For thousands of years, the abacus was the main tool for math. But then, along came more advanced calculation tools, and then, just calculators. Does this mean we don’t learn as much in math class because we use calculators? Of course not. A calculator is just a tool that makes solving problems faster. Just as AI can be used as a tool to make our lives a little easier.
Our school has worked for a long time to build an image of AI use being the worst crime a student could commit. While this can be true when AI is misused, I believe our school should allow the use of AI in every classroom, with parameters, of course.
The advantage of AI is that it pulls resources from all across the internet quickly, where you might have to spend time searching for it. I especially find it helpful when conducting research. Rather than surfing the web to find the information I need, I just ask AI to pull together some info and share its sources.
When I first began using AI, it sometimes took me a long time to get what I wanted out of it. I have had conversations with AI engines when I was constantly tweaking its response to finally get to the information or output that I needed. Eventually, I could’ve just done it myself. I learned to use what I like to call, “General Specifics.” Sometimes I would give the AI too many details, and then it couldn’t give me what I wanted. Other times, I would be too general with my prompt, and it would be way off. That’s why we need to use a healthy medium.
This concept of general specifics is exactly what we need to teach students to do. AI can be a very useful tool for us, but our ability to use this is stunted because we don’t know how to get what we want from it. This is why I think that teachers should educate their students at the beginning of the year on the appropriate cases in which to use AI and how to write a prompt that makes your conversations with AI more efficient and helpful.
I personally use AI fairly often. It helps me with presentations and generating files, however the most useful thing it does for me is taking a vision that I have and turning it into something that might actually be a reality. And now that I know how to use it to my advantage, I get things done faster. For example, if I need to make a presentation, I can go to ClaudeAI and put my specifications in, and it generates a file that I can edit and make perfect for my needs. This saves me hours of work with a well-worded prompt.
Some teachers, however, have major objections to the possibility of a new AI policy. They believe it would stunt the growth of our minds. “It’s going to, at best, blunt your critical thinking and creativity,” says Tyree Churchill, 8th Grade English Teacher, “and at worst, completely hijack it.” I would agree with this statement in cases of misuse, when students let it generate ideas for them. I agree, AI should not be used for that purpose. However, I would like to emphasize my previous point about teaching how to use AI responsibly. Instead of letting AI think for us, we still will create our own ideas, but then let AI help us format them.
The addition of Securly makes classwork much more secure, so teachers can make sure the AI is not being abused. For example, AI would be more of a hindrance than a help when writing an essay. In most cases, however, the use of AI should be allowed. It would not be an agent to do students work for them, rather a productivity tool for them to work with.
AI can be scary sometimes, especially for those who aren’t ready for it yet. Many people still view it as a threat rather than as a tool. However, AI will not be going away anytime soon. At some point, all of us are going to have to figure out how to use AI the right way. And as a school, we can either choose to ignore it, or step into the future of AI, and prepare ourselves for good things to come.