BY JEFF CHUDZINSKINorth Country This Week

MASSENA -- Could Artificial Intelligence play a role in education?

That was one of the questions raised at a recent Massena Central School District board of education meeting.

Nicole Charleson, district's director of curriculum, instruction and assessment presented her findings, saying that AI has been a hot topic at recent conferences.

"It's coming fast and furious. It's changing the way people interact and technology obviously is right at everyone's fingertips," she said.

Charleson touched on ChatGPT, AI that has been used to draft stories, press releases, essays and even journalistic stories.

She noted that ChatGPT has been blocked from the district's network, saying it was deemed unsafe from a cybersecurity standpoint.

"What we needed to do was almost wait until there was a program that was an educational platform, if you will. It’s our responsibility as a district to make sure that the software and the program that we put in staff’s hands and student’s hands is safe on our network," she said.

While ChatGPT has been deemed a risk to the district, Charleson said there are a number of education-based AI that may benefit the district in the future.

She said after a handful of meetings with companies, SchoolAI was the best fit.

“There are a lot of staff tools that those who have started using it are pretty excited about," she said.

Charleson said the premise is to "interact with AI, to learn about AI, but to also use it to enhance our instructional spaces."

She said SchoolAI is aimed at schools and teachers specifically, having been designed to save time by creating AI-generated emails, lesson plans, quizzes and grading, among other tasks.

During her presentation to the board, Charleson demonstrated many of the tools available in the free version of the program.

Among the many tools available, Charleson demonstrated the generation of a lesson plan, noting that New York State standards can also be added to the lesson plan.

She said the state standards could be added to the science standards for the lesson plan, which would also include the grade level, objectives, Common Core standards and materials that would be needed, among other things.

"So, within what I would say was less than 10 seconds, you have a lesson plan at your fingertips,” she said.

Charleson from there she can edit the document as needed, saving valuable time.

"I can do whatever I want with this lesson plan. Really, the sell here is these are tools that help teachers buy back time so then they can be with their students. That’s the big sell of it," she said.

Charleson said the time saved in creating lesson plans would allow teachers more time to work with their students.

Though the program will be available to all teachers, Charleson said it will be up to each teacher to decide if they want to use it.

She said new education technology may take "some folks using it and liking it and then growing it organically. She said there would be a "natural buy-in" once teachers utilize the program and tell each other about their successes.

She said she hopes that teachers would be open to trying the program.

"We want them to be able to go and explore and see how it can change their instructional environment," she concluded.