High school students using ChatGPT-style app in Australia-first trial

South Australian Government has announced Testing AI technologies in eight public high schools.

This is the first trial of its kind in Australia.

“EdChat”, an AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT but designed for educational use, has been developed by state education departments and Microsoft.

The eight-week trial will explore the use of AI to help students learn and understand the benefits and risks of these new technologies. After this, the government will decide whether to adopt this tool for other schools or not.

How have Australian schools responded to AI so far?

ChatGPT can be used by people 13 years of age and older with parental consent.

But with ChatGPT coming in at the end of 2022, South Australia has been the only Australian state not to ban generative AI tools in public schools.

In May, the Government of Western Australia AI ban lifted for teachers in public schools,

But in private schools, AI use has become more widespread, fueling fear of digital Division between government and private schools,

Attempts to limit or ban the use of AI technologies are also inherently problematic. June 1, 2023 Survey by YouthInsight showed that 70% of Australians aged 14-17 have used ChatGPT – 59% have used it for school work or study, and 42% to complete school assignments.

Attempts are being made to restrict the use of translation to students using it in more informal and supervised settings. The ban means students will not receive supervised support to learn how to best use these technologies for their education and future working lives.

What is the SA test looking for?

SA School Testing will examine the benefits and challenges of using AI tools to support student learning.

EdChat is specifically designed for educational use, which means its responses will take student learning into account. While ChatGPT or Google Bard will simply answer a student’s question, EdChat doesn’t necessarily answer that way. Instead, it will provide an appropriate hint or suggestion or ask a counter question to the student, in the same way a good teacher would support their students.

EdChat will be available 24/7 to students, providing them support both inside and outside the classroom.

Because EdChat is provided by the government, its usage data will be available for further investigation. So it will be possible to understand how students interact with AI tools, what questions they ask, where and when they use the system, and so on. Much of the current AI discussion is based on speculation, but this test will provide the first real world data to answer these questions.

The trial will garner a lot of attention and will be closely monitored by other governments grappling with similar questions about the use of AI in schools.

What questions do we have?

The main question at this point is whether AI has a positive or negative impact on student learning.

There are highly opposing views on the use of AI in education. Some experts argue that this will reduce the ability of students to write think critically, others see it as a valuable tool to improve student motivation and engagementboosting their confidence, and liberating their creative abilities, SA testing will begin to provide concrete evidence of AI’s impact on student learning.

But to be truly useful, the test must also provide evidence of effective teaching practices using AI. Anecdotally, we are hearing that teachers have had positive experiences with AI technologies, such as tailoring examples to student interests, providing feedback on student writing, and supporting the development of critical thinking and idea generation. SA testing can begin to provide more robust evidence of what is effective AI classroom practice.

Ultimately, the test should provide evidence of formative AI-enabled assessment. Current assessment practices focus on assessing or measuring the products of learning (such as essays) rather than assessing them learning processes (How and what students learn). It is important to address the concern that the use of AI tools could undermine assessment if students rely on automated assistance from tools such as ChatGPT to write their essays.

In this context, testing should demonstrate a reimagined approach to current assessment practices. One that embraces the use of AI while ensuring the rigor of evidence that can be used to demonstrate student learning outcomes.

This article has been republished from Conversation Under Creative Commons Licence. read the original article,