English schools that seek to dispel “Doom and Duest” around AI | Schools

CHarles Darwin chatting with students of evolution, students of primary school seeing their writing turn into images, Luton redesigned like a cool automobile – Artificial intelligence invades schools through England in a surprising way.

While Bridget Phillipson, the Secretary of Education, called in January a “digital revolution” involving AI in schools, she has already started in places such as the Willowdown primary school in Bridgwater, Somerset.

Matt Cave, professor -in -chief of Willowdown, said that his students improve their descriptive writing by fueling their work in an AI client to generate images.

“Suddenly, they have all these photos of different descriptions of people, and they can then chat with their classmates if it was the image they expected to be in the reader's head,” said Cave.

“It was really stimulating and stimulating for them to have a different audience.”

According to Cave, the results were “brilliant” and a contrast to the “misfortune and sadness” that he had heard from worried school heads.

“I would not like anyone who thought that we were not aware of the potential dangers – we constantly emphasize children. But it will be a tool they will need to use their whole life, “said Cave.

“In Bridgwater, we have Hinkley Point is builtthe new nuclear power plant and gravity, which is a huge Gigafactory for batteries For Jaguar Land Rover. They will be high -tech companies and children will have to know this kind of thing to continue with employment in the region. »»

Marina Wyatt, Science Manager for the Stade Clé 3 at the Furze Platt Senior School in Maidenhead, said that she had found a useful use by teachers of AI useful for engaging students in discussions, especially with a virtual Charles Darwin.

“We invite AI before following the course – we say to him:” Imagine that you are Charles Darwin, you have students of a science course that are interested in your experience in the world, they particularly want to know the theory of evolution, natural selection, variation and inheritance.

“In the invite, we tell him to answer as Charles Darwin and stay in the role. And it works. He came with brilliant stuff.

“Children who often cannot participate, for one reason or another, were hung on this and asked questions like crazy,” said Wyatt.

Wyatt could filter the responses of the Chatppt Darwin to students' questions before playing them aloud in the classroom, allowing him to avoid inaccuracies or biases.

Wyatt said that students had not had direct access to the use of AI while the school developed policies for its use, including parents' consent and data security.

Daisy Christodoulou, responsible for education for No more markingAn company adaptation technology for class assessments, said that fascinating AI and large -language models (LLM) came with concerns about how students learn.

“The first problem – and the most fundamental problem – is a basic principle of cognitive science: learning is not performance,” said Christodoulou.

“This means that the fundamental skills and knowledge and the knowledge you need to become an expert user of LLM – or even any modern technology – is often not better acquired by playing with technology.

“Many adults find the LLM useful because they already have basic literacy, numeral and basic knowledge to give meaning to their outings. Twenty years ago, we heard a lot of media threshing on how you had nothing to know because you could simply look for it on Google. It was wrong, and we risk repeating the error with the LLM. »»

Emma Darcy, director of learning technology Denbigh High School In Luton, said that AI uses and traps have been taught in weekly “digital character” courses for 7th year students.

“After the explosion of Chatgpt two years ago, we did not want to wait for the official advice to come out because we knew that we must have these conversations with our staff and our students,” said Darcy.

“We also have an AI student management group that meets every month. We thought it was important because young people are the end users of technology, but do not get a voice in the way it is used in school. »»

But the school allowed AI controlled use in some cases, using the Canva graphic design software.

“We did a big project with the whole school to present positive images from Luton and we asked students to use Canva to help generate an image of a car representing Luton and the community of Luton,” said Darcy.

“But what we really teach was skills in language and literacy, what a good prompt and the generation of images would look like. What we do not do is send students directly to an LLM – this must be done with a clear length objective and objective. »»