Part 2 Fireside Chat with Sal Khan and Hadi Partov

Using AI can definitely make homework easier. Is it considered cheating? Instead of asking that question, teachers need to question how they are assigning homework. We need to evolve what we are assigning as the work at home. There are many inequities for school. Students who are absent would most likely ask for help from siblings and parents. But if the students are being given the work at school, everyone can be given the same tools to complete the same assignment. Some kids at home may not have a computer or phone which creates a gap for students. Again, teachers need to rethink the idea of homework so all students can be on the same playing field.

I do not use any of these AI tools with my students being in the gym. But for my own use, I use my phone and computer for ChatGPT. There are many biases using these tools. Hence why this specific tool is not even approved for students under the age of 18. I have used the program more for fun purposes with friends. But I do know that I need to take advantage of this even more as a teacher. It can help write letters or notes home to parents, help with lessons or activities, etc.

AI can be beneficial to students in the classroom. The large language models can pose as an at home tutor or teaching assistant by using probabilities and statistics to help students find answers.  Teachers can combat students cheating with AI by assigning less homework and providing more in class assignments.  

I have previously used AI in Schoology to help create questions and grade tests. I have also used Chat GPT to create rubrics for class projects and create more engaging lessons for my students.  I currently use apps like google maps, Siri and Waze which help me have a safer driving experience to and from work.  

   Teachers must evolve their thinking on what homework may look like in the 21st century. Anyone can help a student complete an assignment - parents, grandparents, friends, etc. The more possibilities that students have to facilitate further learning from inside the classroom into outside the classroom, the better. This happens through differentiated tools of learning, such as AI.AI has the ability to close an education gap in the sense that every child has the opportunity to obtain a supportive tutor in their personal environment.
    I have used personal AI tools in my personal life when contacting specific websites such as Amazon, AT&T, and even Target. In my classroom, I have used platforms such as Chat GBT to help facilitate appropriate verbage or comments that are refined towards clear and concise goals/objectives.

The way that homework is taught currently would allow for AI to do that task for you.  However, if we evolve what we assign for homework, if we require more thought provoking work or do more in class we will have an enriched lesson.  Ai is here and all the programs that we currently use are going to now have some sort of generative AI component to them.  The worst this we can do is ignore it or ban it.  We need to figure out a way that we can use it as a tool to enhance the student learning and re-think the assignments that we give out students going forward.

The tools that I have already been using with AI built into them are things that many of us use without realizing it is AI.  Siri, Alexa, Netflix, Pandora and even Google Maps or Waze all use AI to personalize the experience.  As for technology usage, Photoshop now uses generative AI and I have started to work with Canva and Chat GPT as well.  So far the experience has been great.  It has made tedious tasks so much easier and saves so much more time.

One of the most important things a teacher can do to avoid problems with AI is to truly evaluate their own educational practices. If a teacher is assigning rote memorization or straightforward questioning with only one correct answer, these tasks can most certainly be completed by students using AI. It is similar to copying off of another student's paper, a book or the internet. Teachers need to become familiar with the benefits of using AI as a tutor, or for brainstorming to enhance authentic work rather than replace it. Student work should be completed in the classroom, rather than solely as homework. Students and teachers must learn to think critically about any AI-generated information, being able to spot biases and misinformation. 
AI is appearing in most of the technologies we already use. Siri and Alexa are somewhat able to answer questions by doing quick internet searches. These are sometimes helpful, but usually brief or vague. Our devices can now "learn" our routines and patterns, such as when and where we work. They can predict how long it should take us to get places, and the routes we should take. Chatbots like Bing are able to quickly research and collate information to answer questions. They are also useful for brainstorming ideas for projects or writing. The picture creation tools in Canva can be helpful when search results for graphics don't turn up what I'm looking for. I recently created a scene with both a Christmas tree and a menorah for an advertisement I was making. Some of these early AI tools are clumsy, but are improving rapidly.

I think the way teachers are asking students to complete tasks, or what the product the teachers are trying to have the students produce will be the best way to “combat” cheating. If we are asking students just to answer a question, then the student can do that or AI can do that. I think asking students to summarize the AI’s content by drawing an info graphic. If someone is going to use a tool to help them, like Khan Academy, that can legitimately aid a student and help reduce the amount of inequity that exists. 

