Photo by Arthur Lambillotte on Unsplash

Picture a classroom where students seamlessly navigate using Artificial Intelligence (AI), such as chatbots, in order to deepen their understanding of the world they live in. With every screen you look at, students are using a chatbot as their own personal assistant. 

This is what I hope we can achieve one day soon. 

When it comes to education technologies, there are so many new exciting things that seem to be launching all the time. But with every new technology released, it feels like something else is getting left behind. The thing with AI is, I don’t think it is going to be one of these technologies that gets left behind. 

Before becoming a teacher, I rarely heard about the newest technologies being used in the classroom, and I think the reason for this is because these technologies were created specifically for an educational setting. If you weren’t a part of this setting, the technology probably wasn’t being used in your daily life so it didn’t have a very large impact on you. 

AI, like chatbots, are being used by people and professionals across the world. If you have been on the internet, or watched the news at all in the last year, you have heard about chatbots. It is a tool that can be used in countless different ways, and settings, and because of its ability to cast such a wide net, and be useful for anyone, it is unlikely to slip away any time soon. 

It is an intriguing topic for me because of all of the different aspects that need to be considered when thinking about using AI in the classroom. It is a tool that has the potential to be useful for both educators and students, but with this potential comes the question of how do we learn how to use it? 

Here are some of the ways I use chatbots on a regular basis as an educator:

  1. Lesson planning.
    1. You can ask a chatbot to create an outline of a lesson plan that is specific to subject, learning outcomes, grade, and/or length of lesson. Is it perfect? No, but it is a great starting point if you are stumped for ideas!
  2. Changing a text to be an age appropriate reading level.
    1. You can copy a text into a chatbot and ask it to rewrite it at a specific reading level, which is great for differentiation!
  3. Creating paragraphs for comprehension reading and the questions to go with the paragraph.
    1. Again, it isn’t perfect but it gives a great starting point.
  4. Asking for a list of resources (with links!) for a specific topic to jump start research.

How can students use chatbots on a regular basis?:

  1. Proofreading their work.
  2. Breaking down a task into a detailed step by step list.
    1. They can copy task instructions into a chatbot, and ask it to break down the task into more manageable chunks. Some chatbots will even give estimations of how long each task should take to complete, which helps with time management!
  3. Creating a basic outline to help them get started on a task or writing prompt. 

In a world where everything is changing so rapidly, understanding a technology that can help carry the burden of the menial tasks we all have to do everyday, will allow us to focus on more complex issues. Our students trust us to do the right thing for them every single day, so we need to do the same and trust that they will do the right thing when it comes to using AI in the classroom.