I Got Outsmarted by Snapchat AI

As a history teacher, I've embraced that my role isn't about guarding facts. Admitting when I'm wrong in front of the class is second nature to me. But this week, Snapchat AI outsmarted me—something I didn’t see coming!

I’m all about experimenting with my students. I observe their actions & knowledge in order to inform future lessons. While some teachers like to plan everything ahead, I believe in watching how students naturally approach tasks first. Here is an example of why: in the first week of class I give my students a simple task. Research factual information about the League of Nations using any means they choose.

Before I get up and instruct on research methods, shouldn’t I first watch them do it organically in my classroom? As students start the task of finding names, dates, and historical examples I observe HOW they are looking these up.

For years, the routine was predictable: open a new tab in Chrome, hit Google, and paste the exact question.

That may well be the most popular method, but fewer and fewer young people use Google Search. Heck, fewer even use a web browser or search engine at all!

What other ways are students researching? I knew some would use AI tools like Chat GPT, which a handful chose. But the most common platform my students use AI tools on is…Snapchat!

To my surprise, an anonymous survey showed that Snapchat's AI was the most popular AI tool among my students—and Chat GPT was third.

As my students were struggling with a specific question, one asked me: “Are you sure there were 48 founding member states in the League of Nations, NOT 42?”

To which I confidently replied: “Yes, I’m sure.”

Credit to this student, because he challenged me (respectfully), to which all history teachers know what happens next: I’ll show you my source, you show me yours!

Mine: Wikipedia (as long as it cites a reliable source, yes, I’m a fan)

His: Snap AI. -Say what?

We decided to use my favorite research tool to moderate our disagreement: Perplexity.ai

We prompted it with context around our topic, the question, and how my source said 48 states, while Snap AI was saying 42.

Perplexity bluntly answered with: “42 is broadly recognized as the correct number.” Ouch, but why was I getting 48 from Wikipedia? We prompted it to explain how and why I was wrong. It had a great explanation: 42 members founded the League in January of 1920, but the number of members grew to 48 by the END of 1920. That actually made perfect sense, and upon re-reading my source, Perplexity was right!

Does this mean Snapchat’s AI is a good research tool? Should we have trusted an AI search engine like Perplexity to fact check our disagreement? Should students still be using search engines like Google in 2024?

I’m less sure than ever that I know the answer to any of these questions, but I’m excited to explore them with my students this school year!

What is clear to me at this point: fewer of us will be using traditional search engines. I have already switched my default browser search to Perplexity, which I prefer over Google. I see a huge benefit to being able to prompt an AI search tool with context, ask specific questions, follow up, and provide it with sources. Google search seems to “only” provide a list of links with a short preview of each. After using tools like Perplexity, this is difficult to accept.

It’s also important to meet students where they are. If they are using AI tools for research, I view my role as a social studies teacher requiring me to help them learn the skills of source evaluation in a way that translates across platforms. Even if their platform of choice is Snap AI!

If you are curious about bringing AI tools into your classroom or are you interested in learning how to use AI for your own studies 👉 I create resources around student-facing AI tools.

🔗 Check out the projects on my website: https://aaronmakelky.com

📺 Subscribe to my channel: Aaron Makelky on YouTube
🎥 Here is the video of the lesson from class that day

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