Welcome to this week's review of technology related articles that I found relevant to the work I do in education. Please share any insights you have or any articles in the comments section. Happy Reading!
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| AI generated painting of a crow on a sycamore tree |
Teaching In The AI-Powered Future by Justin Louder - This is part of a three blog series put on by Anthology that will culminate with a live webinar on Tuesday, March 28. The author writes that PWC conducted a survey in 2017 and reported that 72% of respondents believed AI would be the most significant business advantage in the future. Six years later I believe we are starting to see beginning aware of this among the general population, including educators. As educators, we are still in the exploration stage of the process, but it's reaching the point where we can easily use it in the classroom. AI has been here awhile, but this year has seen use turn the corner in ease of use and awareness that I think will only have it grow more quickly. The post goes on to talk about personalization, intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), and VR/AR. He also discusses some challenges such as bias and privacy issues.
How does something like ChatGPT work? I am glad you asked! Many don't consider something like ChatGPT true AI and I tend to agree with them. It is what is known as a large language model (LLM) that will basically take a word and based on the frequency of what it has in its dataset place a word after it (this is an extremely simplified explanation and a lot more goes into it, but that is how I think of it). This allows it to come up with writing that seems to make sense and is plausible. For the most part I think it works well is useful, but I don't think you can trust it yet. There are many articles about the moral implications (OHIO access), the accuracy, and that they will often just make something up to fit the output that is requested. However, I do believe that we have seen some real potential from AI and it will get better. Maybe not perfect, but better! Anyway, if you want a better understanding of how ChatGPT works, I recommend reading What Is ChatGPT Doing … and Why Does It Work? (very long but fascinating!) by Stephen Wolfram and The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it by Will Douglas Heaven. If you aren't familiar with Stephen Wolfram's but I would encourage you to take a look at his other posts, since he has some great insights.
This article What Students Want (and Don’t) From Their Professors by Colleen Flaherty touches on a lot about how I feel about instruction in higher education. "Outside of the education program at USC Aiken, nearly all of Walsh’s professors lecture nearly all the time, he says. With one exception—a professor of biology who facilitated lively lab discussions prompted by images—Walsh, a senior, can’t name a single professor who’s used 'different teaching styles to engage us as learners.'" I think this statement is significant in that as educators we need to constantly evaluate the instructional methods that are used. I am no longer teaching full-time, but using different methods for teaching is important. Recently I've been exploring the use of gaming in the classroom, and I think that it might provide some help in solving two of the barriers to success that students feel hinder them: teaching style and mental health. If you are unfamiliar with Jane McGonigal's video on making a better world this is a good place to start exploring gaming in education.
How Online Teaching Can Promote Empathy by Lisa J. Anderson discusses that online teaching can..."help lay the groundwork for a new emphasis on empathy as a driver of academic success, including how best to incorporate student voices into courses."
Here is an article that is a good reminder of Instructional Design Best Practices Archives by Matthew Lynch
Here is a fun video to get your weekend started!
