Musings from Belfast
AI Conference: Getting the conversation started
I am just fresh from attending and participated in a ‘show and tell’ session at an AI Conference in Belfast. The key note delivery was from Professor Mairead Pratschke of Manchester University. Other stakeholders, such as DE, Google, Microsoft, C2K/EDIS and CCEA were represented also.
Professor Pratschke delivered a though provoking seminar that included a section on how GPT 4, Open AI’s immensely powerful language model, has changed the field of education and beyond. Also noteworthy was reference to how Claude 2 a competitor of GPT 4, may change the way we conduct research and analyse findings. Claude 2 can allow users to input an entire novel (or transcript) and summarise or ask questions about it.
Claude 2
To demonstrate the power of AI, I thought I’d ask Claude 2 to summarises Professor Pratschke’s 1 hr presentation transcript into 5 basic points. It did this in under 5 seconds! 😲 Cheers Claude.
Here is a 5 point summary of the key ideas from the transcript:
- Generative AI tools like ChatGPT are advancing rapidly, with new capabilities in vision, speech, and agency. This pace of change is creating a growing gap between industry and education.
- These tools have potential to transform teaching, learning, and assessment, but could also displace human roles if not carefully implemented. Educators need to get AI literate fast to lead this change.
- Two approaches are emerging – using AI to automate teaching tasks versus using it to augment human capacity and personalize learning. We likely need both human-AI collaboration and AI literacy.
- Guidance is starting to emerge from groups like UNESCO on assessing human skills versus AI skills. But the boundaries are blurring as AI gains creative and collaborative abilities.
- By combining pedagogies like constructionism, connectivism and generativism with new AI tools, we could create a hybrid human-AI future of education that enables more authentic, adaptive and active learning. But this requires redesigning curriculum, assessments, and teacher training with AI in mind.
Professor Pratchke also gave an insight into the responses by the media and education to AI innovation and how they were similar to the grief cycle of shock & denial, anger, depression and then acceptance. You should probably expect some of this in your own school setting, some attitudes to Ed Tech might continue to be hard to shift!
Please take a bit of time to watch Mairead’s Keynote presentation. Her excellent, well informed and well researched points about AI are cutting edge stuff.
Long live the revolution
AI is here to stay, and it is moving at an exciting and also an alarming rate. There are a multitude of new AI educational software companies out there. Each have their own take on how AI can support you and your students in the learning process. However such is the pace of innovation that many of these software companies may not be able to keep up with AI advancements. Some may cease to exist in the long term, so be careful what you sign up and subscribe to!
Google and Microsoft
The big tech giants will likely end up dominating the market with their own innovative products such as Google Bard and Duet (eloquently described by Andrew Caffrey). Bard is an AI assistant with plenty to offer that has similar features to ChatGPT. Duet is more. Google refer to it as “an AI-powered collaborator available across Google Cloud and IDEs to help you get more done, faster.”
Microsoft also has Copilot, based on ChatGPT 4. Hugh Meenagh demoed a number of fantastic looking (soon to arrive for business) features. Copilot could be a really productive and potentially game changing tool for teachers and students. It can make slides from texts, videos, or documents, and generate quizzes for pupils. Most teachers would find these features incredibly useful. Copilot will soon be available to Microsoft’s 365 enterprise licence users. Schools are on academic licences and there are currently no plans to make it available to schools in NI, so get lobbying with Microsoft folks!
The Bing App is a product that is currently available and free to all. It has ChatGPT-4 baked in. One good example of how it can be used is the ability to scan text from a photo. Then under prompt, the AI can summarise the text, create questions for students or translate it into another language. I’ll take a closer look at the Bing App in a future post.
Resistance is Futile
What definitely can be taken from the conference is that if we do not embrace AI, then there is a good chance that we will be left behind. AI is now with us and since the introduction of Chat GPT 3.5 just a year ago, it has advanced at a mind boggling rate. Pupils already use AI in schools and at home through Snapchat AI, or the ChatGPT App on their phones. Both are among the top downloaded apps in the Google Play and Apple Stores.
Impact
Examination boards will need to consider the impact of AI on controlled assessment and examinations and move fast to address concerns. The revised curriculum in Northern Ireland is already well placed for change, as it is a skills-based curriculum and could easily incorporate the skills required in using these new digital technologies into already established curricular areas. The curriculum also has scope to take a wider look at the ethical and moral issues that surround the use of AI – specifically in regards to jobs for the future and a potential digital divide emanating from those who can afford various subscription services and those who can’t.
As part of the conference, I was asked to speak of my own experiences with using AI. (you can read more about them here: 3. Generative AI, Friend or Foe.) However, I also had a fantastic opportunity to chat with staff from other schools, and it was really exciting to hear that many schools have already been having internal conversations about AI. Indeed some departments in those schools were already having discussions about how to use it to support learning within various subject areas. Some were also in the process of developing policies to raise awareness of the misuse of AI and the possible ramifications for using AI in exams or controlled assessments.
Educator Expertise
The depth of breadth of understanding of how AI has the possibility to help us and transform processes in the education sector is now developing but is also already here. This is underlined by the impressive range of ‘show and tell’ topics at the conference by teachers already using AI in their current practice.
Danielle McKernan, St Patrick’s Academy, Dungannon
An AI Learning Assistant: Unleashing educational potential through adaptive teaching and empowering the learner
Ashlene McCaffrey, St John the Baptist College, Portadown
Using AI (Bard and Canva) to improve literacy and support EAL pupils
Alistair Hamill, Lurgan College
Supporting senior pupils to maximise, appropriately, the use of AI tools in their independent study.
Clare Evans, St Teresa’s Nursery School, Belfast
AI revolutionising the approach of an early years principal to administrative tasks – working smarter, not harder!
Chynel McCrink, St Peter’s Primary School and Nursery Unit, Cloughreagh
Using AI to break down barriers in communications between school and home.
Danielle Perry, Tor Bank Special School
Stephen Black, Slemish College, Ballymena
Using AI (ChatGPT/Canva/Adobe Creative Cloud) in Social Media Marketing
Dessie Tennyson, St Joseph’s Grammar School, Donaghmore
Building and leading an AI exploratory working group: using Claude.AI to develop and create appropriate teaching and learning tools.
Next Time
Back to tips and tricks for the next blog, though I am definitely going to test drive a few more AI products over the next few weeks and share my thoughts about them with you all.
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