probably right that a so-called-AI software can assist a teacher in making sure all students get to be on the same page
BIG nope to this. Source: I teach at a university. AI actively hinders my teaching. 99% of my students use AI and I have to constantly fight it or correct it. My job would be easier without AI.
I hear you. I just would like to point out von Ahn wasn’t talking about today. He’s looking at a future where some of these tools actually deliver on their promises. I understand why you’re skeptical and frankly so am I. But there is a chance he might prove us wrong in our lifetimes.
There’s a difference between a tool being available to you and a tool being misused by your students.
That said, I wouldn’t trust AI assessments of students to determine if they’re on track right now, either. Whatever means the AI would use needs to be better than grading quizzes, homework, etc., and while I’m not a teacher, I would be very surprised if it were better than any halfway competent teacher’s assessments (thinking in terms of high school and younger, at least - in university IME the expectation is that you self assess during the term and it’s up to you to seek out learning opportunities outside class if you need them, like going to office hours for your prof or TA).
AI isn’t useless, though! It’s just being used wrong. For example, AI can improve OCR, making it more feasible for students to hand in submissions that can be automatically graded, or to improve accessibility for graders. But for that to actually be helpful we need better options on the hardware front and for better integration of those options into grading systems, like affordable batch scanners that you can just drop a stack of 50 assignments into, each a variable number of pages, with software that will automatically sort out the results by assignment and submitter, and automatically organize them into the same place that you put all the digital submissions.
BIG nope to this. Source: I teach at a university. AI actively hinders my teaching. 99% of my students use AI and I have to constantly fight it or correct it. My job would be easier without AI.
I hear you. I just would like to point out von Ahn wasn’t talking about today. He’s looking at a future where some of these tools actually deliver on their promises. I understand why you’re skeptical and frankly so am I. But there is a chance he might prove us wrong in our lifetimes.
There’s a difference between a tool being available to you and a tool being misused by your students.
That said, I wouldn’t trust AI assessments of students to determine if they’re on track right now, either. Whatever means the AI would use needs to be better than grading quizzes, homework, etc., and while I’m not a teacher, I would be very surprised if it were better than any halfway competent teacher’s assessments (thinking in terms of high school and younger, at least - in university IME the expectation is that you self assess during the term and it’s up to you to seek out learning opportunities outside class if you need them, like going to office hours for your prof or TA).
AI isn’t useless, though! It’s just being used wrong. For example, AI can improve OCR, making it more feasible for students to hand in submissions that can be automatically graded, or to improve accessibility for graders. But for that to actually be helpful we need better options on the hardware front and for better integration of those options into grading systems, like affordable batch scanners that you can just drop a stack of 50 assignments into, each a variable number of pages, with software that will automatically sort out the results by assignment and submitter, and automatically organize them into the same place that you put all the digital submissions.