讀書札記：#8 Using ChatGPT in education: ban it or embrace it.
After the release of chatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer), the newest artificial intelligence chatbot provided by OpenAI, it contacted the world’s attention in a short period. There are over 100 million users registered to explore the usage of chatGPT in different fields, including education. An intense debate about whether the usage of chatGPT should be banned or embraced at different levels of education occurred.
The powerful capacity of ChatGPT surprised educators, teachers, and universities with its ability to generate quick and human-like responses. This made the educational sector worried that this new technology might increase the threat of cheating and academic integrity. A Bloomberg Opinion column commented that ChatGPT “AI will almost certainly help kill the college essay.” (Gilliard & Rorabaugh, 2023)
Also, some teachers and schools thought the AI chatbot did not help students develop their professional skills like critical thinking and problem-solving. Responding to the threat of chatGPT, some stakeholders of the educational sector in different countries would try to ban the tool in different ways. New York City’s department of education blocked access to chatGPT on school networks. The Department of Education of NSW restricted student access to chatGPT. The University of Hong Kong temporarily banned students from using chatGPT for coursework, classwork, and assessments. Chris Gilliard’s article mentioned how the schools doubt the usage of chatGPT in education. He used the rise in Zoom use be an example to explain how people react to new technology used in the educational field. Teachers and instructors always worry about students using the new tech to cheat or circumvent assignments. (Chris Gilliard, 2023)
On the other hand, some educators and teachers believe that we should embrace chatGPT in education because of its positive impact on learning. Bridgeman and his colleagues presented their findings of how teachers and students can use ChatGPT to save time and improve learning. It can help teachers to save time in several ways, such as generating sample responses and feedback for creating banks of questions and providing different levels of examples of writing when setting assessments. For students, chatGPT can help them to learn in a more efficient way. Students can ask chatGPT to provide suggestions for their writing based on specific criteria. They can also ask it to explain how its suggestions can improve the analysing and argument in writing. Bridgeman and his colleagues thought that the real question is how we should modify the form of assessment to improve teaching and learning with the assistance of chatGPT. They suggested that teachers and students should work together and have open conversations about how AI might be used to improve teaching and learning. (Adam Bridgeman, 2023)
Thomson and Harris interviewed several stakeholders of the educational sector about the issue. Their article pointed out that educators and teachers agreed that chatGPT has real potential to reduce teacher workload when some object students to use the tool. These educators and teachers believe that teachers have a duty to prepare students for the future, so banning chatGPT might not be effective and responsible for teaching and learning. The debate about technological advances threatening education has occurred since education began. (Christopher Harris, 2023)
Brett Henebery picked out that some schools started using chatGPT in their daily operations to improve staff and student wellbeing. ChatGPT not only help teachers and students to prepare and complete their teaching and learning, but also assists principals in pinpointing areas where needed intervention, especially detecting signs of stress, anxiety, or depression in students. This helps school management to identify the needs and provide early intervention in a more efficient way. (Henebery, 2023a)
Brett Henebery mentioned that there are three main aspects principals can leverage AI for impact in another article. The first aspect is how to use AI tools for their decision-making processes, as AI can detect and discover insights and patterns in the knowledge and data already available in the systems. The second one is chatGPT can support educators and teachers in designing and deployment of learning experiences. The final aspect is how to adjust assessments and activities to let students acquire those professional skills, especially learning how to interact with AI tools as part of their intellectual work. (Henebery, 2023b)
To conclude, banning AI chatbots in the educational sector seems only a way to buy time for finding out the possible way to use them. Optimising the education system, including teaching and learning, school management, and staff and students’ well-being support with the power of chatGPT may be one of the most important issues of 21st-century of education. As educators, we should adopt an open-minded attitude towards studying ChatGPT or other AI tools to enable better development in education.
