Impacto de los chatbots de IA en la enseñanza de programación

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots have become a tool with a revolutionary potential to transform teaching and learning processes. Its versatility to offer instant responses, facilitate the search for information, adapt to the individual needs of students, provide immediate feedback, and create personalized learning environments, among other skills, has aroused great interest and exploration within the educational community.This paper aims to explore the impact of AI chatbots, specifically ChatGPT, as tools for teaching subjects involving programming activities. The paper describes the teaching experience in the preparation and teaching of the courses Basic Mechatronics Technologies in the fifth semester and Microcontrollers in the eighth semester of the Mechatronics Engineering program at the National University of Colombia - La Paz Campus, La Paz, Cesar, Colombia.Our findings reveal the potential of AI chatbots in programming teaching. These tools provide students with guidance to address specific doubts about the syntax of programming languages, in addition to providing instant feedback on the written code and offering personalized support. In addition, AI chatbots facilitate the teacher to generate code for class analysis, as well as lessons planning and creation of teaching materials. However, the integration of these chatbots in the teaching process poses significant challenges that require attention. Among these challenges is the possible dependence of students in this technology to solve programming problems, which could limit the development of critical thinking and problem-solving capacity. In addition, it is crucial to address concerns, as well as the problems of precision and reliability of the answers provided by the AI chatbot, thus avoiding the propagation of erroneous information that can generate misunderstandings by students.This paper begins by describing the potential of AI chatbots in teaching and learning programming. Subsequently, the experience of implementing these chatbots in two engineering subjects that require programming skills is addressed. Finally, a discussion about the results obtained in the experience is carried out.