ChatGPT is a new tool that could help Peace Corps volunteers. It has the potential to help them be more efficient and effective in their work. ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot. It uses natural language processing to understand and respond to questions. This makes it a valuable asset for volunteers working in unfamiliar or new fields. With internet access, this tool can be a game-changer for the volunteer. It can bridge the gap in knowledge and experience. Both the volunteer and the community they work with could benefit from using the technology.

Teaching a group of farmers about fish farming. — Teaching fish farmers under a school yard tree in Zambia.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a computer program. It can understand and respond to natural language. It is like a robot that you can talk to and ask questions. ChatGPT can help with different tasks, like looking for information, translating, and others. And it can do it quickly. It can work like a helper that you can interact with through your computer or smartphone. It’s like having a personal assistant.

But it is important to know that ChatGPT has certain limitations. For example, it is not always accurate. It’s based on a large dataset of text but it may not understand more complex questions. Especially for volunteers, there are many cultural considerations that ChatGPT would not know. It is important to keep these limitations in mind when using it.

Users can sign up to use ChatGPT at https://chat.openai.com/chat

Teaching local Mali farmers mango grafting techniques. — Teaching mango grafting – Mali.

How can A.I. help volunteers?

For volunteers, ChatGPT could help in a variety of ways for different programs. But its biggest effect could be on creating easy to understand materials and suggesting learning activities.

In Education, it could help with lesson planning, suggesting learning activities, creating tests or other assessment materials, and simplifying materials used to train counterparts.
For Agriculture volunteers, ChatGPT could help write easy to understand materials and presentations when working with small-scale farmers and families.
In Health, it could help generate educational materials and messaging on the importance of health issues. This could include nutrition, prenatal care, childbirth, infant health, basic hygiene, and water sanitation.
In Youth in Development, it could help creating materials to promote engagement, active citizenship, and leadership. Areas such as gender awareness, employment skills, health & HIV/AIDS education, environmental awareness, and even sports and fitness programs could be supplemented with materials generated by ChatGPT.
In the Environment sector, it could be used to make materials about environmental issues, sustainable practices promotion, and suggest activities to improve environmental awareness.
Community Economic Development volunteers could use it generate materials to educate small business owners, classroom lesson plans and activities, strategies for product development, and assist in creating presentations for workshops and seminars.

But due to ChatGPT limitations, the training and experience volunteers have working in their community is essential. PCVs need to understand more about their work so they can ask ChatGPT the right questions. And be able to judge the response in case it needs to be changed.

It is also important to take into account cultural, linguistic and social considerations when using these materials (generated by ChatGPT). With the input of the volunteers themselves, ChatGPT generated materials can be adjusted and tailored to the specific needs of their communities.
ChatGPT

Student shows a sign about hand washing. — Teaching hand washing – Cambodia.

An example of how to use ChatGPT

So, I asked ChatGPT the following question:

I need an activity to teach 5th grade students the importance of hand washing

And the response was:

Here’s an activity you can use to teach 5th grade students about the importance of hand washing:

Activity: “The Germ Game”

Materials:
– Small toys or trinkets (to represent germs)
– Glitter (to represent germs)
– Hand sanitizer or soap
– Water
– White paper
– Colored pencils or markers

Instructions:
1. Start by discussing the importance of hand washing with your students. Talk about how germs can spread easily and cause illness, and how washing our hands can help prevent the spread of germs.
2. Next, give each student a small toy or trinket, and sprinkle a small amount of glitter on their hands to represent germs.
3. Tell the students to go around the room and shake hands with other students, or touch different surfaces in the room. Explain that the glitter on their hands represents germs that can spread easily.
4. Once the students have finished “germ spreading,” have them come back to their seats. Now give them a chance to clean their hands by providing them either with hand sanitizer or soap and water.
5. After cleaning their hands, have them make a picture or write a sentence or two on a white paper about what they have learned from the activity and how they can apply it in their daily lives.
6. Finally, have a class discussion about the importance of hand washing and what the students learned from the activity. Encourage them to think about how they can use this knowledge to stay healthy, and to share their drawings or writing with their classmates.

This activity is fun and interactive, it also helps students understand the importance of washing their hands and how germs can easily spread. Through this kind of activities, students can understand the importance of handwashing in preventing the spread of disease, which would foster good hygiene habits in the long run.

Generated by ChatGPT

But since I wanted to use this in my school in rural Nepal, I knew I didn’t have easy access to glitter. So I rephrased the question.

A teacher with limited resources needs an activity to teach 5th grade students the importance of hand washing in Nepal.

And here was the response:

Here’s an activity you can use to teach 5th grade students about the importance of hand washing in a resource-limited setting:

Activity: “Handwashing Scavenger Hunt”

Materials:
– Small pieces of paper
– Pen or pencil
– A poster board or a large piece of paper
– Markers or crayons

Instructions:
1. Start by discussing the importance of hand washing with your students. Talk about how germs can spread easily and cause illness, and how washing our hands can help prevent the spread of germs. You can also mention the current situation in Nepal or specific diseases that are common in the area, to make the information more relevant for the students.
2. Next, give each student a small piece of paper and a pen or pencil. Tell them to go around the classroom and the school and find examples of when it is important to wash their hands. They could be specific places, situations or activities.
3. Once they have finished the scavenger hunt, have them come back to their seats and share their examples. Then, collect all the responses on a large poster board or a large piece of paper and have students help in grouping them according to different categories (e.g. before eating, after using the bathroom, etc)
4. Once the categories are established, have the students draw or write simple illustrations or sentences on the poster board to show the examples they found. This will help in reinforcing the concept of the importance of handwashing during different moments of the day.
5. Finally, display the poster in a visible place and have a class discussion about what they learned from the activity and how they can apply it in their daily lives. Encourage them to think about how they can use this knowledge to stay healthy and to share what they learned with their families and friends.

This activity is a low-resource way to encourage students to think critically about the importance of handwashing and how it relates to their daily lives. It also allows them to explore the school and their surroundings while learning, which can be engaging and fun for students.

Generated by ChatGPT

Looking at the activity, I might decide that they kids would need to stay in the room instead of roaming over the school grounds. If they were having difficulty, I might form groups and give them a specific area (home, farm, school, shop, restaurant, etc) to focus on.

So you can see that this could be a real-time saver. Yes, I could have gone online and searched for hand-washing activities. But this is much faster. And with more use, the volunteer could come up with better questions from the start. That way they would get the materials that would work for their situation and community.

Volunteer teaching kids about the environment. — PCV teaching about the environment in elementary school – Paraguay

Conclusion

ChatGPT is experimental and needs an internet connection. But it still has a lot of potential to help volunteers be more efficient and effective. It is another tool that can be used in a volunteers day to day work, either to come up with new ideas or to enhance their current work. It will be exciting to see if ChatGPT becomes more mainstream and accepted.

Postscript: For now ChatGPT is free, but eventually they will have to monetize it because of the computing costs. Hopefully when they happens, there will be other options or solutions that could benefit others without cost.