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AI tools have become an indispensable part of schools and will inevitably change the demands placed on students.
The market for AI tools has been booming since ChatGPT. Is this the beginning of a new era? “It is certainly a new chapter in digital transformation,” says Beat Döbeli Honegger, professor of media and information didactics at the Schwyz University of Education. A new chapter, but not a new story.
Legend:
AI tools are also used in teaching and offer teachers new options for designing lessons.
Keystone/Timothy D’Easley
The similarities to the early days of the Internet are unmistakable. “Courses for teachers on how to use the Internet were offered 25 years ago.” Today’s fears are not new either. “The fear used to be that students would no longer think for themselves and would instead download everything from the Internet. “Today the fear is that they will no longer think for themselves, but instead have a chat robot write everything,” Döbeli Honegger draws parallels.
School as a knowledge broker – also with regard to AI
The role of the school? “An important one,” says Döbeli Honegger. School is a place where students are prepared for the world. Today’s world consists of digital tools that influence our daily lives. Excluding these from today’s lessons is “unthinkable” for Döbeli Honegger.
Today, lessons can be made much more exciting.
Teachers should be motivated to actively try out new approaches and integrate them into the lessons. “Lessons can be made much more exciting today,” says Döbeli Honegger. For example, it hasn’t just become easier to produce podcasts on the radio. Even at school, thanks to cell phones and editing programs, teachers could create great projects with their students in a short time and without much effort. “What used to take a week of project work is now enough in one morning,” says Döbeli Honegger.
Challenge in the classroom
Technological change is turning teaching on its head. For example, will children still have to learn to spell if writing is taken over by machines in the future? “Every activity that is carried out by a machine must be fundamentally understood,” says Döbeli Honegger, otherwise you are at the mercy of the machine.
Despite having pocket calculators, we still learn mental arithmetic in school today.
He compares the current situation with the introduction of the calculator forty years ago. “Despite pocket calculators, we still learn mental arithmetic in school today. It is important that the children master the multiplication tables.” Nevertheless, mathematics teaching has changed significantly. Children no longer learned to draw roots or do divisions in writing. New, more demanding topics have been added. New technologies offer new possibilities, but that doesn’t mean that children no longer have to learn anything.
If I don’t have a basic idea of how the world is structured, then I can’t let a chat robot write about it.
The same theme can also be seen in other subjects. According to Döbeli Honegger, world knowledge is increasing and society has to decide what needs to be taught so that the AI tools can still be used. Because: “If I don’t have a basic idea of how the world is structured, then I can’t let a chat robot write about it,” says Döbeli Honegger.