The Sky Is Not Falling: Turnitin Urges Educators to 'Meet the Moment' of ChatGPT

  • By Kristal Kuykendall
  • 03/27/23

In this episode of THE Journal Insider podcast, host and THEJournal.com editor Kristal Kuykendall welcomes two former teachers who have been working on AI writing tools at Turnitin, a plagiarism-detection software used by thousands of K–12 schools and institutions of higher education. 

Turnitin is expected to launch a new AI writing detector and additional related features for educators in the next few weeks. 

David Adamson, principal machine learning scientist at Turnitin, and Patti West-Smith, senior director of customer engagement, have been working on Turnitin’s AI writing detection feature and related new tools to help educators better understand ChatGPT — and to show teachers how to use AI to save themselves time and how to tweak assignments so that ChatGPT cannot earn a good grade on writing homework.

Adamson, who taught computer science and math at Digital Harbor High in Baltimore, and West-Smith, who worked in public schools for 19 years as a teacher, curriculum supervisor, and principal, both believe that ChatGPT has presented a growth opportunity — or perhaps more of a growth demand — for writing instruction, which they explained at length in the newest episode of THE Journal Insider podcast. Adamson also gave a sneak peek into how the new AI writing detector tool works, shown below.

Read excerpts of that discussion in our extended article, Turnitin Believes ChatGPT Could Actually Boost Students' Writing Skills. 

THE Journal Insider podcast explores current ed tech trends and issues impacting K–12 educators, IT professionals, instructional technologists, education leaders, and ed tech providers. Listen in as THE Journal Editor Kristal Kuykendall chats with ed tech experts, educators, and industry leaders about how they are 'meeting the moment' in the U.S. public education system. Find all podcast episodes as well as K–12 ed tech news updated daily at THEJournal.com.

Resource links:

Music by LemonMusicStudio from Pixabay

About the Author

Kristal Kuykendall is editor, 1105 Media Education Group. She can be reached at [email protected].


Featured

  • robot typing on a computer

    Microsoft Unveils 'Computer Use' Automation in Copilot Studio

    Microsoft has announced a new AI-powered feature called "computer use" for its Copilot Studio platform that allows agents to directly interact with Web sites and desktop applications using simulated mouse clicks, menu selections and text inputs.

  • AI microchip under cybersecurity attack, surrounded by symbols of threats like a skull, spider, lock, and warning shield

    Report Finds Agentic AI Protocol Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks

    A new report from Backslash Security has identified significant security vulnerabilities in the Model Context Protocol (MCP), technology introduced by Anthropic in November 2024 to facilitate communication between AI agents and external tools.

  • educators seated at a table with a laptop and tablet, against a backdrop of muted geometric shapes

    HMH Forms Educator Council to Inform AI Tool Development

    Adaptive learning company HMH has established an AI Educator Council that brings together teachers, instructional coaches and leaders from school district across the country to help shape its AI solutions.

  • illustration of a human head with a glowing neural network in the brain, connected to tech icons on a cool blue-gray background

    Meta Introduces Stand-Alone AI App

    Meta Platforms has launched a stand-alone artificial intelligence app built on its proprietary Llama 4 model, intensifying the competitive race in generative AI alongside OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and xAI.