Just about every day a teacher comes up to me with something new they have found relating to AI. For example, last week a teacher told me about Caktus AI that is specifically geared toward students. On the dashboard you see prompts like “Essay Writer” and “Text Summarizer.” It is also the site that gymnast, Olivia Dunne, was paid to promote on Tik Tok resulting in an ‘academic misconduct’ warning. You can read more about that here. Today, a teacher showed me DropinAI which is a Chrome extension that claims “It’s a study tool that generates answers using AI technology while giving an adequate explanation.” I tried to use it myself just to see what it can do, but you have to pay for it.
It surprised and pleased me to see that the International Baccalaureate posted an article stating they will not be banning AI. In fact, they go as far as to say they are excited about the possibilities AI brings. They realize that banning the use of ChatGPT and other AI “is the wrong way to deal with innovation.” (I love that line!) I hope more institutions take a similar approach. The next few years are going to be interesting as we see how education adapts.
Of course students won’t always use the power of AI for good and we will come across academic dishonesty. I really liked the suggestions and discussion in this article, ChatGPT Cheating: What to Do When It Happens by Alyson Klein. In the piece she writes,
“Every school or district needs to put stakes in the ground [on a] policy around
academic dishonesty, and what that means specifically,” said Michelle Brown, the
founder and CEO of CommonLit. Schools can decide how much or how little students
can rely on AI to make cosmetic changes or do research, she said, and should make that clear to students. She recommended “the heart of the policy [be] about allowing
students to do intellectually rigorous work.”
