Tech EDGE, AI in the Classroom: World Language Series Introduction

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05/30/2025 Added

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AI in the Classroom, introduces a new series that explores how artificial intelligence can be used in world language learning. University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) | College of Education and Human Sciences (CEHS) | Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education (TLTE)

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[00:00:00.420]Coming up on AI In The Classroom,
[00:00:03.030]we're starting a new series about world language and AI.
[00:00:06.778](funky music)
[00:00:12.330]Hi, I'm Guy Trainin and I'm a professor
[00:00:15.060]at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
[00:00:17.580]I'm Crystal Liu, I'm the world language specialist
[00:00:20.310]at Nebraska Department of Education.
[00:00:23.070]And this is our first episode in a miniseries around
[00:00:27.390]teaching word language with AI or despite AI
[00:00:32.190]or even though AI, whatever connection you want to choose.
[00:00:36.150]So you just had recently professional learning with teachers
[00:00:41.070]where you were discussing AI.
[00:00:42.840]Tell me a little bit about how it went.
[00:00:45.180]Okay, I know as the end of the semester,
[00:00:48.330]teachers like, "Oh, we are done."
[00:00:50.490]And then I start to introduce AI
[00:00:53.040]so we run into a very interesting situation.
[00:00:56.370]They want to know about AI, at the same time,
[00:00:58.680]they worry about, okay, my students will cheat with AI
[00:01:03.270]and it does not help, why do we use AI?
[00:01:06.120]So my response is, "Okay, no matter we like it or not-"
[00:01:12.780]AI is here.
[00:01:13.680]Yeah, it is here and our students will use it.
[00:01:17.910]Whether you allow it or not, they will use it
[00:01:20.520]so let's get prepared.
[00:01:22.800]And when I heard you tell the story,
[00:01:26.550]one of the things that immediately emerged in my mind is
[00:01:30.150]that teachers are really, especially at this time of year,
[00:01:34.740]we are shooting this in May, teachers are have just finished
[00:01:39.660]or just getting ready to finish, they are exhausted.
[00:01:43.290]They have had kids all year.
[00:01:45.390]They have maybe started seeing AI creep into students' work
[00:01:50.340]and they're frustrated with it,
[00:01:52.620]and so all of that emotion is there
[00:01:54.780]and so we understand that.
[00:01:56.040]And remember, and Dan reminded us of this,
[00:01:59.130]this is why we do this podcast,
[00:02:01.980]is to talk through these issues and to suggest some ideas
[00:02:06.210]in a measured way without getting overwhelmed.
[00:02:08.520]That's why the videos are short and that's why
[00:02:10.890]we're trying to digest some of that
[00:02:12.750]and give you from our accumulated knowledge and experience,
[00:02:18.210]but also for everything we're seeing around.
[00:02:21.060]So how are you seeing teachers react besides just saying,
[00:02:24.637]"We're upset and kids are gonna cheat"?
[00:02:26.670]Because that is true, that is a concern,
[00:02:28.680]but it can't be the only thing out there.
[00:02:30.960]Yeah, and also some teachers are saying,
[00:02:32.917]"Okay, even if I use AI,
[00:02:35.922]it's not doing the thing I want AI to do.
[00:02:41.160]I want my students to engage in conversation like that
[00:02:44.250]but, you know, sometimes students will be so creative.
[00:02:48.960]They'll put in different things
[00:02:50.430]and then which will actually lead the conversation astray."
[00:02:54.720]Yes, so really the pattern I'm seeing,
[00:02:58.770]and tell me if you're seeing the same patterns,
[00:03:00.720]some teachers just don't wanna talk about it,
[00:03:03.270]they don't want to discuss it.
[00:03:05.160]Maybe they want a little bit to complain
[00:03:07.140]and say they're gonna cheat.
[00:03:08.820]Again, it is not a functional response,
[00:03:12.900]but it is very much an understood response.
[00:03:15.990]That is, if you've been teaching for a while
[00:03:18.150]and you have all of your materials
[00:03:19.830]and you finally know what you're doing,
[00:03:22.170]or you've known for a while, and now something comes up
[00:03:25.470]and ends it all, that's a real challenge for a teacher.