I use EdPuzzle a good bit and I have used the “create questions” aspect where it listens to the video and creates questions. That is a great in class example. Personally I have used ChatGPT to try and understand it, and explore what it can do and how much I can trust it. So far I think it is a great tool, but obviously there needs to be a discussion on what ethically is accepted.

AI will be used by students. There is no doubt about this! It is already being used by our students every day. Relying on TurnItIn.com to catch students submitting AI generated text is silly, because I have zero confidence it could work. It's algorithms are unproven and unfounded. I have put my own text into that engine and had frighteningly high probabilities it was written by and AI told back to me. Which led to me to wonder...

With this in mind, in the coming years, our challenge will be how to teach students to use these tools. Being fluent in using AI engines will set up critical 21st century skills. I have spoken with architects excited about using AI, software engineers who look forward to not writing the boring base-code again and again, and technical writers who use AI to write proposals at a distinct level of operation. Learning how to use these tools is a skill that will become marketable in the coming years. Learning how to use them without claiming their generations whole-sale is also key.

Explain how educators might combat “cheating” so AI in the classroom can be beneficial.
There has obviously been a lot of concern on the part of educators regarding the use of AI in cheating both in and out the classroom.  I believe that the number one way to mitigate this concern is to alter what that work looks like on the part of the student. If we could use a tool like ChatGPT to complete our homework by simply putting in a prompt and getting out an answer that we would consider good or passing, then that sort of homework assignment may need to be rethought. If cheating is something we are super concerned about.  
We will be seeing an evolution of some of these tools, such as the example that Sal Khan gave in the video. Khanmigo is an AI tool that his company has developed that tries to simply not give answers to students but work more as a coach. I think an interesting way to approach looking at AI is by swapping out the word AI with tutor. Matt Miller is an EdTech writer and he wrote about this concept. If you look at what you're asking students to do and think about AI's use for accomplishing that task, if you were to swap out AI with the word tutor, would you except that help that a student would get in not consider it cheating? If so, maybe the use of AI is not necessarily cheating, but assisting that student in their learning.
Obviously, this is going to take a lot of discussion with our students around the ethics of using these tools, and when it is or is not appropriate. If students start to use these as a crutch or tool to accomplish tasks that they don't want to learn about themselves or accomplish themselves then this could be problematic.
 I do believe the reality is that as these evolved, they are going to become common place in the workforce, and as always seems to be the case and education, part of our role is going to be having to teach students about these tools, and how they can fit into their work and life in a way that is beneficial but also done ethically.

What tech tools have you already used that have AI built into them??  Describe your experience thus far.
I have used tools like ChatGPT to create or generate responses to questions. I have asked it to summarize articles and create multiple choice questions as a result of what I fed it as a prompt. I have asked it to use standards that I would plug-in from the New York State website to create questions based on the standards. I have found that, although it is not always 100% correct and there are errors that it is a great starting point for me to be able to then edit what it's giving me to create something new in a much more timely fashion.
I have also used tools like Canva for image creation, and it is really neat what those can create based off of text prompts. I enjoy the creative nature of that where I can not rely on having to do image searches forever to get some thing a little bit closer to what I have in my mind as an image to use in a project.

Cheating using AI is one of my most recent fears in teaching.  Students becoming reliant on technology like this and then never using their own thought process and then struggling when they take a regent’s exam with no tech is a scary thought.  The video gives some suggestions to teachers to combat AI for cheating.  The speakers in the video suggest doing more “in” school rather than at home to monitor more and close the inequity gap between what kids have access to at home.  They also suggest getting more creative and crafty with the types of assignments we give students that are not so generic and easily able to be plugged into a GPT.  Create assignments that require thinking even in that step. 

So far, I have not explored using AI in many ways.  I have played around with Chat GPT but mainly to understand its capabilities and how students can use it to cheat assignments.  Some things I have used that have AI built into them are simple items like google drive and maps.  Tech tools like this that have siri or algorithms built in to them to generate what you might like or steer your attention to a certain topic/content.  I use these mainly for content creation, not knowingly for the AI element.  But it is clear that AI is more present than we realize.