Artificial Intelligence (AI) has grown in popularity in schools all over the country. Here at Edison Intermediate School (EIS), the site Chatgpt is used by students every day to help them with their assignments and essays. Some students see using AI as a great way to study and find quick answers. On the other hand, there are some that think AI is a threat to education and should not be used at all.
AI is a computer program that generates answers for you based on any topic and what you ask. It was first invented in 1950 by Alan Turning but has grown in popularity in the 20th century. AI is now used by over 37.5 million students a day which is approximately 80% of students worldwide. In EIS, 10 out of 10 students claimed that they used AI for their school work. This proves how much AI is used by students, but how much is too much?
From the perspective of students, they see AI as a tool and use it to help them. They can do their own work, and then ask Chatgpt for any other tips. Eighth grade student Carson Cagle said, “I use it for educational purposes only and just as a way to improve my work. I used it to make my work better and to learn more.”
A very controversial use of AI is for essay writing. Students can often feel lost and could use help with their writing, so they go to computer aided learning for assistance. Sixth grader Ethan Goldberg stated what he uses AI for: “I used it to help me improvise part of my essay.”
Although Ethan claims he uses it to improve his work, he explained about how using AI can be a form of cheating, “When AI writes something completely for you it is cheating, but when you use it to help you get better, it is not cheating.”
Before the big platforms like Chatgpt and Google Gemeni were released, students were pretty much forced to come up with everything for schoolwork themselves; if it wasn’t other students that helped them. Eighth grade student Evan Washbourne explained when he started using AI: “I knew about AI in seventh grade, but I only started using it until eighth grade. Now when I need help I use AI to revise my work, but I just used to just look up stuff for help.”
Based on what Evan said, there has always been a way to get help with assignments that wasn’t from teachers or other students. The only difference is, AI looks up sources for you to find information, while you used to have to look through sources to find information. According to Max Technical Training (Max), Artificial intelligence goes through thousands of very fast calculations searching through the internet to generate the best answer possible.
According to Colorado State University Global (CSU Global), each time an AI system goes through a round of data searching, it goes through tests to evaluate its performance to improve its answers. This means that AI improves on its own every time it sends an answer. In the future this can help people in finding the specific information and answers that they need.
One big controversial topic involving AI is cheating. To some, they don’t see it as a form of cheating, but as a form of learning and improving their assignments, but others feel that it is only cheating if you use it in the wrong ways. A sixth grader stated, “ I use AI to get good grades. I used it on the assignment I’m writing right now. I don’t think it’s cheating because we are never going to need what we write in school in real life.”
Sixth grader Aidan Klimaszewski spoke about how AI is cheating, “It depends on what you use it for. It’s cheating when it does work for you.”
From the perspective of teachers, Artificial Intelligence use is a big form of cheating. Eighth grade U.S. History teacher Brian Balaze talked about when he has caught a student using AI: “I have caught students using AI many times, for example in note taking but also for a quiz. There is a place for AI, like helping find an aspect of something, but it shouldn’t be used a lot. I plan to let students use it in the future for certain assignments with my permission.”
Eighth grade English teacher Kimberly Swenson stated, “If I suspect a student has modified an assignment using AI, I usually leave a note in Google Classroom for the student. I say that the amount of sophistication is too advanced for their level. After I leave that note, I ask them if they used AI. Usually they are honest, and I let them redo the assignment.”
Mrs. Swenson is part of the Westfield AI Think Tank that works with Superintendent Raymond Gonzalez to figure out how best to incorporate artificial intelligence into the classroom.
So now that you have heard about the perspective of many different people in EIS, what do you think about AI?
Chelsea and Sofia • Apr 23, 2025 at 1:02 pm
They worked very hard, and the article is great. Chelsea and Sofia recommend it.