Recent advances in technology have led students and teachers to embrace new technology such as ChatGPT and apply it to everyday classes, but the opinion on these new technological advances varies throughout the student body and the staff.
“I came to work at Mid-Pacific because of the dedication to emerging technology that the school has, as part of their technology vision.” explains Danelle Landgraf, head of the eSports and Cyber Owls clubs.
Mid-Pacific has had multiple meetings, online, in person, or through other means to encourage students to utilize various types of technology in their academic life. The example provided to those students during meetings was the use of ChatGPT for emails, helping a student to understand something in more depth, or using something as simple as Grammarly to check grammar.
Even note-taking forces the community to contemplate their use of technology. The idea of changing the curriculum from paper to online notes received a lot of mixed opinions from teachers and students.
“It should be up to the student and what works best for them,” Landgraf said. “If my students want paper I’m happy to print it out for them, but I’m not a big paper person, because they get wrecked.”
“I prefer to have all my things in one place, I like to be consistent when it comes to being organized…but I know some subjects need to be on paper, and some subjects need to be able to do it online,” senior Helena Winchester said.
“I like the idea of us just working with pen and paper and clay. It’s giving the foundation for you to translate that into digital or mechanical things.” Ceramics teacher David Hee said.
Some teachers find paper as an easier alternative to note-taking apps such as Notability.
“It’s easy to find resources and get inspiration, but by using technology you’re cheating yourself of the creative process,” Hee said.
With the advances of technology, Mid-Pacific has pushed for the community to have access to as much helpful technology as possible. Most of this technology is in the Weinberg Center. Lots of students have expressed their gratitude with the Weinberg Center, but do all students feel this way?
Jackson Brewer, a freshman extremely involved in various technological activities believes Weinberg’s high funding is worth the benefits it reaps.
“I think it’s very worth it, what they’re doing for certain technology, but I do think that robotics is underfunded and maybe eSports is overfunded,” Brewer said.
Allowing students to access all this technology may help prepare them for the future.
“It opens many fields for people in the future to go into college and get internships,” Brewer said.
