Technology in the Classroom: ChatGPT

Person and technology interacting

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a new tool that uses AI and other high-end computing to answer questions with quality responses.  It became widely prominent and famous recently because of how accurate and helpful it can be.  For instance, I asked it to define itself and this is how it responded:

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence tool that uses large amounts of text data and deep learning techniques to generate human-like responses to text-based conversations. By analyzing patterns and relationships in the text data, ChatGPT learns to provide relevant and high-quality information to users. The more data it is trained on and the more conversations it has, the better it becomes at generating accurate and helpful responses.

As well, you can redefine your question with different parameters which will yield a brand-new result.  As an example, I asked it to rewrite the phrase "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" in pirate-speak and it replied with this: 

"Many a league in a starry realm far, far beyond the horizon!"

Practical Applications

Beyond the goofy and fun things you can do with ChatGPT, it can be a great resource in an academic and professional setting.  I've personally been using it a lot recently for some of my history classes.  I was having trouble finding quality and accessible primary sources in relation to Isabella of France, so I turned to AI to help.  All I asked it was "give me quality primary sources on isabella of france" and within a matter of seconds it gave me a list of amazing sources that I couldn't find even after a good amount of time searching.

Just as well, a good friend of mine works in a Computer Science research lab and uses the tool all the time to generate simple yet effective code to help him.  It can return any language you ask of it and will follow strict parameters.  This can be incredibly helpful to someone who has zero experience with programming to write effective code in little-to-no time at all.

In the Classroom

As technology changes around us rapidly, I feel that it is important to keep up with it, and I think that ChatGPT is a great example of why.  This AI constantly learns and adapts to inputs and can give great information.  In a recent post to The New York Times, author Kevin Roose claims that AI like ChatGPT "can be an effective teaching tool."  Using this technology will be able to open up new methodologies for teaching and conveying information to students.  For example, you can ask the tool to simplify a complex idea, such as the Cold War, and it will return a condensed (but informative) blurb.

One aspect to keep in mind, though, is that there are two big setbacks to this technology and its use in the classroom.  The first being the obvious — cheating.  This tool provides students with a new, amazing, and sometimes undetectable form of cheating.  All a student would need to do is give it the rubric to an assignment and it will return a good essay following the right parameters.  An answer I agree with to address these concerns is to acknowledge this tool and have students cite their use of it.  There should also be an important distinction that assignments given should be used not as just a means of collecting known information, but to have the student expand on it and contribute their own ideas and give new thoughts to a topic.

The other setback with ChatGPT (in its current state at least) is that it is not always 100% accurate.  If you push it to an area where it doesn't know much, it will start to make educated guesses and present them as facts.  I've experienced this firsthand while working on an assignment for a class.  I asked it to give me some information about the experiences of someone at a certain time and it gave me information that seemed credible at first glance, but little-to-no digging or a basic understanding proved the information to be false.  However, I think this is even better for use in the classroom and for students because while it gives good surface-level information, it still requires research and an understanding of the topic to make sure the information is correct.

Teacher working with students on technology

Despite these setbacks, I think that ChatGPT and similar tools should be embraced and used throughout the class.  Technology is not going away anytime soon and trying to forbid students from using it is a war of attrition that a teacher can never win.  By trying to outlaw certain technologies in the class, it is only inviting sneakiness and a teacher-student disconnect.  Instead, a teacher should teach their students how to properly and appropriately use this technology to better their own understanding of a particular topic.

Recap

ChatGPT is a learning and adapting artificial intelligence that returns decent information for anything one could ask of it.  Because of how it works, anyone can use it and get results that answer exactly what was asked of it.  This will prove to be invaluable, especially for researchers and students.  It opens up a new frontier for requesting new information that is relevant and easily obtainable.  Although there are some setbacks when used inappropriately, it is by and large a great tool to be used by teachers and students in a classroom as a new and insightful tool that should be embraced.