DIGITAL LEARNING
use in schools . On 1 December 2023 , the Australian government published the Australian Framework for Generative Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) in Schools ( Clarke , 2023 ). I read it with interest as I had the guidance published by the UK government in October ( Generative Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) in Education ) but not with any particular fervour or urgency . At the time I was teaching the second year of a GCSE Drama course and GenAI felt completely irrelevant in my context though I was interested to understand the impact it might have on education in a general way .
Hesitant engagement
Laurence Goodwin , Teacher of Core Critical Thinking and Head of US and International University Applications
History is full of examples of innovations which fundamentally changed the way people thought , behaved and related to one another and the world around them . The introduction of personal computers of ever decreasing size was one of those shifts ; the widespread use of Generative AI - which became the focus of mainstream public attention in 2023 with the release of OpenAI ’ s Chat-GPT 3.5 and the other Large Language Models which followed it – is undoubtedly another .
I use LinkedIn to keep up with developments in education and last year , after the release of ChatGPT 3.5 , GenAI was suddenly everywhere , completely dominating my feed . I ’ ve been interested in trends in Australian education since visiting last year and noticed that the Australian professionals I follow for educational content had become AI proponents or at least all acknowledged that this was likely to change the landscape of teaching in their country , whatever their own opinion about its
GenAI , LLMs – the confidence with which I bandy those terms about might lead you to believe that I am not only a proponent of AI but also an enthusiastic and knowledgeable adopter of the technology . But I assure that is not ( or at least , has not always been ) the case . Before starting my teaching career , I seriously considered becoming a librarian ; as an undergraduate , I worked in the Special Collections department , spending hours in the basement of the university library . Later , I was a book cataloguer at an auction house , counting handcoloured plates and checking for printing errors that might increase the value of the book in front of me . I have always loved books and manuscripts , the essence of humanity distilled onto paper . As I tell my students , I remember the world before the internet ; I wrote papers in high school mostly by hand , only typing them in the last couple of years of school . In my heart of hearts , I am a book person , not a tech person .
But technology is here , and it is here to stay ; more crucially , it is the frame on which our students - who are , after all , digital natives - tend to construct their own understanding of the world around them . Whatever my personal inclinations , more and more , I started to feel that it was vital to engage with technology in a way that allowed me to meet my students in the world they are actually living in , not the world I wish they were . So , I set out to understand Generative AI , somewhat against my will . My plan was two-fold : read about the technology and use the technology as much as possible . Every time I objectively considered the task I had set myself , it struck me as an odd thing to be doing . No one would know if I decided not to learn about GenAI . No one was expecting me to lead on the issue . My day-to-day teaching life was not dependent on my acquiring this knowledge . I wasn ’ t even that interested in the whole thing , truth be told . But I felt an obligation to do the best I could to understand the topic , given its ubiquity and its likely impact on education .
Teaching literature is full of material related to motivating students and I was well-aware of some of the standard tools that teachers use to inspire those who are unmotivated ; but in this situation , I was the student , and applying some of those same principles to myself
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