The Good and Bad of ChatGPT in Schools

I think the two other points I wanted to make about this, because I think we want more people to use these tools because we want to demystify them and we want the tools to be more responsible, the makers of these tools, and that is to continue the teaching and learning relationships that I think all of your guests have talked about, really addressing those because that also can feed or diminish equity and access to education opportunities. And the last thing is it we want, and I think I say we it an education community, but also as an educated community, we want people to ask better questions. We want students to really to dive into their inquiries. We want teachers to deepen their inquiries. And I think only good things can come from people asking better questions, more questions. And I think that’s what, both from an ethical perspective in terms of who has access, but also from how we use these tools, that’s what’s going to help us, I think, shape and agitate in productive ways.

Celeste Headlee: Yeah. I wonder, Pia, because perhaps the solution is using the Salcon methods, Salcon of the Khan Academy where you do the lectures at home and do the homework in class. Jeff emails us, “Maybe English teachers should have all essays done in class. I have long hated the idea of assigned homework. It’s not necessary.” Do you think something like ChatGPT is going to reopen that longstanding debate about homework?

Pia Ceres: Oh, absolutely. I think that it will definitely explode our notions of what is the best use of time in class and what is the best use of learning time outside of class? So I think, to go back to what Daniel said earlier, something that I have been seeing teachers experiment more with is just switching up that format of multimodal learning is a better use of time in class writing or demonstrating learning in other ways outside of writing, having a dialogue, drawing a picture about something that they’ve been reading in class. So I definitely think there’s room for more creativity there.

Celeste Headlee: Pia, we have only about 30 seconds left, but I wonder, do you expect reporters and journalists to start using ChatGPT to write up their stories when they’re on deadline?

Pia Ceres: Don’t tell my editor any of this. No, I’m joking.

Celeste Headlee: I didn’t say you. I just said people.

Pia Ceres: I think that that’s something that every newsroom will have to navigate on their own. We’re starting out conversations at WIRED about it, but I think that remains to be seen and will be developed newsroom by newsroom.

Celeste Headlee: Interesting. That is Pia Ceres, senior digital producer with WIRED and Lalitha Vasudevan is a professor of technology and education at Columbia University’s Teacher College. She’s also the college’s Vice Dean for Digital Innovation. Pia and Lalitha, thank you so much for joining us today, Norma tweets, “I’m the founding director of Hispanics for STEM and Association of Parents dedicated to the promotion of STEM and computer science among Hispanic students in Northern Virginia. I’m recommending the use of ChatGPT to learn English.” We continue this series, Know It All, 1A and WIRED’s Guide to AI, tomorrow with a conversation about artificial intelligence and healthcare. And WIRED has a newsletter if you want to learn more about how technology is changing our lives. It’s called Fast Forward and explores the latest advantages in AI as well as other technologies. You can sign up at WIRED.com/newsletter. Today’s producers were Chris Remington and Avery Jessa Chapnick. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I’m Celeste Headlee. We’ll talk more soon. This is 1A.

Lauren Goode: Hi, it’s Lauren again. Thanks for listening to this special show. If you want to hear more of these conversations, you can find the entire Know It All series at the1a.org/series. That’s one as in the numeral one, so it’s the1a.org/series. Thanks to WAMU and NPR for the use of this episode. We’ll be back to our regular programming next week. Until then, goodbye.

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