T-R PHOTO BY LANA BRADSTREAM Speaker Gene Crume tells the Rotary Club of Marshalltown about how artificial intelligence has impacted education so far during the club’s weekly noon meeting inside Dejardin Hall on the Marshalltown Community College campus Tuesday.

Artificial intelligence (AI), and the way it is becoming more integrated into education was a primary topic at the Tuesday Rotary Club of Marshalltown meeting.

Gene Crume, 58, president of Judson University in Elgin, Ill., was a returning guest of Rotarian Tom McCoy. As in 2023, Crume’s speech focused on AI and the impact it is having.

“Part of the reason I am returning, I think, is to test whether or not my predictions on artificial intelligence actually came to fruition,” he said.

Crume said it would have been difficult to miss the predictions because he is interested in AI, and teaches about it in classes in three areas — education, marketing and journalism.

“I see AI working in all three of those spaces in particular,” he said. “But then, it’s also affecting all of us and how it responds to us.”

AI has had a profound impact on education. Last year, Crume predicted virtual classes would be more accessible. The speed at which some of the virtual learning activity is happening was not something he thought was possible.

“They are now using AI tools for personalized professors and teachers and educators for each student,” Crume said.

This technology will give educators more focus on interactive teaching methods, he said. They will be able to input their knowledge and experiences into the AI. Students can then ask questions of the AI-generated image of the educator. That is something Crume found intriguing because people are designed to engage person-to-person. He wants to see data stating whether or not it is more effective.

“You will engage them online and it’s almost like the professor in the class will be speaking directly to you,” he said. “All of your data will be loaded in as a student and you will have an AI interface with you engaging them. This will create a more personalized, engaging and effective learning experience for the students.”

This might mean students can sign up for a class online, take it whenever they want and engage with the professor’s avatar. If the student’s information has been included in the AI, the avatar will talk to the student individually about their performance.

“That is quite a different proposition when it comes to education,” he said.

Crume said AI can also produce generative instructors to foster and improve emotions for learning. He said researchers discovered better emotions produce motivation and students would also have better opinions of the AI instructors.

“We’re quickly moving into a space where we are going to have avatars teaching students — certainly at the college level and certainly if you’re taking classes, either auditing or getting certifications,” Crume said.

The technology has also impacted students’ writing and composition. To emphasize how it came to be, he asked if students know about cursive.

“Good luck finding a young person today who actually knows what the word ‘cursive’ means, let alone write in cursive,” Crume said. “We don’t teach writing like that anymore and haven’t for a number of years.”

He told Rotarians about a new app called Essay App, developed by Jordan Peterson. It helps people put their ideas on paper, change the wording around, reject what doesn’t work and keep what is great, Crume said.

“In the end, what you’re left with is incredible ideas powerfully written and generated by artificial intelligence,” he said.

There is an ongoing conversation about the ethics of people using AI to write. Crume said since 2014, media outlets have used AI to write articles, particularly financial. The difference is that now, more writing applications are utilizing AI.

Crume said he is using it, and previously directed a student to input an exam of his into ChatGPT. The idea was to see how many correct answers the AI could produce. It took the student 90 minutes to input the questions in a certain way so the AI could answer correctly.

“Input equals output, right,” Crume asked. “She had to keep refining the questions, and even as a student, [she said] ‘I think it’s easier to study for the test.'”

He uses ChatGPT often to figure out what and how people can write with it. Crume found parameters need to be uploaded over and over again to get the desired results.

“Generalization is what AI is good at right now, but man it is growing so fast, it’s becoming much more specific,” he said.

With programs such as Essay App, it can change how writing is taught. Crume told the students sitting in the room he predicted society will go back to having more oral reports and in-class hand-written responses. He has already seen college professors insist quizzes be verbal.

“It’s changing the classroom in a way we are going back to some old ways of teaching of stand up, respond, answer this particular question,” Crume said.

He predicted that AI will also redefine the value of college credentials and degrees. Crume said a person earning a degree still has a tangible and financial impact on their life.

He said there are three steps to earning an advanced degree. First, a person should learn a trade while in high school. Second, they should attend a community college for an associate’s degree, which cuts the cost of education by 60 percent. Then, the person can be more selective on what they want to do.

“What we’re learning is that credentialing through AI is going to take on a lot of different forms,” Crume said. “. . . AI is definitely impacting education, whether it is elementary education all the way up through trade and community college, and everything in between.”

Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.