Maybe selfish of me, but... as a middle school Reading and Language Arts teacher, is ChatGPT the end?
Oy, NO. I recently saw a video where ChatGPT was used by a bartender to create a Tiki cocktail. He followed the directions to the letter. It was terrible. There is always a need for the human palate, be it for what is drinkable or for what is readable.
Question is, how accurate is GPTZero? At what point can you accuse a student of using an app to do homework by asking an app if the homework was done by an app?
Chat bots aren’t new. They’re a tool, just like any other. People were convinced that computers would make writing obsolete, and that’s not happened either. It’s just part of the evolution of technology, but it’s not something that will suddenly take over.
Obsolete - no, but technology has been used as reasons to not teach skills that were used prior. Calculators are heavily used rather than memorization of facts. Some people even advocate calculators for those who struggle to memorize facts going beyond the truly disabled students). Cursive writing is no more. Even typing is being pushed lower in grades moving out pen to paper writing. We now rely on word processors to edit and sometimes even re-write sentences. Has composing been pushed out yet? Not yet, but it is not unrealistic to think there will be those that over rely on technology for composition as the technology improves. Thank goodness there will always be those who enforce learning the skills needed to develop the technology whether that be technical skills or language skills. Tech will also has the possibility to change language even faster than it is changing now bringing inaccurate usage into the commonplace depending on the sets of information used to train the AI. Put poor quality information in, you will get poor quality information out. I agree it is a tool, but so often tools are misused in education replacing solid teaching in order to make it appear that students are learning because the tool may produce a product for them when they are not capable of producing the information themselves.
A tool is only as good as the one who is using it. Certain computer programs, I can work wonders. On other programs, I can probably only get 1% of what a pro can get out of it. I do think that too many people believe a tool can solve all of their problems. A dictionary can't teach you to read and even an advanced calculator can't teach you math. In the hands of a master, these items can work wonders. In the hands of a rookie, these do so little. This ChatGPT program is already showing amazing things, but also showing amazing limitations in the hands of a rookie. As educators, it will be a challenge how and when to best use this tool. It is a good thing we have teachers to help the students through this new technology.
One of my favorite stories to tell my students is the one about first using laptops with my students. They were using Word to type their writing pieces, and I told them that they had to be sure to proofread their pieces, even thought they were using spellcheck. One kid had “weenie” instead of “when” in his piece, and his name was “Sack” instead of “Zach”. Why? He said that the computer told him that’s what it was supposed to be.
Well this poster always talks about their job being eliminated or not needed anymore so I just guessed maybe that's where he was heading. I could be worng.
I'm not the only one. https://www.businessinsider.com/cha...23-02?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=news_tab
From the doomsday point of view, things change. If you aren't writing an essay yourself, you are going to have to have a conversation with the AI to extract what you want from it. You could put a positive spin on things. Instead of spending time with a teacher doing a monologue lecture, students could be improving their communication skills one on one with an AI.
I wasn’t meaning to be rude. It’s just that it really is the subject of your posts. Personally, I don’t worry about things like that. Things change over time, and it just seems like it would be really stressful to constantly be thinking about “what if”. Worry changes exactly zero outcomes.
Here's something to worry about... Unemployment is at a 50+ year low. What if full retirement age is raised to force people back into the labor market?
Forcing already retired people to return to work? Not likely. Forcing those still working to work longer for full benefits, already happening in some places.
What if...What if...What if... If we are going to go with What ifs why not add some positive ones. What if teacher salaries were increased far above the inflation rate in order to take care of some of the teacher shortages? What if all the new ideas being generated on the internet led to real breakthroughs in learning such as for special education children? What ifs often don't happen, but I'd rather spend my what if thoughts on dreams instead of nightmares.
"Some"!? It's basic human nature. People are going to worry about things they don't want to happen, things they would like to prevent, but may have no actual control over. But people are optimistic, really. We go to work, save money, help others, to make good things happen, like food on the table, roof over the head, warm clothes for ourselves and others. We don't worry about the good things. We do our best to act to make them real.
I read the article. What I see in terms of teaching is two fold. Abuse of AI for cheating is a real issue. There are already videos out there showing the quality of the information created by the bot. This ups the game for the teacher to be able to determine the difference between a student produced and a bot produced piece of work. I can see people tweaking the bot to make it seem more like a human generated piece of work by adding criteria such as write this like the average grade seven student such that it will include errors to throw off the teacher. If the bot can be "programmed" or "trained" for quality it can also be trained for error introduction. The drastic changing of what the job of "teaching" entails. If the chat bot can teach the lessons and even more if it is integrated with video ai so the "teacher" appears to be a person, the job of the human teacher will change to a facilitator in the best case and a monitor in the worst case. Currently at university level we now have many more people being served than before. A single on-line class can reach a vast number of students which is fabulous for those who want to learn, but when it comes to those teaching, it reduces the number of professors needed and increases the lower level support needed to address the masses.
Yes, normal people do all of those things. The crisis hounds are pessimistic 24/7 and are literally hounds for sniffing out bad things they think will happen.
I'm fine with being called rude if it means I'm just stating the obvious and calling out the crazies.
I guess to answer more directly the OP's question, my answer is "no". Chat GPT is not the end for Reading and Language Arts teachers. I am still waiting for that day when my students show up and know everything and don't need me. Not only is that not happening, but they seem to be struggling with reading and language arts just as much as in the past. I think that is true in all grades. Technology alone will never cure that.
