I remember learning that HTML wasn’t magic—that a wrong string of code wouldn’t break the internet. While it’s powerful enough to crash a website, what I was doing wasn’t going to accidentally cause global havoc. A simple correction would fix the problem, and I could continue from there. Sure, there are bad actors with much more coding experience where global havoc might be possible, but it’s not a realistic fear for the average person or anyone learning to code.
This was years before Ralph Breaks the Internet.
Today, AI has entered the mix, unleashing a new wave of “magic.” To conquer my fear—stemming from a lack of understanding and trust in this new technology—I’ve been learning to use AI, primarily through ChatGPT.
Five months into my attempts to incorporate AI into my everyday life, I caught the tail end of an interview with Salman Khan. He was discussing how AI can be used in education. Truth be told, I wasn’t familiar with Khan by name, but I quickly realized I knew his work through Khan Academy. This piqued my interest.
As a parent, I have a lot of respect and appreciation for Khan Academy. Naturally, it was reassuring to hear from a credible voice in online education. After listening to the interview, I decided to read his new book, Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education.
I’m so glad I did.
What I learned
The book did two things for me. Most notably, it taught me about ChatGPT and AI. Beyond the premise of using AI in K-12 education, it addressed many of the questions I had about using this new technology myself. As someone trained in academia, I wondered: When is the use of AI considered cheating? Is it a form of plagiarism? Where is the line? Should you cite AI use? What happens to the data? It’s slightly embarrassing to admit, as an academic, that this was the first non-internet-based text I had read on AI. Most of my experimentation so far had been trial and error with the chatbot. When in doubt, go back to basics—in this case, book-report style.
Second, I now wholeheartedly want the kind of AI tutor Khan writes about for my kids! The AI tutor-world he depicts is thoughtful, comprehensive, and, as he puts it, has “guardrails.” The Khan Academy team, through their early access to ChatGPT 3.5 and GPT-4, has created a tutor system called Kahnmigo, which offers a positive, controlled approach to using AI in school and beyond.
Kahnmigo, as described in the book, is an adaptable tutor that works with a student’s strengths, weaknesses, and interests to create an individualized learning experience. With each interaction, it builds and optimizes learning, allowing kids to engage deeply with the material. While I’ve used Khan Academy to tutor my kids (and to brush up on my own skills), I have yet to try Kahnmigo. That’s a project for this fall, but as I see it now, an AI tutor is definitely worth trying.
This post is part of a year project understanding AI and chat bots.
AI was used to grammar check this post.
Further Reading:
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