By: Brinn Smith
News Editor
The fall semester of 2026 has begun, and with it brings changes to STLCC’s online classroom, namely the addition of the AI tool BoodleBox to the college’s list of online resources. When students log on to Canvas, they will be greeted with a large text box introducing BoodleBox as well as a course in Canvas that is dedicated to “Navigating AI with Integrity.”
The announcement on the Canvas dashboard encourages students to sign up for BoodleBox with STLCC credentials in order for students to have access to the programs that STLCC has paid for.
“BoodleBox is set up for education, and it gives access to a lot of AI models,” English Professor Shaun Reno said., “You also have access to what are called bots, which are pre-programmed prompts, and faculty can create bots for students as well.”
BoodleBox is a free resource for students, paid for only by the college, so they do have access to the premium version, with additional features.
“You don’t have to pay for it, and you get access to a lot more advanced models than you would, if you were using the free version,” Professor Reno said,. “It has access to many different things that you can do with it, including image generation, like Claude or ChatGPT.”
Even with all of these features, some professors might not be able to use BoodleBox in every situation they have, and it won’t be applicable for students in every situation either.
“It’s not usable in all situations. The main problem with AI for us in an education situation is that we don’t want it to interfere with your learning. I’m only going to use it if it is helping you learn,” Reno said. “So if it’s at any point doing the work for you, then it’s probably not going to be very useful.”
There is a level of apprehension from some faculty, those who might not view AI as an outright positive, or might not feel comfortable using a relatively new technology, might not use BoodleBox.
“Because it’s so new and so unregulated. I think a lot of us are having a hard time. Feeling like we don’t know the best ways to implement it yet, and so I think a lot of folks have felt safer, just not touching it,” Student Activities Specialist, Melody Walkenhorst said.
Even with some of this sentiment, the college has encouraged students and faculty to use BoodleBox, as well as take the online course for using AI responsibly on Canvas.
“The goal of using AI in a work situation is probably different than using it in an educational situation; there you might be having it do some of your work, but here it should only be used to support you in doing your work,” Reno said.
The primary goal is to showcase appropriate use of AI with human feedback remaining in the classroom.
“One of the things that I do with my writing students is have a conversation. In fact, one of the things that we put in the online course, is have a conversation with students about where they have used AI and what they think at can be used for in writing,” Reno said. “We also have them read something, it talks about the importance of getting human feedback, but also the importance of creative thinking, and that part of education is developing critical thinking skills, developing your own thoughts, figuring out how important that is.”
