How can AI and Chat GPT be used sensibly in schools? This is currently a big topic. Some emphasize the opportunities, others draw attention to the risks.
Kathrin Röschel can no longer contain herself. The forum “How to successfully use AI in education” is already entering the home stretch when the headmistress of the Berlin Cosmopolitan School makes her plea: “Please, please, please don’t let us forget the teachers. We have to change our examination formats change, we have to change our curricula, we have to train the teachers.”
Big applause for Röschel, who also taught at a school in Silicon Valley. But the topic of “AI in education” is polarizing. Critics like Wikimedia, for example, warn against tools being introduced too hastily in the classroom and the data protection problems that could accompany them: Can you really rely on commercial providers? Do you need these solutions?
Chatbots for Lesson preparation
A tool that teachers have been able to use since last week is chatbots that can be used to prepare lessons. It was developed by the company fobizz. The federal states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Rhineland-Palatinate have been working with him for a long time.
Diana Knodel, CEO of fobizz, sees many good opportunities for using AI in teaching: “AI can relieve us of the workload. There are many, many application examples that teachers can use to work with AI. But we have to be prepared. and discuss the disadvantages of artificial intelligence with the students.”
Tailor to your own needs
This is how the fobizz chatbot works: With the help of so-called prompts, i.e. instructions to the chatbot, a teaching unit or even the coming months can be prepared based on an educational plan. Specific topics, introductions, tests, aspects that should definitely be covered – the chatbot can develop suggestions for all of these.
Alexander Tscheulin, teacher in Hamburg and speaker on digitality, has been working on the topic of “learning with digital media” for a long time. What he likes about the fobizz chatbot is that it is much easier to tailor individual needs. But Tscheulin also warns against relying solely on the bot. It is always necessary to critically examine an AI.
How do politicians view the issue?
For Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger, AI is the “key technology of the 21st century.” Artificial intelligence offers enormous potential in education, for example, says the FDP politician. There are opportunities for individual advancement and support for teachers and training staff.
“Learners and teachers need specific skills for the confident use of AI,” says Stark-Watzinger. The Ministry of Education is investing a total of more than 1.6 billion euros in AI during this legislative period. This covers funding measures within which startups and companies can be supported.
With regard to the use of AI in schools, Kai Gehring, Chairman of the Bundestag Committee for Education, Research and Technology Assessment, advocates for quality standards that – despite educational federalism – should apply in all sixteen federal states: “There is a wealth of technologies and tools, and we have to constantly weigh up the opportunities and risks.”
The new tools must be designed to be inclusive and non-discriminatory, said Gehring. All students should experience added value in their learning process and in education.