Matt’s Notes
And now, somehow, seven weeks since the last episode went out… here we are!
A shout-out here to the patience… or is that resignation?… shown by my great colleague Dr. Doug!
You’ll have more context for the absence later on, if you’re so interested! But… to the topic at hand… our look at AI in Education continues… this time around with writing! As a reformed English teacher, you could say this is of especial interest to me!
Audio the likes of which you are unlikely to find anywhere else… #ednontech
So… it’s not just a matter of making huge life transitions relatively quickly, it’s also a matter of needing to let the dust settle a bit… and to let new routines and personalities show up freely… in the past I’ve tried to do too many things at once… like when I was starting at TRU AND teaching two sections of a graduate-level Education course at the same time!
I’m engaged in my new role… within the security field! It’s a unique space for me! I’ll be refraining from speaking directly about anything I’m involved with at work… but it’ll also be cool to be able speak to the #edtech and #ednontech… from: A) outside post-secondary education for nearly the first time in my career; B) the first time in the not-for-profit sector; C) the security and defence and law enforcement space(s) wherein I work in a civilian capacity
So! That’s probably more than I’ll say for a while about any of that! You will no doubt appreciate… it is great to back in the world of work! Meaningful, significant work as an educator is like the sun shining after a run of glorious Saint John foggy days. Or something to that effect!
And to me, that feels significantly more UNAMBIGUOUS than my feelings about AI! And Language! I mean… I talk to people sometimes and feel like they COULD be AI…
It’s nice to be back at this, and I look forward to resuming a more normal schedule for these episodes forthwith!
Oh and HA HA TWITTER HA HA WHAT A JOKE BRO’ HA HA HEE HEE HOO HOO YOU’RE CALLED X NOW HOW STUPID IS THAT HA HA HEE HEE…
*Clunk*
Matt passes out from lack of oxygen, but he is smiling…
The inimitable Frankie Stubbs, author of the song at the bottom and therefore also the title of this episode engaged in a fine act of the The Stubbs Shuffle… #ednontech
Doug’s Notes
AI & Education – the writing impact so far…
Not all AI is writing text, some is suggesting writing edits.
In the field of grammar, spelling, and punctuation correction, grammar’s earliest breakthroughs in AI-powered writing enhancement occurred.
Fitria, T. N. (2021). Grammarly as AI-powered English writing assistant: Students’ alternative for writing English. Metathesis: Journal of English Language, Literature, and Teaching, 5(1), 65-78.
ChatGPT is an AI software potentially able to assist in the writing process of a scientific paper and can help in the literature review, identify research questions, provide an overview of the current state of the field, and assist with tasks, such as formatting and language review. Moreover, it can have applications in clinical practice as time-savers.
“As an AI model, I am not able to review or submit papers to journals as I am not a researcher or author. However, I can give you some feedback on the paper you’ve provided. The paper presents a clear and comprehensive overview of the potential uses of ChatGPT in scientific writing, specifically in the field of critical care medicine. The introduction provides a good background on chatbots and ChatGPT and how it can be used in various tasks.
Salvagno, M., Taccone, F. S., & Gerli, A. G. (2023). Can artificial intelligence help for scientific writing?. Critical care, 27(1), 1-5.
Artificial intelligence (AI) natural language processing (NLP) systems
However, the OpenAI chatbot can also produce answers that contain erroneous, misleading, or irrelevant information.
any section of a manuscript written by an NLP system should be checked by a domain expert for accuracy, bias, relevance, and reasoning.
…use of NLP systems raises issues of accountability. If a section of a manuscript written by an NLP system contains errors or biases, coauthors need to be held accountable for its accuracy, cogency, and integrity.
Hosseini, M., Rasmussen, L. M., & Resnik, D. B. (2023). Using AI to write scholarly publications. Accountability in Research, 1-9.
Whether or not writing with AI becomes cheating is a much more complicated question than software purveyors and institutional plagiarism policies would have us believe.
Fyfe, P. (2022). How to cheat on your final paper: Assigning AI for student writing. AI & Society, 1-11.
Samples of AI writing process – chatGPT for Teachers (Facebook group)
“Exactly how do you write reports quickly using chat GPT? I have tried entering a basic template but each time I ask it to change an example from a to b it doesn’t really do it and it takes me longer to tell it what to do than to write the report myself
- I created a series of prompts that build up to writing the report.
- Prompt 1 explains the context of the report,
- Prompt 2 the criteria being repeated on, prompt three an example report, with grades associated….
- Probably 6 or 7 prompts, each ending with “do you understand?” After each prompt it explains what it understands.
- Then I provide it with a set of student names and the grades for each of the criteria the report addresses. It generally produces report comments that are close to the mark, which it then revise and edit. You can train chat gpt to give the sort of response you desire by doing it in stages.”
“I put in my comment and ask it to improve it. I basically use lazy English and it up-levels it for me. It’s never perfect, but it gets close. I then ask suggestions for next steps. It usually provides several, so I just choose the one that suits my student the best.
It’s not ideal, but it cuts down my report writing time and my reports are better — and more personalised! — than ever.”
Your editor and the filters he rode in on…
“I had it create draft comments then I dumped them into word and tweaked. Saved me tons of time. I just threw in grade, province, and for sci/ses the expectations; while for math and language I just put in the strands.”
What Bing AI image generator thinks “Artificial Intelligence retro” looks like… if AI could think…
Additional Resources
Google Bard AI
ChatGPT
Bing
Perplexity.ai
YouChat
NeevaAI
Poe
ChatGPT Prompt Library for Educators
Google Cloud Skills Boost: Generative AI learning path
AI Writing Tools
Word of the podcast
Plagiarism?
Phrase of the podcast
The Saber-Tooth Curriculum by Abner Peddiwell
Question of the podcast
How can educators leverage AI writing tools to promote student learning?
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