Wednesday, May 17, 2023

A new Elephant in the room




Amongst the many forwarded videos in the numerous WhatsApp groups that we ae all members of, I recently came across a video which raised alarm about chatGPT. 

😕😟

I listened to it out of curiosity but it made no sense.  I assumed it was another of the various websites or apps which children get addicted to. But a bit of search on Google was my first introduction to it.

I immediately messaged my son, “What is chatGPT & why is it more dangerous than anything else on the net(as the video claimed)?😕

As it is with most children, they find such parental queries quite boring, mundane and not worthy of respect. Still, he gave a terse reply which seemed like a footnote to what I had already read on Google.😒

Next day, I read another article in the local vernacular paper on chatGPT. I read it only because I was impressed with the fact that even the local papers, which we usually dismissed as not worthy of anything but the movie timings and ladies kitty party news, had kept pace with the latest technology.

At the moment, all that I had read , talked with concern was about plagiarism in the college exams, doctoral thesis and affecting opinion polls. Issues , too big , for us school teachers to bother with.😟

But if a local paper knew about it , then can our school kids be far behind? Is it not true that we teachers are the last ones to hear about the latest technological advances and mostly we hear from our students, who have by now mastered the details and are ready to move on to the next thing.

Since after Corona, almost all the students have access to their personal laptops and practically unlimited internet access with little or no monitoring. Quite a few assignments are done online and many require students to research from the internet.

So, is it too far fetched to think that our school students are not already using chapGPT? Even if they are not using it now, can the day be far behind when they will utilise its services? 🙎



In short, we school teachers need to be ready and up to the latest technological challenge which is just round the corner.👧

Firstly, we must start using chatGPT and other such apps and learn to understand it. Whatever assignments we plan for our children, we must work it out ourselves using chatGPT. It will help us to understand, how the kids are going to utilise it  and now, what kind of answers should we expect.

Secondly, we must rethink the kind of assignments/assessments we plan for our students.

1.     We can ask the students to prepare a paper on any given topic using the help of ChatGPT and then review the same.( no point in brushing it under the carpet. In fact , we should try to incorporate it in our day to day teaching and learning and try to use it to our advantage). Students should be asked Viva on the assignments which they have submitted.

At times, students can be asked to do a written assignment based on their paper itself which they have completed using ChatGPT or any other source.

2.     Assignments/ assessments should be more thought provoking( I will post an example of the same in my next post).

 

Thirdly, we must install plagiarism checks and run them on student’s assignments.

Lastly, pen and paper traditional exam in the classroom which is monitored by the teachers can always be conducted.



In the end, I would like to say that this latest elephant in the room needs to be tamed and not feared. Like internet , mobiles and television before that , Chat GPT too, is here to stay.

👱👦👧👨👳👩👴👵👸👷👮



References:

1. https://unsplash.com/s/photos/chat-gpt

2. https://www.quora.com/What-are-10-jokes-about-the-status-of-chat-GPT

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A new Elephant in the room

Amongst the many forwarded videos in the numerous WhatsApp groups that we ae all members of, I recently came across a video which raised ala...