Eventually there will be a formal policy on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for students, teachers and staff in Waukegan Community Unit School District 60, as administrators have begun to look at its many uses.
Eduardo Cesario, the district’s deputy superintendent of academic support and programs, said before there is a policy, administrators will provide significantly more information to give those involved a thorough understanding of the benefits and the challenges.
Josue Cuevas, the district’s associate superintendent of information technology, said AI is nothing new but it has become exponentially more sophisticated in recent years with the ability to potentially be used to do a student’s homework.
Cuevas said AI is the simulation of human intelligence processed by machines that analyzes data, recognize patterns and make decisions with minimal intervention. In some ways, it started with the calculator. Now people verbally ask questions and an electronic device answers.
“At that time, there were a lot of concerns. Are students going to learn how to add, subtract, multiply and divide,” Cuevas said, referring to the calculator. “With Siri and Alexa, we give it voice commands and the device executes instructions.”
Cesario and Cuevas gave the District 60 Board of Education an overview of the possibilities artificial intelligence can offer to enhance education Tuesday at the Lincoln Center administration building in Waukegan.
One of the next steps will be the formation of a committee consisting of teachers, students and staff members. Cesario said he hopes the committee is formed and operating soon. Cuevas said AI is already in use with some members of the school community.
“Teachers are already using AI,” Cuevas said. “It can help with grading automation. It can offer feedback on student’s assignments, saving teachers time. The teacher is going to be an important part of students being able to take advantage of artificial intelligence.”
Though AI can do more and more things electronically — including tutoring students in foreign languages, creating educational games to promote learning and retention, as well as giving youngsters study tips — Cuevas said there is one thing it will not do.
“Artificial intelligence will not replace a human being,” Cuevas said. “Always, you will need a human being to configure this and understand how to leverage the different techniques you can use with AI.”
Ensuring artificial intelligence is used in a fair and equitable manner is one of the challenges the committee will undertake when it is formed. Cuevas said equity and assuring students use AI properly will be part of the overall policy when it is adopted by the board,
“We must ensure AI technology benefits all students regardless of social, economic status or special needs,” Cuevas said. “AI needs to be customized, and AI needs to be monitored so we’re helping all students.”
Board member Christine Lensing said she is concerned about AI platforms like ChatGPT which allows anyone, including students, to verbally tell the computer what it wants. ChatGPT can write a paper or create art that may already be in circulation.
“When you put in a prompt, (the platform) is looking at everyone’s knowledge it has access to and it forms that information,” she said. ‘It takes pictures and images that artists should be paid for and creates a new image. That’s unethical.”
Cesario said dealing with the opportunity for students to use ChatGPT to write a paper or create an artistic image is one of the things that needs to be part of a policy. Cheating using technology is no different that other forms of dishonesty.
“That’s part of the ethical considerations,” Cesario said. “Those are pieces we still have to talk about. That is a very serious one to consider. There needs to be ethical consideration for students for plagiarism, for stealing art.”