Chat GPT, the great disruptor

So, everyone's talking about ChatGPT as the great disruptor for #education. If you don't know much about it, then Open AI (the maker) has provided a helpful overview for educators here. 

Some teachers, schools, universities, school districts, etc. have already banned its use, others are (more helpfully) embracing it as part of our future and trying to understand the implications for teaching and learning, and most obviously, grading and assessment. 

There are now lots of resources for educators (see the Teacher Toolkit AI) and it seems from many of these and discussions such as the one recently held on Teachers Talk Radio (listen below), that more than anything else, this tool may be a great time saver for the teacher. 

There have been lots of infographics, blog posts, articles, courses, videos, and prompt guides recently put out to help teachers get to grips with it and debunking some of the widely misunderstood aspects of the tool. What are these? Well, to begin with, although lots of people are quick to call ChatGPT artifical intelligence, it's not #AI but a Large Languge Model and so it can often be factually wrong. 

When it comes to helping language teachers (#ELT, #ESL, #EFL, #ESOL and all other varieties) it seems like many educators are already putting together resources, such as this guide to ChatGPT prompts for language teachers to help us understand and make the most of this new tool. Jamie Keddie already has a whole playlist of videos to help teachers make use of the tool for writing, storytelling and giiving feedback on students' written work , and Russell Stannard has produced an introductory Chat GPT tutorial and advanced tutorial for teachers. 

Another great resource are the collected / curated links to articles and other ChatGPT resources that some educators have put together, such as Joe Dale's Wakelet, where he saves and shares resources of interest to language teachers. 

Nik Peachey shared the following resources on his latest newsletter:

• Chat on AI - ChatGPT for Search Engines. A browser extension that allows you to add ChatGPT to your search engine
• This resume does not exist. ChatGPT-generated CVs/Resumes from famous people. Could be an interesting resource for the classroom
• QuestGen - an AI supported question generator
• DetectGPT - A free chrome extension that claims to spot 90% of ChatGPT created content

It's not just language teachers and learners either who are excited about the new tool. For instance, it points to a change in the way ELT materials are written. Whatever you think of it, it seems like #ChatGPT is here to stay and it is something educators need to better understand and prepare themselves for. 

Finally, although the buzz is all about this tool, ChatGPT isn't the only kid on the block. Here's a post about alternatives and how educators can make use of them. One interesting development discussed here is semantic search, including the Perpexity search engine that creates summaries based on what you're looking for rather than serving up lists of links.