In the final episode of the series, host Angeline Corvaglia and guest Ilkem Kayican Dipcin, an instructor at Sabanci University, discuss the additional insights and concerns raised by students regarding AI in education. They explore aspects like cheating with AI, the importance of developing liberal arts skills to communicate with AI effectively, and how AI tools can support but not replace human effort. They also touch on the need for policies in education institutions to balance AI's productive integration while ensuring students develop essential skills. The episode emphasizes the importance of involving students in the conversation about AI and how parents can guide their children in responsibly experimenting with AI technologies. The series gives a very interesting look into university students' views on using AI.

00:00 Introduction and Series Overview

00:34 Recap of Previous Episodes

01:16 Student Comments on AI

01:41 Addressing Cheating Concerns

02:48 The Role of Liberal Arts in AI

04:40 Pen and Paper Exams: A Transition Period

05:54 Future of Education and AI Integration

08:52 Research and Student Involvement

11:11 Parental Guidance in AI

14:50 Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Special thanks to

Ilkem Kayican Dipcin for taking time to be a part of this episode!

Find her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilkem-kayican-dipcin-25682977/

Episode sponsored by Data Girl and Friends

They are on a mission to build awareness and foster critical thinking about AI, online safety, privacy, and digital citizenship. They inspire the next generation to navigate the digital world confidently and responsibly through fun, engaging, and informative content. They focus on empowering young digital citizens and their families through engaging and informative learning.

Find out more at: https://data-girl-and-friends.com/

List of Data Girl and Friends materials about some of the topics covered:

• Article for young teens about the responsible use of generation AI for learning: https://data-girl-and-friends.com/in-school-how-to-make-sure-ai-assists-not-replaces/
• Educational workbook for teens: "The Empathy Challenge: Discover the importance of empathy in the digital world."  https://data-girl-and-friends.pagetiger.com/empathy-challenge/1
• Ayla AI Girl video, "What does AI understand?" https://vimeo.com/916925937
• Ayla AI Girl video, "Does AI have an opinion?" https://vimeo.com/919742701

Contact us for any questions or comments: https://digi-dominoes.com/contact-us/

Digital Dominoes. Hello and welcome to this episode. I'm Angeline Corvaglia. This is the third and final episode of our series with Ilkem Kayican Dipcin, an instructor specializing in English for academic purposes, academic writing, and academic skills at Sabanci University in Istanbul. We've been discussing various aspects of educating college students about generative AI and its impact on society and their everyday lives.

Finally, we discussed which aspects of AI's impact on society and their personal lives interest them the most. If you missed those episodes, be sure to check them out. I think there's a lot of interesting stuff to hear about Ilkem's experiences. In this final episode of the series, we're going to discuss some of the additional comments that Ilkem’s students made and shared about AI and their experiences and concerns. I think it's really interesting. A lot of insights about how some people are thinking about this.

We had mentioned earlier about the different quotes at the end of the survey. So I just want to go through a few of them and just talk through the one we had mentioned regarding the issue of cheating. And the quote was, “it's very disheartening to see other students use AI for something you worked very hard for.

And they are right. Because I'm not sure if it is totally different with copying a book and writing it on a paper or something. I mean, cheating has always been there. And the thing is. I always tell my students in the classroom as well. This NVIDIA founder said that IBM chief scientists and Open AI chief scientists always say that.

So because this is a language model and this language model is designed to get closer and closer to the human brain and human language. So that's why maybe what you said previously makes a lot of sense. We will be more human for this reason. In the classroom I say you might utilize AI in your daily life and sometimes you might ask it to write something for you. But please don't let it do something for you because it will be disruption in your own skill to develop.

So, here, also when it comes to, let's say, the logistics of, doing an assessment. Of course, you can have different maybe preventions to police the students as well. That's why many universities convert to pen and paper exams now. I mean, Yeah, I've read about that. Yeah, it's happening. And I know it happens in our university as well. Because although we are teaching academic writing skills, some courses need to be on pen and paper [00:05:00] and I want to think that this is a transition period that all the stakeholders try to understand where it is going. Because when you do everything in pen and paper just to prevent cheating, I think you are also going doing harm to some students who might have dyslexia so that they can't, you know, really be practical in writing pen and paper.

