Clare Leaving Cert students could be the first in the world to see their exam results boosted significantly by using groundbreaking AI technology.
North Clare lecturer, Cillian Ó Fathaigh, is offering Clare students and teachers the chance to use his new Pulc AI system for free.
The system, which he developed with Trinity math graduate Charles Dillon, offers AI modelled feedback to students on their handwritten essays.
Pulc uses the Leaving Cert’s specific marking system to quickly analyse answers and guide students to improve their approach to the exam.
The system is also being offered to teachers as a means to helping them correct work efficiently and quickly.
Cillian, who is from the Burren but went to school in Gort, gained national attention in 2010 when he sold his used Leaving Cert notes on line for more than €3,000.
He is currently the Marie-Curie Fellow at the Jagiellonian University of Krakow and a visiting fellow at King’s College in London.
His main interest is in the philosophy of education and he hopes that this project will show the positives that AI can have on the educational system when used as a tool, as opposed to a decision making system.
“What is important for us is looking at how responsible AI can make things more efficient and give us more time to teach, that is what I am interested in,” he told The Clare Champion.
“No teacher signed up to correct 100 essays a week. That is not why anyone became a teacher.
“So the teacher remains in control over the feedback that they give to the students.
“One of the most time consuming things, certainly in the humanities subjects, is actually just writing those comments. And what the AI does really well is writing out an extensive comment for each error, and that speeds things up very much.
“We need to find a balance between the risks of AI and the benefits. We can’t pretend that the risks don’t exist. So the teachers remain in control.”
In addition to the teachers remaining in control of the feedback given by the AI tool, they system does not learn from the work of individual students.
Indeed, for data privacy reasons, the AI tool does not retain a record of a students work, once its feedback has been checked by the developers to insure that it is working correctly and providing appropriate answers.
Currently Pulc AI has developed tools specifically for English, Irish, French, German and Spanish and they hope to add new subjects before this year’s exams.
“For students, the AI can scan their handwritten essay. So they write their essay as normal and they take a photograph of it. It then converts that photograph to text, reads it, and gives feedback paragraph by paragraph,” said Cillian.
“What is really important for this is that it uses the correct marking scheme, we have trained it specifically for the Leaving Cert, so it understands what the examiner will expect and what they want.
“One of the challenges for students, especially now after the mocks, is that they really don’t know how to write answers. It can be very confusing. This is a way of reducing pressure. Students can get their feedback, revise it, submit it again and see what changes. They can save the essays to look at later on the system.
“The second use of this is for teachers, which is where the idea originally came from. This will allow teachers to correct the work of their entire class much quicker. Students can submit their essays through the platform, teachers can open the essay which will already have pre-filled feedback from the AI which the teacher can then either accept or reject.
“They can then leave their own comments and their own grade as well. The response from teachers has been really positive so far.”
Because Cillian is from Clare but went to school in Galway, and Pulc AI’s cocreator, Charles Dillon, is from Meath, their AI tool is being offered for free to students and teachers in those counties this year.
So far more than 20 teachers and 100 students have signed up to use it.
“It is totally free for students and totally free for teachers. One of the big things for me when thinking about responsible AI is that AI can make things a lot easier and it can do it at a really low cost,” he said.
“At the moment we don’t have a business plan at all. The idea is to prototype it, make it completely free and unlimited. I would hope that the core features would remain free for the long term.
“The hope is also that this can lesson the pressure for grinds. It really bothers me that grinds are so prominent in Ireland at the moment. It is now like a shadow education industry.
“Also access to grinds is not equal. If you are in New Quay, your access to grinds is a lot less to someone who is in Dublin 4, and your resources to purchase grinds are probably much different as well.”
For more visit pulc.ie.
Andrew Hamilton is a journalist, investigative reporter and podcaster who has been working in the media in Ireland for the past 20 years. His areas of special interest include the environment, mental health and politics.