Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

How educators can navigate AI-driven plagiarism

Key points:

  • The explosion of AI tools has introduced interesting questions for educators
  • Students who learn to use AI responsibly will develop a useful skill for learning and working
  • See related article: Education in the age of AI and smart technology

From the very beginning of its meteoric rise, generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools seemed to stir a universal reaction: How will students use it to cheat? However, students engaged in cheating well before tools like ChatGPT became household names. According to a survey, as many as 58 percent of high school students have plagiarized work, and 95 percent admitted to some form of cheating.

There are countless past innovations, from handheld calculators to Wikipedia, that have prompted similar classroom concerns. In each of these cases, teachers evolved, adopting new strategies and tools to keep students learning. As AI matures, educators will need to do the same. Many teachers already are rethinking assessments and assignments to shift the question from how students will use AI to cheat, to how students can learn to use AI responsibly.…Read More

How to (correctly!) use ChatGPT for essay writing

Key points:

Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT launch in November 2022, it continues to bother teachers. No wonder:

The tool has a fascinating ability to craft texts that look like a human wrote them. Influencing the education niche, it’s a game-changer in the classroom. Not only does it make educators revise their approach to teaching academic writing, but some still see it as a threat to students’ academic integrity.…Read More

Big Deals—New and enhanced edtech tools from Quizlet, eSpark, and Turnitin

Global learning platform Quizlet today announced a series of new study tools designed to help students return to the classroom with renewed confidence this school year. These new product launches deliver more AI-powered resources to Quizlet’s 60 million monthly active users, combining cognitive science and artificial intelligence to help students study more effectively and efficiently.

Joining well-known and beloved study tools, including Flashcards and Learn and Test, this back-to-school Quizlet is introducing:

  • Magic Notes: With Magic Notes, students can upload their class notes to Quizlet and instantly and automatically turn them into flashcards, practice tests, and more. Whether notes are hand-written or digital, this AI-powered solution gets users ready to study in mere seconds, saving valuable time that was previously used manually building studying tools, and helping students extend their knowledge with outlines, sample essay topics and related course materials. 
  • Memory Score: Memory Score lets students track their personal memory scores based on their study habits and help them understand how likely they are to remember material at different intervals and when test day comes.
  • Quick Summary: Quick Summary pulls key concepts out of dense readings, providing summaries that help students digest material faster and at the right level to match their current understanding.
  • Brain Beats: With Brain Beats, students can automatically turn their flashcards into a song to enhance studying, using a tune to aid in memorization.
  • Q-Chat: Q-Chat launched in beta in March as the first personalized AI tutor built on OpenAI’s ChatGPT API and has since powered millions of conversations with students on Quizlet. Today, it is officially out of beta and Q-Chat will now be a part of the core Quizlet experience and with additional activities including Teach Me, Quiz Me, Apply my Knowledge, and Practice with Sentences. Q-Chat is built to help students achieve a deeper understanding of the topics they are studying through a virtual tutor-like experience.
  • AI Enhanced Expert Solutions: Millions of step-by-step explanations written by verified experts on Quizlet are now enhanced by advanced AI capabilities. On top of the trusted step-by-step guidance this feature is known for, students can now access alternate explanations to better understand tricky concepts, practice problems to test their knowledge, and use Q-Chat for personalized AI-powered tutoring all built within the experience.

All Quizlet users 16 years and older will be able to access these new features, with Quizlet Plus users gaining unlimited access. …Read More

Open LMS Partners With Copyleaks, Adding Advanced AI-Driven Plagiarism and AI Content Detection

Raleigh, N.C. — Open LMS, a leading global provider of open-source learning management systems (LMSs), today announces its new partnership with  Copyleaks, the leading AI-based text analysis, plagiarism identification, and AI-content detection platform. This partnership comes at a critical time when AI-generated content is becoming more prevalent in all industries, particularly academia.

Copyleaks uses advanced AI to detect AI-generated content, including outputs from cutting-edge AI tools such as ChatGPT-4. It also detects various forms of plagiarism while accounting for a wide range of common detection-evasion tactics such as hidden characters, paraphrasing, and even image-based text plagiarism. Through these methods, the tool provides institutions and organizations with a deeper understanding of the composition of submitted content while exposing attempts to deceive detection software.

