Artificial Intelligence
Generative artificial intelligence (AI)
For many of our teachers, their first experience of AI was in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s when Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde ‘knew’ how to chase down Pacman and the Space Invades ‘knew’ to shoot where the base ship would be, costing another 10p in the arcade!
In recent times, Artificial intelligence (AI) is more commonly used to solve problems and make decisions using computers. It’s already a part of everyday life – you’ve probably already come across it in the form of personalised suggestions on video streaming sites, social media, shopping sites or route-planning apps.
The technology is developing rapidly and throwing up many new applications and challenges for education.
What is generative AI?
Generative AI takes a written prompt and runs it through an algorithm to generate new, ‘natural’-seeming content. You might be familiar with some of the tools including, but not limited to, Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Snapchat, image creators such as Dall-E3, Adobe Firefly and any tools with built in AI capabilities such as Microsoft Copilot, Google Duet, Canva, Grammarly, DALL-E and MidJourney, and video generation such as Google Veo.
AI Use in Schools
AI tools are now widespread and easy to access, and has many uses to help pupils learn, but also lends itself to cheating and plagiarism!
Students may use AI tools as part of their research to find out about topics and ideas, and to simplify explaining complex ideas in a simple form, or as part of researching AI use in IT or creative subjects. Any use of AI must be acknowledged with a reference as you would any other source such as a website or a book.
AI must not be used during internal or external assessments and coursework, to write homework or complete class assignments if the work is presented as the student’s own, or as an alternative to engaging in practical learning.
Any work not created by a student, but presented as their own, including that generated by AI is plagiarism and will be treated like any other copied work as per exam and other guidelines.
AI use without referencing is not allowed in exams, coursework or any work that’s internally assessed to count towards a qualification.
Reliability
AI tools are only as accurate as the information they are trained on. They may generate responses that are incorrect, biased, deep-faked or inappropriate! They can’t accurately give answers on information that has changed after the system was trained, such as current events. Much of the data current systems are trained on are from American data sources which shows up in answers given!
Do check what AI systems output against other sources such as books or the web as you would any information. AI can be useful as a starting point, but never the end point!
Do discuss the use of AI with your child – if you aren’t familiar with it, ask them to show you how it works – you may find it useful if you don’t already use it!
Generative AI Acceptable Use Scale
We have created a guide on when AI use is acceptable for school work here.
Scholars’ Education Trust and all of its schools considers any unattributed use of AI-generated text or imagery to be plagiarism, and will follow our plagiarism procedures as set out in our exam and plagiarism guidelines.
Useful Links:
https://www.jcq.org.uk/exams-office/malpractice/artificial-intelligence/
BBC: A simple guide to help you understand AI
