Long Island school districts begin to navigate use of generative AI in classrooms

Long Island Morning Edition

The use of generative AI, such as chatbots and image generators that create content, has grown in schools. In some Long Island districts, more teachers are using these programs to help craft lesson plans, design classroom activities and grade certain assignments, educators said.

Concerns of misuse remain, as some worry that such tools could undercut student learning. Dandan Zou reports in NEWSDAY that a quarter of U.S. teachers say AI tools do more harm than good in K-12 education, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted last fall. About a third say there’s an equal mix of benefit and harm, while another 35% say they are not sure.

Even those in support of AI caution that such tools could undercut student learning if their use goes unchecked. But the potential misuse, some argue, underscores the need to teach students how to navigate an ever-changing digital landscape ethically and productively.

Nationwide, nearly 1 in 5 K-12 teachers reported using AI for teaching and another 15% have tried it at least once, according to a survey conducted last fall by Rand, a research nonprofit headquartered in Santa Monica, California. About three quarters of teachers who already use AI said they expected to use these tools more in the future.

Sy Doan, a policy researcher at Rand who co-authored the survey findings, said teachers have used AI algorithms to work on what he called “tasks around the edges.”

“There's a lot of concern that teachers are using generative AI to make full lesson plans,” Doan said. “We really haven't found that to be the case. It's things like image generation or adjusting content for certain groups or using it to make more versions of different worksheets that already exist.”

***

A proposal to fund water quality improvement and pollution prevention projects with Community Preservation Fund revenues will be the subject of a public hearing before the Riverhead Town Board on Tuesday, Oct. 1. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that if the proposal is adopted, the Town of Riverhead’s CPF funding for the first time could be used to help pay some of the cost of public water mains and water treatment projects to provide clean drinking water to residents whose drinking water supply has been contaminated by toxic chemicals. The funding could also be used for the first time to fund pollution prevention projects such as wastewater treatment projects. Community Preservation Fund revenues are generated by a 2% tax on the transfer of real estate in the five East End towns, pursuant to a state law enacted in 1999 with the aim of preserving farmland and open space. The transfer tax has generated $2.2 billion for the region since it was created in 1999 and has helped protect nearly 13,000 acres of land, according to NYS Assemblyman Fred Thiele of Sag Harbor, principal author of the law. The law was amended in 2015 to allow CPF revenues to be used for eligible water quality improvement projects. The amendment also reauthorized the CPF through 2050. It was approved by voters in a ballot measure the following year.

***

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island and the North Fork will hold a public information meeting on “How to Confront Misinformation and Build Trust in the 2024 Election” tomorrow at 7 p.m. in the LTV Studios, 75 Industrial Road in Wainscott. Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that the program will explore the role of a trustworthy news media in a democracy, and how to identify and combat mis- and dis-information on the internet, digital platforms, and via AI.

New, original research survey findings will also be presented showing how much “trust in elections” U.S. citizens have in 2024, and what might be done to build civic connections and legitimacy in this environment.

League of Women Voters volunteers will be at Tuesday evening’s meeting to register voters and provide information and answer questions about this year’s election.

***

The Kmart store in Bridgehampton — the last full-size Kmart in the United States — will close in October after 25 years in operation.

The closing will leave Kmart, a once-dominant discounter known for its blue light specials, with one small store in the United States, in Miami.

The Bridgehampton store will close Oct. 20, an employee said by phone Sunday, per a report in NEWSDAY by Tory N. Parrish. Located in the town of Southampton, the Kmart is at 2044 Montauk Hwy. in Bridgehampton Commons, a shopping center owned by Kimco Realty Corp., a real estate investment trust in Jericho, Long Island.

Kmart and sister chain Sears are owned by Transform Holdco LLC, which does business as Transformco. A Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based company.

Transformco also has a few Kmart locations in the U.S. territories of Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Bridgehampton Commons is a 287,493-square-foot shopping center whose other tenants include a King Kullen supermarket, Gap, TJ Maxx, Staples and Wild Bird Crossing.

Occupying 89,935 square feet, Kmart is the biggest tenant in that shopping center and the largest big-box discount store in the Hamptons.

The store opened in 1999 in a space that had been vacated by Caldor, a now-defunct discount retailer that filed for bankruptcy in 1995…and before that Woolco.

Kmart Corp. paid $7 million to assume Caldor’s lease, which was to run through 2019 and had two, 10-year extensions, according to a February 2000 article published in Newsday.

***

Federal officials would bypass states like New York that have policies viewed as soft on crime and give law enforcement funding directly to localities under a new bill pitched by the Empire State’s GOP delegation.

Vaughn Golden reports in THE NY POST that the bill, sponsored by upstate Republican Congressman Marc Molinaro and shared exclusively with The Post, would distribute some federal law enforcement funding directly to localities if states have laws on the books like New York’s Clean Slate Act and loose bail laws.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook to prop up a regime in Albany that is making us less safe,” Molinaro wrote in a statement to The Post. "This bill will take funds from Albany and reinvest them directly into the local police, courts, and governments that are actually doing the work to restore public safety,” he continued.

The legislation is co-sponsored by all but one of New York’s Republican members of Congress.

The bill, which is light on details, would require the Department of Justice to withhold funding meant specifically for the states if they don’t allow judges to base bail eligibility on a “dangerousness” standard or if they have “a general policy providing for the sealing of the criminal records of felons.” Crime and public safety continue to be one of the most pressing issues on voters’ minds heading into November. In a Siena College poll conducted last month, 54% of likely New York voters said crime has gotten worse in the last year. The Republicans’ bill is almost certain to languish in the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate even if it makes it out of the House before years’ end.

***

With the sound of its mower blades revving, the blue-gray tractor aligned itself before the first row of an Aquebogue vineyard and then proceeded to cut the grass — all without a driver.

It's the latest step toward fully autonomous farm operation on Long Island that is being led by the region's vineyards. Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that earlier this month, Paumanok Vineyards served as the test bed for fully autonomous operation by the tractor, which is made by Livermore, Calif.-based Monarch Tractor. The otherwise quiet vehicle aligned itself before rows, turned up the blades and went to work down the long rows before turning around and starting up another aisle.

Paumanok, which also owns and operates Palmer Vineyards, took delivery of what some say is the region's first fully electric tractor this summer. The $90,000 vehicle, which joins Paumanok's fleet of 11 primarily diesel tractors, has been in use all summer, but without the fully autonomous feature. It chiefly is used to mow between rows and spray the vines for pests and disease.

Without the autonomous feature, which will be publicly available in about a year, the tractor can steer itself within rows, but it requires a driver to be onboard to turn at row’s end.

Similar automation has been used in vineyards before. In 2022, the owners of Rose Hill Vineyards used GPS-guided systems to plant vines and set posts for their new vineyard on Mill Lane in Mattituck, Newsday reported.

The Monarch tractor features eight cameras that keep it from veering out of the rows, and has a 110-kilowatt hour battery that can operate for most of a workday without a charge.

And Paumanok, one of the first Long Island vineyards to fully incorporate solar power into its farm, can use the power it creates from the sun to keep the tractor charged at low cost or for free, winemaker Kareem Massoud said.

"If I can have a tractor that drives itself and mows, that's a big win," he said, noting that tractors at Paumanok, which has a total of 128 acres, are "constantly mowing." Massoud’s got two more on order, for next year’s season.

The tractor has a power shaft that connects to equipment such as row-mowers and hydraulic sprayers to maintain the vineyards. The fully automated operating feature could make the tractor able to operate at night without supervision, cutting energy and labor costs, Massoud said.