Benefits and Challenges of AI Use

Gen­er­a­tive AI, a rapid­ly evolv­ing tech­nol­o­gy, holds trans­for­ma­tive poten­tial for post-sec­ondary edu­ca­tors. By lever­ag­ing gen­er­a­tive AI tools, edu­ca­tors can enhance teach­ing and learn­ing expe­ri­ences in var­i­ous ways. For instance, AI can gen­er­ate per­son­al­ized learn­ing mate­ri­als, cre­ate inter­ac­tive sim­u­la­tions, and pro­vide instant feed­back on assign­ments, there­by cater­ing to diverse learn­ing needs and improv­ing stu­dent engage­ment.

Addi­tion­al­ly, AI-dri­ven tools can assist edu­ca­tors in course devel­op­ment tasks such as assign­ment design, hand­out cre­ation, con­tent resources and assess­ment, allow­ing them to focus more on stu­dent inter­ac­tion and cur­ricu­lum devel­op­ment. The inte­gra­tion of gen­er­a­tive AI in edu­ca­tion not only fos­ters cre­ativ­i­ty and inno­va­tion but also pre­pares stu­dents for a future where AI lit­er­a­cy is increas­ing­ly essen­tial.

How­ev­er, the adop­tion of gen­er­a­tive AI in edu­ca­tion comes with sig­nif­i­cant risks and pri­va­cy impli­ca­tions. One major con­cern is the poten­tial for data breach­es and the mis­use of stu­dent infor­ma­tion, as AI sys­tems often require access to vast amounts of per­son­al data. Using Microsoft Copi­lot with your NIC account pre­vents the shar­ing of the data that you both sub­mit to Copi­lot and the results gen­er­at­ed by it — this is not the case with most oth­er gen­er­a­tive AI tools.

There is also the risk of algo­rith­mic bias, which can per­pet­u­ate exist­ing inequal­i­ties and affect the fair­ness of edu­ca­tion­al out­comes. Edu­ca­tors must be aware about these risks and ensure that AI tools are used eth­i­cal­ly and respon­si­bly. This includes imple­ment­ing robust data pro­tec­tion mea­sures and fos­ter­ing a crit­i­cal under­stand­ing of AI among stu­dents to mit­i­gate poten­tial harms. By bal­anc­ing the ben­e­fits and risks, edu­ca­tors can har­ness the pow­er of gen­er­a­tive AI to cre­ate a more effec­tive and inclu­sive learn­ing envi­ron­ment.

Ref­er­ences

  • Most of this con­tent was gen­er­at­ed by Microsoft Copi­lot.