with Marcelle, Moiz, Rodrigo, Saman
Marcelle:
Welcome to the Student Chitchat, episode two. My name is Marcelle. I’m a year two Social Work student from the Dominican Republic.
Saman:
I’m Saman, a year two Visual Arts student.
Marcelle:
And here in Student Chitchat, we will keep mostly talking about tech and innovation and how they affect us as students. In every episode, we will keep trying to bring new guests from the student body so that they can share their experiences in using AI and other tech devices in their school. In this episode, we have two very special guests.
Rodrigo:
Hi. My name is Rodrigo. I’m a year two BBA Marketing and Finance student. Nice to meet you.
Moiz:
Hey, everyone, my name is Moiz and again, I'm also a year two student studying BBA and majoring in Accounting.
Marcelle:
Welcome.
Moiz:
Thank you, thank you for having us.
Marcelle:
Yes, and now, as we begin, we are now unmuted. So, jumping right in, when you're in class, and also when you study by yourself, how does tech affect your learning—both the good and the bad?
Rodrigo:
Well, in my case, I personally like to study beforehand, before lectures, before classes, so I have an idea of what the class will be about. And sometimes this may be difficult, some concepts are hard and I don’t understand the examples they give, so I Google more examples, look up definitions, and check what things actually mean, and if I'm extremely lost, I ask AI to give me a guideline, some type of providing a guideline of how to like solve the issue the problem. More often, the result or solutions it provides are wrong, wrong calculations, mixed up data, or simply just lies. So I have to review everything and try to do it again on my own to make sure that the actual solution is correct.
Moiz:
So, I'm just gonna say it, I miss a lot of classes, so the first thing that pops up that is like, the online lecture recordings are a huge lifesaver for me. so yeah, I just click on the lectures, watch them, and I can catch up to my classmates. Another thing is I use a lot of search engines, Google, Safari, and it helps me to find like research articles or stuff for my courses But a lot of times what happens is that that one notification from my friend, and it's like, “Oh, I have to see what he’s saying,” and then I get distracted so easily.
Saman:
So relatable..
Marcelle:
And like you said, like it's harder because we have so many tools available. Like we have the 7000 AI, but we also have all of the search engines, like you mentioned, like Safari, opera, blah, blah, blah. And isn't it very distracting?
Saman:
It is so distracting. like, for me, I have this new thing. I've introduced to myself and to all of you now. and it's basically don't take your phone. You wanna get this. don't it to like your classes? You.. Because hear me out, hear me out. You're going out for a coffee, forget your phone, have the time of your life.
Reconnect with nature the way we are meant to be.
Moiz:
What about music?
Saman:
No, you don't need music. All the cafés in Hong Kong have music.
Rodrigo:
It's bad, that is crazy. But why would you leave your phone? Because it will distract you, like you're saying you get notifications. There's too many apps as long as there's a phone in the picture, there will be something keeping you from focusing on nature, on the sounds around you, on the people around.
Moiz:
It's funny you say that, but I mean, like what's wrong with just putting your phone on do not disturb or downloading it app or, for example, For example, forest, not sponsored. Yeah, but like, come on, guys, like there's so many things.
I mean, do you really need to leave your phone? I think that's a bit extreme.
Saman:
I'm gonna do that for myself.
Marcelle:
That is insane. and like, maybe it works for you because some of your courses may be more strict like, oh, yeah, I don't wanna see your phone on the table. Like, I've definitely have professors like that. but like, some others don't really care as long as your phone isn’t buzzing all over the class Every course has different rules for everything—including AI. AI. like, we already talked about this in the last episode someone. We talked about this in the last episode, but for you guys, what has your experience been using AI in your studies?
Rodrigo:
Well, as a business major, using AI is definitely more encouraged than in other courses.
Marcelle:
Why?
Rodrigo:
Because the market is developing with AI. They’re extremely correlated now. I have tons of class that tell me, okay, now this is how AI is being utilized in the field. You need to learn how we use it; otherwise you’ll be lost. That’s business. But other courses, like social work , or the visual arts, don’t really encourage it as much, right?
Marcelle:
No, not really.
Moiz:
For my case, it's like I mentioned before, like brainstorming ideas, it's like AI is great for that, right? So you can get your ideas from it, you can see, okay, like, oh, I hit a wall and I don't know what to do now. Okay, you can ask AI for ideas.
That's usually what I will do. but sometimes I'm just a little bit afraid, like, if I'm always asking AI, hey, give me an idea, then give me an idea for that all of my ideas, my personal ideas will just water down and that's my biggest fear. Like am I going to lose my cognitive skills? My cognitive skills are like you know?
