A Grade 11 Student's POV on AI Tools

Louisé shares their thoughts on using AI as a high school student, and how AI tools help them succeed.

This article was written by grade 11 co-op student Louisé Eyong.

I'm not gonna lie — being a grade 11 student going into grade 12 is hella hard. The worst part is those annoying 5,000+ word essays and research summaries. Or when I'm so lost on what the question's even asking, or what formula I should use.

Like, why do I have to write a formula for the 100 watermelons Johnny bought and figure out if he has enough left? I didn't buy the watermelons with him.

AI tools are already everywhere

Sometimes the questions we get feel like they were made for Einstein alone. This is where AI usage comes into play. But we all know how school boards and teachers are with AI, pretty much seeing it as a taboo.

Be so for real — that won't stop me. I mean even teachers are sometimes using AI to help plan lessons, so why avoid it? In this article I'm gonna talk about a couple AI tools that I use, or just recently discovered, that help me not to crash out.

AI tools I use day-to-day

I try to stay away from chatGPT, 'cause let's be honest, it be playing a bit too much sometimes. For grammar checking and the whole shabbang I use chrome extensions and websites like Grammarly, Quillbot, and Scribbr.

If I'm being honest, Quillbot and Scribbr have some of the best features for students. The one I use the most would be their citations generator, and sometimes Scribbr's research and writing tools in the Learn section.

Tools like these help take some of the burden off my shoulders as a student, and I can get exactly the help I need, when I need it.

More AI tools I'm learning about

Now let's cover a few AI tools I just learned about. Contact North's AI Tutor Pro would have to take first place. It's a unique and Ontario government-funded AI tool that lowkey teaches you like a teacher. It can help expand your knowledge on multiple subjects like math and science. I recently used it to help explain what half-life is and how to understand it. Plus, it's totally free, with no signup required. To be honest it explained concepts so well I felt like some kind of math genius.

SchoolFinder's got an AI tool too. Ask questions about careers, admissions, scholarships, or whatever, and it'll give you answers and links with more info. And it's completely free, too, with no signup.

Perplexity's an interesting AI tool that offers homework and project help. It can help you come up with ideas for projects and steps to follow to complete those projects. It provides plenty of research articles and sources depending on the topic. I literally just searched up 'Buddhism' and info on its effects on society and BAM! — it gave me so much info and recommended sites which genuinely made it so much easier to do my research.

Tutor AI is another tool for students. Sadly, I have not been able to explore it as much as possible so my knowledge is limited. Still, I like that it offers homework help and free courses that can deepen your understanding on many subjects. As a person who's into coding and similar things, I checked out their machine learning course. From the looks of it, it seemed to be pretty easy to use and educational. I'm going to give it a shot.

Sadly, many of these tools have a paid feature, especially when it comes to their paraphrasing feature which makes them a bit annoying, but cool nonetheless.

Things to watch out for when using AI

There are many other helpful AI tools that can help copy down what your teacher's yapping about — unfortunately many have annoying conditions for their free services. This would be one of the downsides to AI tools, as many require you to pay before you can actually enjoy the site. Like is it so hard for you to consider the 6-7 hours I spend in school and help make it easier?

Also, you've gotta be careful about getting accurate info from these tools. They can make mistakes, so make sure you follow up on the links you get, and see if the information is right!

Hope you found this article helpful. Feel free to check 'em out and thanks for reading!