Danny Bedingfield: AI in education expert on teachers using AI to mark school work

A learning development specialist fears artificial intelligence won't have cultural considerations when marking student work. 

Education Minister Erica Stanford says AI is already partly in use for marking - and expects it could do almost all assessments by 2028. 

It comes as the Government plans to scrap NCEA for an entirely new qualification. 

Cyclone Computer Company's Danny Bedingfield told Ryan Bridge current AI models aren't trained on the uniqueness of New Zealand. 

He says newer, more specific models, would have to be developed

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Education Minister Erica Stanford announcing that school exam marking will
be aided by the use of AI, taking the responsibility
away from teachers. Are we opening a can of worms here?
Danny Beddingfield is a learning development an AI specialist at
Cyclone Computer Company, joining us this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Danny, good morning, Oh, good morning, How are you good?

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Thank you? Would you trust AI to mark your kids' exams?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
In a nutshell?

Speaker 1 (00:26):
No?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
No. Look, I do a lot of work with alongside
teachers and businesses around the use of AI, and there's
a lot of really great things that it can do
to save us time. But I've got real concerns around
transparency and around ethical use of AI, particularly the privacy
area as well, And I just feel like using it
to mark student work is really crossing a barrier that

(00:47):
we don't want to go to.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
What's wrong with that? Because in my mind, I mean,
there's things like maths and science presumably be pretty straight
up and down English. Maybe if there's an essay writing competition,
it might not be as as workable, But what are
what's wrong with with AI doing it?

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well? The main the main problem I've got at the
moment is that all the AI sort of tools that
we're using are generally based on overseas data or overseas
large language models, and the problem of that, of course
is they're not based on anything to do with New Zealand,
and New Zealand's a very unique country to buy multicultural situation.
You know, obviously we've got the Treaty of Whitangui and
so on, and all these things are not taken into

(01:27):
consideration in the AI models that we're currently using, so
you know, we'd have to look at developing our own
models in here in Altieroa to make them more suitable
to the data that we're hoping to mark student work.
And then there's the whole idea around transparency with students
and things as well, which is just really really concerned
for me.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Things like maths and science though nothing to do with
the treaty, quite universal and same everywhere.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
No, yeah, no, I agree there. But you know we're
using tools right now. You know, you can create forms
and things on most you know, Google and Microsoft tools
that we use in schools that will just simply mark
you know, kind of multi choice questions and things. That's fine,
we don't need AI for that, you know, where they're
going to be using AI is for judging tools or
judging assessments that, as you say, like essays and things

(02:15):
that have a lot more complications within how you judge
whether they are achieved or a mirror or a past
or whatever they're going to come up with with their
new marketing systems.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Okay, Danny, interesting, appreciate your time this morning. Danny Beddingfield
Learning Development and AI special ast a Cyclone computer company.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
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