My First Example of Workslop in Schools

A couple of days ago I read a post from a secondary teacher in a Facebook education group that I follow. The post showed how they had updated their PSE roadmaps using ChatGPT. The first image showed the original image, which they had previously created with Google Slides (below)

and the second image after being 'refined' with ChatGPT (below).

This got me thinking. Why did this teacher feel the need to prompt ChatGPT to update their original slide? Did they feel that something was lacking in what the original slide was communicating? Looking at both images, the text appears to be exactly the same and the road timeline graphic appears to be the same. The only thing that ChatGPT has done is changed some colours and added new graphics, something that the teacher could have done themselves, albeit taking a little longer in finding some appropriate clip art and changing the colours. It looks nice, but was that the only point in why they made the changes? 

Something I always talk to teachers and learners about when they are creating something (text, image, audio) using digital technology is audience and purpose. I obviously have to make a guess here as the teacher doesn't explain what these images were for, but probably the audience would be other teachers in their department and across the school. It could also be for school leaders / management and maybe for learners and parents too. Therefore, based on who I'm guessing are the audience, then the purpose could be to inform teachers and management what PSE areas are being covered over the year in Yr7 and in what term, and to let learners and/or parents know what they or their children are going to be doing in PSE this year. So, would the original Google Slides have fulfilled the audience and purpose objective. Well, I would say yes. In fact, I'm assuming the Google Slides version must have been created previously to communicate to those various audiences. If that's the case, I'm back to, why bother in using ChatGPT at all, if the original already effectively communicates the necessary information? AI might have saved the teacher time in making those cosmetic changes to the document but in my opinion there was no need to make those changes in the first place. The detail of what is being proposed in Yr7 is in the text, not in the superficial look of the colours and clip art. Many teachers and the government are promoting the use of generative AI to save teacher time, in my opinion this is an example of using AI to do something that is arguably not necessary and wasting teacher time. Back in November, I wrote a blog questioning whether using AI will actually save teachers time. In it I referred to the term 'workslop' and I think this is my first example of it happening in a school. Workslop being defined as

"AI-generated work content that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task." 

I think that definition perfectly fits this example. Nothing about the AI updated document has advanced its purpose, only adding superficial fluff created by generative AI. I also added in that post that "what has been generated with AI might look impressive but is pretty much pointless." Pointless, absolutely.