Can I use this for homework? What’s the point of school if this can do all these things?
That was the response from Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi‘s teenage son after seeing OpenAI’s ChatGPT for the first time — immediately recognizing two of the core questions for students, teachers, and the K-12 education system in the era of generative artificial intelligence.
But along with the need to rethink traditional ways of teaching, AI provides big opportunities for teachers who understand the tools and use them to their advantage, say Partovi and Khan Academy CEO Sal Khan in the introductory video for a new “AI 101 for Teachers” online course.
Khan Academy, the online education nonprofit based in Mountain View, Calif., and Code.org, the Seattle-based computer science education nonprofit, announced the free professional learning course Tuesday, partnering with educational testing service ETS, and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).
“People talk about the risks of AI and education. I actually think the biggest risk is doing nothing — is just saying, we’re going to teach everything the exact same way as we always have,” Partovi says in the introductory video. “The real opportunity with AI is, the job of teaching can become easier [and] the job of learning can become more engaging and more personalized, and just more creative.”
Khan Academy is developing its own AI tool, Khanmigo, which uses generative artificial intelligence to tutor students and assist teachers.
Khan says in the video that he asks teachers what would they do if their local departments of education said they would each get five teaching assistants to help with lesson plans, grade papers, answer student questions, and create reports.
“I think every teacher would celebrate,” Khan says. “That’s what’s about to happen.”
In addition to the five-part training series, Code.org has released two videos for teachers, students, and the general public on “How AI Works” with Mira Murati, CTO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, and Cristóbal Valenzuela, CEO of RunwayML, which are available now. Teachers, administrators and others can register for early access to the AI 101 for Teachers on the course website.
