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.

In the previous two episodes, we explored the results of a survey conducted by Ilkem with her first-year college students in May and June of 2024. Ilkem very kindly shared her techniques for helping students learn to use generative AI effectively and responsibly. We also talked about how often students use AI, and for what purposes, and took a deeper dive into the areas where they feel they need more [00:01:00] education and support.

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.

I believe it is fine when it's a supporting tool, but not when it's doing the [00:02:00] majority of the work, especially on written tasks.” So, I mean, what are your thoughts on that? Uh, I mean, first of all, that's a very honest, uh, review and, you know, commands. So I believe we're lucky that we really have conducted the survey and heard different voices and perspectives about it.

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.

More than anything else, liberal arts skills will be necessary in order to communicate with artificial intelligence, which means yes, you can learn coding. You might have technical [00:03:00] knowledge about artificial intelligence and computer engineering, but the, because you are going to be in. Relationship and communication with artificial intelligence, you need to be competent enough with your social skills like communication, critical thinking, maybe accurate expression.

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 that's why actually while you are doing this, you are doing [00:04:00] some harm to develop your own skill. You can't outsource developing your skills. And if you do, You might not survive in the future successfully in the job market. So, that's how I communicate and I try to understand. I try to tell my students if they do this, it will be wrong for their own skill, develop their skill.

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…

Well, my future of education is it will be a future where [00:06:00] students need to understand better and be taught better why they're learning something. Oh, yeah. Because as you said, there will always be cheaters. There will always be people who took the shortcut. Yeah. To achieve to graduate and now in the age of AI in the age of AI expanding more and more that as you say, it is.

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 think this is a future of education. If I can just, go right into another quote, “if integrated in a controlled, but also creative way, AI can make our education a lot more efficient.” That's really [00:07:00] nice, isn't it? I totally agree. Yeah. So I think it is really about having some, uh, optimistic approach to what is going on and optimistic and critical approach, I guess. ,Because I believe definitely, because there's always this human factor and there are AI tools. But I always believe that institutions need to have their AI policy. I think that's the first step that you should really start with. Yes, it is going to be there. It's a general purpose technology and you know, that student even see the potential very well, that if you use it effectively, productively, it might have very positive and positively transformative impact on education.

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.

Yeah. So maybe this is an idea. Exactly. That's why I love really conducting research with my students. And this semester, for example, I [00:09:00] started another research about self regulatory learning in academic writing with AI. And I have like seven, eight undergrad students and they are going to conduct this research together. How they can really, uh, integrate AI productively into their own learning process so that they can be in control of their own learning.

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.

And that's another thing, for example, I'm sorry, I'll go back to that comment from the student. If you try to outsource what you do or [00:10:00] automate, you know, what you're doing for schoolwork, that means you are also eliminating another very important skill that you need to develop, which is negotiation. Because negotiating skills and going back and forth with the AI

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.

I don't know that enough people have realized that. And also anyone listening, who's not a part of the educational, like a parent, you know, a caring grandparent, Aunt, um… this is something that you can really try to get your schools, universities to understand. That youth and [00:11:00] children really need to be more involved. That they are the digital generation with a little bit of guidance they can figure out much better than we can ever figure out without them what the right thing is.

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?

It's same with AI maybe. Maybe we although we don't like it, maybe we should sit [00:12:00] down together and try and experiment ChatGPT together. And see what is going on and that's what we can do together with ChatGPT or with AI. I think it's important to be a team in such big developments and such things. So that they can see that you are with them in through this journey, I guess that's important.

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 like, how can I help? I said, well, you know, the best thing you can do is increase their awareness that where it is, but keep in mind they're very, very soon going to know more than you are. And that's okay. Probably in a journey together. It's [00:13:00] okay. If they know, because you know more about life. I've lived life longer, so it's okay if they know more about the technical world and AI, as you say.

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.

I think so too, and I think that's a really great recommendation for anyone. And actually there's one student I want to close this, who's made a comment who, for me, I couldn't agree with this person more, uh, kind of [00:15:00] encompasses everything we discussed actually, “while it is easy to use AI and learn concepts, I still believe there should be regulations made against it, because in university, everybody's using AI a bit too much, and the growing dependence on it is stopping students from actually critically thinking.” So this is a very wise person. If you hear yourself, compliments. You've got a great future ahead of you. If they are hearing us. Yeah. Yeah. Very well done. Couldn't be said better. There's hardly anything to say after that. It just really encompasses everything. And I think it's just proof that if we don't ask the younger generation, what they think, we won't realize how far ahead of things they actually are and what we can add.

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.

Please let us know what you think, check out more and [00:17:00] subscribe at digi-dominoes. com. Thank you so much for listening to this series. I really hope you enjoyed it. I can't thank Ilkem enough for everything that she shared with us. I'd also like to thank our sponsor Data Girl and Friends. Their mission is to build awareness and Foster critical thinking about AI, online safety, privacy, and digital citizenship through fun, engaging, and informative content. Check them out at data-girl-and-friends.com.

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