So I think that is something that needs to be really thought well. Yeah, yeah, and then take action accordingly, I think so too, and I just had a thought that I've had a few times recently. Is I think those of us who are paying attention to what educators who are focused on AI, you always hear the phrase the future of education. And I think everyone has their ideas about the future of education, I think one thing…

It's not just words. It is a fact that if you take certain shortcuts, you will likely be left out later. And it may be a part of the future of education is, you know, just saying more, you have to do this book report. I'm obviously like traumatized by book reports. You have to do it helps you understand who you are. Yeah.

And I, I totally agree with that. However, in order to of course, see this, you need to talk about the needs analysis. You need to understand your audience. It's about understanding learning [00:08:00] and being aware of the learning science of humans. I think it's needs analysis coming together and collaborating about the effective ways and creative and positive ways of integrating into education.

I think so too. And I think we often say that the youth of today are growing up a lot faster than they were before, like their bodies are growing up faster. And one thing that maybe we need to integrate more is what you just said, teach them how they learn. And once you understand how you learn, you understand how AI learns, for example, and you're like, ah, so you have a whole different perspective about why you're putting what energy into, into your education.

And I want to see, I'm, I'm looking forward to having the results. It will take like a few months. I think asking their ideas, and conversing with them, negotiating with them about their perspective is so effective in, in, I think, uh, contributing to this development positively. I think so too. And I know that you, you always try to do that.

chatbots conversation - that is also a skill that you need to develop. If you just let others do the work for you, yeah, that's another failure, I guess. So it's really important to, yeah, have them on board while you even you are trying to develop some policies. They should be there. Yeah. They should and, and I just, I'm going to repeat that because it's so important.

You know, because I'm a parent, so, and I know that many parents, especially if you are a parent to a teenager, they have a very long screen time. And sometimes they get too much involved in gaming, and parents try to have this, manage this time and balance this time.

And one of the pedagogically important suggestions that, try to spend time with them and maybe play together. That's one of the very important advice. In order to, I mean, you can maybe share that time together. You can see the game, you can see what kind of game it is. How or what kind of effects does it make on your kid?

I couldn't agree more. And thank you for saying that it's so important to add that to the AI as well. I was just teaching a group of parents about basics of AI, a group of mothers. And the question came up at the end, like, what can I do to help even my young child? How young is too young to start talking about AI?

And, and. That's just a perfect, yeah, perfect. Just try it together. And you know what, Angeline, thanks a lot for bringing this up too. I mean, uh, my, my son is like seven and a half years old and we use a ChatGPT voice function. And for example, they keep asking questions about life, about anything that they're, they're so curious at this age. And when sometimes we are not sure we say, okay, let's go to ChatGPT and you don't need to write, you can just, you know, he uses his voice. I mean, he, he's in conversation with it. And at that moment, I see this, we call it in education, like opportunistic teaching. At that moment, I say that, okay, ChatGPT gives you this answer. I am not sure about it too, but we need to know [00:14:00] that. What it says to you might not be the most accurate answer. So that's so true. Because also it's the moment for me as a parent. to improve the critical thinking of my kid, that whatever he reads, whatever he hears around, not always the correct information. So it is also a very nice moment for us together to understand, yes, we receive information, and it's from artificial intelligence, and, ah, we, we just, uh, think about it. And we also, in the next step, maybe go to a more reliable source and double-check it. So, I think that's really important to try it together, to have it together.

To make their future better is probably different than what we think, and it changes so quickly. Yes, yes. And they can see that there needs to be a reasonable balance between, I think, integrating [00:16:00] artificial intelligence and using it for efficiency, for productivity, to some extent, without losing our own capabilities.

We need to have this balance. Exactly. I think we could talk about this for hours. Yeah. Um, and I just, we probably will have some follow-ups to discuss some other topics in more depth. Yeah. Thank you so much for doing the survey, for taking the time. I just love this. It's a pleasure. And I believe that a lot of people are going to get so much value from, from this discussion, from your perspective and the way that you're approaching this.

So thank you so much for being here. I, I hope they do it. I hope they did. Thank you so much for having me for, you know, uh, starting this collaboration, Angeline. It's, it's, it was a pleasure really to share all this with you. Thanks a lot for having me. Thank you too. Then see you next time. Bye.

Until next time, stay curious and keep learning. Digital Dominoes.