The Chaffey Joint Union High School District (CJUHSD) has started giving educators access to “educator accounts” on ChatGPT and Google Gemini. Now, many may ask what the difference is, or what is so special about these educator accounts? Well, for ChatGPT, it provides teachers with unlimited uploads, unlimited text space, and “additional tools” to help grade and plan lessons. For Google Gemini, educator accounts provide increased data privacy, unlimited uploads, and unlimited text. These tools are supposed to lighten a teacher’s workload, making it easier to make and grade assignments.
This, obviously, has been met with mixed feelings, whether it’s coming from students or teachers. Many students believe that this move is unfair because while students aren’t supposed to use AI at all, teachers are being enabled and encouraged to use Google Gemini or ChatGPT. To many, it seems like a double standard; students are frequently reminded that the use of AI in their work can be considered cheating, yet the district is paying for educators to have increased access to it.
While teachers are deciding whether or not they’re going to be using this new and increased access to AI, many students are disgruntled or even furious at this move by the district.
Los Osos High School Senior, Ali Sha, stated that, “I don’t think the teachers should be able to use AI because of the fact the school and the administrators are denying students the right to use AI” Sha’s comments do beg a question: Why are teachers allowed to use AI to help them do their job, while students are being discouraged from using AI?
Sha continued, “Sure, it [AI] can be misused in many ways, but if teachers can use it to make assignments and grade things automatically and put less thought into what assignments are given to students, students should be able to use AI to lessen our workload.”
It makes you have to think about the different ways AI is actually being used: teachers are supposedly using AI to create assignments, grade assignments, and prepare their lessons.
Most of the time, when students are using AI, it isn’t used responsibly, like it is when used by teachers. Most students will just copy and paste their work into ChatGPT and take the answers. That is exactly what’s wrong with AI: it isn’t used properly
“I think that everyone should kind of have access to AI, I don’t think you should turn in work that is just AI either” Said LOHS math teacher Mr. Nakano when talking about AI usage in school.
Nakano continued, “ you know, same with us. If there are teachers that are cutting out certain parts of their job that are supposed to be them and not AI, that isn’t how it should be used. If a teacher is using AI to grade all their student’s papers then I don’t think that’s good because they aren’t building a relationship or figuring out what a student needs help with”
Nakano’s comments shine light on the fact that AI can be misused by both students and teachers, and continue supporting the fact that the software isn’t the issue, the way it is used is.
If there were a way to limit what students used AI for, then maybe the rules would be different. As of now, it is way too easy to fully cheat with AI to be able to let students have full access to it.
So, no matter if you agree with teachers using AI or not, people need to accept the reality that AI is being used every day in every field of work now. If teachers can use ChatGPT or Google Gemini to take some of the stress off their plates, it is a good thing at the end of the day.