It is hard to keep up with the avalanche of talks, posts, reports and so on about AI and education, sparked by Open AI’s release of Chat GPT and then the many tools which have followed. Talking with teachers in different countries in Europe, I am impressed how many seem to have just quietly got on with it, accepting that AI is there and it is important that their students know how to use it properly and sensibly. Having said that, in Italy Chat GPT remains banned, as it is viewed by the government as being in conflict with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The big problem area for institutions is assessment. Joe Wilson’s opening speech at the City Of Glasgow College’s teaching and learning conference yesterday. Joe Wilson is Head of Digital Skills and his presentation was entitled the ‘March of Artificial Intelligence from Tinder to Training in 30 minutes.’ The key take aways from his presentation were to:

1. Make you aware of rise of artificial intelligence and implications for education and assessment.

2. Make you aware of a range of tools you can use in your own practice

3. Consider how you should introduce AI to your learners to allow them to use it ethically 

4. Reflect on what it means for policy makers.

Talking about assessment (which he approached as part of professional practice) he said

1 .Ideally make assessment a demonstration of competence.

2. Require personal reflection and insights. 

3. Require that notes and drafts are submitted with the final work. – know your learner’s writing style

He suggested promoting Portfolios and blogs and eliciting reports on specific activities (How I did/achieved this) as well as creating assessments that require Video or oral assessments and seting tasks that require analysis of charts, images, or videos.

All of which would seem a good idea to me, regardless of Generative AI.

You can see the full presentation on Google Docs