Image: Colourbox
Every year, the state of Upper Austria has a youth media study carried out and this year for the first time asked about the level of awareness and the use of chatbots based on artificial intelligence (AI) such as ChatGTP. As is well known, they are also able to solve homework.
Of the 500 pupils surveyed in Upper Austria between the ages of eleven and 18, 69 percent said they had at least heard of or knew about ChatGTP. 24 percent have already used the software.
Of these users, every second young person says that ChatGTP is helpful for getting an overview of a topic or finding ideas.
35 percent say the chatbot is a “great way to save time”, 25 percent admit that “ChatGTP helps me do my schoolwork.”
A quarter of the students surveyed responded to the question of knowing the AI program with: “No, it’s new to me.”
The same is said by 36 percent of the 200 parents surveyed. In contrast, the proportion of parents who know the application is 45 percent. Only six percent of parents use ChatGTP themselves.
The proportion of teachers who have at least heard of the program is 88 percent. At least 27 percent use the program. Of these, one in three educators say ChatGTP is “helpful for school work” and one in five teachers use it to get an overview of a topic.
“Whether we like it or not,” says education officer Haberlander, “KI and ChatGTP will change education. We as a society are therefore required to prepare.” Teachers are asked to keep up with the use of new digital innovations in the classroom. The teacher training colleges offer hundreds of further training courses in their programmes.
At the University of Education, there are 525 courses that have more than 8,000 participants. For example, it is about ChatGTP and the opportunities and risks in the classroom, how these media are changing reading and writing, or how the digitalization of German lessons can succeed.
The subject “digital basic education”, which was started in 2018 as a non-binding exercise, will be a compulsory subject from the fifth to the eighth grade this year when school starts in September. The curriculum focuses less on technology, says Education Director Alfred Klampfer. Two-thirds are about “value transfer”.
Source: Nachrichten
