Casper College recently announced it’s the first in the state to adopt BoodleBox. BoodleBox is a collaborative AI workspace that lets students and faculty access multiple AI models, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and more.
“BoodleBox was built for higher education and workforce development. Bringing this into Casper College was a no-brainer,” said David Siemens, director of digital learning. “It’s a secure environment. The reason we went with BoodleBox is that there are securities that they have, which include FERPA compliance. Anything that you put into BoodleBox does not train any AI models.”
Psychology instructor Jennie Miller has already started using it in her classroom.
“Before, I looked at AI as something that students used to cheat. I had to plow through their papers, commenting that I knew it was AI-generated, and it made me feel like a prison warden, almost,” she said. “Now I feel like I’m learning how to use it appropriately in a classroom to help them learn how to use it appropriately for their assignments.”
Through the platform, educators can control which AI resources or custom bots students can access for specific tasks and track students’ activities.
“I can go back and look at their progress and look at the work that they’ve done. I can look at what AI tools they’re using. I find that really helpful,” said Miller.
AI has long been a controversial topic, and those at Casper College acknowledged that. But they say their goal is to help students use the software responsibly.
“We’ve talked about what AI is. We’ve talked about how to use it ethically and how to use it as a tool to help them in their learning process, rather than just asking it to write a paper on a particular topic,” said Miller.
“It’s one of those things where we have to make that choice: How do we want to use it? Do we want to use it in a good way or do we want to use it in a bad way?” said Siemens. “I do think we’ll make the right choice. We always do.”