NSW teachers will gain statewide access to a purpose-built generative artificial intelligence app after the tool was found to free up as much as an hour per week during a six-month trial.
The app, which uses a blend of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and GPT-4 to generate responses, will roll out to the state’s 100,000-odd public school teachers from term four, which starts in mid-October.
But students will have to wait for their version of the app, dubbed NSWEduChat, with trials at 50 primary and secondary schools underway since April set to continue.
Education minister Prue Car on Monday announced the expansion of the trial, describing it as one of the world’s largest systemic rollouts of an AI chatbot for teachers.
NSWEduChat, which was built by the NSW Department of Education over five months last year, first rolled out to students and teachers at 16 primary and secondary schools in early February and expanded to a further 34 schools in late April.
Two distinct versions have been developed, with the student-focused app employing eight different filtering systems to limit conversations to topics that align with the curriculum and prevent students from manipulating the models.
Both versions align with the Australian Framework for Generative AI in Schools and the NSW AI Assessment Framework (formerly the AI Assurance Framework). All data is also stored in Australia.
While the student trial is ongoing, the government will expand the app statewide for teachers after their version showed signs of significantly improved workload efficiency at the 50 schools involved.
Some teachers reported time saving of over an hour per week when using the teacher-focused version of the app, which is being used to help produce various lessons resources.
Teachers were also able to more easily adjust classroom resources to students’ interest and different levels of ability, as well as check correspondence, newsletters, and prepare materials.
South Australia came to a similar conclusion following its own trial of an AI-powered chatbot with high school students and teachers last year, finding that it enhanced task efficiency for teachers.
Education minister Prue Car said expanding the trial across the state was part of the government plan to reduce the admin load on teachers by five hours a week so that they can spend more time in front of students.
“NSWEduChat does not replace the valuable work of our teachers – it helps them to save time, tailor their resources, and focus on their critical work in the classroom,” she said.
The government has not said whether it will expand a trial of NSWEduChat to all students despite a federal parliamentary inquiry last week finding that tools like it should be rolled out more broadly.
The inquiry found that state and territory governments should build “high-quality GenAI education products with datasets based on curriculum, and that meet Education Services Australia’s product standards”.
Like NSWEduChat, generative AI tools in education settings should feature a “higher-quality filter to restrict the data use to train an LLM” and be trained on the local curriculum.
The report also called for the federal government to ensure that Australian schools are approximately funded and to develop a national training program for educators, students and parents.
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