Open LMS and Copyleaks’ partnership adds a powerful tool to clients’ arsenals as conversations around AI-generated content intensify.…Read More

ChatGPT is the shakeup education needs

Key points:

  • Education must evolve along with technology–students will expect it
  • Embracing new technologies helps education leverage adaptive technology that engage student interest
  • See related article: AI tools are set to impact tutoring in a big way

Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has dominated conversations in the media landscape and within the education industry. A key conversation focuses on weighing its benefits versus risks, and many education institutions have been quick to implement bans on the technology altogether for fears of plagiarism in written works. But is this the right course of action to take?

As technology evolves, industries must evolve alongside it, and education is no exception – especially in an era where students heavily and regularly engage in technology and its applications. Instead of being afraid of the unknown, educators and leaders should navigate these changes with curiosity and an open mind and embrace the shake up the education industry has been waiting for. ChatGPT can be the answer we’re looking for in our search for the ideal, personalized student experience–and ultimately student success.…Read More

AI writing tools can be disruptive–here are 5 ways to counteract their influence

Key points:

  • Educators should clearly communicate rules and expectations for AI
  • It’s also worth keeping an open mind and learning a bit more about how AI tools work

The discussion around the influence of AI writing on education has never been so active – all thanks to the launch of ChatGPT last year. The tool is so advanced compared to other writing tools of its kind that a lot of people instantly started using it for all kinds of ethically ambiguous purposes.

Educators are concerned about the influence AI will have and how its negative effects could be detrimental to education. Without further ado, here’s how to counteract the disruptive influence of AI writing on education.…Read More

How plagiarism makes the literacy gap worse

Plagiarism is becoming ubiquitous in academia as an increase in AI-powered writing tools become more advanced and available to students. As a result, educators are faced with preventing, identifying, and stopping plagiarism even as plagiarism becomes increasingly harder to detect.

But why should educators even continue to tackle plagiarism? What are the documented and potentially long-lasting impacts of students plagiarizing their work?

According to a recent study, there was a marked increase globally in paraphrasing and text replacement during the pandemic in 2020 compared to 2019. The average similarity score, which is the score that comes from detecting what content was paraphrased versus what is original, increased from 35.1 percent to 49.6 percent. This is especially troubling considering the already negative effects the pandemic had on education. The National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that the pandemic erased over two decades of progress with drops in both mathematics and reading scores for students at record highs. …Read More

Copyleaks Inc Partners with Canvas LMS to Offer Plagiarism Detection using AI and Machine Learning.

Copyleaks, an artificial intelligence platform that detects plagiarism, today announced a partnership today with Canvas, the learning management platform from Instructure, that allows educational institutions to seamlessly enable advanced plagiarism detection software directly within a Canvas account. Copyleaks can now be accessed by thousands of K-12 schools and universities around the world that are part of the ever-expanding Canvas community.

Through its artificial intelligence and machine learning technology, Copyleaks is able to understand and learn more about the text that students are writing throughout the school year. While many plagiarism checkers only find identical matches of text, Copyleaks can spot similar words and paraphrased text that are commonly missed by plagiarism software. The platform allows both teachers and students to improve their writing processes.

As more schools adapt to an e-learning environment this fall, teachers are both emphasizing the importance of academic integrity, as well as taking extra precautions to check that students have written original work.…Read More

Free plagiarism checker

Unicheck realizes that more instructors and students will need to have instant access to the plagiarism checker.

To assist you in the fight against plagiarism Unicheck is offering to all institutions that have no active Unicheck licenses, they will gladly share free access to Unicheck till June 30.

Please contact us whichever way you find to be more convenient for you:…Read More

The top 10 ways college students plagiarize

Students who knew their papers would be reviewed by Turnitin software were not less likely to cheat, according to research.

When it comes to plagiarizing, students who use the unethical shortcut seem to be all in: Copying and pasting a research paper word for word is now the most common form of plagiarism.

Those findings, along with the ten most common forms of plagiarism in higher education, were detailed in a national ranking of plagiarism incidents released this month by Turnitin, an online company that makes software designed to detect cheating in homework assignments and research papers.…Read More