This school year, AI-powered learning applications became available to 10th- and 11th-grade students and their teachers. Karoli Ojamaa believes it was the right move. "Since AI is already such a relevant topic in society, it's very good that Estonia is keeping up with the times," she said. Joanna Kaljola agreed, noting that since artificial intelligence is already integrated into everyday life, it makes sense to welcome it with open arms.

Grant Partasjuk remembers when his classmates first started talking about a new kind of AI that could do all their homework for them. "It felt like now you didn't really have to do anything anymore. But personally, I use it more to help me understand things better, not just to get my homework done quickly. There's not much point in doing homework if you don't learn anything from it. As I've gotten older, I've come to understand that we don't study just to complete assignments for the teacher. We study for ourselves and we're going to need that knowledge later in life," Partasjuk said.

According to Ojamaa, that realization — that learning is for oneself — came at the end of ninth grade when students had to rely on their own knowledge to pass exams and entrance tests. That said, the students are still familiar with the concept of a "cheat sheet."

At the same time, the rise of AI has made teachers more vigilant and has led to fewer opportunities to use computers for everyday schoolwork. "When a text is really well written, teachers can't tell whether it was done by AI or a human. Then they don't know who to grade. Maybe the grade ends up going to ChatGPT," Ojamaa remarked.

Rasmus Vau noted that over the past couple of years, teachers have become more perceptive. "Two years ago, teachers didn't really catch on, but now they're aware of it and clearly say, 'Please don't use AI for this — you actually need to know it,'" he said.

"In fact, at least in our school, teachers themselves use AI quite a lot, so they've figured out what's really going on," Partasjuk added.

As examples, the high schoolers described feeding slide decks created by their history teacher into AI — materials that would later be used for a test — and asking the AI to generate a multiple-choice quiz based on them. Since there's such a wide variety of history sources available online, giving the AI their teacher's materials directly helps avoid errors like incorrect dates.

In another case, before a major test, they had AI process several pages of text and turn it into a summary podcast they could listen to while on the go. According to the students, AI makes studying more engaging by bringing in vivid, real-life examples when presenting learning materials. When writing essays or longer papers, they also turn to AI for topic ideas.

The students believe they would have eventually learned all these subjects without the help of AI, but it would have taken much more time. "Saving time really is the best part about AI," Ojamaa said, adding that critical thinking is a key factor when using it.

"If it gives you an answer, trust but verify. Its good answers can still be very generic. If a teacher asks you to write about your personal experience, that's not something it can do particularly well yet," Ojamaa explained.

"The most logical way to use it is to ask for ideas — maybe you'll use them and then have it review your writing afterward. /.../ For example, when checking an English-language text, it gave me very specific suggestions on what I could improve and how to develop my skills," Kaljola added.

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