ALDEN, NY (WKBW) — As this week marks News Literacy Week across the U.S., students at Alden Central High School are integrating artificial intelligence into its classrooms, especially in their multi-media learning.
In an English class, students were holding discussions about how they are using AI.
“If I had to Google every single one, it would have taken me two hours,” one student said.
Their teacher is making sure AI is being used to enhance their learning experiences, particularly in English and multimedia classes. They are using it for regular schoolwork and projects.
"You can't really avoid it...you can't put your head in the sand," said Colin Dabkowski, an English and multimedia teacher at Alden High School.
Dabkowski expressed both excitement and caution about the new technology. He told me it can be daunting at times.
“We're in like the wild west now," explained Dabkowski. "We're all testing the boundaries and rules of what this means.”
AI does bring in some challenges and ethical issues within a classroom, but they should be addressed before using it in the school.
“You're not going in there saying CHATgpt write this essay for me,” Dabkowski asked his students.
“No”, a student replied.
“But more like…I wrote this...how can improve it,” Dabkowski asked.
“So, some kids are going to push the envelope pretty far," Dabkowski described. "Some kids are going to accidentally use it in ways that weren't quote-unquote approved, but I think that's all okay as long as we can have open discussions about what this means and how learning is changing."
"I always just comb through it and make sure everyone's names are spelled right,” said Corinne Bishop.
Bishop demonstrated how AI is used in her multimedia classes where students produce their own news stories and newscasts.
“To use it obviously because it is easy," Bishop said. "It can save a lot of time, but when you are working on important projects and especially when I’m quoting people in the articles, I especially want to go back and check than just to make sure it's not getting important things wrong."
Some students, like Gwendolyn Krieb see AI as an inevitable part of the future.
"It's going to be everywhere and rather than shying away from it and being scared, that it might be considered cheating in some respects, I think it's better to learn how to use it the correct way," Krieb said.
I asked Lilly Bromstead how she felt about it.
"Do you worry about people using it to cheat for stuff?” I asked.
“Classes outside of English I would say no, but English yes because that's very much so writing and stuff like that, but in multimedia productions, not really,” Bromstead replied.
However, there are concerns about the repetitive nature of AI-generated content and a lack of the human side.
"Sometimes it is very repetitive," Krieb said. "It uses a lot of the same words and phrases that you can tell are just like 'ChatGPTisms'...that you have to humanize and edit."
"Sometimes it’s just very automated answers, especially like if you ask it to write you something, sometimes it is not humanized at all,” Bromstead said.
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
