The company behind Canvas – a learning app used by thousands of high schools and colleges worldwide – is giving artificial intelligence a central role in students’ education with plans to embed a new AI-powered platform into its platforms.
Instructure, the Salt Lake City-based education technology company behind Canvas, has teamed up with OpenAI to create IgniteAI, which will let teachers build customized AI chatbots to help with instruction, grading, and evaluating student progress. The chatbot and other large language model (LLM) tools will be powered using OpenAI models.
Steve Daly, CEO of Instructure, said the partnership will help to “amplify the learning experience and improve student outcomes.”
“We’re committed to delivering next-generation LMS technologies designed with an open ecosystem that empowers educators and learners to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world,” said Daly in a statement. “This collaboration with OpenAI showcases our ambitious vision: creating a future-ready ecosystem that fosters meaningful learning and achievement at every stage of education.”
The first tool that will be launched under the deal has been dubbed the “LLM-Enabled Assignment” which will allow teachers to “define how AI interacts with students” using natural language prompts or using an assistant within the assignment creation flow.
Teachers will be able to see how students used AI in completing their assignments and have visibility into areas where they excelled and demonstrated understanding of the material through their conversations with the LLMs.
“This new type of assignment allows students to have rich, casual and interactive conversations in a ChatGPT-like environment they already know they love,” said Shiren Vijiasingam, chief product officer at Instructure. “In that process, they create visible learning evidence that teachers can confidently use, as it’s mapped to the learning objectives, rubrics and skills defined by the teacher.”
Outside of supporting students’ education with classroom material, Vijiasingam added that the AI tools help provide “a meaningful way to teach students how to use these tools responsibly and effectively.”
The partnership’s move to integrate AI into the classroom follows pushes from the Federal government, industry, and educators to embrace the technology. This month, Microsoft announced a $4 billion commitment in cash and technology services to support K-12 schools, community and technical colleges in their AI-related missions.
The American Federation of Teachers – one of the nation’s largest teachers’ unions – also recently said it is opening an AI training hub for educators in partnership with major tech companies, and the White House launched a pledge for companies and nonprofits to commit support for AI education and classroom integration with over 60 signees.
This comes as students receive mixed messages on AI use – up until recently, the use of ChatGPT was banned in most schools and viewed as cheating with significant repercussions for students who used the chatbot.