[00:03:29.460]Because I'm like, I just figured this all out
[00:03:31.470]and now you tell me there's this new thing out there
[00:03:33.870]that is going to change everything, and that is disruptive.
[00:03:38.250]And so people are going to have some emotions about it.
[00:03:40.810]Other teachers that we're seeing are really embracing it.
[00:03:44.730]They're like, "Give me more.
[00:03:46.260]I wanna try this. I wanna play with that. I wanna do this."
[00:03:49.830]Now that's a very small group.
[00:03:51.330]We're finding it around 10% of our instructors,
[00:03:54.810]even at the university levels are like that.
[00:03:57.450]And then there's a group in the middle
[00:03:59.310]who is playing a little bit, trying a few things,
[00:04:03.450]wondering about what to do, that's that middle group.
[00:04:07.020]And I think that for us
[00:04:09.000]as people who do professional learning,
[00:04:11.130]that middle group is probably the most interesting group.
[00:04:14.100]And the people who resist will eventually get along
[00:04:17.400]just because as you just said, it's coming.
[00:04:20.520]Nobody's asking us as educators, is this smart?
[00:04:23.820]Is this not smart? Should we do this?
[00:04:26.220]How should we best do this?
[00:04:27.630]There's some efforts around that,
[00:04:29.940]like, CalmiGo is a really good example of that,
[00:04:32.010]but in general, AI is coming, so the question is
[00:04:36.450]what do we do about it?
[00:04:38.100]So what are some of your ideas, just so we get
[00:04:41.190]a sense of what we're gonna see in the rest of this series?
[00:04:45.000]Yeah. You know, as word language teachers,
[00:04:47.430]first we have to be prepared.
[00:04:50.040]That's my first suggestion so let's explore,
[00:04:53.400]and you know, if our students are using AI no matter what,
[00:04:58.560]let's figure out together.
[00:04:59.850]Let's teach them how to use AI in a decent way
[00:05:04.500]because we want them to be decent,
[00:05:06.540]you know, digital citizens.
[00:05:08.520]They use things in a honest way.
[00:05:12.480]Yes, in an ethical way. Absolutely.
[00:05:15.090]So really talking through the ethics
[00:05:17.490]and the ethics can't just be "Don't use it"
[00:05:20.756]because of two things.
[00:05:23.160]One is there's no guarantee they're not gonna use it.
[00:05:26.040]I mean, talking about ethics does not
[00:05:28.020]always make people more ethical but also
[00:05:33.840]I think that it is very important to really think about
[00:05:38.430]how do we teach our kids about the limitations of AI.
[00:05:42.840]What it can't do very well.
[00:05:45.060]Yeah, and also I want my students also to understand,
[00:05:49.230]yes, we can use AI,
[00:05:50.910]but I want this piece of work as your work with AI help.
[00:05:58.440]It is still in Daniel's voice, has Daniel's emotions,
[00:06:03.960]and it has Daniel's nuances of explanation instead of the AI
[00:06:09.030]writing the perfect piece, not allowing me to see Daniel.
[00:06:14.490]And that's where I love thinking about
[00:06:18.210]the inverted you of AI usability
[00:06:23.580]and what we're learning from research,
[00:06:25.560]and this is research, but we're also seeing it in the field,
[00:06:28.380]and that is that AI is most useful
[00:06:31.770]for people with some knowledge.
[00:06:33.570]When you are truly a novice and you are an expert,
[00:06:37.380]AI is not gonna help you a lot
[00:06:39.570]because when you are a novice, you can use AI,
[00:06:42.300]but you can't evaluate the quality
[00:06:44.490]nor can you really learn from it, right?
[00:06:48.840]Because I don't know any Mandarin, right?
[00:06:51.660]I can ask AI to write me a message in Mandarin.
[00:06:55.830]If it does, I will not learn anything
[00:06:58.710]and if it does it badly, I will not know.
[00:07:00.780]So as a novice, that doesn't work for me.
[00:07:02.940]And if I'm an expert, if I'm a fluent speaker of Mandarin
[00:07:05.739]and I read and write it every day,
[00:07:08.220]then I really don't need AI much.
[00:07:10.500]It can help me make things faster
[00:07:12.300]but it really is not going to teach me anything
[00:07:14.640]because I already know it.
[00:07:16.260]The people where it helps is, if you think about it,
[00:07:18.600]as the inverted you, is the people who are in the middle,
[00:07:22.020]right, that have some knowledge and with the health of AI,
