Many educators fear students will use the artificial intelligence (AI) tool ChatGPT to write their reports or cheat on homework. But other teachers are including it in the classroom.
Donnie Piercey is a teacher in Lexington, Kentucky. He told his 5th-grade students to try and beat the tool that was creating writing tasks. Piercey says his job is to prepare students for a world where knowledge of Al will be required. He describes ChatGPT as just the newest technology in his 17 years of teaching that caused worry about the possibility of cheating."As educators, we haven't worked out the best way to use AI yet," he added. "But it's coming, whether we want it to or not."
One lesson in his class was a writing game between students and the machine.
Piercey asked students to "Find the Bot". Each student wrote a short report about boxer Muhammad Ali. Then they tried to find out which was written by ChatGPT.
After playing "Find the Bot", Piercey asked his class what skills it helped them learn."How to properly summarize and correctly capitalize words and use commas." said one student. Another student felt that sentences written by students "have a little more feeling... more flavor." Students Laksi and McCormick, both 10, said they could see the good and bad parts of working with chat bots. They can help students who have trouble putting their thoughts into writing. McCormick said students could use it for suggestions, but should not use it to do all the work. "You shouldn't take advantage of it," McCormick said, "You're not learning anything if you type in what you want, and then it gives you the answer."
