Many high schools are restricting the use of AI.These schools are leaning

CNN
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At Princeton High School, students are trying to combat the rapid decline of indigenous languages ​​with some unexpected help. It's Che'w, a furry stuffed animal with wide-open eyes.

But Che'w is no ordinary stuffed animal. He is a highly intelligent generative AI robot who speaks Maam, a Mayan language spoken by a small number of students in schools in the western highlands of Guatemala and Mexico. According to UNESCO, this language is currently on the verge of extinction. Students hope Che'w can help change that.

While some high schools are limiting the use of AI in the classroom, others, like Princeton High School, are also leaning toward AI.

In just 18 months since the launch of the viral chatbot ChatGPT, generative AI has emerged as a game-changing technology in the field of artificial intelligence. Its features have impressed both users and experts with its ability to perform a variety of tasks, from generating creative content, essays, and games to calculating formulas and summarizing complex concepts. All of this is already reshaping many parts of our lives, including education.

However, this technology has often advanced much faster than schools' understanding of how to use it. And with new products released this week from Google's His XYZ initiative and OpenAI's new GPT-4o, many teachers and school districts are finding this theme inevitable.

PHS science administrator Dr. Joy Barnes-Johnson said the school is “trying to embrace AI” wherever possible. “It's a tool in the same way that a pencil is a technology that helps us communicate.”

The school plans to host an AI summit this summer with teachers and administrators to discuss how generative AI should and should not be used in the classroom, she said.

“At the beginning of the school year, we talked about the world we are in now with AI and the responsibility we have to prepare our children for the world they will inherit,” she said. “The idea is to help people connect and learn. [as teachers] Don't be afraid of it. ”

When ChatGPT was released in November 2022, teachers worried that the tool's ability to generate persuasive responses and essays in response to user prompts could make it easier for students to cheat on assignments. I was concerned. Others worry that ChatGPT and similar tools could be used to spread inaccurate information.

Shortly after its launch, New York City Public Schools became one of the first school districts to ban students and teachers from using ChatGPT on the district's networks and devices.

In the weeks and months that followed, other schools, including Los Angeles Unified School District and Seattle Public Schools, responded similarly, blocking access to ChatGPT on their networks.

Some of these districts have evolved their policies over time. For example, LAUSD has since launched a chatbot named “Ed” that acts as a student advisor and can keep parents informed of everything from their child's test results to school attendance. Ta.

Many schools also continue to grapple with how best to approach technology within the classroom.

“While there is growing acceptance among educators, there is still a lot of wariness,” said Noel Candelaria, executive director and treasurer of the National Education Association, who is spearheading the association's AI policy. To tell. “The challenge is there's not a lot of guidance at the district level, so educators are concerned that it's not being done to them, but to them. about it.”

He added: “There are also significant concerns regarding the confidentiality of the data and the source of the data being extracted.”

Candelaria told CNN that educators feel strongly that they want to influence how their voices are applied in schools. NEA is forming a task force with educators across the country to address many of these issues.

Some high schools across the country are trying to teach students how to use other forms of artificial intelligence for the greater good.At Stuyvesant High School, a prestigious public school in New York City, students created an app for the visually impaired that uses artificial intelligence and haptic feedback. Help people detect threats and avoid obstacles.

Similarly, at STEM School Highlands Ranch in Colorado, a team of students developed an AI-powered wildlife detection system called Project Deer with the goal of reducing car crashes. Researchers have tried to combat such accidents, but Previous studies have shown that wild animals do not respond consistently to a single stimulus. Instead, the students derived an AI-based predictive solution to warn drivers of impending threats on the road.

Using four $5 infrared detection sensors installed in the vehicle, the students developed a system in which the AI ​​scans its surroundings and emits a high-pitched sound when an animal's body temperature is detected. To scare away animals.

The school, winner of Samsung's annual “Solve for Tomorrow” contest over Colorado State University, announced this summer that it will partner with the University of Colorado at Boulder to improve acceptance rates. In the Solve for Tomorrow contest, over 1,000 schools submitted their STEM-based solutions to real-world problems. Samsung told CNN that it has seen a “clear increase” in submissions of AI-powered innovations this year compared to last year.

Computer science teacher Tyler Chacon told CNN that the group's big vision is to one day regulate the technology or have it adopted by states and used more widely.

Chacon told CNN that school administrators are asking teachers to help create rubrics and lesson plans. “We have been encouraged to embrace that and consider how we can use it to maximize the efficiency and reduce the burden of our work,” he said.

It is an increasingly popular trend among teachers to use AI tools to create assignments, quizzes, polls, videos, and interactives for use in the classroom. Some are turning to AI tools and platforms like ChatGPT, Writable, Grammarly, and EssayGrader to help grade papers and generate feedback, but this also raises ethical considerations.

Still, as schools continue to weigh the pros and cons of teaching and using artificial intelligence, some teachers and administrators feel strongly that it is the future.

At Princeton High School, a group of about 14 students met during school hours for several months to use artificial intelligence trained to recognize patterns, solve problems, and understand words, sentences, and phrases from spoken and written texts. We built Che'w's conversational abilities drawn from neural networks. the language in which it is written.

Che'w, which means “star” in the Mamese language, is trained by the students to understand the language and acts as a personal tutor. This robot has been trained to speak Spanish and English.

“You never lose your patience or get tired of talking to them,” said Mark Eastburn, a science, research and engineering teacher at Princeton High School. “It takes time [AI] Put it off-screen and in a physical structure that looks like a friend to help you with whatever you need to do. ”

Students were selected as one of the top three national winners in the Samsung Solve For Tomorrow competition held in April.

AI is now part of students' lives, Eastburn said.

“And that will be when they are in college and also in their career,” he added, “so they learn it earlier, or even earlier, in high school; It’s as good as using it in the right way.”