ChatGPT - What it means for Schools / Education
The world is evolving. One of the reasons that Acton even exists today is because the founders (and subsequent owners) recognized that many of the jobs of tomorrow will be very different from the ones that exist today. One of the reasons for major changes will be technology - Robotics, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence. In my previous life, I worked on a Robotics team where we created widgets/robots/software that did jobs that were previously done by humans. In that life, I also worked on a Machine Learning team where the software was designed to get better over time and would require less and less human intervention.... again eliminating some jobs.
Over the past few weeks, there's been a lot of online buzz about ChatGPT, an online platform created by OpenAI. It's an artifical intelligence platform that creates responses and completes tasks in seconds what might take a human a lot of time. And it sounds like a human did it. In my own words.... it's mind blowing. Truly incredible.
To play around with it, I asked it to "Write a promotional email to prospective families explaining the benefits of a learner-driven education versus a traditional teacher-led environment".
You can read the response below (attached). Perfect grammar and sounds like it was written by a human. And the AI system clearly interpreted my ask perfectly.
Then I asked it to write me code in Python language for a minesweeper type game. Not only did it write the code... it explained each script in clear English!
Among the educators I follow online, there have been 2 types of responses so far:
1) Fear that this will lead to cheating (e.g., asking ChatGPT to write a book report on "To kill a Mockingbird")
2) Excitement about the possibilities of using innovation
Personally, I'm really excited about what the future holds for our young Heroes. Innovation is here to stay and we need to figure out how to best use it to our benefit. ChatGPT is really unique and, I believe, game changing but anytime I see innovation in technology, I come back to a quote that I have pasted on our blog post CBUS website....
We're training kids to do what computers do, which is spit back facts. And computers are always going to be better than human beings at that. But what they're not going to be better at is being social, navigating relationships, being citizens in a community. So we need to change the whole definition of what success in school, and out of school, means.
-Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Author of Becoming Brilliant
I asked ChatGPT to write what it felt it’s own impact would be on education. The response….
ChatGPT is a variant of the popular language model GPT-3 that is specifically designed to improve the performance of chatbots and other conversational AI systems. It has the ability to understand and generate human-like text, making it a powerful tool for natural language processing and communication.
In the education sector, ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionize the way we teach and learn. Here are just a few examples of how ChatGPT could impact education:
Personalized tutoring: ChatGPT could be used to create personalized tutoring sessions for students, adapting to their specific learning needs and providing targeted feedback and guidance. This could be particularly useful for students who struggle with traditional learning methods or for those who need extra support to catch up or stay on track.
Improved language learning: ChatGPT could also be used to help students learn a new language by providing interactive conversations and real-time feedback on their language skills. This could be a more engaging and effective way for students to learn a second (or third) language.
Virtual assistants for educators: ChatGPT could be used to create virtual assistants for educators, helping them to answer student questions, provide feedback, and manage their workload more efficiently. This could free up more time for teachers to focus on more important tasks, such as lesson planning and student engagement.
Enhanced online learning experiences: ChatGPT could be used to create more interactive and engaging online learning experiences. For example, it could be used to create virtual classrooms where students can ask questions, participate in discussions, and receive real-time feedback from their teachers and peers.
Overall, ChatGPT has the potential to transform the way we teach and learn by providing personalized, interactive, and engaging learning experiences. While it is still in the early stages of development, the possibilities for ChatGPT in education are exciting and limitless. So, it has a great potential to revolutionize the education sector.
If you have time, I would really recommend playing around with this. It may just help you with some tasks at your job: https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/
Varun