“I confiscated an ID card from a student as he was not following some rules in the college. So I told him to write an apology letter to get it back. When I received his apology letter, I found that he had written it so well and professionally that I appreciated him. That’s when he revealed he had used ChatGPT to write the letter,” said Kiran Jeevan, Placements and Public Relations Officer at St. Joseph’s University.
ChatGPT has taken the academic world by storm in the last few months by delivering essays and project reports and even passing MBA and medical examinations of prestigious universities. Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (GPT) is a chatbot launched in November 2022 by OpenAI. With its optimised language models for dialogues, it takes prompts and instructions and delivers detailed responses.
Recently, a few educational institutions in Bengaluru announced a ban on using ChatGPT in assignments and projects. This begs a larger question: What are the pros and cons of using technology in education?
During the pandemic, technology ensured students didn’t miss out on learning. | Photo Credit: BIJOY GHOSH
When technology was saviour
Flashback to 2020, when COVID forced the whole world into a lockdown. The saviour was technology which ensured that students did not miss out on education. Online classes became the new reality with the emergence of multiple platforms. Assignments, project reports and examinations moved online. The use of technology in education had begun much before the lockdowns, but COVID made it an inseparable part of learning.
“Technology is necessary in education as the world is changing, and we must keep pace with it. However, the biggest worry with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools is that they will keep students from reading, analysing, critical thinking and researching, without which they will lose a lot. Hence, we need to think about how much technology to use and where to draw the line,” said Mr. Kiran. He added that the crux of higher education lies in learning, relearning and unlearning, which might be hampered through the use of AI.
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Most educational institutions have incorporated technology into the curriculum for functions like assignment submissions, digital libraries, bio-metric attendance and interactive learning. Elaborating on the importance of it, Sanjay Chitnis, Dean, School of Computer Science and Engineering, R.V. University, said, “The use of technology is always welcome in education as it can enable productivity. With it, we can make better use of e-learning and get access to the best quality content from all over the world.”
He further said, “Tech platforms and tools are helpful. For instance, we need cloud computation in Computer Science, for which we need good AI/ML platforms. Even in rural areas, they can access good platforms through technology. In classrooms, Powerpoint presentations and interactive panels can enhance the learning experience.”
The biggest worry with AI tools is that they will keep students from reading, analysing, critical thinking and researching, without which they will lose a lot, say education experts. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto
Too much dependence
R.V. University is also among the institutions that have banned ChatGPT. However, Mr. Sanjay said it was not a blanket ban on the technology itself, but on its usage while learning programming and while submitting assignments that need to be original. “ChatGPT is a useful tool that can generate coding and do what ten engineers can. But there is a risk that we become more dependent on technology and lose our skills,” he added.
Although ChatGPT, or the usage of tech in assignments, is lesser in schools than in higher educational institutions, schools have kept a cautious eye on it. Educationists also believe that a radical ban on new tools is not the way forward in today’s world.
Puneet Kothapa, President of The Narayana Group, said, “The use of technology in education will work only when physical learning is enhanced. It can never replace or substitute physical learning. But, mock tests, clarification of doubts, and catching up with missed classes can be done through technology. So, the system must evolve to keep up with technology and see where it goes instead of imposing a ban on it.”
AI to detect usage of ChatGPT
Educational institutions are looking forward to tools that can help them detect the usage of ChatGPT rather than keeping it out altogether.
“We have tools to identify plagiarism in assignments and project reports. It can find out the exact documents and the percentage of plagiarism. Similarly, there will shortly be tools that can detect if the submitted content is an output of ChatGPT or any other chatbot,” said Shyam P. Joy, Associate Professor & Head of the Department, Department of Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning, CMR Institute of Technology.
The consensus in academia is that technology will continue to proliferate while increasing its relevance in education. The onus of drawing the line between use and misuse of it will have to be shared by students, teachers and parents equally to ensure that the essence of learning is not lost.