[00:07:26.400]they can learn a little bit more,
[00:07:27.990]or they can go, "Oh, that's how you do this."
[00:07:30.420]And I always go back to simple things
[00:07:32.640]like Grammarly taught me where to put a comma in many cases
[00:07:35.910]because I saw it repeatedly being fixed,
[00:07:38.490]and I'm like, "Oh, that's where you put it,"
[00:07:40.950]and now I know where to put at least some of my commas,
[00:07:43.410]not all of them, because me and commas don't get along.
[00:07:46.860]I don't know. You can judge me but that's how it is.
[00:07:50.250]And so that's something I think about.
[00:07:52.590]What are some other things we're gonna talk about
[00:07:54.570]in this series?
[00:07:55.740]We are going to show how we can use some specific AI tools
[00:08:01.170]to facilitate learning.
[00:08:02.880]So a lot of times teachers are,
[00:08:05.430]I have to say, we overwork a lot of times,
[00:08:08.850]and AI can help us save some time
[00:08:11.370]and give individual feedback without, you know,
[00:08:14.250]staying late at night, you know?
[00:08:17.220]We want to care about students
[00:08:18.960]but we also want to care about ourselves.
[00:08:21.960]AI can be that help. Tool that lessens the work.
[00:08:26.940]Now I do want to say, right, that some researchers have said
[00:08:32.640]this in some ways is problematic use of AI
[00:08:36.360]not because it's wrong but because it hides the problem.
[00:08:40.170]And the problem is we're overworking teachers
[00:08:42.690]and we have an expectation of a lot of work
[00:08:46.080]outside of the school day, and that is something that,
[00:08:50.760]considering how much teachers are paid
[00:08:52.920]and how the system works, that actually facilitate
[00:08:56.490]putting more pressure on teachers
[00:08:57.900]so that's something we need to be aware of
[00:08:59.610]and we need to say.
[00:09:00.600]But on the other hand, when I talk to a teacher
[00:09:03.030]who's already overworked and tell them,
[00:09:05.347]"Here's a tool that can help you a little bit,"
[00:09:07.560]that's powerful, so what else are we gonna see?
[00:09:10.173]And we are going to see how students can interact with AI
[00:09:14.520]and actually turn what teacher call cheating into learning.
[00:09:20.640]Oh, excellent. I love that topic.
[00:09:23.310]I'm eager to learn about that.
[00:09:24.690]How do we take that idea of "I'm cheating"
[00:09:28.230]and turn it into actually a tutoring,
[00:09:31.050]a learning opportunity, okay.
[00:09:34.920]And also I want to help all the teachers understand
[00:09:39.270]we don't need to know everything about AI.
[00:09:41.910]We can learn with the students, we can explore together,
[00:09:45.120]you know, student centered learning environment.
[00:09:48.720]Teachers are facilitators,
[00:09:51.990]not, you know, expert or provider of all the knowledge.
[00:09:56.250]We can facilitate learning and that is the best way
[00:10:00.540]to teach in the age of AI.
[00:10:03.390]And that of course has something to do with
[00:10:05.820]the fact that some schools allow access to AI
[00:10:08.940]and some schools don't,
[00:10:10.290]so it really depends on your school system, and please,
[00:10:13.320]before you choose to engage with AI with students,
[00:10:16.230]make sure that it is allowed
[00:10:18.780]and permitted within your school system
[00:10:21.060]so nobody gets in trouble.
[00:10:23.010]That being said, we all know that kids are going home
[00:10:25.620]and they have access to whatever they have access.
[00:10:27.720]And one of the things that is very different about AI
[00:10:30.750]from the previous technologies and that is
[00:10:33.420]AI is available in any browser anywhere
[00:10:37.230]whether it's a phone or a computer
[00:10:39.660]or the library or wherever they're going.
[00:10:41.640]So yes, school systems can block it
[00:10:44.370]and even put ethical constraints on it,
[00:10:47.040]but that doesn't mean kids are not going home
[00:10:49.440]and using them.
[00:10:50.670]All right, so we have an exciting series
[00:10:53.220]that we're going to do around language learner
[00:10:56.070]and we'll see you next time on AI In The Classroom.
[00:11:00.540]Thank you.
[00:11:01.530](funky music)

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Tech EDGE, AI in the Classroom: World Language Series Introduction

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