Chatting About Chat GPT
students at Blue Valley share their opinions about the AI program
Virtual College Tours Effectively Further Education
senior shares outlook on the new digital way of touring schools
In the current society, people can’t go far without the use of a digital device. Especially since COVID, the world’s online activity has skyrocketed. Now, most Universities and colleges offer virtual tours for prospective students. Many seniors at Blue Valley High have taken advantage of this new way to research their future school. One of these seniors is Molly James, who has gone on more virtual college tours than in-person ones.
James said, “[A virtual tour] definitely gives you a sense of the campus. I did WashU, University of Richmond, Duke, Simpson, and Loyola on a virtual tour. They kind of gave me a sense of would I like it here, is it nice, [and] are the vibes right.”
One of the reasons James chose to look into colleges virtually was due to the cost.
“A lot of schools [I want to go] to aren’t nearby,” she said. “Traveling is expensive, and it just seems a better way for me to do the tour process.”
Some may argue that there is no better experience than physically walking around the college, but James has no regrets about choosing to learn about colleges virtually.
“I don’t wish I didn’t do in-person for those colleges because I think it would have just been impossible with my schedule to get there. And you know, pay for the flights, hotels, [and] whatever.”
Compared to the two in-person tours she has done, James still prefers to do virtual.
“I think the virtual tours accomplished the same thing that the in-person tours did. And a lot of times they were even more resourceful because they would have links to go check out other things if you’re interested,” she said. “[Also], if there was something you wanted to hear about or skip, you could do that. But with a real tour, you can’t just like skip a person.”
James said she would recommend virtual tours to others searching for colleges.
“It’s easy. It’s fast. You can stop it whenever you want– it’s not a commitment at all. [And] like I said, there’s extra permalinks that give you [extra] information. I think a Pro is also the affordability of it.”
She then shared what students may not like about it.
“You don’t get that personal interaction with the person that gives you the tour. And you also don’t get to ask questions, which is something I found myself doing a lot on in-person tours. I also think the in-person tours are more genuine because they come from an actual student who’s doing the information giving. Whereas virtual tours [are] a little bit of ‘well of course they say their food programs good’ or ‘of course they say this place is beautiful.'”
However, James was still thankful for the virtual option. She said that if that was not an option, students’ education would be restricted to their immediate surroundings. She also explained that they would have to take risks when paying thousands of dollars for a faraway college they were unsure about.
James said, “I think that [only having in-person tours] would limit people more locally because it’d be harder to know if you really like a school out of state, [where] it tends to be more expensive. And you wouldn’t have the opportunity to expand your horizons to other places, just because [distance] was one of the factors.”
3D Printing, A Creative Tool To Learn
Avenues of Education
student uses technology to learn new skills
The increase and enhancement of technology in the classroom has provided students with new opportunities for classes and learning topics, such as the Media Productions course offered at BVH. Currently enrolled in that course, freshman Henry Fritz is an advocate for exploring these avenues of education.
Media Productions covers many uses for technology including photography and editing– Fritz’s favorite parts.
“The coolest part about it is learning the camera and how it works,” he said. “You always just feel cool holding this massive camera [and] learning all the different buttons on it.”
Fritz believes that this class will help him in the future.
He said, “Editing is definitely going to become handy because later down the line I want to put together some short videos and stuff. [This] will definitely help me with that.”
In addition to classes specifically designed to focus on learning with technology, general education classes like English and History are beginning to rely more on technology. Fritz sees this, too, as beneficial for students and teachers alike.
“It’s a lot easier for teachers to keep track of their syllabus and their grading systems,” he said, “And when you have a lot of [physical] papers, they’re everywhere.”
Despite the benefits to organization, the primary argument against the integration of technology in schools is the worry that students will cheat, and everyone involved will begin to get lazy. However, there’s an answer to these issues as well.
“Students might be more prone to cheat,” Fritz said. “But there are a lot of measures on Canvas and Securely that prevent using AI or even trying to switch tabs while taking tests.”
He also doesn’t believe that technology is making students or teachers lazy, but Fritz does say that it makes tasks increasingly easy.
“I don’t think they’re being more lazy about work, but it’s definitely [gotten] a lot easier to just copy and paste something into a doc, instead of printing off these worksheets,” he said.
Overall, Fritz believes that technology is changing academics for the better, making people more organized, and improving the quality of learning for students everywhere.
“I think [technology] improves [the quality of learning] by giving the students a medium to learn,” Fritz said. “Playing games and using that technology to learn, like GimKit and Kahoot.”
