Artificial intelligence has arrived in the classro | RSS.com
Diego Mendoza-Moyers: When I graduated high school back in 2013, 17-year-old me would have probably loved having access to ChatGPT, or other AI models that weren’t around at the time. Especially to get me through math homework problems I was usually racing to solve at lunchtime right before class.
But today, that sort of technology that would have seemed like magic a generation ago is now in use in classrooms every day in El Paso, though not evenly across all schools.
And whether students benefit from using artificial intelligence for schoolwork is an open question. I often ask myself how AI will change and shape education by the time my 4-month-old son is starting school in a few years.
I’m not sure what the outcome will be. Maybe AI can truly bolster students’ problem-solving and offer access within an instant to a world of knowledge tailored to each person. Or, are AI models just doing the thinking that students historically have had to do?
In a moment, I’ll talk through those questions and more with El Paso Matters education reporter Claudia Lorena Silva, who has reported recently on how students are using artificial intelligence in El Paso schools, the different approaches to AI across districts and what the upsides and risks are of widespread AI use in education.
First, this El Paso Matters Podcast episode is brought to you by our podcast title sponsor Tawney, Acosta and Chaparro, truck crash and injury attorneys. Their team of local, seasoned trial attorneys are ready to help if you’ve been injured in a crash.
On to our conversation.
Claudia, thanks for joining me.
Claudia Lorena Silva: Yeah, always a pleasure to be here.
Diego: So, we’ll just get into it. What have you learned about how students in El Paso are using artificial intelligence in schools, generally? And I know it kind of varies a lot throughout the city, right?
Claudia: Yeah. Well, I think before we really dive into talking about how the schools use AI, I think we need to explain a little bit about how AI works and what it is.
AI has been around for a while. It’s been used by educators, professionals. And schools have been using similar technology for a very long time.
Now, they never really called it AI until recently. They mostly called them adaptive learning tools. And, really, what’s new for schools and what’s new for most of the world is this new generative AI.
Those programs have the ability to do a lot more. They can generate pictures, they can generate text for you. They can act like it’s a regular person having a conversation. They even collect data from the users, anything that you chat into it, and from all over the internet. So, they can essentially work better and answer their questions better.
Diego: And, so, how are you seeing it across different school districts in El Paso, right? Just the implementation of AI and teaching the use of AI, right?
Claudia: It’s trying to help students understand how to use it, how it works, the ethics around it, potential environmental concerns, how to identify AI. So, when they see a video, teaching them to know like, “Hey, this isn’t a real video. This is an AI video.” And I think most importantly, how to use it responsibly and how to use it while still learning.
I think that’s kind of like the big goal for most of the districts, is if they use AI, they don’t want it to replace the students’ thinking and the students actually doing the work. And, yes, schools are taking vastly different approaches on how they teach AI literacy.
Ysleta ISD, for example, they have a monthly digital citizenship course. And digital citizenship classes, they’re something that all schools have to do. And they’re basically teaching students how to use technology and the internet appropriately, how to take care of their technology and how to navigate the online world, how to be careful and safe, and the type of dangers that exist online. And, so, now they’re starting to integrate AI into these lessons. And, so, they do their monthly course.
Harmony, they basically kind of integrate their digital citizenship classes into their regular curriculum.
Diego: Harmony is a charter school network, right?
Claudia: Right. So, Harmony is a charter school. It’s the second-largest charter school in El Paso. And they’re going to have an interesting approach because starting next year, all their eighth graders are going to take a class that’s completely dedicated to AI literacy.
And Socorro ISD, they also do something similar to what Harmony does now, where they kind of teach students about AI as they go. So, as they’re using technology and the potential of AI comes up, then that’s when they kind of start teaching students about what it is and how it works.
And, obviously, all schools use different programs and different types of tools. Most schools use programs that are specifically designed for educators. And, in K-12 settings, a lot of them have moderation tools. They can only be used in very specific ways. And the teachers can actually see what students are inputting into them and can have control over how they’re used.
Some of the tools that schools are using are actually meant for teachers. I think that those are probably some of the older, first tools that were really implemented. They’re being used to analyze grades and maybe figure out, “Oh, these groups of students are struggling with a certain topic.” So, it kind of helps them figure out maybe what kind of special help certain students might need.
I’ve also had teachers tell me that they use AI to translate documents for their parents who don’t speak Spanish – or, sorry, they don’t speak English and only speak Spanish.
Diego: Yeah. You mentioned, too, you had an example of a teacher using AI to maybe have a reading material sort of vary based on the student’s reading level, right?
Claudia: Yeah. So, there were also some other things that teachers could do with AI that maybe I personally thought was a little more questionable and that maybe some people might raise some concerns about where you can use AI to create curriculum, create assignments. They can – this teacher told me that she used AI to kind of adjust the difficulty level of an assignment.
And, so, I think that there’s different levels of AI use and how intense it is. Some of them may be just in the background and some of them could be an entire assignment generated by AI.
