One of the more popular applications is ChatGPT, an AI-powered language model that allows individuals to ask a wide range of questions that the app answers based on automated research of information gathered from the internet.
An incident involving students at Hartselle High School using ChatGPT to complete assignments prompted some teachers and administrators there to start a committee to evaluate the use of AI-generated apps.
"We've had issues come up already with students who were using ChatGPT last spring and other AI text platforms," said Josh Swindall, secondary curriculum coordinator for Hartselle City Schools. "We mainly wanted to get perspective on how AI is affecting the classroom, so that is why we formed the committee."
It's not just a local issue. New York City Public Schools and the Los Angeles Unified School District are among school districts that had banned ChatGPT from their schools, but New York City recently reversed its ban and Los Angeles is working on a more permissive AI policy as the districts seek to balance the benefits and downsides of its use.
Both Hartselle and Morgan County school districts have tolerated the use of text-based AI this year but have become more wary of the advantage it gives dishonest students.
"From a document creation standpoint, we'll have those students work on them in class rather than doing out-of-class assignments," Swindall said.
Morgan County Superintendent Tracie Turrentine said teachers and administrators in her district are using old-fashioned methods to detect AI-generated assignments.
"We see how a student writes on demand in front of us and then compare those over time," Turrentine said. "The verbiage changes a lot if you look at what they write on demand versus what they go home and write (using an AI program). It's a lot different."
However, when students use ChatGPT to solve difficult math equations, school districts are limited in their ability to detect work done by AI.
"We're able to monitor what websites students are visiting when they are at school on our servers," Turrentine said. "But, when they go home or outside of school, we really can't control it."
Turrentine said disciplinary actions will follow if students are improperly using AI in her schools, with the third infraction possibly resulting in a zero for the student's grade.
Morgan County schools currently allow unrestricted use of ChatGPT and other language models on their servers, but Hartselle has restricted use of some of these apps.
"After that happened in the spring, ChatGPT was restricted earlier on," Swindall said. "I don't know about its use now. We do have some AI apps that are restricted."
Conversely, the school districts have seen the benefits of using AI from the standpoint of both teachers and students.
"Right now, we've got teachers who have used ChatGPT for differentiation strategies and for writing samples," Swindall said. "There are endless possibilities we haven't discovered yet."
Morgan County teachers currently utilize ChatGPT to help explain difficult concepts to students.
"It is widely used with coding during computer programming classes," Turrentine said.
Hartselle City school board member Randy Sparkman, who is also the branch manager of IT infrastructure and operations with the NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, has written a book on the subject titled "Language AI: A Guide for Humans."
Sparkman says AI apps will not replace jobs but will instead serve as an assistive technology to help employees better perform their jobs.
"It's not AI that's going to take your job; it's the person that knows how to use AI that will," Sparkman said.
There have been recent discussions on the state level about how AI should be utilized within school districts.
"They need to learn to use AI as a way to fact-check while using it in the right way," said Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur.
Collins, chair of the House Education Policy Committee, said she is working in the Legislature and with the State Board Of Education on requirements that secondary students learn how to use AI as a tool for presentations and reports.
"I've been working on something about positive use of AI on a safe, closed platform that connects teachers, students and parents," Collins said.
©2023 The Decatur Daily (Decatur, Ala.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
