This week, I decided to give Perplexity a try, as one of the AI tools given to use in the weekly plans. I found this AI tool very easy to navigate as someone who immensely struggles with using new apps and technology. I simply asked a question, “Why is digital literacy important?” and it gave me a few different reasons and explained them. It then showed me the sources/links at the top above my original question asked, so I could go back and research or fact check these articles. At the bottom of the answer it gave me three more related questions to my original question, allowing for furthering my knowledge around this topic.
The three different options on the right hand screen the only one you have to pay for is too generate an image. I am assuming the generator image would be about the question or thread you have started. Now when I turned on co-pilot and regenerated the question, I got a more in-depth answer to the exact same question, as well as about fifteen more sources to consider. On Perplexity, you are able to search related images and videos without paying as well.
I think this tool could be used in the classroom by the teacher to search up a topic and gain starting points and facts about said topic. It would help with lesson plans and overall quality of the topic. All the teacher would have to do is fact check and add to their lesson if some details are missed. This would be a great starting point for any lesson. This tool might be able to be used by students to gain some knowledge around certain topics discussed in class and then we can teach older students how to check if this AI is using factual evidence. This would be a great tool to help students learn fact checking and to do research for projects with.
Ethic issues with this AI tool is not being able to generate the exact same answer twice or at least it could take awhile. Which would mean that students could use this tool without properly citing the articles or even using it as their own work but just changing the wording. A practical challenge might be students not being able to understand how to use this tool or having the correct technology at home to use this for an assignment. As well not being able to have access to technology as much as needed to use tools such as this in the school.
One way to engage students with this tool would be allowing them to go through the discover category, and picking their own thread to learn about and teach the class about. They would have a good start pointing with Perplexity and they could work to disprove some of the AI facts or continue based off of these facts after they are checked. Giving them full creativity of the project and allowing them to learn about something they are interested in would help engage students.
I am in the middle of believing AI tools are good to intergrade into the classroom and that they are not good tools to add. I think I am a little scared of the unknown with AI technology as it is so new. I also do not want students believing everything that AI spits out at them. As well, it would be harder for teachers to know if this is truly their own students work or the work of AI. However, I think it is a great tool to help students explore topics they are passionate about and learn more around these topics. I think it would be fun to try and disprove AI and it gives students a really good base for researching topics.
I think something like Perplexity is a good tool for anyone to get started with that does not know much about AI. I actually really enjoying using this and think I will continue to use this for my future classroom, but I will be playing around with it more!
