March 1

Everything You Need to Know About ChatGPT – Written by ChatGPT

What Is Chat GPT, How Does it Work, and How Can It Be Used to Cheat?

Chat GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a large language model developed by OpenAI that uses machine learning algorithms to generate human-like text. It is trained on a vast amount of data and can generate text that is grammatically correct, coherent, and sometimes even persuasive.

While Chat GPT can be a useful tool for many applications, including language translation, text summarization, and chatbot development, it can also have a negative impact on student work. One of the most significant concerns is that students may use Chat GPT to generate essays or other written assignments without actually understanding the content or doing the necessary research.

This could lead to students submitting work that is plagiarized or contains inaccurate information, which could result in disciplinary action or academic consequences. Additionally, students who rely too heavily on Chat GPT may miss out on the critical thinking and research skills that are essential for academic success.

Furthermore, Chat GPT may also perpetuate biases that exist in the data it was trained on. For example, if the training data contains a disproportionate amount of text from certain sources or perspectives, the generated text may reflect those biases. This could lead to problematic or offensive content being generated by the model.

Overall, while Chat GPT can be a powerful tool, it is important for students to use it responsibly and in conjunction with other learning strategies to ensure that they are developing the skills they need to succeed academically.

What Can Teachers and Parents Do?

As an AI language model, Chat GPT generates text that can be difficult to distinguish from text written by a human. However, there are a few clues that teachers and parents can look for to identify Chat GPT generated work:

  1. Unnatural phrasing: Chat GPT may generate text that uses phrasing or sentence structures that are not commonly used by humans. If the text sounds stilted or awkward, it may be an indicator that it was generated by an AI language model.
  2. Repetition: Chat GPT may sometimes generate text that repeats itself or uses similar phrases or sentences multiple times. While humans may sometimes repeat themselves, AI-generated text may do so in a way that seems unnatural or excessive.
  3. Lack of coherence: Chat GPT may generate text that lacks coherence or doesn’t seem to follow a logical progression. This may be a sign that the text was generated by an AI language model rather than a human who is able to organize their thoughts more effectively.
  4. Unusual errors or mistakes: Chat GPT may make mistakes that are unlikely for a human to make, such as spelling errors that are consistent throughout the text or mistakes that seem to follow a pattern. These errors may be an indication that the text was generated by an AI language model.

Overall, while Chat GPT generated text can be difficult to identify, a combination of these clues may suggest that the work was generated by an AI language model. It’s important for teachers to be aware of these clues and to exercise caution when evaluating student work to ensure that the work is authentic and accurately reflects the student’s abilities.

This Post Was Written by AI

Could you tell that this post was completely written by AI?  You could if you know my writing style or if you know me personally.  This post has a much more formal and technical writing style than anything I would normally write.  That is the most important tip I have for teachers and parents – know your kids.  Is the work in their voice?  Learn to notice when something sounds way too good.  At higher levels academically, this could become extremely challenging and would likely require AI detecting software.

Asking for a comprehensive bibliography is also a great way to catch AI generated work.  Where is all of this information coming from?  Can you see the clear links between the student work and the sites and books used in the bibliography?

There are many saying that schools need to find a way to live harmoniously with ChatGPT as it is here to stay.  How can we learn to use it as a tool instead of designating it as a threat?  Can we redesign lesson plans to incorporate using ChatGPT to create outlines for essays which we then write in class?  Can we use it to generate helpful ideas?  This technology is so new that we don’t yet know all of the possible benefits or disadvantages.  But one thing is certain, we need to talk about it with our students and clearly define our expectations when it comes to student work.  It will take time for all of us to learn to coexist with these incredible new AI tools.

 

Here are a few other articles that could prove helpful;

From EdWeek – ChatGPT Cheating – What to Do When it Happens

From the NYT – Don’t Ban Chat GPT in Schools, Teach With It

May 19

Media Violence and Reality

Part 1 – Movies versus real life

 

In a superhero movie, you often see the superhero killing or hurting the bad guys and you feel happy about it.  Your good guy is winning the fight or saving the world, right?  But if the movie was real life, what would happen if a good guy hurt or killed a bunch of people (even if they were bad!)  Would the good guy get arrested?  Would he have to go to court?  Maybe go to jail?  How would he feel about what he had done?

Movies, tv shows, and video games do a really good job of helping us to forget about the real world for a little while by telling us an exciting story.  But it is easy to forget that the way violence happens in the media isn’t the way violence happens in real life.  In real life, the consequences of violence are very serious!!

In school, if we pretend to be Spider-man and punch our friend because we are pretending he is Venom, what would happen to us?  How much trouble would we be in, from our parents and our teachers?

QUESTIONS – Choose just ONE to answer in the comments on this blog page

1.In video games you are often shooting or fighting other players to try to defeat them.  This is how you win the game.

What would happen if you used violence to win something in real life?

2. Every action movie seems to have have a crazy car chase, car explosion, or car crash scene.  

In real life what would happen if there was a big crash like this on the road or highway?  

3. In superhero movies the hero always kills a whole lot of villains and bad guys.  

In real life what would happen to someone who did these things?

4. In video games and movies when people get shot or injured they bounce right back and keep fighting.  

In real life what happens if you get seriously hurt?

Part 2 – Violence and Our Feelings

Here is a very violent scene from a movie you’ve all probably seen, Beauty and the Beast.

Watch this scene and then pay close attention to how it makes you FEEL.  Does it make your chest get tight?  Your heart race fast?  Your stomach turn?  Did you close your eyes?  All of these feelings and reactions are your body feeling stress from what you are seeing, and it is important that we learn to notice these kinds of feelings.  I know that watching things that are violent make me nervous and it’s hard for me to sleep at night when I watch them, so I avoid them.  That is an easy solution.  Another solution is to remember that what we are seeing in movies, tv, and video games is not real.  That can be very reassuring to remember.  The people are actors.  Writers have written everything that happens in the story.  In this clip Gaston and the Beast are just drawings made by artists.

If something that you’ve seen really bothers you, always talk to your parents about it.  They can have helpful advice for handling those feelings.

Next time you notice violence in media, remember that it is made to entertain people but is a far cry from how things are done or should be done in the real world.  It is important that we always use our words and not our fists to solve problems in the real world.