ChatGPT: Is It really that bad?

Using ChatGPT in school can be very controversial. Many people know it as something that is used to cheat, something where you don’t have to think about what you write. But can it be used for good?

Student teacher Lena Brockway explained how she uses it to help her set up lesson planning.

She uses AI to begin sketching out “the spacing of the lesson plans, how long something will take, and the order I want to put it in. Sometimes I know what the objective is, but I’m not too sure about an appropriate activity and also a matching assessment,” she said.

Even though Brockway is a teacher, she still believes that students should be able to use ChatGPT to be able to give themselves that little push of creativity to get them started on their writing.

A student that uses it for creative inspiration is senior Amani Brown. She uses it when writing something for fun and she needs a prompt or a topic to write about.

When it comes to school, Brown talks about how she personally doesn’t use AI as much unless it comes to yearbook to help inspire her to think of headlines.

“I think that you can and can’t [use AI] because if you are using it to write your essays or to do your homework, then you shouldn’t be using it. But in some cases where you are using it for inspiration and stuff like that, then as long as you don’t copy and paste it, I think you should be allowed,” said Brown.

English teacher Abigail Dace disagrees, believing students shouldn’t use AI at all.

“There is a fine line for using Chat GPT for good and for evil, but only if you know how to use it,” she said. “It is very difficult to think of an example of when a student could use it because when you are in high school it is your job to give us your thoughts and your ideas.”

Dace thinks that even if students are using AI for inspiration, that is still considered not their own ideas because they are technically still stealing AI’s ideas.

But, “As a teacher, I feel more comfortable using it [AI] because I’ve graduated high school and I’ve learned how to use it for good,” she added.

She uses it to be able to make her students more engaged in her lesson plans, as well as to differentiate materials. If she knows a class is at a higher or lower reading level, she can plug an article into AI and adapt it for each student.

So next time you open ChatGPT, think to yourself, are you using it to inspire you to the next level or to finish your late homework that you don’t want to do? It’s all about how you use it.