This AI Chatbot from Codebreaker Edu is really good! I learned about it after listening to Terry Kearnes talking with Jeff Utecht on a recent Shifting Schools podcast. I reached out on X (formerly known as Twitter) and Terry shared the Byte AI Chatbot that he uses with his elementary students so I ran it through a few of the tests I conducted with Bing Chat.
Codebreaker Edu’s Byte Terms of Service states that it is, “a custom interface of OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3 model.” My favorite part is that kids do NOT have to create an account NOR enter an email address to use Byte! The downside of that is that each visit is a brand new conversation so Byte will not remember nor learn from their human prompter. I tell kids to copy and paste AI feedback into Google docs that they share with me when working on an assignment where AI support is allowed and makes sense so that should not be too much of a problem.
I took one of my 5th grader’s 9/11 rough draft article to see what kind of feedback Byte would provide compared to Bing Chat and Curipod, the two I used with my students in the writing class I’m teaching. The one setback I found right away is that there is a character limit on what you can type, or in our case copy and paste, into the prompt area. I had to submit the student’s paragraph into four sections and it was a pretty small paragraph, only 231 words, so this will be a nuisance for students to get feedback on their writing. Byte says that I can take up to 2048 characters per request but it didn’t seem to work for me. As you will see in the screenshots below, it cut me off after small sections of the student’s article.
Trying to paste the entire article I kept getting cut off at about 500 characters. So I asked Byte if it could accept up to 2048 characters, why was I getting cut off after about 500. Here is its response:
“I apologize for any confusion. As an AI assistant, I can handle up to 2048 characters at a time, including pasted text. However, there might be limitations imposed by the platform or interface you are using to interact with me. Some platforms may have character limits for pasting text, which could explain why you’re experiencing a restriction of around 500 characters. If you have any specific text you’d like to share or discuss, feel free to provide it in smaller portions, and I’ll be happy to assist you!”
Byte AI Chatbot
We will have to experiment more with that to see what my students get. I don’t have any other writing assignment coming up soon but when we do I’ll see what students get. Here was my experience with the 231 word 5th grade 9/11 article:
The feedback would have been more coherent and certainly more helpful had I been able to paste the entire article all at one. I tried pasting the entire 231 word (1342 character) article on Chrome and Firefox and both only accepted about 500 characters. I think typing it directly into the prompt area might work better but after asking students to type their story or article once I would rather not ask them to type it all over again into Byte unless they are pretty fast at typing.
I also tried something with Byte that I had not tried with Bing or Curipod, asking the chatbot to help me understand a website, in this case a 9/11 Wikipedia article. Here’s what Byte had to say:
Not as helpful as I would have liked so it seems that if our students need level texts or websites explained in ways they can more easily read or understand, we their teachers will have to help with that and do that for our students. After all, we the teachers will know our students better than AI assistant or tutor.
My verdict?
- When I’m leading the lesson through direct instruction with the entire class I prefer Curipod. After students write rough drafts by jotting down notes from research on paper then typing their story or article onto a Google Doc that they share with me, I can start the Curipod and have students paste their writing to get feedback from Curipod’s AI. The students can copy and paste the Curipod feedback onto their Google Doc to use to edit their draft into a second, more polished draft.
- If students need ideas or feedback when working on their own and I’m helping someone else, they can use Bing Chat, or Byte if they cannot access Bing Chat for whatever reason. Bing Chat is especially useful when students need to verify the accuracy of their information and even get other sources.
- When it comes to Math, Byte is my go to choice now. See my next post on Byte and Math to see why.
Note as of December 28, 2023: since the writing of this post I have found more tools that we can use with kids under 13 years of age. I wrote about them here, and here.