Saman:
Yeah, watering down is so true. I used AI once for a course to get ideas for a photograph I needed. I took a bunch of images, put them into a generative AI, and asked, I'm like, okay, do it from this angle, do it from the color scheme, give me ideas. And sometimes it misses the mark, by like 100% percent.
You don’t get anything.
Marcelle:
It's just bad. And honestly, like, if you can use say that for like anything, honestly, and specifically for like getting ideas and getting Inspiration. But like some professors are just not clear about how or what they want you, how they want you to use AI. because some of my professors, they will have entire presentations on like yes, you cannot use AI in this course, you do not copy paste, you do not do this, you do not do that. But it's okay to take inspiration sometimes. I know you young people like to use AI, so you can get inspiration from it. But I I hate that word, because it’s nonspecific. You're not telling me anything. For me, inspiration is, okay, I put in AI like, oh, yeah, give me an outline for this essay. And I read what AI gave me, and I'm like, okay, now I know what I need to do. I skip it completely and I do my own thing. But for some of my classmates, inspiration means, okay, I put the outline in AI. perfect. Let me copy word by word. oh, but this word doesn't sound too natural, so I change it. And that's their project, and they still get away with it.
Saman:
It's just, like it's crazy.
Marcelle:
No, you know, no.
Moiz:
So, one time, like, I'm just thinking, one time what happened was that our group project got super messy because some professors will, like, they will outlay, okay, you can use AI to this extent or you can do it like this or that. But some professors are like, okay, no AI in my class, no AI in my course, I want to see all you're working outs, I want to see everything, you know? And one groupmate, he decided, okay, you know, I'm tired, I'm just gonna copy paste from AI, and that's exactly what happened with us.
Marcelle:
How can you do that in Accounting?
Moiz:
Exactly. And also the values didn't even make sense with what the question was asking. so that's the professor was, okay, this group use AI, let me question them. So he held us back and then he was like, you guys use AI, who did it, why? and I'm gonna lower your grade for sure. We all had to suffer for that. I think it's like, from one guys, be mindful, you know?
Saman:
Condolences.
Moiz:
But like honestly, like I think it's not that hard, because a lot of professors will lay it on their outline, okay, you can use AI or not. so I think it's pretty okay.
Rodrigo:
Well, you said, I think it's extremely unfair, because in many cases, like, it makes no sense to me. How just people nowadays can use like use AI like that and not communicate with like peers. Because it's a group it's a teamwork.
Marcelle:
I'm supposed to know.
Rodrigo:
So at least let us know that you use AI so we can tell you, you need help. like can we explain this to you? you need any sort of like adjustments, anything you can do for helping with this?
Marcelle:
It's not only like the students who need to, like, say it, because if we're talking about digital ethics, right? We want to focus on that. And one of the core aspects of it is that you have to state, hey, I'm doing this, I'm using AI. I'm using it AI in this way. And the students, the professors, we all need to collectively do that. However, I think that also applies to like the apps and the systems that we use. Because fun fact, nice, a lot of the online platforms that we have keep, like, storing our data. And we knew that for social media, like Instagram, Facebook, like, we, yeah, but with the platforms that we use as students and with the university, like, they can track or log and track, like, keep how engaged we are, see where you move your mouse.
Saman:
It’s no, like see where you move your mouse. That's great, that's way too much. That's like the technological academic equivalent of somebody stalking you into real life. That's crazy. I don't want that.
Moiz:
Do you guys know, like, we all use Canva before, right?
Marcelle:
Who uses PowerPoint in 2025?
Moiz:
It’s crazy how much they can track:
when you log in, when you log out, how long you spend. They don't need to know all this information.
Marcelle:
Wait, no, wait, what?
Moiz:
They can say how much they know, and it's like creepy, you know
Marcelle:
Like, but why?
Moiz:
I don't know, but okay, hear me out. I still think that there might be some good in being monitored. Okay, okay, okay. I let me talk, okay, me crazy. I know, okay, let me talk before you say anything. Let's say Moodle, We have course information, materials, and assignments there. If a professor checks Moodle and sees a student hasn’t logged in, yeah, so he knows, okay, that student, I should talk to him, I should ask him, what's going on, why are you bugging in? Yeah, like for that it should be okay.