Diego: Do you think that there’s any – well, I’ll ask it this way. What do you think about the fact that students are getting different exposure to AI depending on what school they’re at or what district? Do you think that there’s any sort of side effects of that?
Claudia: Yeah. Well, I think that that’s the result of the lack of guidance from the state. There are several states who have given some sort of guidance or policies to school districts for them to follow when it comes to implementing AI or teaching about AI literacy. So, we’re kind of are seeing the result of that. It’s just everyone is going to be taking different approaches and what they think might work.
And, the reality of this is it’s still kind of an experiment. So, with these different approaches, these different districts are essentially testing to see if their approach works or not. And I think, when we talk about the different approaches, you can also talk about the different tools that students are using.
Like I mentioned, some of the tools are to help writing. Some schools are allowing – or sorry, some districts are allowing students to use chat-based AI models like ChatGPT, and while some others aren’t. So, yeah, you are going to see some students being exposed to the type of model where they can actually have a conversation with their AI, while others are only going to be limited to special tools that just have AI that power them.
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Diego: Yeah. And, so, to that point, like, I think one of the schools that you’ve profiled that maybe was agnostic or just didn’t really tell students they had to use one model or the other is the New Horizons Homeschool Academy. I think they just said, “Hey, you can kind of use whatever AI you want.”
And, so, I just want to segue into sort of your experience with covering New Horizons Homeschool Academy and just kind of – which is a network of private for-profit schools in town. And they’ve kind of promoted the use of AI within their educational program. Just wonder what you made of the school’s approach and just kind of your experience reporting on them?
Claudia: Yeah. Well, New Horizons, it was definitely an interesting experience covering them and getting to visit their school and seeing the type of approach that they take. So, they work differently than any traditional school. They’re a hybrid home school. So, that means that some other students do go in person and some other students do both, and another section just go do schooling completely online.
This private school’s been around for quite a while here in El Paso, for about 20 years. And, they recently started placing on their website that they are kind of integrating AI into some of their lessons. And that’s really what got me interested in them because they’re the first local private school that I’ve seen at least advertising it online. And it is interesting.
Talking to that really raised some conversations that I had with some experts in the education field. There were concerns that because there are no, there is no state guidance already, that there’s going to be even more limited guidance for private schools because they don’t have the networks or connections that some public schools might have. And there’s also concerns with oversight. Public schools have to follow federal and state rules, and a lot of those have to do with privacy.
AI, a lot of those programs, they collect any information that the student may input into the program, and schools need to make sure that all of that data and information stays secured and is within a closed network. So, when a student is able to use any program that isn’t within a closed network, their data becomes accessible to just about anyone who has access to ChatGPT or whatever program they use. And I don’t know if you’re familiar, but ChatGPT data can be accessed by just about anybody.
Diego: Yeah. So, just on New Horizons specifically, what did you make of their approach to AI (that is) kind of maybe a little bit less restrictive, right? “Hey, students are free to use whatever AI program they want,” basically, right? Just wondering what you made of their approach overall?
Claudia: Yeah. So, they didn’t just allow students to use AI however they wanted. So, their approach was to teach students how to use AI as a research tool. Really, the only freedom that they really gave them was, a lot of times, allowing them to choose the subject and choose the program that they want to utilize.
Some experts think that that’s concerning because they don’t have those moderation features that some of the more education-focused programs have. But I think their goal is very similar as the public schools. They want students to learn and just use it as a tool. They want students to use their brain and not rely on AI to do the work for them. I think really the big difference is the method and the programs that they’re using to go about it.
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Diego: Yeah. So that kind of gets into the – one of the big things I want to ask you about is like, as you’ve been reporting on this, I wonder what you see as the upside of AI as an educational tool, right? And maybe also the downsides?
We see that concern of, like, you don’t want students to just outsource all their thinking to AI. But, at the same time, you sort of have this, like, expert assistant available to you at any time on any subject, really, right? And, so – and I’ll just add, like, I can envision – I struggled in pre-cal, right? Maybe, if I would have had access to AI, it could have helped me get through some of the challenges I faced, right? And, so, just curious how you think about the upside of AI as well as the downsides, right?
Claudia: Yeah. Well, there’s really just a lot of unknowns right now. We really don’t know what the benefits of AI are going to be. When we’re talking really about children and their cognitive learning and how well they’re going to perform in tests and in the real world once they go out there and become adults, there’s just a lot of unknowns.
There is some research that has found that AI tools can provide some benefit to students. They can help with just getting certain things done faster. One example of some students where I saw them use AI, they were able to use their – write their own notes. And through those notes, they had AI generate a video for them. So, what that allowed them to do is it allowed them to share their notes with each other in an interactive way that they probably wouldn’t have been able to do before had it not been for that program.
