What is the imagination of AI big model? Some people think it is a parameter, some people may answer logic and reasoning, and some people give the option of new data expression. And these answers need to be practiced and verified in real industrial scenarios.
For Xie Baifang and Dongqu Middle School, this "experiment" has already started for 60 days.
Author | Pi Ye
Produced | Industrialist
"The admission data was only released at noon yesterday, and you have completed the registration of freshmen today?" This is the first time Principal Xie Baifang has heard such surprised inquiries. Every time, he would smile and nod.
Starting from Baiyun Airport, you can drive to Zhongshan East District Middle School in less than two hours along the lush Beijing-Zhuhai Expressway. Although this is the smallest high school in Zhongshan City, it has become a local "bright school" in this year's school season.
Xie Baifang, a senior digital manager of DingTalk, is the principal of this school. The enrollment season in July is the busiest time for him and the school.
"It took us more than a day from the very beginning when we received the notice from the superior department to the time when all the students were notified to complete the online and offline registration at the same time." Xie Baifang told us. In previous school seasons, the time left for schools is often a week or even longer.
From the conversation with Xie Baifang, a general "Eastern District Middle School-style" enrollment link was outlined - based on the student list, classify, import DingTalk, automatically form DingTalk home-school groups for each class, edit text messages by the system, and send Go to the mobile phone of the parents of the students, and they can directly enter the Dingding home-school group by clicking the corresponding link. In the DingTalk group, in addition to the class teacher, there is also a DingTalk AI question-and-answer robot that is responsible for answering various questions from parents around the clock. When students register at the school, it is only a simple process. Therefore, student registration is very fast.
This is the true profile of AI in the context of education. In the past period of time, although the market has welcomed and affirmed AI and large-scale models, it is still doubtful about how to implement it and what its real value is. But in Eastside Middle School, AI has quietly become a real connection and productivity tool outside of people's scrutiny and wait-and-see vision.
What is the imagination of AI big model? Some people think it is a parameter, some people may answer logic and reasoning, and some people give the option of new data expression. And these answers need to be practiced and verified in real industrial scenarios.
For Xie Baifang and Dongqu Middle School, this "experiment" has just started for 60 days.
1. "When AI Comes to School"
"We also found that using different questions to ask questions will eventually lead to different results." Teacher Cheng from Dongqu Middle School told us, "So the more we use it now, the more we feel that we need to improve our ability to ask questions."
Behind this conversation, it corresponds to the new attempt of East District Middle School to add various AI capabilities to DingTalk. One detail is that East District Middle School is one of the first batch of educational institutions that DingTalk opened to its AI internal testing. This opening is not only the smart document of "/", but also DingTalk AI robot, AI smart brain map and other AI-based function of the large model.
These functions were disclosed one by one at the 2023 Dingding Ecological Conference held just now. In addition to the DingTalk magic wand "/" displayed in April this year, at this conference, a series of wider applications such as chat scenes, audio and video scenes, and digital employees were put on the stage, while opening up its own The AI PaaS base calls on ecological partners to build an AI ecosystem together.
In addition, in the educational scene, AI functions such as intelligent correction, wrong question distribution, and student evaluation are also displayed one by one.
For Xie Baifang and the teachers, this feeling is more advanced. In the past two months, as the first school in Zhongshan to use DingTalk, they have conducted various "AI experiments" based on DingTalk in real educational scenarios.
For example, the AI intelligent question-and-answer robot at the beginning of the article, by sending specific question answers and corpus, they make the robot more suitable for the enrollment inquiry scene. While better meeting the needs of parents, it also saves a lot of time and labor costs.
Another example is the AI intelligent brain map assistant. The teacher of the East District Middle School is based on specific knowledge points and poems, so that the AI intelligent brain map assistant can generate a more vivid brain map or logical grid, and show it to students in class. Teacher Cheng gave us an example, "For example, Wang Wei's "Mountain Dwelling in Autumn", based on the AI function, can generate some pictures for students to display in class. Students are more receptive to this form of fresh knowledge."
Among them, Xie Baifang uses DingTalk smart documents most frequently. According to him, smart documents can assist in the generation of some news reports or speeches, or provide some writing ideas to help him improve his writing plan.
