Wayfinder Learning Lab – Stephen Taylor

PerplexityAI as an Inquiry Engine

For teachers looking to leverage AI in their units of inquiry, PerplexityAI is simple, focused and useful. This post is to share some resources I put together to support teachers who are getting started in adapting to AI in their classrooms.

Why Perplexity?

  • Free to try, with no logins or personal data needed.
  • Free accounts have most features, but limits to CoPilot.
  • Paid accounts have more advanced LLM’s and more use of CoPilot.
  • No ads, images or distracting features.
  • Accessible and simple to use.
  • It pairs GPT with search, giving a clean interface of results with links to sources that work.
  • Copy search links to share, so could be used as a form of research journal.

Find out more about PerplexityAI here, and follow their developments on Twitter here. RunThePrompts has a good comparison of Perplexity vs ChaGPT here.

Perplexity as an Inquiry Engine

Forming good questions can yield great results. With follow-on questions and suggestions, you can see how lines of inquiry could develop.

Perplexity as an ATL Machine

These features mean there is potential to use Perplexity to develop approaches to learning (ATL) skills in Research, Information Literacy, Media Literacy & Thinking. See some examples in the slides.

Research Methods and Recognising Sources

Building on an idea I posted in here, and from some examples from universities, a suggested way to recognise the use of AI is to include a simple ‘Research Methods’ table before a student’s Works Cited. Example in the slides, where a student would link to their Perplexity thread.

EDIT: Since creating this post, the IB released guidance on how to cite AI sources. See their post on LinkedIN for details.

New: An Educator’s Guide to PerplexityAI

Since starting to use PerplexityAI in Dec 2022, it has developed a lot of great features that can be useful to educators. Over the summer, it has had a new look and some feature upgrades. Here is the start of a guide for educators. Click here to go fullscreen.

Original Guide:

Slides and examples. This will update if I make edits. Go fullscreen here.

What Else Can Perplexity Do?

  • Use the new CoPilot feature (GPT-4), to help work through a problem or research.
  • Use YouTube setting to search for educational videos related to your topic.
  • Use Academic setting to search for and summarise academic papers.
  • Use Wolfram|Alpha setting to give tables and mathematical notation, with worked examples.
  • Use pdf mode to interact with a document (as long as it is not copyright or sensitive).

Connected resources:

Check out this useful graphic from Amelia King on some other ways to use Perplexity:

Background image generated in MidJourney. Prompt: a group of children and a teacher smiling and working around a table with a laptop, notepaper and a map, futuristic cartoon style, pastel colours, natural lighting, plants in the classroom –aspect 2:1 –v 5

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Stephen
International Educator: China via Japan, Indonesia & the UK. Director of Innovation in Learning & Teaching. Science educator. Twitterist (@sjtylr), dad and bloggerer. MA International Education & current EdD student. Experienced Director of Learning & MYP Coordinator. Interested in curriculum, pedagogy, purposeful EdTech and global competence. Find out more: https://sjtylr.net/about. Science site: http://i-biology.net.
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2 responses to “PerplexityAI as an Inquiry Engine”

  1. Create, Curate, Wait, Innovate – Wayfinder Learning Lab – Stephen Taylor Avatar
    Create, Curate, Wait, Innovate – Wayfinder Learning Lab – Stephen Taylor

    […] Perplexity has almost completely replaced Google search for me. Here’s a guide. […]

    Reply
  2. Richard Driscoll Avatar
    Richard Driscoll

    This is post is excellent. I have also become a convert.

    Reply

Thank-you for your comments.