Donald Clark, CEO of WildFire Learning, believes AI has a significant role to play in education, particularly through tools such as ChatGPT-4o. He describes it as a 'frictionless, fast, and sophisticated tutor' that personalises learning by:
- Understanding spoken instructions
- Reading handwritten answers
- Recognising emotions and adjusting responses accordingly
- Offering hints and enthusiastic feedback
Donald believes that: 'Of all the applications, teaching and learning is the one that has most to gain from GPT-4o. They may have out-Appled Apple, as Siri, Google Assistant and Alexa are nowhere near as good as this. At this rate, teaching is rapidly becoming obsolete.'
Many will baulk at the idea of technology replacing a real live person at the front of the classroom. However, given that such human beings are in short supply, expensive and prone to stress, this may happen sooner than we think.
The technology in action
A YouTube video shows a learner interacting with ChatGPT-4o via a smartphone. 'You can put your phone next to you on the desk and talk to it as you're doing your work,' says Donald. 'If you have a question, you just ask, and it will give you a spoken reply. It's like a real person talking to you, it's that good.'