Hear:
School has started again for students in the Tampa Bay Area. This year, artificial intelligence is being used in many classrooms.
A professor at the University of South Florida is trying to make it even easier for teachers to use AI.
Professor Zafer Unal of USF St. Petersburg was curious to see how teachers use AI in the classroom.
So he conducted a study of 140,000 participants among 12 teachers in Florida and Georgia and asked them how they use the software.
“We expected negative feelings, but the results of the survey were completely different. They were fundamentally open to the use of AI and stated that they use it daily for their personal tasks.”
Unal says he feared teachers would be wary of the use of AI, but says they have embraced it.
“It’s like a calculator you have in your classroom, that’s all. It’s a tool, that’s all. It’s just meant to make daily tasks easier for teachers and students.”
This is how he came up with the idea for TeacherServer. It offers free AI tools to help teachers plan, assess, prepare, research, and more.
“Let’s say you are unfamiliar with this topic. It will first teach you something and then help you teach your students by designing student work for tomorrow’s lesson.”
Currently, the site has over 61,000 users. Approximately 64.8% of users are from Florida.
Unal is applying for grants for the program. He hopes that it can be expanded in the future to include image, video and audio features. He also wants to expand the site and add resources for college and high school students in the future.
