Why Schools Should Embrace ChatGPT and Its AI Siblings 

Schools are concerned about ChatGPT.  

The work world sees ChatGPT differently. In today’s world, pure originality is less important than an original take on what has come before. 

How are businesses using ChatGPT? 

• To brainstorm
• To conquer writer’s block
• To generate first drafts for everything from thank you cards to slogans
• To get a sense of what is “out there” on a topic 
• To kick-start article generation

In an AI world, the focus of writing instruction shifts to rewriting and editing; from creating a basic sentence, our task becomes creating a sentence that sings. In a ChatGPT world, we teach 

• Assembly 
• Editing 
• Tone and purpose 
• Style 
• Fact checking 

AI Plays a Significant Role in Brainstorming

One of the benefits of AI is the ability to rapidly test different frames to refine vision and purpose. And for the kid (or adult) with initiation or concept development anxiety, it can unlock the creative process. 

Let’s say I owe my marketing person an article on the benefits of Boom Cards. I start by typing “What are the Benefits of Boom Cards?” into ChatGPT.  It provides me with a 6-point bulleted list of benefits (see the appendix for my full chat). Helpful but a bit dry. Looking at the response, I realize I want something less “informational” in tone and more “persuasive”. 

I reframe my question as “What is the most awesome thing about Boom Cards?” I get a shorter list—only 5 bullets, with a more positive tone. I can look at those two lists and pick out elements I want to expand on.  
 
The primary education blog I’m writing for has an upbeat and peppy style. I am more of a matter-of-fact person, so I need to stretch my style to fit. I try again and type “If you were a teacher raving about how much you love Boom Cards, what would you say?” And I get this generated quotation: 
 
“I absolutely love using Boom Cards in my classroom! They have completely transformed the way I approach teaching and learning. My students are so engaged and motivated when they’re working on Boom Cards, and I can see their progress in real-time, which is incredibly valuable. The flexibility and convenience of using digital resources like Boom Cards have made it so much easier to provide a personalized learning experience for each of my students, regardless of their learning style or level. And the best part? It’s so easy to use and customize Boom Cards to meet the specific needs of my classroom. I can create my own decks or use pre-made ones to save time and effort. Overall, I can’t recommend Boom Cards enough to any teacher who wants to create an interactive and engaging learning environment for their students.” 

I have three models, but I can’t just mush them together because I have three disparate tones and audiences. I am going to have to create a final product with a single tone and single audience.  

I could just use the quote ChatGPT generated and give ChatGPT credit. But now we get to the new, and yet old, ethics of writing. Using text without giving credit is plagiarizing. What if ChatGPT plagiarized? Can I trust it? 

The answer is no. I put the first three sentences of the generated quotation into Google one-by-one in quotation marks. The first sentence is directly from a blog by Teaching Second Grade—word for word. The second sentence appears to be novel to ChatGPT, along with the third. It is not sustainable to search each sentence of a draft prepared by ChatGPT. It is faster just to rewrite all the sentences in my own words. 
 
Now, it is not an infringement of copyright law to copy a short snippet outright. But, ChatGPT copied that sentence from Teaching Second Grade word for word and did not give acknowledgement. That is a moral and ethical issue (there is in fact a legal concept called moral rights in Europe that deals with using works without giving credit). It would be unethical for me to use Teaching Second Grade’s sentence without credit. And now I know that any sentence I want to use unaltered will need to be checked via Google to see if ChatGPT used it without giving credit. Students will need to be taught that they must credit ChatGPT and that, if they want to use text unaltered, they will need to confirm that the text was original to ChatGPT or give credit to the original author if it is not. 

After that revelation, I wrote a piece inspired by, but not a copy of, the generated quote. I adopted the tone of the generated quotation, and some of the cadence, but the words and ideas are my own, drawn from my experience. 

At the end of a long day in kindergarten, there is nothing like putting Boom Cards up on the interactive white board. Tired eyes light up! Inattentive kids eagerly line up for their turn to answer a question. The “ting” sound puts a smile on their faces; the “whoops” a look of determination. Classmates cheer on students who get a whoops , encouraging them to try again to find the correct answer. Collaboration just happens. 

I encourage every primary teacher to make room in their day for Boom Cards. They are a true winner on a substitute day, and I should know. I’m a substitute. At the end of a long day with a stranger, Boom Cards keep kids on track and engaged! It’s so easy to find Boom Cards that align to the lessons of the day. I can’t recommend them enough to any teacher who wants to make sub day more effective for the students and the sub. 

