Trinity Anglican School embraces ChatGPT as educational tool

One Cairns school is trialling controversial tech in their classrooms as part of a study into the future of AI in education.

Prep teacher Bronwyn Sarles is trialling the use of AI technology in her teaching practices. Picture: Supplied

One Cairns school is trialling controversial tech in their classrooms as part of a study into the future of AI in education.

Trinity Anglican School’s Kewarra Beach primary campus has been testing the impacts of OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, on its students and their learning since late August as part of a pioneering study with the University of Queensland.

Prep teacher Bronwyn Sarles said the project was an opportunity for her to strengthen her teaching methods.

“I started teaching before the World Wide Web when the most technology we had was an overhead projector and a television that had to be wheeled into the classroom,” Ms Sarles said.

“Being part of this project will give me another skill set I would never have even dreamt of

when I started teaching.”

The trial, which will finish at the end of this month, will be used to form a classification of useful AI prompts for the Australian Curriculum which will assist teachers across the country to use AI in their lessons.

Head of Primary Mary Kershaw said her staff were excited to continue developing their AI programs.

“Our teaching cohort are all on board to learn about ChatGPT and start trialling it in their teaching and learning programs,” Ms Kershaw said.

The trial comes as a federal government inquiry into the use of AI in education heard from the Independent Education Union of Australia that increased workload pressure would be placed on teachers having to navigate AI complexities.

The inquiry also heard from the Tech Council of Australia on Wednesday who urged the committee not to fear the impacts of AI in schools or forfeit a digitally literate workforce in the future.

Originally published as Trinity Anglican School embraces ChatGPT as educational tool