TECH BYTE: Schools Navigate Using AI in Education
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — President Biden recently signed an executive order, to ensure artificial intelligence doesn’t pose new risks to Americans.
Now some universities are also responding to AI.
Schools are no longer just worried about students using the AI program, ChatGPT, to cheat.
Artificial intelligence continues to evolve all the time.
Now school leaders are trying to make the most of this tech, since it doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon.
“For most audiences and our disciplines, it really is how you use it to further that discipline in a more efficient and effective way,” said Dr. Vicki Farnsworth, UTC’s Vice Chancellor of Information Technology. “So how do we give students that foundation when they head out into the workforce? To be able to use AI in their first job.”
It’s Dr. Farnworth’s job to oversee how the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga interacts with AI.
She says the school has already held forums with both students and faculty to see how to best handle this evolving tech.
“The best assignments are when you use AI or ChatGPT, but you’re giving students not the assignment to create something, they create it in AI, and then evaluate the answer that AI provided,” Farnsworth said.
With new AI programs constantly being created in addition to ChatGPT, it’s definitely a challenge for educators.
Even Microsoft is already out with its new Bing Image Creator.
“There is that sense of dread, I think that exists in fields teaching writing as a skill, and it exists in the fields teaching artistic visual creation,” said Dr. Victoria Bryan, UTC’s Director of Walker Center for Teaching and Learning.
Keeping that in mind, Dr. Bryan adds that faculty members are stressing the importance of using these AI tools ethically.
It’s a skill everyone should learn – not just students.
“What we’re going to end up working with students on is the reality that the technology does not exist without the humans there to build it and train it, and that connection between the human and the technology is going to be valuable,” Bryan said.
