In the past few years, AI has found its way into popularity through many different ways. Whether it is the camera filters in social media or the helpful AI chatbot that many websites are using, AI is starting to be used everywhere and Education is no exception to this. Whether for good or bad, AI has found its way into education via generative AI such as ChatGPT which can write essays and even code for you. For myself, I’m not much informed about all the different AI’s, but I have used ChatGPT on occasion to assist in creating code. As such, through this essay, I try to analyze my usage of AI and usage of AI within education.
As I mentioned earlier, I haven’t extensively used ChatGPT and only used it for certain purposes. The main uses I found ChatGPT useful for was explaining code, quality assurance, and coding examples. While I have tested if ChatGPT is capable of writing full code for me, I decided not to use it as it really takes away from the learning process of coding.
Now, to elaborate on my usage of AI, I typically used ChatGPT when I was met with code I received little instruction about. If I don’t know what I am looking at, how can I even try to understand it? As such, I would typically ask ChatGPT questions like, “What does this code mean : (code here)”. Similarly, I would sometimes come across concepts I wasn’t entirely sure how to use/wasn’t aware of all of their functions. In these cases, being able to ask ChatGPT for examples proved to be extremely useful.
Finally, when I wasn’t sure why I was getting an error, I used ChatGPT’s help with troubleshooting. While searching and sifting through numerous articles to find the solution to my error was always possible, I felt like I could skip the arduous process of mindless searching and skip straight to the solution. Of course, I always tried to understand the solution and why it worked. Although this usage of AI might be a bit controversial, It definitely saved me a lot of time, and while I may have learned more by manually finding answers, I felt that using AI made coding a lot more enjoyable.
While it can be argued that using AI may make things easier to an extent where there is no learning occurring, I like to think I found a way to balance learning and efficiency by using AI. As I mentioned above, when reaching an issue, it typically takes a bit of researching to find a solution to it. A benefit to this research is the possibility of learning and understanding the issue and its solution to a great extent. The only downside to this research is the time it takes as well as all the time it can waste when you are unable to find relevant information. In this way, I like to use AI to help cut down the researching process and find exactly what the problem is. Then, if needed, I can research further and cut down on the wasted time. Overall, AI can definitely work against learning, but in my case, I feel like it has been a great help.
AI has many practical uses outside of just education. It can be used for almost anything online, helping automate tasks and even act as another person to talk to. The uses of AI are only expanding and I believe the uses we have now are only the tip of the iceberg. AI has great potential to become something that can be used in everyday life, although we might find ourselves in a Terminator-like situation.
Regarding any challenges or limitations of AI, there are a few I have noticed. Very obviously and evidently, AI cannot answer everything correctly. Sometimes it will give you great answers, sometimes a somewhat correct answer, and sometimes a completely wrong answer. The issue lies in one’s ability to discern how accurate and correct the answers are. While I believe I am able to identify when the responses are accurate, I always like to check with some quick research. This allows for the use of AI while retaining accuracy and correctness.
Another limitation is its inability to read pictures and open websites. While this isn’t the largest issue, it is definitely a limitation which, if solved, could bring AI to the next level. Similarly, If AI is able to evolve to that stage, it could help with not just software engineering education, but education in general. With an ability to read pictures and opening websites, it can help to more accurately pinpoint issues and allows for much more uses of AI.
When comparing AI-enhanced teaching versus traditional teaching methods, it’s very easy to see which is better. AI-enhanced teaching is much better for the simple reason that one can teach using traditional methods in addition to AI-enhanced teaching methods. As each student is different and learns best with different methods, having multiple different approaches only helps to teach each and every student. While I can’t say that one teaching method is objectively superior to the other, it’s undeniable that a hybrid-teaching style is much more effective in ensuring everyone finds a learning method they enjoy.
Regarding the future of AI in SoftwareEngineering Education, I believe it will only get more and more popular, gaining newer features which help with learning. As of now, AI is not catered towards education, and as such, there is not much that can be used. However, there are many uses of AI, especially as a secondary tutor or teacher for those who need a bit of extra help. As AI gets more advanced with new features, I believe it will be able to fulfill the needs of students.
To conclude, AI has been a very useful tool within the context of this software engineering course. It helped increase efficiency when working on projects, homework, and coding. While it may cause harm to some, it has definitely had a positive impact on my learning in this course. It also made it much easier and enjoyable to code as I had a way to find solutions to issues in code. For this course, I like that the use of AI is welcomed and I believe it should continue to be.