Leon Furze - AI and Writing in Education - Victoria

In this episode, I’m speaking with Leon Furze. Leon is an international consultant, author, and speaker with years of experience as an teacher in the UK and Australia. Leon is currently studying his PhD in the implications of Artificial Intelligence on writing instruction and education and as an English teacher is very well placed to advise how recent innovations in AI may affect the subject. 

We discuss: 

1. In laymans' terms what is a chatbot? What can it do and not do?

2. Why the likes of Elon Musk have called for a halt on AI development.

3. What Leon would advise schools and departments to consider in terms of the way in which they work with the a technology that has certain ethical and environmental impacts.

4. The ways in which AI should and shouldn't be used to aid students' writing.

5. Whether chatbots are useful in terms of planning individual lessons or a sequence of learning. 

6. What this technology does for the likes of coursework and written examinations

7. And Lastly, what does this do for certain jobs? How does Leon see the creative, informative and rhetorical professions evolving in the coming decades?

Thanks again to Leon for providing answers to a number of burning questions that I’ve had ever since Chat GPT came into the educational scene. His writing is an excellent way to ease your way into this new landscape of technology and you’ll be able to access it via the show notes 

If you want to be kept up to date on when educational chat like this happens, then be sure to subscribe to the podcast and/or follow me on Twitter @chrisjordanhk

Links:

Leon’s blog

Atlas of AI by Kate Crawford

On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots by Emily Bender and Timnit Gebru

Tom Barrett’s CREATE advice of using AI