A world-first Catholic school chatbot is filtering lessons through a religious lens while saving teachers nearly two hours a day in preparing lesson plans, marking assignments and even writing report cards. Source: The Australian.
Brisbane Catholic Education claims to be the first kindergarten to year 12 education system in the world to have signed up to the Vatican’s Rome Call on AI Ethics, endorsed last year by the Pope.
It has launched its own custom-built Catholic chatbot across 146 schools, in the first sector-wide use of generative artificial intelligence outside the government schooling systems in NSW and South Australia.
BCE information and technology executive Leigh Williams said the Microsoft-designed Catholic CoPilot chatbot was set to be rolled out across Catholic schools nationally.
She said the chatbot was “grounded in our Catholic teaching and tradition and theology.”
“It will only generate an answer based on the things that you pointed it to, so we pointed it to our own curriculum, our own Catholic theology and Catholic teaching principles, as well as some different Catholic websites, our intranet and a few other things like that,” she said.
“That way, when someone’s asking the question, it will only draw on that information to come up with its answer. It isn’t looking for an answer that’s anywhere across the globe on the internet – it gives a much more specific and tailored answer.”
Ms Williams said teachers using the chatbot were saving nearly 10 hours a week in administrative tasks and lesson planning. “It can be used for everything from planning their lessons, writing and curriculum content,” she said.
“It might be developing some PowerPoint slides, study planners and study guides for students. It can even help you draft emails, generate newsletter items, and social media posts.”
Ms Williams said the Catholic CoPilot could be used to develop marking rubrics for assignments, and to give students feedback.
“Nothing goes back to the student without the teacher actually reviewing it first,” she said.
FULL STORY
Catholic schools build chatbot for ‘ethical AI’ (By Natasha Bita, The Australian)
