Second day of the Champagnat Global Week 2024
The second day of the Champagnat Global Week 2024 focused on the Publishers’ Network has come to an end. During the 9am session, participants were able to enjoy a talk on Artificial Intelligence given by Isaac Pinto and Fernando Fuentes in collaboration with MRE. Taking advantage of these conferences, there was also the launch of the mooc courses on Artificial Intelligence applied to education, developed by Edelvives, and the course on Problem Based Learning by FTD.
Around 200 people attended today’s sessions.
The session began with Javier Llamas, Executive Secretary of Champagnat Global, greeting the participants and explaining the programme that is being developed, which focuses on a tour of all the networks that animate the Institute. This was followed by a time of prayer.
Brother Ben Consigli, General Councillor, welcomed the participants: ‘We have come together to learn about the potential of Artificial Intelligence in the field of education’. ‘Champagnat Global has become a fundamental tool for schools around the world to connect and share experiences. This spirit of collaboration is at the heart of what we are celebrating today,’ he added.
Ben acknowledged that ‘ MRE’s efforts have been instrumental’ and that ‘our publishing partners have provided us with the tools we need to have AI and active methodologies in our schools that foster critical thinking. We look forward to equipping teachers with the necessary tools in these mooc courses’.
MRE’s mission secretary, José Antonio Rosa, took the floor to thank and introduce the speakers who gave the talk on Artificial Intelligence applied to education.
The conference began with Isaac Pinto, ICT coordinator at Maristas Ibérica, who explained that ‘Artificial Intelligence has an impact on education and a challenge for us’. ‘Artificial Intelligence that tries to imitate human behaviour’, he explained, adding examples such as robotics, NLP or voice.
‘What we know about AI is above all Chat GPT, which generates content through text or images in the case of Dall-E,’ said Isaac, who, through a game, showed how Chat GPT works: “with a previous training that consisted of reading an infinite number of web pages, it learned what the most likely word to come next is”.
Afterwards, he explained the ethical use of AI, highlighting some concepts such as responsibility and the legal framework of Artificial Intelligence.
For his part, Fernando Fuentes (Maristas Alicante), developed the application of AI in schools. Firstly, he explained the improbability of AI replacing teachers and the ‘lack of critical thinking and creativity’ that Artificial Intelligence has.
‘One of the disadvantages of AI in schools is the use that students make of it when doing homework,’ he explained. ‘We have been dependent on technology for years and we must have an alternative if it fails’, is another of the disadvantages of AI, along with others such as the need for constant teacher training.
On the other hand, among the advantages are that we can encourage ‘critical and creative thinking in students’, although ‘this depends on how it is used’. Fernando also pointed out the ‘automation of tasks, the creation of materials, motivation, personalisation, improvement analysis, 24/7 evaluation and adaptive learning’ as other advantages. The speaker then explained some examples of how Artificial Intelligence can be applied in schools.
After the conference, the mooc course on Artificial Intelligence applied to education was launched by Edelvives. Juan Pedro Castellanos, Director of the Edelvives Foundation, spoke about the‘synergies that are taking place in the Marist world’. He also gave an explanation of Edelvives, with 135 years of history and ‘almost 1000 people’ working in the group. ‘Our mission is inspired by our Christian principles’, assured Juan Pedro, who also added the need to “invent dreams and move the soul”.
Juan Pedro stressed that the mooc course on Artificial Intelligence applied to education is ‘practical and simple in order to make the most of what AI offers us and also to recognise the risks and limits it entails’.
Cintia, Deputy Director of FTD, opened the talk on Active Methodologies by introducing Professor William Franco, who began by recalling the Teacher’s Day celebrated today in Brazil. ‘Active methodologies are about the need to use strategies for the student, learning by doing and integrating it with theory,’ said William.
In addition, William assured that we must understand the context of Active Methodologies in a globalised world, with digital technologies, artificial intelligence and the Alpha generation, among others. ‘Developing technical, cognitive and communication skills and group work are some of the aspects that we must stimulate,’ said the professor.
In the mooc course we will be able to observe how the student develops this learning ’, explained William, “it is important that they are in a diverse environment and subsequently analyse the problem, generate hypotheses and respond to them, summarise the conclusions and formulate the objectives of the study”, among other things. Likewise, as teachers, ‘we will facilitate the process for the students, provide them with the resources and tools they need, define the guidelines, give them feedback and motivation’.
The director of the Secretariat for Education and Evangelisation, Br José Sánchez, closed the session with a farewell in which he thanked all the participants, speakers, as well as Edelvives and MRE for their presence. ‘During these days we have visited many Marist schools and in all of them a question has arisen: why is it a network? -I invite you to discover all these concepts and , by connecting them, to find the answer.