By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
Ever since the creation of the wheel in the fourth millennium BC, the conception of the printing press in the 15th century and the creation of penicillin in 1928, human history has been charted on a course of innovation; the field of education has not been exempt from this progress. From blackboards and chalk to each student receiving their own Google Chromebooks, Barren County Schools sought out the newest technology and incorporated it into the classrooms for the benefits of the district’s students. This is the case with the rise of artificial intelligence.
According to Scott Harper, the district has been looking into the new technology to learn how to use it for the benefit of their schools, their staff, their parents, their students and their community.
“As (artificial intelligence) becomes more prevalent and integrated into the norm of society, we want our teachers and students to be prepared for the next level, and as with anything, we know that knowledge is key,” Harper said.
Harper said the district was accumulating knowledge of AI from sources that celebrate and criticize the new technology to “keep up to date with trends and opinions in the education field, and educate ourselves on AI and the implications for education.” One of the first “relevant sources” they aggregated was to follow Donnie Piercy, Kentucky Teacher of the Year.
“Mr. Piercy shared several posts with articles and ideas for using AI in his writing instruction at his elementary school,” Harper said in an email. “Several comments and resources led our team to begin bookmarking articles (and) accessing additional information to share with our staff.”
After the initial dive into relevant persons and articles, the district set up a “district wide professional learning session” on Aug. 7 at the Trojan Academy. According to Harper, the session featured roughly 100 items on various topics from different writing styles and tone to citation style and their uses.
One of the optional sessions featured AI and its impact and accessibility uses. The session was hosted by a national presenter from Ohio named ErCurts.
“The session focused on what AI is and what it is not, offered tools for use in the classroom to aid in instruction and learning, and allowed staff to ask questions about products like ChatGPT, Bard and others,” Harper said.
Currently, with the technology being so new, the district hasn’t noticed any major impact on its curriculum. The main push right now, Harper said, was to educate people on how to use it positively. Unlike some universities and educational institutions, he said, the focus is not on removing assignments — like paper requirements that could be written by AI applications like Chat GPT — but on adapting them.
“I think the biggest thing is letting people know that this technology is out there so…it does make you think ‘how could we change an assignment?’ so that if AI is an issue it’ll have less of an impact,” Harper said.
“Our focus has really been on educating our folks…so it’s not something they’re unaware of or afraid of. That they are able to use it, explore it and look at resources they can use in their classroom.” he added.
In the end, Harper said they are working to showcase the positive side of AI like its usefulness in generating possible paper topics or its use in critiquing students’ work.
“We know the impact of technological advances will continue to shape our classrooms just as the invention of calculators, computers, and even chalk have done over the decades,” Harper said.
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