The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in education was a big topic during the Leon County School Board’s annual retreat earlier this month. Superintendent Rocky Hanna told us they need to take action quickly to embrace AI in the K through 12 system.
Of course, higher ed is also heavily engrossed in this conversation.
“I’m an accounting major right now, so AI is definitely utilized a lot in simplifying things,” says Trevor Ohm, a senior at Florida State University.
Jensen Kruse, a junior studying real estate, also makes use of AI. “My personal favorite way to use AI is as a study material,” says Kruse, who is partial to asking ChatGPT to create practice questions.
First year student Isabella Cabral does something similar. “When I have an exam or things like that, I ask it to write me a study guide,” Cabral says. “Once it defines the topics, if I need more specifics I will just ask to break it down.”
WFSU breaks down AI in education on our weekly program, Speaking Of.
“I think we're all trying to figure out still exactly what the future is going to look like with AI,” says Vanessa Dennen, FSU’s Tyner Distinguished Professor of Education. She is researching how AI is being used in educational settings, and she uses it a lot, like figuring out how to modify an assignment for a student with a visual disability.
“It was wonderful because there was an assignment that was focused on having the students create something that was very visual,” Dennen says. “It suggested that I have the student create an audio based project… My brain just wasn't going there in that moment, and AI was able to give that idea to me in an instant.”
Dennen says she has used AI to plan a vacation. “It was like talking to a travel agent. I gave it my parameters. It did all of this work really quickly and gave me an itinerary,” Dennen says. It even updated her itinerary when she requested a change on a certain day.
Dennen was in Orlando this week with educators from around the country presenting at an AI summit. She was joined by other FSU experts including Paul Marty, a professor of information and the Associate Vice Provost for Academic Innovation at FSU.
“There's always been disruptive technology in education at all levels -- K-12, higher education -- calculators, computers, the internet,” says Marty. “Educational institutions are very good at adopting and adapting to disruptive technologies.”
Marty says critical thinking skills and human connection are as important as ever.
“What matters is the thing that AI can't do,” Marty says. “So when we talk to faculty about, well, how are we changing our courses? How are we changing the way we teach? It all comes down to enabling our students to actually solve problems in a way that the computers can't.”
FSU has launched an artificial intelligence initiative. A new website has been created to pool resources and share knowledge.
Hear this entire segment of Speaking Of by clicking LISTEN above.