Reference
Adam Bridgeman, B. M., Danny Liu. (2023). As uni goes back, here’s how teachers and students can use ChatGPT to save time and improve learning. theconversation.com. https://theconversation.com/as-uni-goes-back-heres-how-teachers-and-students-can-use-chatgpt-to-save-time-and-improve-learning-199884
Chris Gilliard, P. R. (2023). You’re Not Going to Like How Colleges Respond to ChatGPT. https://slate.com/technology/2023/02/chat-gpt-cheating-college-ai-detection.html
Christopher Harris, A. T. (2023). Can you tell between a year 6 student and AI? Teachers say they can. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/can-you-tell-between-a-year-6-student-and-ai-teachers-say-they-can-20230120-p5ce5s.html
Henebery, B. (2023a). How principals can leverage AI to improve staff and student wellbeing. www.theeducatoronline.com. https://www.theeducatoronline.com/k12/news/how-principals-can-leverage-ai-to-improve-staff-and-student-wellbeing/282013
Henebery, B. (2023b). Three ways principals can leverage AI for impact. www.theeducatoronline.com. https://www.theeducatoronline.com/k12/news/three-ways-principals-can-leverage-ai-for-impact/282048
我在「當代教育議題」的unit中，選擇了chatGPT的橫空出世對教育的衝擊作為我的研究方向。暫時沒有學術期刊的文獻可以參考，都是零零星星一些報導及評論。現在仍在蘊釀的過程，可以探索的空間大得可怕。
我用chatGPT把自己上面那篇journal 譯成中文，再執一執文字，就成了下面的模樣，真心快。
在教育中使用ChatGPT：禁止還是擁抱？
自OpenAI推出最新的人工智慧聊天機器人ChatGPT（Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer）後，它迅速吸引了全球超過一億用戶的注目，其中包括教育領域。隨之而來的是一場激烈的辯論，討論是否應該在不同的教育層次禁止或擁抱ChatGPT的使用。
ChatGPT強大的能力令教育者、教師和大學驚訝不已，它能夠產生快速而類似人類的回應，這讓教育界擔心這項新技術可能會增加作弊和學術誠信的風險。有一篇彭博評論說，ChatGPT「人工智慧幾乎可以幫助殺死大學論文。」。(Gilliard & Rorabaugh, 2023)
此外，一些教師和學校認為，這款AI聊天機器人無法幫助學生發展其專業技能，例如批判性思維和解決問題能力。面對ChatGPT的威脅，一些不同國家教育部門的利益相關者會試圖以不同的方式禁止這個工具的使用。例如，紐約市教育局封鎖了在學校網絡上使用ChatGPT的訪問權限；新南威爾士州教育部門限制了學生使用ChatGPT的權限；香港大學暫停了學生在課程、作業和評估中使用ChatGPT。Chris Gilliard的文章提到了學校對ChatGPT在教育中的使用表示懷疑。他舉了Zoom使用量增加的例子來解釋人們對教育領域新技術的反應。老師和講師總是擔心學生使用新技術作弊或繞過作業（Chris Gilliard，2023）。
另一方面，一些教育工作者和老師認為，我們應該在教育中擁抱 ChatGPT，因為它對學習有著積極的影響。Bridgeman 和他的同事發表了他們的研究結果，指出老師和學生如何利用 ChatGPT 節省時間和提高學習效果。它可以幫助老師在多個方面節省時間，例如生成樣本回答和反饋，創建問題庫並提供不同水平的寫作範例，以及在設置評估時提供不同水平的寫作範例。對於學生來說，ChatGPT 可以幫助他們更有效率地學習。學生可以要求 ChatGPT 根據特定的標準提供寫作建議。他們也可以要求 ChatGPT 解釋其建議如何改善寫作中的分析和論述。Bridgeman 和他的同事認為，真正的問題在於我們應該如何修改評估形式，以在 ChatGPT 的協助下改善教學和學習。他們建議老師和學生應該共同合作，開放地討論如何使用 AI 改善教學和學習。
Thomson 和 Harris 採訪了多位教育領域的持分者。他們的文章指出，教育工作者們一致認為，只要學生使用這個工具時受到適當的監管，ChatGPT 在降低教師工作量方面有著真正的潛力。這些教育工作者認為，教師有責任為學生的未來做好準備，禁用 ChatGPT 可能不是一個負責任且有效的教學方式。自從教育開始以來，關於科技進步威脅教育的辯論就一直存在。(Christopher Harris, 2023)
Brett Henebery 則指出，一些學校開始在日常運營中使用 ChatGPT，以提升教職員工和學生的福祉。ChatGPT 不僅可以幫助教師和學生做好教學和學習準備，還可以協助校長們找出需要界入的領域，特別是發現學生壓力、焦慮或抑鬱的跡象。這有助於學校管理人員更高效地識別需求並提供早期界入。 (Henebery, 2023a)
Brett Henebery在另一篇文章中提到了學校校長有三個主要方向可以利用AI。第一個方向是如何運用AI工具來進行決策，因為AI可以在現有的系統中檢測和發現知識和數據中的洞見和模式。第二個方向是ChatGPT可以支援教育工作者在設計和實施學習體驗。最後一個方向是調整評估和活動，讓學生習得專業技能，特別是學習如何與AI工具互動，作為他們知識的一部分。（Henebery，2023b）
簡單總結一下，禁止在教育部門使用AI聊天機器人似乎只是為尋找可能的使用方式購買時間。利用ChatGPT的力量優化教育體系，包括教學與學習、學校管理、教職員工和學生的福利支援，可能是21世紀教育中最重要的問題之一。作為教育工作者，我們應該持開放態度研究ChatGPT或其他AI工具，以促進教育的更好發展。
中譯的行文有點怪怪，不過我也不花時間多處理了，需要讀的文章和書仍有很多，就此打住。
