Experimenting with AI for Education

Teachers all over the world are experimenting with AI for education. From banning the technology to embracing it, the only thing anyone agrees on is that it’s too early to agree on anything. This article from the Guardian dives into how teachers are using AI for education. It explores the different ways in which they are innovating, and experimenting.

What Are Teachers Doing?

In the article, an educator says, “It feels like we’re in some sort of lab experimenting with our kids because it’s changing so rapidly.” How do educators create lessons that can’t easily done by AI? How do they ensure students don’t replace the (and I love this phrase so so much) “productive struggle” that results in learning with simply clicking a button?

I would argue that the most important strategy educators could use is exploring the technology itself. Let’s understand these powerful tools before we start to integrate them into our lives. What can they help with? What are the dangers or drawbacks? Does this tool impact my privacy in any way? How does it affect how I learn?

We don’t have a great track record of this. We see shiny new technology and we dive right in, even before we fully understand it. Let’s learn from what we’ve done in the past to do better this time with Generative AI.

An excellent example of this is one teacher in the article asks students to explore which laptop would be best for them depending on what school they want to go to and what subject area they want to focus on. Then they ask an LLM the same question and see how their answers compare. AMAZING! It personalizes the learning for the student and then helps them explore what differences the AI answer might have and why. I love it.

Here is a great article from Common Sense Media with many more resources around AI for education.

What Questions Can Parents Explore With Their Kids?

This post has focused on education and educators, but parents can’t sit idle by while all this is going on. You need to explore this topic with your kids as well. Here are some questions that can help get you started:

-What are you trying to learn here? Which skills are you trying to develop? Does using AI help or hurt that goal?

-Is it important to cite your usage of AI for this assignment? Why or why not?

-Did you use the AI output verbatim? Why could this be problematic? How could you make it better?

-Should you ever put your name on something that you didn’t properly vet?

Kermode Education Can Help You Explore This Topic and More!

Contact the Kermode Education team today to see how our eLearning platform can help your kids or your students improve their digital literacy skills.