Artificial intelligence agents are getting more powerful by the day. For a couple months, I have been using GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio Code to help develop simulations and to learn about concepts in front-end web programming. In Copilot, you can select between a couple different AI agents. Recently, I subscribed to Anthropic’s Claude to use as a standalone app.

There has been concern expressed in media about students using AI to cheat on assignments and exams. I am not so concerned; “blue book” tests and personal interviews can let students show what they understand. (too many students to do that you say, well you need to hire more human instructors to manage your AI)

Rather, I want to spend my time thinking how these tools can help people learn.

One practice I recommend to instructors is to model how you use AI to do your work and to learn new concepts and techniques. This can be done in live or recorded lessons.

I am thinking about how students themselves can use AI agents to help their studies. One idea is that a student could ask an AI agent to make a simulation that demonstrates a concept they are learning about.

That involves a couple different aspects. One learns how to clearly communicate concepts about a subject in the process of crafting a prompt that produces the desired result. And one learns from a well-crafted simulation.

See my experiments at Web Labs, AI experiments.

Please send us a message letting us know what you think at support@reactorlab.net