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Show HN: Edu AI, a company grown from my research (AI and pedagogy)

28 points| _1pos | 2 years ago

Hi guys, I am a researcher and entrepreneur from London.

Innovation has been slow here, I regularly browse and read ycom news and thought I'd share my UK ed-tech startup that's sprung out of my AI-driven pedagogy research project here at Goldsmiths, UoL.

Not sure what it's like over in the states or other countries, but we see here lots of educators using ChatGPT for creating assignments and marking; while simultaneously complaining about students using ChatGPT to write their work.

It's really bad at the university level here at the moment, feels like we have a loop of ChatGPT producing learning material, students submitting work written by ChatGPT, and then lecturers marking it with ChatGPT.

The basis of my research is around maintaining a human in the loop, learning from our past mistakes with social media and the internet, and trying to apply deeptech (mainly AI) in a way that I see it having a long-term benefit to student learning outcomes - everyone seems obsessed with the short-term quick wins, and being fresh out of the UK education system, I'm all too familiar with being a guinea pig for trying new learning methodologies out.

Currently, I have a quiz generator hosted on [redacted], it uses OpenAI API to create a quiz on an input topic or based on uploaded PDFs, so basically upload lesson slides or document, get a quiz, give it to students; win-win, save time, while also not just a lesson plan generator (there's a lot of GPT wrapper tools built for teachers here that are different versions of AI lesson plan generators).

We're currently offering this tool for free, and I am personally covering the API costs, this has been fine until a recent 4000% increase in traffic; we're figuring out our next steps as we speak.

If anyone is keen to share insight, invest, support, or anything else with this project, feel free to get in touch with me at [redacted], or drop me a message at [redacted], just quote this post :)

17 comments

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logiduck|2 years ago

> It's really bad at the university level here at the moment, feels like we have a loop of ChatGPT producing learning material, students submitting work written by ChatGPT, and then lecturers marking it with ChatGPT.

> Currently, I have a quiz generator hosted on [redacted], it uses OpenAI API to create a quiz on an input topic or based on uploaded PDFs

I guess I'm confused on your intent here? You are complaining that things are really bad with everyone using AI and your response is to build and release another AI tool?

> everyone seems obsessed with the short-term quick wins, and being fresh out of the UK education system

Seems like an AI quiz generating is a short-term quick win.

I was hoping when i first started reading your post that it would be pedagogy based around teaching to learn without AI and how to use AI in the best ways. Maybe I am misunderstanding the project, but seems like another cheap short-sighted attempt and getting kids to regurgitate content in the least meaningful way possible.

Edit: Reading your site, edu-ai.co.uk not sure if this is a troll post or not, but looks like every post you have there is generated by ChatGPT.

charleduease|2 years ago

>I guess I'm confused on your intent here? You are complaining that things are really bad with everyone using AI and your response is to build and release another AI tool?

Embracing AI to guide, not replace, human creativity and insight. It's about steering the ship, not just riding the waves

>Seems like an AI quiz generating is a short-term quick win.

>I was hoping when i first started reading your post that it would be pedagogy based around teaching to learn without AI and how to use AI in the best ways. Maybe I am misunderstanding the project, but seems like another cheap short-sighted attempt and getting kids to regurgitate content in the least meaningful way possible.

>Edit: Reading your site, edu-ai.co.uk not sure if this is a troll post or not, but looks like every post you have there is generated by ChatGPT.

I understand your concerns about the potential for AI tools to encourage surface-level learning. However, the goal of our project isn't to replace traditional learning methods but to enhance them. The AI quiz generator is designed to supplement educators' existing strategies, offering a time-efficient way to create diverse and challenging material.

Regarding your observation about the content on edu-ai.co.uk, it's important to clarify that while AI does play a role in content generation, it's done under careful human supervision. This ensures that the quality and educational value are maintained. Our approach is about finding a balance – using AI to aid, but not replace, human ingenuity in education.

Our long-term vision indeed includes exploring pedagogies that integrate AI in meaningful ways, teaching students not just to consume AI-generated content, but to critically engage with and understand the technology. Your input is valuable, and we're always open to ideas on how we can further develop our project to make a more meaningful impact on education!

r9295|2 years ago

Yeah the blog is littered with SEO spam and 5 paragraph articles with clickbait titles.

forbiddenvoid|2 years ago

This is a super important space and hard set of problems to solve. Kudos for taking it on and sharing what you're working on.

Couple of points of feedback, take it for what it's worth: - I don't really know who your customer is. Clearly your app is meant to generate quizzes, but I'm not seeing anything to show me what a generated quiz even looks like. Is this for primary, secondary or university teachers? Other adult education providers? - Really consider updating your Terms of Use to be more protective of your users' IP. Saying that anything I put into your AI generation tool could become public is a great way to get me to not use your tool. - Your home page has a CTA that says "learn more" and then sends me to a google form survey. That's a little misleading - and feels more "take" than "give." If you have a newsletter for people to sign up to, that's probably a better use of that space. - "Get Involved" also goes to that same survey, which is weird since I would expect "Learn More" and "Get Involved" to not be the same action. - Gating your whole app behind a sign-up is going to really reduce the number of people who try it out, especially given that you don't really provide any kind of samples of generated quizzes. I'm going to have a really hard time giving you my email address and sharing any lesson plans (that have no guarantee of privacy) without any kind of promise or highlight of what I will get in return.

charleduease|2 years ago

Thank you for the constructive feedback, will defo work on these :)

yding|2 years ago

Very cool! Will check it out!