Ai in the classroom.

 Should AI be used in the classroom? How and to what extent should it be used? 

AI is gaining popularity and is already being used by many students, so I've been thinking about how—and whether—I should incorporate it into a K-3rd-grade classroom. I looked into a couple AI tools to see how they might be used. 

Grammarly- 

    Grammarly is an extension for Chrome that checks grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Over a paywall, it is able to suggest rewritten sentences to make them more concise or clear. But the free version essentially proofreads for grammatical errors. Once a student knows grammar rules, I think this tool would be incredibly helpful for speeding up the writing process or for the final proofreading of a paper. However, in a K-3rd-grade classroom, where the goal would be for the students to understand and use grammar, a tool that simply fixed mistakes would not be beneficial. It could be cool to use Grammarly after teaching and practicing a grammar lesson as some kind of game. You could put Grammarly on the board and insert student sentences to check for mistakes; that way, the students would already have gotten hands-on experience before being exposed to AI tools. 

Khanmigo-

    Khanmigo is built into Khan Academy as an AI tutor. It has various options for tutoring in different subjects. And leads the student to the answer by asking questions. It is built to not just give out answers but to help students grow in their understanding. I appreciate that this AI seems to be made specifically for learning. This could be a useful tool in the classroom as long as it doesn't replace teacher instruction or hands-on learning. Since it is a tutor of sorts, that would be the best use for it. Khanmigo could provide extra assistance when students are outside the classroom, but the majority of instruction should come from the teacher. 

AI could be very useful, but students are using it more and more, and the worry is that if they use it too much they would become dependent and not actually learn the material. Keeping class attention would also be difficult, minimizing the teacher's role. Why would students listen if AI can do their homework? 

To prevent this, we should teach students that AI should only be used to revise or help with already completed work.  AI is out there, and students have access to it already, so teaching students to use it responsibly will become necessary. 

Reflection:

 When researching AI resources I tried to look for ones that were specialized for a specific subject rather than something like Gemini, which has access to anything on Google. I think the only AI that should be used in class are ones that are education-focused, that way they are more reliable and don't just give answers. I could see myself using both Grammarly and Khanmigo in class. I actually really liked Khanmigo; it is programmed to not be misused as AI often is. I think this would be a great resource for kids who might not be able to afford a tutor. 

I confirm that this post was written by me without using AI-generated text. Any AI tools used were for research, brainstorming, or editing assistance only.