Image: Deputy Premier and Minister for Education and Early Learning Prue Car. Image: Facebook
All NSW public schools will soon be adopting an AI education tool in a bid to enable teachers to focus more of their time on the classroom.
NSWEduChat, an AI education tool developed by the NSW Department of Education was initially piloted earlier this year before being expanded to 50 schools at the start of Term 2 on April 29.
Positive feedback from this trial, which demonstrated the tool’s effectiveness in improving workload efficiency, has paved the way for its inclusion in one of the world’s largest systemic rollouts of AI for educators.
What is NSWEduChat?
NSWEduChat is a messaging platform, which has been designed similarly to the popular AI platform ChatGPT and built specifically for the state’s education curriculum.
Students can ask questions to the platform and the AI will offer suggestions to students about how they can improve their work. The AI messaging platform prompts students with questions similar to those a teacher might ask, fostering creative thinking and deeper understanding.
NSW is the second state to pilot AI in public schools, following South Australia, which was the first to test AI education tools.
South Australia trialled a generative AI app with high school students last year. The app was tested at eight public high schools including Ceduna Area School, Streaky Bay Area School, Adelaide Botanic High School, Adelaide High School, Mitcham Girls High School, Unley High School, Thebarton Senior College, and Glenunga International High School.
NSWEduChat has separate versions for teachers and students, with the version for teachers aiming to reduce the time spent on routine administrative tasks.
Positive feedback from the initial 50 public school trials included:
- Time is saved by producing a range of resources to meet the different abilities of students
- Improved ability to adjust classroom resources to students’ interests, and
- Significant time-saving in checking correspondence, newsletters, and preparing materials
A parliamentary inquiry into the use of generative artificial intelligence in the Australian education system adopted in May 2023, reported that generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) presented “ample potential opportunities for students, educators, and the broader education workforce.”
Parliamentary Inquiry Highlights Potential of Generative AI in Education
GenAI offers valuable support for students with disabilities through assistive technologies like speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and language translation tools. Additionally, the parliamentary inquiry reported that introducing GenAI to classrooms could benefit low-socioeconomic students by way of “easy, accessible, affordable and safe” materials for learning.
According to the Department of Education, some teachers involved in the initial NSWEduChat trial have reported saving more than an hour per week on producing various lesson resources.
Furthermore, the trial is hoped to “understand the benefits of generative AI on teaching and learning – including how it can assist teachers to get through administrative work more quickly so their energy is focused on students.”
AI Will Not Replace Teachers
The Minns Labor Government has also committed to reducing the administrative workload on teachers by five hours per week.
“We are proud that NSW is leading the world in developing its own purpose-built generative AI app for education,” Deputy Premier and Minister for Education and Early Learning Prue Car said.
Minister Car noted that the AI learning platform would not replace the work of teachers, but instead assist them to save time, “tailor their resources” and “focus on their critical work in the classroom.”
“The expansion of this trial to all teachers is part of our work to reduce the admin burden and get more teachers in front of our students.”
NSWEduChat will be made available for all teachers starting from Term 4, beginning on October 14th this year.
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