AI (Artificial Intelligence) is a popular system that students use to get answers in school. Adults and many other people use AI for daily life.
When we asked the two history teachers about AI use and how students use it when they are not supposed to, their responses were very similar.
Mr. Schmidt is a 6th and 7th grade elective teacher. He teaches Geography and Medal of Honor at Iselin Middle School (IMS). He has been teaching for 5 years.
Mr. Schmidt believes that AI is a good educational tool for students to use as long as they are taught how to use it correctly, since we are living in a time where AI use is more common in younger people and even in adults.
“I think that there is a right way to use AI and there is a wrong way to use AI. But we have to teach it to you guys because now it’s clear that now we have it and it’s not going away,” Mr. Schmidt said.
Mr. DeGraw is a 7th grade Civics teacher here at Iselin Middle School (IMS). He has been teaching as a history/civics teacher for 13 years now. He has been a coach at Colonial High School since 2015.
Mr. DeGraw had a similar response to Mr. Schmidt. He also believes that AI can be used to help students with needing to understand steps to solve things, like in math. But they also need to know when not to heavily rely on it for information.
“If you think about if you go to the doctor and you see him or her using AI how much would you trust the doctor? I mean a lot of adults over 18 didn’t have AI, so like doctors, mechanics, plumbers, military personnel they were able to get their job without using AI”, Mr. DeGraw said.
When we asked them about the fresh water usage to cool down the AI system they both say that they’ve heard stories and read some articles about it and they think that since AI is new that it’s supposed to be a temporary thing but a concern is that since AI isn’t going to go it may be permanent.
We asked them if they trust AI detectors more than their own instincts when it comes to grading students’ work and they both had the same answer as they have experience and can tell when a kid is using AI or not.