"Our teachers are very welcome." Xie Baifang told us, "On the whole, AI functions can help us liberate us from some basic transactional work and data-related work processes, and at the same time enrich our knowledge to a certain extent. teaching methods.”
However, during the exchange, Xie Baifang also said that although the use scenarios of DingTalk AI large models in schools are becoming more and more abundant, some answers are still "not excellent" when faced with the problem that some educational scenarios are enough to attract fans and vertical.
"But it can definitely reach 70 points or even higher." For DingTalk AI, he gave such a score, " Now we are seeing a lot of answers, and the interactivity is getting better and better. We are definitely optimistic about it in the long run."
In fact, this is a sufficiently positive and true evaluation. From a larger perspective, in the past six months, based on the implementation of the large-scale model, people still have more discussions about which scenario to choose first and what method to choose. The path verification from technology to engineering seems to be the most concerned topic of.
But Eastside Middle School is different. Outside of these discussions, it represents a real sample under the wave of a large model. Although this sample is not perfect now, it is already on the way to full marks.
why is it In other words, why is it the East Middle School on DingTalk?
2. Behind DingTalk AI: See the prototype of a smart campus
In the summer of 2017, a team called "Digitalization Working Group" was established within East District Middle School, and its members included young backbones from various departments and some disciplines. The leader of this group is Xie Baifang.
"We paid attention to the low-code development method in the market at that time, and planned to use it as the base of the digital middle platform of our entire East Middle School." Xie Baifang recalled.
In fact, this is not the starting point for the digitization of Eastside Middle School. If we push the timeline forward, we can see that Dongqu Middle School has tried many digital transformation paths, such as finding software developers to customize and develop software, or purchasing special software and then conducting secondary development by itself, etc. However, it has been verified that these are not the most suitable transformation paths.
A background on the digital transformation of China's education industry is that although the country has issued relevant policies on smart campuses and education informatization in the past few years, due to the large differences between different schools and the uneven distribution of resources, the market There are very few service providers on the Internet that actually provide specialized digital software for schools, and more schools adopt digital transformation methods like East District Middle School, seeking external developers for customized development.
"On the one hand, it costs a lot, especially for schools; on the other hand, the development speed is too slow. After a function is developed, the external requirements have changed, and it needs to be developed again." Xie Baifang told us.
It was also at this time that Dingding entered the sight of East District Middle School. "In the beginning, we felt that DingTalk was a big company with guaranteed security, stability and reliability, so we thought we could give it a try." Mr. Pang, who is in charge of informatization construction, told us.
Subsequently, a third-party application called "An Xin Wage Slip" based on DingTalk was first used to replace the original traditional offline salary slip. This clear online salary slip model has been recognized by school teachers. Later, two applications, "Ask for Leave" and "Application for Public Funds", were independently built in the Ding app, which effectively solved the trouble of teachers running around looking for signatures with paper application forms when asking for leave or reimbursement, which was well received by teachers. Welcome, coupled with the agile development and rapid feedback of the low-code itself, Xie Baifang officially decided-"fully use DingTalk".
Easier said than done. First of all, one of the core difficulties between him and the digital working group is how to find and do a good job of developing requirements, and to ensure that they can be used. From the perspective of development, it is the core development issue, "how to write requirements documents, and who will write them".
Xie Baifang’s method for East District Middle School is that the teachers of each subject clearly express their needs to the digital working group. During the development process, the two parties cooperate with each other, interact continuously, develop in small steps, and iterate quickly, and finally build a low-code that is most suitable for the East District Middle School itself. application.
Under this model, a number of applications including timetable application, moral education evaluation, class number, dual-screen management, etc. have been gradually developed. According to Mr. Pang’s statistics, East District Middle School has developed far more than 100 applications based on low-code.
Among them, the shift number and dual-screen management are sufficiently distinctive attempts. The former means that the school can use the class number model to open up the last mile of class communication and at the same time build a position for online communication between teachers, students, and parents. No matter how personnel and teachers change, this is a fixed message Pass the position to ensure the convenience of communication.
The latter is to connect the all-in-one machine in the classroom with the touch screen outside the classroom to realize one machine with two screens. The all-in-one machine in the classroom can be used for normal teaching and information transmission, and the students’ operations such as asking for leave and applying for repairs do not need to affect other students’ operations, or the teacher’s Personalized tutoring and explanations can be operated on the touch screen outside the classroom. Such a "one machine, two screens" mode inside and outside the classroom not only facilitates teachers and students, but also saves costs and improves efficiency.
