefly picture-generating tools were especially interesting to me. 

There are tasks that we used to do in school that can now be generated by AI. To combat cheating, perhaps we can use these traditional tasks as jumping points to build off further. We should start asking what can we do that AI still can’t and focus on those tasks in school.  As it relates to homework, we should reconsider the purpose of homework and what we want it to accomplish to avoid having the work done for the kids and no meaning for them. We can also work together at the district level to choose the best AI to use across the board for education within our schools. 

As for my experience with AI tools, it is minimal. I have used Adobe Photoshop which has some  editing tools that use sampling. I have experimented with Chat GPT and Dall-E  on my own time. I think the Visual AI could be great for generating imagery that could be used as a reference in a work of art. I am very interested in using AI to save time creating lesson plans and presentations, allowing AI to build the foundation and editing it to our exact liking.

Combat cheating

A great way to combat cheating is to adjust what we actually assign or expect kids to do at home. As they discussed, having kids do more in school and actually to use AI as a tutor at home instead when possible which is where we may be headed. AI can level the playing field for kids. AIl kids can have access to personalized tutors instead of just our wealthier students. We as educators can also use tools like Khanmingo that works more like a coach and monitors the AI that is being used by the students. 

Experience with AI

My only experience with AI has been with Canva's image creation from text prompts which I just learned how to do recently in a Tech Tuesday class and then of course with Siri, Alexa, Netflix, Spotify etc. I do find it fascinating and know I need to incorporate it more into the classroom soon.

It was suggested that teachers need to rethink homework.  Some students do not have the home support to help with homework when needed.  We need to think about AI as a possible personalized tutor for students. With AI more students may be able to access the help that is needed to complete homework.  There are multiple tools that will be coming out that will benefit students and assist rather than having them "cheat."  Khamigo has generative AI's that have guardrails.   Everything that a student does can be monitored by a teacher.  A second AI would be able to do the work with the student rather than doing it for the student.  "Rather than banning AI schools need to figure out how to embrace it. " 
As far as using AI in the classroom I have not yet "embraced" it.  I still have a bunch to learn.  Personally I have dabbled with it on the internet with a chatbot or Alexa.  The more I learn about it through these chats and Tech Tuesdays the more interested I am in exploring it.

Explain how educators might combat “cheating” so AI in the classroom can be beneficial.
It was perfectly questioned in the video, "What's the point of school if this can even do all these things?"  School MUST evolve. How homework is assigned is archaic. AI is not going away. You can use it to enhance your knowledge. Students can read what is being generated from AI and analyze it with others. It provides opportunities for debate and analysis. This is far more powerful in the 21st century than writing multiple essays. Our priorities in education need to change. We are almost already 1/4 of the way into this century. Time to do something before humanity is talking about the 22nd century. 

What tech tools have you already used that have AI built into them??  Describe your experience thus far.
On a smaller scale.....Read and Write App automatically corrects grammar and spelling. 
ChatGPT blows my mind! It just solidifies to be that the structure of school needs to be dismantled and rebuilt. It does not match our current world at all.