MARESA Hosts AI Education Forum in Marquette, Michigan

The Marquette-Alger Regional Educational Service Agency is taking steps to help people better understand artificial intelligence. On Tuesday night, MARESA held a public forum on de-mystifying A.I. in Marquette, Michigan.

Understanding artificial intelligence can be a little overwhelming. However, this seminar seeks to break it down in simpler terms. According to seminar facilitator Nora Fodor, much of it is about being prepared for the arrival of A.I. The effort here is focused on demystifying A.I. for teachers, students, and families across the region, and on harnessing the full potential of AI.

Per the WZMQ 19 News report, Fodor emphasized that access requires responsibility. "The more we have access to this great tool, the more we need to know how to use it responsibly and ethically, so that it doesn't cause harm," explained the Day of A.I. teacher.

AI by itself can get out of control, and if we use it ethically and responsibly, we can use it towards positive change, instead of using it for harmful things. This framing matters because the technology is showing up in more classrooms, workplaces, and even daily life. Fodor reminds us that A.I. has limitations.

"It only knows what we know. It only knows the information we have, and so AI is trained to identify patterns and the things that are prominent within those patterns," said Fodor. This is a crucial distinction for educators and parents trying to explain the technology to students (who often treat it like magic rather than math).

There are some serious downsides to A.I. It uses an incredible amount of energy, and when you're using A.I., you use a lot less of your brain power. The cognitive trade-off is real. Students clicking through generated answers aren't building neural pathways the way they would through genuine problem-solving.

"If a student is using it to replace their own thinking and to replace their own learning, then yes, I think they are not just cheating the system. They're also cheating themselves," said Fodor. This cuts to the core of the educational challenge: AI as a crutch versus AI as a tool.

MARESA leaders hope open conversations about A.I. will help reduce fear and uncertainty while preparing people for a future where the technology of A.I. plays a much larger role. The forum represents a grassroots approach to AI literacy that many districts are still figuring out.

Whether these community forums translate into measurable changes in classroom AI policies remains to be seen. The real test isn't the seminar—it's what happens when a student faces a deadline at 11 PM and the temptation to let the machine do the work.

Artūras Malašauskas is an AI Systems Integrator with 20+ years of production-grade web engineering experience. He has designed, shipped, and scaled enterprise Python/PHP systems for logistics, SaaS, and public-sector clients. For the past year, he has focused exclusively on AI integrations: deploying open-source LLMs, building generative media pipelines (image, audio, video), and engineering multi-agent workflows for real production environments. His standard: reproducibility, security, cost-efficient inference—no vaporware. He documents and evaluates emerging AI tooling, separating verified capabilities from marketing noise. Technical editor at: muza-ai.eu, ai-verslas.lt, ai-naujinos.lt Connect on LinkedIn