In the end, more than 100 small matrices, including these two applications, were intertwined together to form the smart campus system of East District Middle School. In this smart campus system, including student morning newspaper system, dormitory management, moral education inspection, class schedule application, group cooperation, catering system, as well as teachers and staff performance evaluation, salary system, etc., are all integrated into a 360-degree school , teachers, students, and parents in one digital system.
"In the beginning, we hoped to break the problems of 'information islands' and 'chicken rib systems'. Now, based on DingTalk, our idea of building a coordinated data management in the school scene has become a reality. " Xie Baifang said, "And DingTalk's The update iteration is very fast, and some of the requirements we put forward to DingTalk will be quickly met.”
In fact, this is also the reason why DingTalk AI was able to have quick and real feedback in East District Middle School. That is to say, in the past few years, based on DingTalk, East District Middle School has completed the initial digital construction. These low-code-based digital constructions have fully released its digital value, and at the same time deposited corresponding data elements.
This kind of accumulation is also the basis and basis for the application of AI large models at the moment. Whether it is the practiced AI intelligent robot, intelligent documents, or intelligent brain maps, what can be seen in East District Middle School is its new value demonstration and active embrace of DingTalk's new products and AI functions. Today's facts also prove that on the basis of the original three-dimensional digital system, AI is also helping it release greater digital value.
From a purely technical point of view, the practice of large models is more like a process of pulling and landing from a "castle in the sky". The real encounter process of AI will be greatly shortened.
For East District Middle School, Dingding is exactly this ladder.
3. Top project and "two-way drive"
In China's industrial digital transformation, a term that is often mentioned is "top project". The reason why it often occurs is that digital transformation often encounters resistance. This resistance lies in organizational structure, resource allocation, trial and error costs, etc., and only the "top leader" can guarantee implementation.
This is what Xie Baifang agrees with. "For example, to use the DingTalk system, I still need to promote it from top to bottom. Whether it involves development, publicity, or demand collection, the principal really promotes it to achieve good execution."
One detail is that, including the use of DingTalk's AI functions, Xie Baifang is the first group of people to try.
However, in the process of implementation, the principle he and Eastside Middle School followed was "two-way drive". That is to promote the development from top to bottom, but the requirements should be collected from the bottom up. For example, the development of curriculum is more about collecting requirements from teachers, such as the dormitory management system, and more is to listen to suggestions from the dormitory management staff. Another example is The leave application system seeks inspiration from student feedback.
The feedback of these details was finally aggregated to DingTalk and the low-code products in the DingTalk Ecology, and finally transformed into real applications, becoming each member of the Zhiyun Smart Campus of Dongqu Middle School. Today, with the blessing of AI, these molecules are being re-released and defined.
It can be seen that East District Middle School is a microcosm of current Chinese education. That is to say, under the wave of digitalization, they are actively seeking changes through low-code methods, taking their own needs as the core driving force, and with the help of products such as DingTalk, they are building the most suitable digital path at low cost and high efficiency.
What this path brings is not only the digital blessing at the software level, but also the opportunity to take the lead in the current AI era. Based on DingTalk, find the best breakthrough point and the greatest value for the combination of AI and its own education scenarios. space.
One of the hottest questions right now is: what are we talking about when we talk about AI? The answer to the question will obviously not be the single-point technology of AI, or the value of the product itself, the AI model itself. These values are technical, discontinuous, and even more non-engineering.
Through the digital education sample of East District Middle School, it can be perceived that DingTalk is providing the shortest and most realistic AI closed loop. That is, based on the many attributes and functions of DingTalk, AI is truly integrated into specific industrial products and industrial scenarios to truly empower.
The real proposition behind the implementation of AI is neither technology nor a certain product, but a mature addition of a digital system, a re-extension of a digital channel that has been verified in real scenarios, and a re-examination of an application that is closest to the business blessing. Just like Dingding, just like East District Middle School.
"We must persevere and look for the direction that suits us best." Xie Baifang told us, "See changes from changes, see hope, and go on firmly."