U-turn: State schools to embrace ChatGPT as learning tool

Public schools are following the private sector’s example in adding AI technology like ChatGPT into their curriculum.

After adopting a hard line approach and banning ChatGPT, the Queensland Department of Education has softened its stance and will help state schools harness the new technology to support teachers.

It comes as more private schools integrate ChatGPT into classes, choosing to embrace the power of the artificial intelligence revolution, rather than trying to outlaw it and prevent students from using it to do their assignments for them.

ChatGPT composes realistic and detailed responses to prompts. It was developed by Silicon Valley start-up OpenAI with backing from Elon Musk and Microsoft. An updated version of ChatGPT was released earlier this month.

ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, continues to evolve. Photo: Lionel Bonaventure - AFP.

Among the first to embrace the AI bot was the Islamic College of Brisbane, situated in Karawatha on Brisbane’s southern outskirts and home to 1600 students, which announced at the start of the year it would revise its 2023 curriculum to use the chatbot as a teaching aid.

In January, a Department spokesman said ChatGPT had been blocked for all students on its network until it could be “fully assessed for its appropriateness in a school setting”.

“The review will consider if this remains the best approach to responding to ChatGPT,” the spokesman said two months ago.

“Schools generally develop their own policies regarding the use of AI by students, with guidance and advice available from the department.

“These policies should outline the acceptable and unacceptable uses of AI as well as any consequences for violating these guidelines.”

However, the Department told The Courier-Mail this week that progress had been made at a meeting of Education Ministers on February 27.

“Ministers discussed the opportunities stemming from AI technologies, which are increasingly becoming available in educational settings,” the Department spokesman said.

“In response to this rapidly evolving technology landscape, Ministers agreed to develop an evidence-based, best practice framework to guide schools in harnessing AI tools to support teaching and learning.

“A task force, including education and technology experts, is being established to develop the national framework and return to Ministers with advice in 2023.

“This national work will help inform the Department of Education’s assessment of technologies, such as ChatGPT, and how they can be safely and appropriately used in schools.”

Meanwhile, in the private sector, Hillbrook Anglican School head of digital education Miriam Scott said the school developed a course on generative AI to educate their teachers on the positives in the AI technology.

Hillbrook Anglican School head of digital education Miriam Scott. Photo: Supplied.

“Students have been using these tools for years, but there are also opportunities for teachers to use it for greater productivity,” she said.

“Teachers across the world are finding they are becoming increasingly time-poor, the technology provides an opportunity to help support some of that workload, which is brilliant.

“We’ve also started integrating it into our classrooms, exploring this from different angles. Our senior business students wrote a feasibility report on integrating AI technologies like ChatGPT into the school. They presented their ideas to the principal, who then took them to the school board, and they will now be used to shape our strategies on AI technologies.

“There are also times where we put a question into ChatGPT and analyse the answer with students in terms of what it is doing well and how we can get what we are looking for.

“You can’t hide from it (ChatGPT and AI technology in general), so let’s embrace it.”

Earlier this year, Queensland teachers were embracing ChatGPT to create lesson plans and write letters to parents.

At the start of the year, Australia’s leading research-intensive universities – known as The Group of Eight and including the University of Queensland – flagged a return to old-school practices, including the “greater use of pen and paper exams and tests” to combat the issue of students inputting assignment tasks into ChatGPT and getting the chatbot to answer for them.