Paul Crone
Director, National Association for Principals & Deputy Principals
Increasingly, to attract students, schools have embraced the use of technology as a learning tool. However, schools must find the right balance that works for students and school processes.
Moving from primary school to secondary school is a milestone in every child’s life and is also a source of stress and anxiety for every parent. The need to pick the ‘right’ school can be an all-consuming process for parents. For parents this process can be all consuming.
Increasingly, in order to attract students, schools have embraced to use of technology as a learning tool. Schools are beginning to describe themselves as a “Tradigital” school. This is a school that builds on traditional teaching methodologies and embraces the best technological advances to support learning. This option is appealing to parents and students alike, as the future of young adults will undoubtedly involve the use of technology in their working life and personal life.
When a child starts post-primary school, there is an increased focus on assessment. The exams, their results and their academic performance start to take precedence over enjoyment and the experience of learning. However, recent technological developments have created serious concerns around assessment and certification.
When a child starts post-primary school, there
is an increased focus on assessment.
Responsible integration of AI
The recent launch of the artificial intelligence (AI) platform ChatGPT has called into question the integrity of project work, research projects and work pre-prepared for assessment. Having embraced technology as an integral part of our classroom, have things now moved on too far to be able to use the technology for assessment and certification purposes?
Thinking back to when the mobile phone became an essential accessory for every student and no matter how hard schools and parents tried, it became clear that mobile phones were here to stay. The optimum decision for schools has been to embrace mobile phones and teach responsible use, underpinned by the core values of respect, responsibility and honesty. Our response to the use of AI lies in our experience with mobile phones.
Embracing AI to empower students
One question for us concerning assessment and certification is: CAN we embrace AI, teach responsible use and adjust our assessment practices to maintain the integrity of our exam process? However, we note that the genie is already out of the bottle, so the question must be, HOW can we do this? We must also discover this ‘HOW’ quickly to continue to empower students for their future challenges.