NEENAH (NBC 26) — We're continuing our conversation about ChatGPT in schools. Yesterday we talked with an expert about what he thinks about it.
We also talked with Neenah's I.T. director about how Neenah Joint School District is handling the use of ChatGPT.
Today, we sat down with four Neenah students, to hear what they think.
“I do think it has use, and if it is going to be available technology in the future, I don't think we should draw that line quite yet,” said Elaina Plankey.
“I do think it's a useful learning tool,” said Carson Verhagen.
“I feel like maybe they should make a version for schools,” said Ava Yoblonski.
“I feel like it would be useful to teach in schools just because there is a whole bunch of stuff that you can do with it,” said Timothy Keberlein.
There were some varying opinions about ChatGPT from these members of the Student Technology Team at Neenah High School.
“During robotics, we had a haiku competition, and one of the teams used ChatGPT to write it, and the haiku was the one that won the votes, so I think that was kind of fun,” said Verhagen.
When asked if he thought that was fair, Carson Verhagen said no.
All four students frontline the student technology team for the school's technology help desk.
“We call this group of students our student technology team. They take a course called [the] student help desk,” said Amanda Devries, Instructional Technology Coach. “So, on top of that day-to-day technology support, kind of that frontline for students, the goal of student tech is really to create authentic and genuine learning experiences in the realm of technology.”
As established by speaking with AI experts, in the tech spotlight right now is ChatGPT.
“I've always heard that AI like this is going to be scary, so I was kind of cautious at first because I didn't know how far this would go or what it can do,” said Plankey.
While many say new technology can be scary, these students are taking notice.
One concern that's been brought up is cheating, but Devries says she hopes we can move away from that conversation eventually.
“How can we really leverage this to expand our world of education,” said Devries.
In part one, our expert compared the introduction of ChatGPT to calculators decades ago.
“If you look at when calculators came out decades ago, people were saying, oh they shouldn’t be using a calculator, but you’re going to have a calculator in the workforce, you’re going to have ChatGPT in the workforce, so schools should not ban ChatGPT,” said Fellows.
We told students about Fellow's comparison, and they shared their opinions.
“With calculators, people were initially against it because they didn't know enough about it. I think maybe if we talk about it a little more than we are right now, then we'll be able to advance further,” said Yoblonski.
Although blocked for NJSD student use now, these students see a world where ChatGPT could be used in the classroom one day.
Since technology can change faster than one can write an article, that day might come before graduation day.
