Whitley County Professional Development - 2026

Handout for Today's Session - AI Workshop 2026 - Sims & Logan

PowerPoint Presentation - AI Workshop 2026 - Sims & Logan

Information and Links Referenced

• Brown Professor Suspects Most of His Class Used AI to Cheat - Inside Higher Ed
• The Strange Truth About Today's Most Powerful AI - Space Daily (Editorial)
• How Humanity Has Always Feared Change - Are You Afraid of Artificial Intelligence? - Being scared of change is nothing new.
• What is ChatGPT doing... and why does it work? - Stephen Wolfram
• Brain on LLM - MIT Study - From the conclusion: "As we stand at this technological crossroads, it becomes crucial to understand the full spectrum of cognitive consequences associated with LLM integration in educational and informational contexts. While these tools offer unprecedented opportunities for enhancing learning and information access, their potential impact on cognitive development, critical thinking, and intellectual independence demands a very careful consideration and continued research."
• Perplexity's Comments on Future Students - Generated from prompt given to Perplexity AI: "Put on your thinking cap (or your wizard's hat) and prognosticate for me -- are all of the AI tools available to students in 2026 going to make them smarter and better prepared for life in 10 years? Or are they going to make them dumber and less prepared?"
• AI Assessment Scale - "The AI Assessment Scale (AIAS) was originally developed by Mike Perkins, Jasper Roe, Leon Furze and Jason MacVaugh in response to the rapid emergence of generative AI in education. The project began from a concern that students and educators needed a clearer, fairer and more practical basis for understanding when and how AI could be used in formative and summative tasks, and how these could be designed to account for the new GenAI reality. The AIAS has since been further developed through research, institutional implementation, sector feedback and international use."

School AI Sites - Individualized Tutoring/Studying

• https://www.kuraplan.com/us/ - KuraPlan (AI Tutoring and Study Site)
  • Create lesson plans, slideshows, worksheets, images and more using AI trained on Common Core standards
• https://app.magicschool.ai/auth/signin - Magic School (AI Tools for Teachers)
• https://www.khanmigo.ai/ - Khanmigo from Khan Academy ($4/month)
• https://schoolai.com/ - School AI (designed for District Licensing; KS used a 30-day PRO trial with a UC Microsoft account)
• https://grammarly.com/ - Grammarly (Free and Paid), AI writing assistant including grammar, spelling, and plagiarism checking.

AI - Energy, Water and Environment

• CBS News - How Much Water Does AI Use? - "The heaviest demand on America's water isn't data centers or AI. It's from everyday uses such as growing food, watering lawns and flushing toilets."
• MIT Sloan - AI Has High Data Center Energy Costs, There Are Solutions - "AI workloads have sent data center emissions skyrocketing. An MIT expert details ways to reduce energy use and promote sustainable AI."
• MIT Technology Review - AI Energy Usage and Climate Footprint - The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn't tracking and consider where it's heading next.

Other Sources used for the Presentation

• Liang, W., Yuksekgonul, M., Mao, Y., Wu, E., & Zou, J. (2023). “GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers.” Patterns, 4(7).
• “Faster Completion, Less Learning: Generative AI Reduced Study Time on Math Problems and the Knowledge They Build” (2026), arXiv preprint.
• “Beware of Metacognitive Laziness: Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence on Learning Motivation, Processes, and Performance” (2024), arXiv preprint.
• OECD Digital Education Outlook 2026, OECD Publishing.
• Leon Furze — practical writing on generative AI in K–12 English and assessment: leonfurze.com.