U-46 may let 1,000 staff members try out ChatGPT Edu for free

In November, up to 1,000 U-46 School District Staff could use the Open AI Chatgpt Edu to do educational and operational work for free.

The members of the U-46 School Board provisionally accepted the 13-month and cost agreement on Monday evening and should officially approve it at their meeting on October 20.

“Our initial proposal came with a cost of around $ 400,000 for 4,000 licenses,” said assistant superintendent of the investigation Lela Majstorovic on the board of directors.

“A few weeks ago, after sharing an updated presentation with the Board of Education, Open IA contacted our team here and invited U-46 to join its early access program, which was a program that has only been offered 20 school districts across the country.”

A working group of the AI ​​U-46 explored the means to integrate AI into the work carried out by teachers and administrators, said Majstorovic, which gives the district a way to explore what they can do in a safe, structured and free manner. All data would remain secure and held by the district and protected against use in the formation of AI models, she said.

The working group tested Chatgpt Edu and Google Gemini progressed from January to April and chose Chatgpt Edu, according to meeting documents. The group has also gathered directives for using AI and a course to ensure responsible use of AI by teachers and staff.

“Our objective is to start this partnership with the granting of 1,000 licenses as a pilot to various groups of people in the district, representing various levels, programs, both educational staff as well as operational staff,” said Majstorovic.

“We were working with them and collects comments. Of course, they should first take our AI 101 course to get access. They should agree to provide comments during a three -month period. ”

Once the trial period completed, Majstorovic, Director of Information Services, Jim Wolf and coordinator of strategic initiatives, Rola Tarek Mohamed would examine the data collected to determine if and how the additional staff would have access.

The Open AI would offer training to staff members who will then be accused of training other staff members.

In terms of confidentiality and information protection, the data that U-46 puts in the system could be viewed by Open IA, but they would not have access to it or the possibility of using it, Wolf said.

“We explain to all those you do not put any IPI – personally identifiable information – in the model,” he said. “Even if it is classified, we never want to put the personal information of the students, the personal information of the teachers, the personal information of the staff member in the model for these reasons.”

Kate Thomme, a member of the board of directors, said that she had recently checked the free online chat GPT version at work and that she could see the advantages.

“This last week and a half, I hit a number of different things and I was able to get very good things,” said Thomme. “Most of that was not 100%perfect, but it saved me a lot of time because it gave me a very nice base.

“I liked it. I think our teachers will be very successful if they will follow the rules and guidelines you are talking about. ”

Mike Danahey is an independent journalist for Courier-News.