Expert Viewpoint

Why Our Technology Nonprofit is Embracing ChatGPT and AI in Education

Plus: Step-By-Step Examples for Teachers on Using ChatGPT with Students

  • By Tara Chklovski
  • 03/22/23

As an educator, I was initially shaken by the new generative AI tool from OpenAI ChatGPT. I’m the founder and head of Technovation, a nonprofit technology entrepreneurship program for girls aiming to identify community problems and develop technology-based solutions and business plans to tackle them.

To experiment with ChatGPT, I started inputting various examples of problem descriptions and app solutions girls have developed through Technovation and asked ChatGPT to “make them better.” Each time it came up with completely practical suggestions that even some of the world’s most famous venture capitalists have not (we recruit technology experts and investors every year to review girls’ apps).

Technovation has been in the tech education space for nearly 17 years; we’ve spent the last seven focusing on AI. Still, despite the fact AI is in our curriculum, ChatGPT made me fearful for a second. Would this tool erase the need for a program like ours? Could the tens of thousands of girls worldwide who work with us simply turn to ChatGPT to ask meaningful questions about their world and drum up information to practically solve them? ChatGPT can even help them code!


After an initial panic, I stepped back and asked a bigger question: What should students be learning and what shouldeducators be teaching so they are better prepared for a world where technology breakthroughs continue to happen rapidly?

The reality is ChatGPT can be an extremely useful tool in tech education to level the playing field — if we introduce it in the right way. 

I’m reminded of the “landscape of human competence” developed by Hans Moravec, illustrated by Max Tegmark:

“Imagine a ‘landscape of human competence,’ having lowlands with labels like ‘arithmetic’ and ‘rote memorization,’ foothills like ‘theorem proving’ and ‘chess playing,’ and high mountain peaks labeled ‘locomotion,’ ‘hand-eye coordination,’ and ‘social interaction.’ Advancing computer performance is like water slowly flooding the landscape. A hal-century ago it began to drown the lowlands, driving out human calculators and record clerks, but leaving most of us dry. Now the flood has reached the foothills, and our outposts there are contemplating retreat. I propose we build Arks as that day nears and adopt a seafaring life.” 

What has been surprising is how quickly competence areas in art and book writing have been “flooded,” per Moravec’s analogy. 

What does that mean for us educators? I’m a painter and write a lot (as part of my job). As a painter, my first reaction was it would be cheating to use OpenAI’s Dall-E in my creative process. As I got used to the idea, I recognized it's in a similar vein as using a photograph to guide my art. Ultimately, it's a function of my confidence in my own creative abilities. Confidence helps us explore new experiences and inspirations and become playful. 

That’s instructive.

It's been fascinating to witness how children in our program interact with ChatGPT. They’re thrilled it can help them with their essay writing homework — and the teacher would never know. But they’re also excited to see what else it can do.

ChatGPT will help increase productivity, just like fire, wheels, knives, cars, electricity, calculators, and the internet did for us. But we do need to think about this question of what we should be teaching and learning and our roles as educators.

Here is where I find a tool like ChatGPT to be incredibly valuable in our organization, which points to use cases across the field of education. At Technovation, ChatGPT will help participants in our program go further in the ideation, brainstorming, business planning, ways to gather data, developing innovative revenue models, developing a compelling pitch script and eventually the code for the technology itself. Interestingly, it also allows participants to consider different ethical issues that may arise through different forms of data collection and deployment of the technology.

ChatGPT makes the process of research and synthesis so much quicker and easier. Ideas can be deployed in the real world and don't need to remain in the conceptual stage. Students have more time to collaborate with one another. We could explore and teach some of the harder skills and topics such as complex systems thinking and real-world problem-solving skills that will help students survive and thrive in the future world. We know that increased skills, especially relevant skills lead to an increased sense of control, agency, and self-efficacy.

How We Are Using ChatGPT with Students

We’re using ChatGPT to help Technovation participants go further in their brainstorming and ideation as they aim to develop AI-based solutions to real-world problems. Here’s a concrete example from our program: Students in one group were interested in developing technology-based solutions to food wastage and conservation, encouraging more students to read, exercise, and be more inclusive. 

Example: We had them pose the multi-layered question: What type of AI-based app could I make that...

  • Helps children to not waste so much food

  • Collects data on how much food we use and waste

  • Provides creative ways to bake without wasting so many ingredients

  • Helps monitor ecosystems around water bodies in Northern California

  • Has creative ways to help children find awesome books that they would normally not find

  • Provides creative, fun ways to stretch and exercise in the easiest possible way

  • Is a game that helps break stereotypes, especially around gender

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