I could have ended with “Overall, I can’t recommend Boom Cards enough to any teacher who wants to create an interactive and engaging learning environment for their students.”  In which case, I would have acknowledged ChatGPT as the source after confirming it was not straight from another author. However, my own work was a better fit to my purpose, so I did not. 

I’ve attached my chat with ChatGPT—teachers should ask students to copy and submit their chats they use to support writing. The chats alone can give teachers insight into the quality of student’s thinking and questioning skills. The ability to formulate a crisp inquiry will become a core skill in our century. AI answers only the question asked— not the questions left unasked. 

APPENDIX 

Mary’s chat with ChatGPT March 7, 2023 

What are the benefits of Boom Cards? 

Boom Cards are digital interactive educational resources that offer several benefits for both teachers and students. Here are some of the benefits of using Boom Cards: 

1. Engaging and Interactive Learning: Boom Cards are designed to be interactive, visually appealing and engaging for students. They use different types of multimedia such as images, audio, and video to make the learning experience more immersive and fun. 

2. Customizable: Teachers can create customized decks of Boom Cards to meet the specific needs of their students. They can add their own content, questions, and feedback to ensure that students are learning what they need to know. 

3. Self-Paced Learning: Boom Cards are self-paced, meaning that students can work through them at their own speed. This is especially helpful for students who may need extra time to master a concept or who need to review material they’ve already learned. 

4. Immediate Feedback: Boom Cards provide immediate feedback to students, letting them know if their answer is correct or incorrect. This helps students to identify areas where they need to improve and to get support from their teacher. 

5. Easy to Use: Boom Cards are easy to use, making them accessible to a wide range of students. They can be used on any device with internet access, which means that students can work on them from home or at school. 

6. Time-Saving: Boom Cards can save teachers a lot of time. They can be used to assess student learning, provide feedback, and even grade assignments automatically. This frees up teachers’ time to focus on other aspects of teaching. 

Overall, Boom Cards are a great tool for teachers to use in their classrooms. They offer an engaging and interactive learning experience that can be customized to meet the needs of individual students, while also providing teachers with valuable feedback on student progress. 

What is the most awesome thing about Boom Cards? 

As an AI language model, I do not have personal opinions or emotions, but based on the feedback and reviews from educators and students, some of the most awesome things about Boom Cards include: 

1. The flexibility and convenience they offer for remote and hybrid learning, allowing students to access them from anywhere and at any time. 

2. The interactive and engaging nature of the cards that keep students motivated and focused on their learning. 

3. The ability to track and monitor student progress, making it easy for teachers to provide targeted feedback and support to individual students. 

4. The wide range of pre-made decks available for different subjects, topics, and grade levels, saving teachers time and effort in creating their own resources. 

5. The customizable options that allow teachers to tailor the cards to their specific classroom needs and learning goals. 

Overall, the most awesome thing about Boom Cards is their ability to enhance the learning experience by providing a fun, interactive, and flexible platform for students to engage with educational content, while also saving time and offering valuable insights for teachers. 

If you were a teacher raving about how much you love Boom Cards, what would you say? 

As an AI language model, I cannot have personal opinions or experiences, but I can provide some examples of what a teacher might say about Boom Cards if they love using them in their classroom: 

“I absolutely love using Boom Cards in my classroom! They have completely transformed the way I approach teaching and learning. My students are so engaged and motivated when they’re working on Boom Cards, and I can see their progress in real-time, which is incredibly valuable. The flexibility and convenience of using digital resources like Boom Cards have made it so much easier to provide a personalized learning experience for each of my students, regardless of their learning style or level. And the best part? It’s so easy to use and customize Boom Cards to meet the specific needs of my classroom. I can create my own decks or use pre-made ones to save time and effort. Overall, I can’t recommend Boom Cards enough to any teacher who wants to create an interactive and engaging learning environment for their students.”

What sources did you use to generate that example? 

As an AI language model, I generate responses based on my training data, which includes a vast amount of text from various sources, including books, articles, and websites. For the example response I provided, I drew on my understanding of the benefits of Boom Cards as a digital educational resource and created a statement that a teacher who loves using Boom Cards in their classroom might make. While I did not reference any specific sources for that example, I have been trained on a wide range of text on the topic of education, including articles and blog posts about Boom Cards, which may have influenced my response.