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A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom

(www.theatlantic.com)
222 points dougb5 | 4 comments | 04 Sep 25 02:37 UTC | HN request time: 0.002s | source
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djoldman ◴[04 Sep 25 21:36 UTC] No.45132499[source]▶
Unfortunately, this kind of story will continue to be a popular one in newspapers and magazines, garnering lots of clicks. It feeds into the "everything is different now" sort of desperate helplessness people seem primed to adopt with respect to AI sometimes.

Obviously the answer to testing and grading is to do it in the classroom. If a computer is required, it can't connect to the internet.

Caught with a cellphone, you fail the test. Caught twice you fail the class.

The non-story beatings will continue until morale and common sense improve.

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ethbr1 ◴[04 Sep 25 22:17 UTC] No.45132869[source]▶
If substantially changing school device and testing policies is required by new technology, doesn't that mean everything is different now?
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chrisco255 ◴[04 Sep 25 22:42 UTC] No.45133060[source]▶
As far as I can remember phones were not allowed in class and testing was generally done on paper. College was a lot more lax about this stuff than K-12 was. But colleges could and should proctor their exams more strictly.
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ethbr1 ◴[04 Sep 25 22:49 UTC] No.45133118[source]▶
No phones in class, at scale and enforced, feels like a last 5 years thing in K-12. And the trend was very much towards increased digital testing, pre-LLM.

This is pivoting back to paper-based, but it's going to be as messy and slow of a transition as the no-mobile-device one was.

Especially given how much money there is in "AI".

And hamfistedly-handed, will likely leave another generation fucked over with regards to basic education (like the predatory social+mobile adoption before regulation did previously).

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1. kevinventullo ◴[04 Sep 25 23:23 UTC] No.45133363[source]▶
I attended high school in the US in the early 00’s and cell phones were absolutely banned from classrooms. You could keep them in your locker and use them between classes, but that was it.

I attended college in the late 00’s, and I don’t think I took a single digital exam. Quizzes, sure, but for final exams even CS was pencil and paper (or a final project, which admittedly will have issues in the post-LLM era).

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2. ethbr1 ◴[05 Sep 25 01:06 UTC] No.45134008[source]▶
They were technically banned in my school in the 00s as well, but it wasn't enforced. Teachers often have bigger concerns than quiet kids.

I'd love for someone from the 10s to chime in, as that seemed the heyday of unchecked social media use.

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3. piperswe ◴[05 Sep 25 01:22 UTC] No.45134139[source]▶
I was in high school in the late 2010s. No cell phones allowed during most of class time, and it was somewhat enforced. I definitely recall students being chewed out for having their phones out in class, but I also recall some students having their phones out with no repercussions.
4. Calavar ◴[05 Sep 25 01:48 UTC] No.45134268[source]▶
I was also in high school in that time period and had a similar experience. As I recall it, pretty much every student had a phone by 2007ish (flip phones back then), and using a phone in class was grounds to have it confiscated for the day and get a detention. This was absolutely enforced.

My college experience was similar to yours as well. All exams were paper (often blue books). Having a phone out would get you kicked out of the exam hall. But by the time I did med school, it was all digital.