AI: The Future of Technical Communication and E-Learning?

"Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality..." Freddie Mercury probably wasn't thinking about artificial intelligence when he sang those lines in 1975's Bohemian Rhapsody, but in the era of fake news and artificially generated content, the time is coming when we will have to ask ourselves if something we are watching or hearing is actually real or not - and if that even matters.

When I began the MA Technical Communication and E-Learning program, artificial intelligence was still a niche area most of interest to computer scientists and researchers. However, in the last semester, the launch of ChatGPT has brought AI right into the spotlight, with newspaper articles and TV features examining the potential and risks the technology presents. Experts in the areas of technical communication and E-learning have also been giving their opinions, so I decided it was right to consider that in this blog post, even though it wasn't a topic of the degree program. So how can these AI tools be used?

Ch'ng (2023) lists three possible uses of ChatGPT for teaching and learning:

• Content generation
• Virtual tutoring
• Language learning

So far, most of the examples I have seen fall under the category content generation, like this video:

This is an animated avatar created using two, freely available websites: http://bigspeak.ai which I used to produce the audio, and https://d-id.com which I used to produce the actual avatar. Firstly, I wrote a script which I entered at bigspeak, which converted it into an mp3 file in my chosen voice. Then I went to d-id, chose an avatar and the video was automatically generated for me. The entire process took only a few minutes from start to finish. Due to the restrictions of the free versions, this video is short, but it would not have required much additional work (or expense) to produce a longer version. This avatar obviously has a cartoony appearance, but there are other tools which offer much more lifelike models.

From the teaching perspective, Singh (undated) and Ch'ng (2023) agree that tools like ChatGPT can also be used to produce lesson plans or a tutorial. For example, the image below shows part of the results of my prompt "Create a short tutorial on how to write an academic paper". In less than a minute, ChatGPT produced a 10-step plan which seems logically structured and academically sound.

There are, of course, also fears about the use of AI tools and Ch'ng lists three challenges they present:

• Reduction in independent thinking
• Copyright abuse and plagiarism
• Misuse or mishandling of data

At least in Germany, the biggest fear so far has been about plagiarism and students misusing ChatGPT to write assignments. When I began my original Bachelor degree in 1991, the internet hadn't really become well-known and we didn't use it beyond sending emails. However, we were taught the principles of Boolean operators to enable us to search the library's CD-ROM databases successfully. It now seems that learning how to use and detect the use of AI tools will be the 21st century equivalent digital competence which both technical communicators, educators and users will need to acquire. Maybe I should have even asked ChatGPT to produce a guide on how to use it as a student?

For me, developments like ChatGPT emphasize how rapidly technology is progressing and how important it is for us as humans to also keep developing the competencies necessary to successfully deal with them. I am sure that these tools will appear in some form in our MA Technical Communication & E-Learning degree in the near future. And both teachers and students will benefit from it, if we can embrace its positive potential.

Sources:

Ch'ng, L.K. (2023). A New Buzz in Teaching & Learning:ChatGPT. https://elearningindustry.com/a-new-buzz-in-teaching-and-learning-chatgpt [Accessed 22.03.2023]

Singh, H. (Undated). How to Use Chat GPT for eLearning? https://www.instancy.com/how-to-use-chat-gpt-for-elearning/ [Accessed 22.03.2023]