Emerging Technology: DALL-E
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been identified as a key actor in future occupations and workplaces. Education is no different. As Zhai et al. (2021) and Marrone et al. (2022) claim, AI can be implemented into education in ways that are strategic and beneficial for students and teachers. One specific AI that has gained recent attention is a program titled 'DALL-E'.
DALL-E is an AI-powered emerging technology created and owned by OpenAI. DALL-E has the ability to take in any prompt and create artistic representations of the prompt. Below are demonstrated visual representations of my own research with this platform.
I began by creating random prompts for the AI that are specific, humorous and recognisable. From this, I brainstormed ways that these prompts could be used in classrooms. Some of these are provided below.
DALL-E has the capability to have significant impacts on education in the future, specifically enhancing student creativity (Marrone et al., 2022). Teachers can use art created by DALL-E as creative prompts for story-writing tasks, where classes collaborate to create a prompt from DALL-E. This then provides them with inspiration for a creative writing activity (this achieves outcome EN3-7C in the English syllabus for a Stage 3 activity). Additionally, students could use DALL-E in the creative arts by drawing whatever DALL-E provides or by acting out a scene using DALL-E's artwork as a prompt. Alternatively, students in higher stages could attempt to create a musical motif that enriches the photo DALL-E has provided.
The following video identifies ways DALL-E can support students in creative thinking (Microsoft Developer, 2022).
However, despite these positives, DALL-E has limitations. Although it has impressive abilities to transfer everyday language into art, this ability can be limited in some situations. The prompt for DALL-E needs to be recognisable. This points to the pedagogical limitations of all AI, as the technology is only as powerful as the prompt that it is operating around. Additionally, DALL-E has already become subscription-only for unlimited use. This would limit the useability in schools with less financial support. A description of how the credit system works with DALL-E is provided in the link below.
In conclusion, DALL-E and other emerging AI technologies have the potential to significantly enhance student creativity and should be implemented in schools in ways that are both helpful and non-tokenistic.
References
How DALL·E Credits Work. (n.d.). OpenAI Help Center. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6399305-how-dall-e-credits-work
Marrone, R., Taddeo, V., & Hill, G. (2022). Creativity and Artificial Intelligence—A Student Perspective. Journal of Intelligence, 10(3), 65. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence10030065
Microsoft Developer. (2022, June 21). OpenAI’s DALL·E 2 helps kids bring their world-changing ideas to life [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9y22D7zNAI
NSW Education Standards Authority [NESA], 2019. https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-areas/english-year-10/english-k-10/outcomes
Zhai, X., Chu, X., Chai, C. S., Jong, M. S., Starčič, A. I., Spector, M. P., Liu, J., Yuan, J., & Li, Y. (2021). A Review of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Education from 2010 to 2020. Complexity, 2021, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/8812542
Hi Lachlan, What a great blog! Visually, your website was super engaging and easy to follow. It felt more than a project but an actual website which made reading your information more enjoyable. DALL-E sounds like a technology I would love to incorporate into my own lessons when I become a teacher. I especially liked the inclusion of the YouTube video as I was able to get a better understanding of the technology and its ability to be incorporated into the classroom.
Amanda
8/3/23
What a great blog, and a great article! I really enjoyed reading about the ways that DALL-E can be used to foster creativity in the classroom. I can clearly see that you've researched quite deeply, and I especially liked your direct links to the NSW syllabus to show an appropriate way to use DALL-E in the classroom. It's great that you also gave several ways to use the tool creatively, as it highlights the benefits of using DALL-E.
I would've loved to hear how DALL-E can increase students' creativity in your own words, rather than the use of a video.
Otherwise, you did a really great job, this blog is really well laid out and well written.
08/03/2023