EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first in a series of stories that looks at the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on local education.
The arrival of artificial intelligence (AI) is not the first time that educators have had to adopt and adapt to new technology.
Yankton High School (YHS) Principal Todd Dvoracek, a member of the Yankton School District (YSD) Technology Committee, told the Press & Dakotan that, in his opinion, AI — technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem solving, decision making, creativity and autonomy, according to technology company IBM — is here to stay in modern society, including at YHS.
“It’s a revolution of new technology, no different than when the Internet came out (and) no different than when the pencil and paper came out,” Dvoracek said. “Now, there are things that we’re learning every day, so there’s nobody that’s going to be an expert on this. That’s what’s neat about these things — we learn this as our students (learn this). Sometimes, our students are ahead of us on it, and that’s OK because they can help teach.”
He said YHS has staff members at many different levels when it comes to figuring out how to integrate new technological tools — such as AI — into curriculum requirements.
“I don’t expect them to all be at the same spot, but it’s also you have to be able to explore it, look through it (and) find what you’re comfortable with doing,” Dvoracek said. “It’s a tool in a toolbox. If you leave the tool unused, you’re never going to get to what you want to do with it, so you’ve got to be able to use it and explore to see what you can do with it.”
Those YHS staff members include teachers of different generations working together to learn how to best use AI in the classroom as they educate their students.
“That’s no different than any other initiative that we’ve done,” Dvoracek said. “There’s collaboration, and there’s going to be times that you try something and it didn’t work, and that’s OK.”
Within AI, there are many existing tools to assist educators with accelerating their work in the classroom and making them more efficient. In addition, there are AI bots that can evaluate students’ schoolwork, generate plans for lessons, write reading passages, create quizzes and tests, and design images, among other tasks.
For career and technical education at YHS, YSD acquired a new fiber laser cutter earlier this year with the help of a Perkins Reserve Grant. The machine, which uses AI, cost $60,000, and there was a $15,000 discount, though it had to be shipped from China. In all, this piece of technology cost YSD $45,000.
The laser cutter quickly and efficiently slices through metal, including steel and aluminum. With this machine, one YHS student earlier this year was able to create an automotive part needed for a project in about 15 minutes total from AI planning to output. Meanwhile, the old YHS plasma cutting torch did not make nearly as precise and clean a cut — and took two class periods to make the same part.
“What we’re doing is we’re downloading an image and saying, ‘Tweak this image like this,’ and letting (AI work on) that image,” Dvoracek said. “Let’s just say that you’re making something and you want to put in ‘Dvoracek’ underneath it, like a little sign, with the laser cutter. (AI) is doing that. We’re then downloading that image, putting that image into the computer and then it cuts it out. It’s pretty awesome. It’s worked pretty slick.”
He said YHS staff members have done a “fantastic job” with embracing AI as a tool to use in the classroom.
“It depends on how you’re using it as a tool,” Dvoracek said. “I love English teachers, and they’re great, and they’re passionate. Sometimes they’re not a big fan of AI because of the (potential for) copying (and) plagiarizing.”
He said critics of AI will say students will just use the technology to cheat and have it do all of the work on assignments where AI can be helpful instead of doing the tasks themselves.
“If you’re a naysayer of AI, you’re saying, ‘Well, you can just copy it in, and it’s not your own work,’” Dvoracek said. “Well, what have we been doing for ages now with the Internet? We look something up online for an idea or what that (something) is. It’s not our own work. We look to get some suggestions from a website or a different company or a different school. It’s putting our ideas together and then getting an output that makes it our own. That’s what’s important about whatever type of technology that we use. …
“If you’re on the negative side, it could be used for cheating,” he said. “Well, let’s look back. Cheating has taken place since copying the things right out of a book and writing it down word for word. That happened when the invention of the pencil took place. That happened with the Internet’s copy-and-paste function. Copy-and-paste was a tool, but we had to teach people the tool of ‘You can’t just copy and paste things to make it somebody else’s.’ It’s plagiarism, so we’ve got to teach our students and make that a well-known fact.”
He said AI can be a useful tool for students if they are taught to utilize it responsibly.
“We’ve got to be able to teach it,” Dvoracek said. “The argument is sometimes you don’t know (AI) because it’s evolving every day. That’s why it’s OK to explore. There are going to be things that we learn along the way. That’s what’s so great about the autonomy of all that.”
Among the different uses for AI are using a voice recorder integrated with the technology during a meeting and having the meeting summarized in notes created by AI.
“It’s going to take notes for me, so I can go back and review those meetings,” Dvoracek said. “What a fantastic tool — and that’s great for everybody. Now, the thing is that, like I said, you think that you can just have AI write a paper for you, copy it and paste it. Can that be done? Absolutely it can be done. But as (we’re) teaching (students how to use AI properly), we have to be able to work through the process of it. If we work with everybody through the process of what our expectations are, the step-by-step, then we’re all learning together. That’s a good thing. That’s something that we want to be able to do.”
He said AI is “something that we need to embrace” in education.
“It’s a tool to use,” Dvoracek said. “It doesn’t have to be used, but it’s here and it’s going to be used. … It’s exciting, it’s a little scary, it’s a little bit of everything. There’s going to be something new that comes along all the time. How do we embrace it?”