Progress in AI Digital Literacy and cechat Pilot Program

Dear College Community,

As we near the end of the term, I am excited to share the progress we have made in our AI Digital Literacy initiative and the cechat pilot program. These advancements are part of our commitment to equipping Carroll College students with the skills they need to thrive in a rapidly evolving digital world while ensuring that learning remains at the heart of everything we do.

A key highlight of our program has been the development of specialised AI classroom assistants tailored to support a variety of subjects. So far, these include:

• DesignGenius: The Design and Technology Assistant
• CHIP: The Industrial Technology Assistant
• WOOD-CHIP: The VET Construction Assistant
• The History Immersion Assistant
• The Archibald Prize Assessment Task Assistant
• Pierre: The French Assistant
• RedGater: The Agriculture Assistant
• Spatchy: The VET Hospitality Assistant

With many more in development, these assistants are designed to enhance student engagement and learning by providing targeted support in their respective subject areas. For example, these assistants can be tailored to act as Socratic tutors, guiding students through thoughtful questioning to deepen their understanding rather than simply providing answers. They can also prepare students for exams by scaffolding extended response questions, offering valuable instant feedback on how their answers might score in their Preliminary or HSC exams. Additionally, they can facilitate timed short-answer practice sessions, helping students build confidence and refine their exam techniques under realistic conditions.

Each assistant is thoughtfully crafted to align with curriculum goals and support students in developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Importantly, we are embedding High Impact Teaching Practices into these AI tools to ensure they complement and enhance effective teaching. Strategies such as explicit teaching, feedback, and differentiated learning are integrated into the design of these assistants, ensuring they reinforce rather than replace the expertise of our educators.

Our focus remains on teaching students to use AI ethically and responsibly. By engaging with these tools, students learn not only how to leverage AI for their studies but also how to critically evaluate its outputs, recognise limitations, and avoid over-reliance on shortcuts like cutting and pasting answers. This approach ensures that AI is used as a tool to deepen understanding rather than bypass meaningful learning processes.

In Term 2, we will be onboarding new cohorts of students into the program, including dedicated AI Literacy lessons designed to help them understand the responsible use of AI. As part of this process, all students will complete a 30-minute assessment to ensure they have a clear understanding of how to use these tools ethically and effectively in their learning.

The cechat pilot program has already demonstrated its transformative potential in classrooms across a range of year groups. Teachers have shared inspiring stories of how these assistants have sparked curiosity and encouraged deeper engagement with learning materials.

Looking ahead, we are excited to continue refining these tools and expanding their use across more subjects next term. We also look forward to welcoming Lee Barrett from cenet for a presentation on how we can further integrate AI effectively into our teaching practices while preparing students for the future.

Thank you for your ongoing support as we navigate this exciting journey together!

Warm regards,

 
Mr Jason Szkwarek
AI Leader

image generated using OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL·E (April 2025).