I discuss AI in D&T education with insights from my recent chat with Joanne Taylor. I explore in more depth the paper from the PATT 40 conference that probes the dual nature of AI as both a creative catalyst and a potential disruptor for future creativity. In this episode I take a deep dive into the use of AI for generating images from text and the implications of teaching such technology in schools.
Joanne's observations on Tuesday set the stage for an exploration of AI's role within the classroom and beyond, showcasing how it can serve as a design strategy on par with traditional methods like brainstorming. I'll share how AI is not just another tool but a piece of conceptual knowledge.
Links
Ringvold, T. A., Strand, I., Haakonsen, P. and Saasen Strand, K. (2023) “AI Text-to-Image Generation in Art and Design Teacher Education: A Creative Tool or a Hindrance to Future Creativity?”, The 40th International Pupils’ Attitudes Towards Technology Conference Proceedings 2023, 1(October). Available at: https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/PATT40/article/view/1350 (Accessed: 16 January 2024). Learning to Teach Design and Technology
(Text generated by AI, edited by Alison Hardy)
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Alison Hardy:
Welcome to this week's subscription episode of the TalkingD&T podcast. It's a follow on from Tuesday's episode with Joanne Taylor, where we were talking about a piece of research that grabbed her attention at the PAT 40 conference. So in today's episode I'm just going to get a little bit more detailed about some of the things that I felt came up from that conversation and to also give some practical ways that we can think about some of the research that Joanne talked about. So a quick recap Joanne and I talked about the paper from PAT AI Text to Image Generation in Art and Design at Teacher education a creative tool or a hindrance to future creativity. I've put a link in the show notes to that. That's quite a long title, but basically what it was about, it was about AI tools that can be used to generate images from text and a group of teacher educators had been trialling it out. It wasn't with children and it wasn't with art and design. So there's a couple of things to be mindful of. If you read the paper, they were trying it out and sort of, you know, opening up their thoughts to some different issues with it. If you listen to Joanne and me talk and I hope you do there's a few things that I sort of teased out of what Joanne had picked up on.
Alison Hardy:
So the first thing I want to talk about is the fact that, in the context of that paper, ai is a design instrument. It's a design tool. So if you're using it in the classroom, one way of thinking about it is that it is a piece of knowledge that you are teaching children. That is a design strategy or instrument that they can use to generate ideas, in the same way that brainstorming or attribute analysis is a design instrument. So basically, it's a process that you're teaching children to follow that they can then use to generate design ideas. So I wanted to clarify that that that's something to think about when we're talking about different ways of using AI to generate ideas. So I think if you were teaching AI through any of those tools that Joanne mentioned on Tuesday, you'd need to think about what's the process that the children have to use getting onto the system, writing the words, generating it, clicking the buttons, clicking the right buttons and looking at it and then evaluating. And there's a really nice image within the paper that talks about the different ways that you can kind of reflect back, and they talk about the iterative process of using AI as a design instrument. So that's the first thing. I think, if teachers are thinking about using AI in the classroom with children In the way that this paper is talking about, it's a design instrument, a design strategy. There's another way that I think teachers can talk about AI in the classroom, and that's as a disruptive technology.
Alison Hardy:
Now, this is not as a design instrument. This is in terms, as a piece of Conceptual knowledge in design, and what I mean by that is they'll be explaining it as a case study of how a new technology AI as example has come along and is disrupting Society. And if you want to explore a little bit more about what we mean by disruptive technologies, then I'm going to recommend that you read chapter 9 in the learning to teach design and technology book and the chapters written by David Barlex, as they were then known now Hilda Ruth Beaumont, torben Stieg and Nick Gibbons, and very early on in their chapter they describe what they mean by disruptive technologies and they give some criteria For making judgments about a disruptive technology, and one of them is it will disrupt the status quo. And so I think that is what is happening with artificial intelligence it will alter the way people live and work. If you look at my show notes, you'll realize that I'm now generating, using AI to generate those. It's changing the way I work and it rearranges value pools and this is one of the arguments in the paper is that it creates opportunities for children to generate quite complex ideas visually when they are limited by their own capabilities for drawing. So that's another example. And then it leads to entirely new products and services. So an example of how AI is Leading to new products and services is that actually, if they're using it to generate design ideas, actually a non Graphic design specialists can now generate new services.
Alison Hardy:
I'm not quite sure that's fully in the way that Barlex and co talk about it in the chapter, but that gives you a way of thinking that this is a disruptive technology, and so I think and you look at the national curriculum in England it talks about teaching children about emerging technologies. That's another way of describing a disruptive technology, and AI is an example of that. So let's just step back then from what I've already just talked about. Is AI in the context of the paper is a Knowledge of teaching children a piece of design, technological knowledge, teaching them a new process, that is, a design instrument, a design strategy, and then I've just gone and introduced that we can talk about AI and we can use the example of text To image generation as an example of a disruptive technology. So that's more teaching About a design artifact which we could argue that I AI is.
Alison Hardy:
Then there's another way of thinking about it and this is where I think we need to be really clear is designing technological technologists I'm slipping over my words is there's AI as knowledge that we're teaching children in the two ways I've spoken about, and then there's AI as a pedagogical tool. So and you'll see, and I'm gonna put some links in the show notes to Trudy Barrow Work and she posts quite a lot on LinkedIn around this and it's a tool that teachers use to generate, create content to use in their classrooms. And I think we need to be really careful about when teachers are using a technology like AI as a pedagogical tool it's generating stuff to use, content to use in the classroom and when actually it's design knowledge. I think that's really important to consider.
Alison Hardy:
Then, another part of it, I think, is we need to think about the values that implicit and explicit in AI. I refer to Layton's values in this and again I'll put his taxonomy of values in the show notes. But there are values that are implicit within AI and one of them is I'm not sure how inclusive it is because it's text. So what the children put in is only going to be as good as their vocabulary or their ability to translate what they have in their heads into words. So there is still that responsibility of the teacher to teach children language, technological language or ways of writing things that, therefore, ai can interpret. So I think we need to be really careful around being aware of those limitations and the responsibilities of a teacher when, yes, these things have a wow factor and are really exciting, but how do we take those to the next level? How do we allow children to develop in their use of AI as a text, to image generator, as a design instrument, if they are limited by the vocabulary? So how do we enable them to do that? And I think that's part of the teacher's role in actually expanding children's vocabulary that they can use to describe, explain, analyse, categorise whatever it might be, in such a way that is deeper than saying it looks good or that it looks like. And again, if you read the paper, you'll see some of that and they're starting to recognise.
Alison Hardy:
Some of that limitations is around vocabulary use and, finally, I just want to kind of revisit this idea of the bias that's implicit. Well, implicit, that is within AI that we need to be more and more aware of that. It is predominantly giving white examples and white male examples when it's doing images. Now, that's nothing wrong with that, but we need to be aware of is the designs that the children are seeing actually reflecting who they are and what they have in their own heads in such a way that is meaningful and true to them? So there's that sort of that value of inclusivity that there are issues around AI that maybe exclude people.
Alison Hardy:
So those are the things that I want to add to that Tuesday episode with Joanne. There's some things hopefully there for you to think about about AI that maybe are a little bit more structured than Tuesday. Tuesday was a free, flowing conversation. I loved it with Joanne. I loved her insights and her thoughts and I just kind of wanted to now draw on some of the literature here about how we might categorize and organize and think about AI as a piece of design, knowledge, but also as a pedagogy, and then thinking about the values and the ethics that are tied up with using it. I'll put links in the show notes as over, and if you want to chat to me further about it, then please do you know how to contact me. Links in the show notes and once again, thanks for subscribing.