Oct 
Friends of Vocational Technical & Agricultural Education,
We are excited to share this piece, from WPRI.
David
Can artificial intelligence be helpful in school?
by: Kait Walsh
FALL RIVER, Mass. (WPRI) — Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the classroom has been a major topic for the past few years.
At schools like Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School in Fall River, students have two weeks in the classroom and then two weeks in the shop.
“We used to call a student a good mechanic. The nickname was he’s a good wrench,” Superintendent Brian Bentley said. “In other words, they could do things with the hand tools.”
To properly prepare students for their trade, faculty at Diman know they have to keep up with the times.
“Now you have to be a good diagnostician and understand the computer programming behind the car so that you can diagnose the problem and then make the change,” Bentley said.
AI is even transforming the most hands-on shops.
“Even in metal fabrication and welding, robotics has come into play inside the program and advanced manufacturing, which is machine tool technology,” Bentley explained. “You have to know how to run a CNC and program a CNC as opposed to work on a lathe all day to make a part and mill it down the correct way.”
Debbie Boscombe, the department head of the programming and web development program, said AI can be helpful.
“It can’t be a replacement for thinking, but to be used as a tool for deeper thinking is where our focus is,” she said.
The program can accept 80 students — 20 in each grade — and Boscombe has spearheaded the relatively new shop since its inception.
“We had our first graduates at the end of 2021,” Boscombe said.
Her students have gone on to study computer science or cybersecurity in college, some even utilizing AI at their co-ops in their senior year at Diman.
“There’s a problem in the code, they can use AI as a sounding board and say, ‘So I’ve got this program and I’m trying to do X, but it keeps crashing at this point, what should I be looking at to help me solve the problem?’” she explained. “So, if you look at it as a tool, they have to be taught how to use it as a tool so they can get the best results out of it.”
A setback of AI is when students stop thinking for themselves, but as educators, their goal is to prepare their students for the real world, which AI is very much a part of.
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