But as far as downsides, I mean, there really are a lot of downsides. You know, having students, you have something available to them where they can offload most of their thinking to, could be quite dangerous. And really what the experts have said right now is it’s really too early to know if AI use is going to be beneficial or detrimental to our students.
What they are recommending is that if you do use AI, that it is something that has a lot of, I guess, moderation features or safety features to make sure that it’s used only in specific ways. A lot of safeguards to make sure that data is protected and that people are just looking at all of these things, because obviously these are children and we’re dealing with their development. It’s not just getting work done efficiently.
Diego: You had one teacher, I think it was Ms. (Kim) Vandagriff, who was basically saying, like, “Students are going to figure this out on their own, or we can kind of help them and guide them in the use of AI and maybe show responsible uses of it” and things like that. And, so, it was an interesting comment to me because it sort of said, like, “Hey, students are going to use AI one way or the other, so we want to try to get them using it correctly.” As opposed to, I think, a few years ago, it was like, “No AI, that’s cheating, don’t use it.”
I just wonder what you made of that comment from that teacher and just generally the shift that has happened in the last few years and schools’ attitude toward AI use? You know what I mean?
Claudia: Yeah, well, I think that she has a really big point to that. AI, I think at this point it’s here to stay. We’re going to see it seep itself even more into every industry and every part of our life. And I think schools really just have to do something to keep up with that. They need to address the fact that AI is something that’s here, that it’s probably going to affect the job market for these children once they graduate and go on to whatever field that they want to go into.
So, I think schools are doing the right thing by exploring it and trying to address it. It’s just one of these issues where we don’t really know what direction we’re going to go next and what the best options are.
Diego: Yeah. And maybe what the long-term impact of AI use is on kids and things like that I think are open questions.
Claudia: Yeah, we really don’t know that yet. So, that’s one of the things that we’re going to be finding out in the next few years.
Diego: Yeah. And just last thing here, Claudia, and you alluded to the job market, but I’m wondering, do you think El Paso teachers should see AI as a potential replacement for them long-term?
Just wondering your thoughts on is there any sort of world in a few years from now (where) AI is kind of replacing teachers, maybe there’s not as many jobs. Just wondering how you think about that? Is AI potentially taking teachers’ jobs, essentially?
Claudia: Yeah. Well, I think that’s been a big conversation that has been popping up recently. I don’t think that El Paso teachers really have anything to worry about. But one of the reasons that I wanted to look into New Horizons and this private school is because there has been this school that’s in the news lately, it’s called Alpha School, and it is a homeschool program that essentially uses AI as the main teacher.
And that’s just been a conversation that has been around a lot in the education world, particularly in the private school realm. Public schools really don’t seem to be interested in shifting over to any type of AI teacher-only model. They really seem to value what teachers bring to the table, the human element, the emotional support that teachers offer.
But we know when we talked to Mrs. (Myrna) Boyer, the leader of the private school, she said that she isn’t looking to use AI as a teacher anytime soon. But it’s not something that’s completely off the table for her. It really, to her, I think it just depends how the technology changes and how education moves going forward.
Diego: Yeah, so that’s interesting. Maybe the public school is less willing to just totally revamp the model, but maybe the smaller private schools are more like, “Hey, you know, we’ll keep this as an option on the table in the future.”
Claudia: I think that they’re more willing to experiment and just more willing to try new things since they don’t have the state oversight and the state restrictions. They just have more freedom to be able to try these things.
And, I think maybe a lot of it is also just they run with a business model where they are attempting to make profit. And that might be just something to note, why it works a little bit different and why they might be trying to try these new things.
Diego: But no Alpha School will be opening up in El Paso anytime soon?
Claudia: Not that I’m aware of. I don’t see any Alpha School opening up in El Paso. But either way, it is an online private school. So, students probably could enroll in it.
Diego: Yeah. Well, it’s an interesting discussion, Claudia. I just wanted to kind of talk it through because I see that, probably within the next few years, we’re just going to see more AI in schools, right? And sort of more application of AI technology in education generally.
And, so, it’s interesting you kind of got this early look at where it’s at. And it seems like, “Oh, we’re not sure.” But it seems inevitable that in five or 10 years, there will be probably even more AI use in schools. Do you think that’s fair to say?
Claudia: I think that’s what it looks like. It’s difficult because there have been conversations also in education about moving away from technology and trying to go back to having kids use paper and pen. But I think just this technology being implemented and then also being supported by our current presidential administration.
I think, right now, we’re just in this big stage of growth and really in 10 years, we just have to wait and see.
Diego: Yeah. We’ll leave it there, Claudia. And we’ll definitely look to you to keep us informed about everything going on in schools and the finance and all that other stuff, but then also the implementation of this technology. So, appreciate your reporting as always.
Claudia: Yeah, it’s my pleasure. Always happy to help. And I know this stuff can be confusing, so I’m glad to add some clarity when I can.
Diego: For sure. We’ll have you back on soon.
The post Podcast: The promise and risks of AI use in El Paso schools appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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