Saman:
Absolutely. This reminds me in like, one of my courses, we had a professor, he's amazing, I love his course, absolutely, like, perfect. But he showed up to class one day and he was like, I noticed some of you have never opened my course on moodle. I was like, I never. And everybody was like, oh my God, who did that? And I just remember thinking, I do open his course, but I download the files. and then I view them, like from my phone or from my laptop later. So on Moodle, it's gonna look like I never went on the course. I just went for like a minute and then I left. that's not fair. like if we did not have that, there would be no misunderstandings. Professors then think I never studied, when I've been studying four hours.
Rodrigo:
Actually, I have a quick point with that. In some of my classes, we have like class material we need to read beforehand and it counts as participation. reading the material, And I found out that the way they are actually they know if somebody like is actually doing it is by clicking links within the PDF, even though the PDF itself has like 90 slides full of information, there is still some links you need to click to get the grade. For example, let's say, I didn't know this. So I started 90 slides and I forgot to click two links. Grade goes down.
Marcelle:
Bye.
Rodrigo:
Even though you studied 90 slides. and some guy maybe like, opens the slide, like clicks the links, he gets it great. that's so unfair.
Saman:
That's not that's offensive.
Marcelle:
Oh, no. and like, that's definitely it's generally like mind-blowing. I don't even know what to say, but like, that's the uni, right? That's the professor that's in uni. But do you think the students are being digitally responsible? the doubt. not the doubt.
Moiz:
Like I mentioned, I missed my classes, and I like that my friends send me the online lectures or PDF or the slides. But come on, guys, like that's your professor's hard work, he personalized this lecture for your session, for your class, you know, so I think we should all respect that and be like take account of what we're doing and how we're treating the material that's not really ours. It's allowed to be used by us, but like, we should still be careful about, you know, how we're sharing it online.
Marcelle:
People actually put their sides on social media?
Moiz:
Yeah, literally do, yeah. That's crazy. You could go online right now and search HKBU Business and you'll find some stuff on the Internet.
Marcelle:
Oh, I had no clue.
Saman:
That's illegal.
Rodrigo:
In other perspective, I think that our generation is like most and most, more than most, is very responsible digitally in other aspects, because, you know, we grew up with the internet, phones, and easy access to knowledge. like knowledge, exactly the bad kids. So that means that we grew up with the rules to know what to do, what not to do, because you don't share her name, personal information or passwords, don’t click sketchy links. We know that type of responsibility. However, in recent times we got like AI came around, when we were like in high school. So it was… it hit everyone equally at the same time, professors, and students alike. So we didn't have any of these rules or guidelines of how to use AI ethically. So, for instance, kids nowadays, they grow up, go to college, and they're like, What’s the difference between searching for articles on Google I just asking ChatGPT, that toxic. What's the answer for this? I think that nowadays it needs to be like more stated what this guidelines should be, Because we're going through the process.
Marcelle:
It's even a verb now, like, instead of like “Google it,” now it’s “ChatGPT it.”
Saman:
I have the same issue and I would wanna tell my peers like, guys, AI is a tool, not a lifestyle. Stop making AI part of everything you do—we’re stealing the glory from academia. You're in university, stop it. Like just consult AI when you need it, you know, like maybe once a week, I wanna say twice a week, max. like AI is just a tool. Don't live in it like that.
Marcelle:
And specifically because like, with AI, it changes. You know how I don't know if you' guys done it that you put like a prompt in your laptop and another version in your phone and it just gives you a slightly different answer. Like it can just happen because like things are not the same, but the things the apps that we open and the all of the tools that we use, they're not the same depending on what device you have. And I think that that can create such a big inequality, because if I'm doing my work on my laptop, I can access anything just fine, but the moment I try to open the BUniPort on my phone, then it doesn't work, and it's very frustrating. And specifically knowing that Miss Saman right here, she destroyed her laptop recently.
Saman:
I do. Oh, my God, I spilled coffee on it, send your prayers, I need them.
It's not working. I haven't had a laptop in like four months. And you guys do not understand how much inequality we have now in our like academics in our courses, because of technology. I have my groupmates like mentally excluding me from our group projects, because they already know that I don't have a laptop, so they're going to spare me the trouble. Like, if there is a Zoom meeting, give me a 30 minute notice, because I need to walk to the library. Join the meeting. And it's not fair, because then, like, if you don't have Wi-Fi, you're you're not participating. I'm missing out on so much education, so much experience, so much just studying in general, because I don't have a laptop. I'm a Visual Art student. I need to have an iPad. That's part of my identity, but I don't I've never had an iPad.
Marcelle:
I'm so sorry.
