After asking Bing Chat and Wolfram Alpha for help with some pretty basic 5th and 6th grade Math problems I was disappointed with the results. I still have this feeling that I did something wrong but I can’t spot it if I did. So when I got introduced to an AI chatbot for kids, even kids under 13 years of age, Byte, I had to try it out for Math! When I tried asking Bing and Wolfram for help I used two problems, one from our 5th grade Bridges curriculum, and the other from a 6th grade question I found either on a test or some website that I used in class with my 6th graders.
Here’s how Byte responded to the same two problems:
Here Byte did what Bing and Wolfram, solve the problem for me. I had to keep prompting and asking for more specific help to get Byte to show me or teach me how to multiply 72 times 9 if I didn’t already know how to do that.
This time I actually got a response that was quite helpful! That is a good strategy and it’s a strategy taught in the Bridges Math curriculum and one of the strategies that Pam Harris uses in her Math is Figureoutable workshops! Success! So I tried the percent problem:
It started out as before, pretty much doing the work for me. So I asked Byte to show me how it used an understanding of place value to figure out that 25% of 60 is 15:
I got a better explanation but I kept prompting it to help me understand the place value concept involved in moving the decimal point. Kids would not prompt this much or keep asking for more explanations so I will have to model this.
This time I confused Byte! Byte, like ChatGPT, believed that it was incorrect in what it told me before. I had to tell it that it was not incorrect, I just needed an explanation of the place value change.
That helped and I got a much better explanation!
This time Byte explained the decimal moving in more detail and connected decimal moving to multiplying by 10, 100, 100, and so on! Byte has promise! Now I have not had a reason to ask students to consult an AI during Math but seeing how Byte works, I might show them that if they get stuck and I’m busy helping someone else, this might be a good next step. Ask three before me can include Byte!
Aside from Byte, I also found Mizou a good alternative!
