Our group’s chosen topic is to teach students, researchers, and content creators to leverage ChatGPT in their domains. Right of the bat, since all of our lessons and assessment resources (articles and online quizzes) are online, we have embraced the advantages of digital platforms, making our learning design accessible, flexible, and accommodating to learners with different needs.
Browsers these days have many built-in accessibility supports. For example, these include font and font size increases, colors and contrast settings, text-to-speech supports, screen reader support, and keyboard navigation tools. These tools have long been developed and improved to cater to a wide range of users. The only challenge we recognize is our learning design requires an internet connection. However, this is a crucial requirement nonetheless, as right now ChatGPT does not support offline usage.
Moreover, ChatGPT itself can be customized to accommodate learners with diverse abilities. Through simple prompts such as “Explain to me like I am a beginner researcher” or “Explain to me like I am 10 years old,” users can modify the complexity of ChatGPT’s responses to suit their preferred complexity and comprehension; this is also useful to help learners of different backgrounds and language proficiency levels understand the content more easily. Additionally, we can request ChatGPT to provide concise answers, considering its tendency to produce verbose responses. This adaptability empowers learners, allowing them to shape their own learning experience with this artificial intelligence tool.
Recognizing that not everyone may be familiar with ChatGPT, our first lesson is designed to provide a comprehensive introduction. This first module ensures that all learners start their journey on the same page, fostering a collaborative environment where knowledge is shared, and everyone can confidently navigate the tool’s functionalities.
In summary, our learning design embraces digital accessibility and strives to foster a supportive and inclusive environment. Through the utilization of browser accessibility features and customization options within ChatGPT, we hope to make learning a seamless and engaging process for students, researchers, and content creators alike.
By: Julia
3 Responses to “Blog #3 – Inclusive Design 🧸”
Hi Julia! Thank you so much for explaining the accessibility features of ChatGPT. I must say, I’m pretty impressed with the prompts modification functionality. It seems like a really helpful tool for users who may have difficulty understanding certain content. It’s great to see that ChatGPT is prioritizing accessibility for all users. Here is some food for thought – https://ts2.space/en/the-challenges-of-addressing-bias-and-stereotyping-in-chatgpts-accessibility-applications/
Hi Julia, as a fellow SENG student, I love your chosen topic! ChatGPT and other interfaces for LLMs can be amazing tools for learning, and after reading your post, it seems like it could be one of the most intuitive ways for people to interact with knowledge and information. I can definitely recognize the issue with ChatGPT being only accessible through the internet being a challenge for a lot of people as many parts of the country still lack even a DSL connection. I was wondering if your group considered looking at other, maybe smaller LLMs that could be run locally? Something like that could have an amazing reach once the technology advances to a point where these models stop hallucinating. I don’t believe any other model is really at the same level as GPT-4, but maybe in the future if your group decides to take this further, this could be an avenue you explore!
Hi Julia, I agree with you that ChatGPT is totally in the same domain for online learning. I love how you brought up how browsers already have built in accessibility support. That is such a cool and important thing that I totally forgot about. I also think that ChatGPT is great for learning and it is quite unique how it is able to return your information differently depending on your skill level or how you understand information. This will definitely make it more accessible for people of different backgrounds.
Thanks,
Kevin