Rodrigo:
In my case I've had some issues with like different devices, not like compatible with different sources, like apps.
For example, like I mentioned to you before, I like to study it beforehand, but sometimes I'm not in my room. I don't have my laptop it's too heavy. So I'm just walking around elsewhere and I decided to, okay, let's let's see the slides beforehand. I open it my phone, I study, make mental notes, maybe grab my note, boo, make some real notes, go to class. I go to a class, teacher explaining the PDF and then the slides were completely different. There are more slides, there's images that were not getting loaded on my phone. actions are very important that I was not getting loaded on my phone. Actions are very important. I So it happened to me in that class and I'm like, oh, wait. oh, no, So I go and I'm like, wait, wait, wait, what? I never saw this before. So that's a big issue.
Saman:
This reminds me, like, there's so much exclusion because of social media and stuff. we make group chats on Instagram sometimes for our group representations, but the mainland students mostly don't use Instagram. That's not fair. that's not fair. like I want why do I need to like, exclude these people just because they don't use these particular apps? There's so much exclusion.
Marcelle:
I've seen my mainland friends phones and they like, just created their Instagram and they have like two followers and I'm like, wow. like, it's shocking, definitely. They're trying, so, to like start to wrap up, is there any specific like, mindset or something that you would like to say to students teachers about acting more responsible with their digital learning?
Moiz:
That's a good question. I was just thinking about this as well. I wanna say that, like, I think we should propose a mindset where we think before we actually, like, let's say we want to share an idea with AI and, yeah, yeah yeah, think before you act, like before you share an idea of the AI or even use AI in general, just think, like, is this cool? Take a step back and just be like, okay, is this cool?
Like, can I am I able, like, am I gifted enough to just be gifted? you know? I mean, we're all to be fair we're all gifted and we all have the skills needed. It's just like we're lazy, okay? We're just looking for the most convenient way and it's just human nature, right? We always look for the easiest way, unless you're Batman or something.
Saman:
But you're not.
Moiz:
Yeah. I'm not, but yeah, so just think before you actually go ahead, you know, with it?
Rodrigo:
Yeah, I would say to people that I mean, learning is a process and I think it's important for them to relearn Just learn the process of learning
Because the other day, this is their future job. If you're just prompting AI to solve every single segment you have, I don't think you're actually learning, because let's put this matter, okay? Imagine 20–30 years in the future, okay?
Moiz:
I know.
Rodrigo:
I know where this is not a bad knee, you have a headache. You have the symptoms. and the doctor is like, oh, what you have? Oh, knee bad, head bad? Give me a second… ChatGPT says we should amputate. It says GPT says that my God. we never know how advanced it can get, but I still think it's very important that we actually learn because at the end of the day, you are just like like damaging your values, your core values, for what? Like Moiz said is being fast, efficient? Exactly.
Saman:
I would agree. This is like you're in university, you're here to learn, so learn. like find knowledge, go to the library once in a while, do some like all nighters at the library, like, get the feel for education back. You don't need to use AI for everything. Stop brainwashing yourself.
Marcelle:
And it applies both to students and to teachers. Like, everyone should be very conscious about how they use AI and state when they use AI. That is the digitally responsible and ethical thing to do. because it's not fair that one of my professors in an 82 slide PowerPoint, you can just go through it in 25 minutes because it doesn't actually have any context, because it's AI generated. Just say it. Save me the trouble of going through those 82 slides and saying no content. I wanna listen to you. I wanna learn. I'm coming to this class for that very reason.
So, let's learn, both students and professors. And I think that's a great note to end it. I think this is good. This was a great discussion. Yeah, thank you so much for coming. This has been a great episode two. Please, please, please catch us on episode three and watch episode one if you have not watched it yet. And we'll see you next time. We are now muted. Bye-bye.
What is one key lesson or personal principle you carry forward about being a responsible digital student?
Marcelle:
Be truthful about what goes into your work, be it your idea or AI's.
What is one key lesson or personal principle you carry forward about being a responsible digital student?
Rodrigo:
To always try your best not to try to use AI every single day. Just your best.
What is one key lesson or personal principle you carry forward about being a responsible digital student?
Moiz:
I would say like embrace your digital responsibility skills, like just make sure you're not doing anything wrong online and also like, you're all gifted with good minds, so use them, right? You have cognitive skills, so you don't always have to excessively rely on AI.
What is one key lesson or personal principle you carry forward about being a responsible digital student?
Saman:
Cap your use of AI. try to use AI less. Try to go to the library once in a while and learn something the way you were meant organically.