Harpswell Anchor interviews Dimmel on AI in K-12 schools
College of Education and Human Development Associate Dean for Academics and Student Engagement and Associate Professor of Mathematics Education and Instructional Technology Justin Dimmel talked to the Harpswell Anchor for a story about the Maine School Administrative District 75 (Harpswell, Topsham, Bowdoin, Bowdoinham) Board of Directors debating a new artificial intelligence (AI) policy for students and teachers. Dimmel noted that AI language models such as ChatGPT are “very effective mimics” that can produce highly accurate and detailed writing on virtually any topic despite not knowing what they are saying. “It’s a writing machine, not a thinking machine,” he said. Dimmel added that educators need to think about how to persuade kids not to simply let AI do all their work for them: “How are you supposed to convince the child not to use these tools that can write their essay in milliseconds? How do you actually convince them that there is still value in thinking, and learning how to write, and doing all of that stuff that you’re supposed to do that (we did) when we were growing up and didn’t have access to those technologies?”