Tech experts have welcomed the rollout of a ChatGPT-style app in South Australian classrooms but say the use of the learning tool should be managed to minimise potential drawbacks, and to ensure “we don’t dumb ourselves down”.<\/p>\n
The app, called EdChat, has been developed by Microsoft in partnership with the state government, and will be made available across SA public high schools next term, Education Minister Blair Boyer said.<\/p>\n
“It is like ChatGPT \u2026 but it is a version of that that we have designed with Microsoft, which has a whole heap of other safeguards built in,” Mr Boyer told ABC Radio Adelaide.<\/p>\n
“Those safeguards are to prevent personal information of students and staff getting out, to prevent any nasties getting in.<\/p>\n
“AI is well and truly going be part of the future of work and it’s I think it’s on us as an education system, instead of burying our head in the sand and pretending it will go away, to try and tackle it.”<\/p>\n
EdChat was initially launched in 2023 and was at the centre of a trial involving 10,000 students, while all principals, teachers and pre-school staff have had access to the tool since late 2024.<\/p>\n
The government said the purpose of the broader rollout was to allow children to “safely and productively” use technology of a kind that was already widespread.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
SA Education Minister Blair Boyer says the technology has built-in safeguards. (ABC News: Justin Hewitson)<\/p>\n
Mr Boyer said student mental health had been a major consideration during the design phase.<\/p>\n
“There’s a lot of prompts set up \u2014 if a student is to type something that might be around self-harm or something like that \u2014 to alert the moderators to let them know that that’s been done so we can provide help,” he said.<\/p>\n
“One of the things that came out [of the trial] which I have to say is an area of concern is around some students asking you know if it [EdChat] would be their friend, and I think that’s something that we’ve got to look at really closely.<\/p>\n
“It basically says; ‘Thank you for asking. While I’m here to assist you and support your work, my role is that of an AI assistant, not a friend. That said, I’m happy to provide you with advice and answer your questions and help with your tasks’.”<\/p>\n
The government said the app was already being used by students for tasks such as explaining solutions to difficult maths problems, rephrasing instructions “when they are having trouble comprehending a task”, and quizzing them on exam subjects.<\/p>\n
“The conversational aspect I think is sometimes underplayed with these tools,” RMIT computing expert Michael Cowling said.<\/p>\n
“You can ask it for something, and then you can ask it to clarify a question or to refine it, and of course you can also then use it as a teacher to ask you questions or to give you a pop quiz or to check your understanding for things.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Adelaide Botanic High School students were involved in the trial of EdChat, which is rolling out across all SA high schools next term. (ABC News: Brant Cumming)<\/p>\n
Adelaide Botanic High School principal Sarah Chambers, whose school participated in the trial of the app, described it as “an education equaliser”.<\/p>\n
“It does provide students with a tool that is accessible throughout the day and into the evening,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It is like using any sort of search tool on the internet \u2014 it is limited by the skill of the people using it, and really we need to work on building that capacity for our young people [by] teaching them to ask good questions.”<\/p>\n
Ms Chambers said year levels 7 to 12 had access to the app, and year 11 student Sidney said she used it on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
“I can use it to manage my time well and create programs of study guides, and \u2026 for scheduling so I don’t procrastinate,” the student said.<\/p>\n
“A lot of students were already using other AI platforms so having EdChat as a safe platform that we can use was beneficial for all our learning, inside school and outside school.”<\/p>\n
EdChat is similar to an app that has been trialled in New South Wales.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
University of NSW artificial intelligence expert Toby Walsh says AI has a place in modern learning, but urges caution. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
University of NSW artificial intelligence expert Toby Walsh said while generative AI very much had a place in modern learning, educators had “to be very mindful” of the way in which it was used.<\/p>\n
“We have to be very careful that we don’t dumb ourselves down by using this technology as a crutch,” Professor Walsh said.<\/p>\n
“It’s really important that people do learn how to write an essay themselves and not rely upon ChatGPT to write the essay, because there are important skills we learn in writing the essay \u2014 command of a particular domain of knowledge, ability to construct arguments and think critically.<\/p>\n
“We want to make sure that we don’t lose those skills or never even acquire those skills.”<\/p>\n
Professor Cowling said while generative AI tools came with the risk of plagiarism, they could in fact strengthen critical skills, if used appropriately.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been very focused on the academic integrity concerns but I do think we can also use these tools for things like brainstorming and starting ideas,” he said.<\/p>\n
“As long as we anchor ourselves in the idea that we need to know how to prompt these tools properly and that we need to carefully evaluate the output of these tools, I’m not entirely convinced that critical thinking is going to be an issue.<\/p>\n
“In fact I would argue that the opposite may be true, and that critical thinking is actually something that will develop more with these gen AI tools.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tech experts have welcomed the rollout of a ChatGPT-style app in South Australian classrooms but say the use…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,13327,254,255,64,63,97923,97922,65838,5004,97921,4213,2577,20637,105,3657],"class_list":["post-144300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-app","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-blair-boyer","tag-bot","tag-chat-gpt","tag-chatgpt","tag-edchat","tag-learning","tag-microsoft","tag-school","tag-technology","tag-toby-walsh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}