Artificial Intelligence is not going away anytime soon, if anything it is going to become more apart of our day to day lives as we advance further with technology. As teachers, this is a new challenge that we must learn how to navigate. Many teachers are against AI use in the classroom, and for good reason as it can lead to plagirism, and a decreased level of creativity with students work. However, instead of working against AI, we should teach our students how to use it responsibly and safely. Their has been recent stories in the news about teens using AI as a councellor of sorts, which resulted in poor advice and sadly even a passing of a student. This is why it is more important than ever to teach students about AI, how to use it, and when to use it.
In my Education Technology class we recently had a guest speaker, Cari Wilson, the current District VP of Innovation and Technology in West Vancouver. She spoke with us about AI usage in the classroom and provided us with some resources.
One of the resources she shared is from the Focued Education Resource site and it is a list of lesson materials for teaching students ages K-12 about AI. The materials are broken down into age groups, I looked at the booklet for ages K-3 and some of the topics touched on were teaching students how to identify natural vs artifial materials, how we learn, and understanding what artificial intelligence is. Each booklet provides teachers with a variety of lesson plans, instructional videos, slideshows, and recommended activites. This is a fabulous resource to use that is backed with great research and information for students.
Cari also has a public blog she created that shares current information and resources on Artificial Intelligence and technology resources. A really interesting blog post I read recently by her was “Do Addiction & Distraction Live In Your Classroom?”. This post touches on phone addiction and how it can create a major distraction in your classroom, especially for highschool students. She provided some recommended tips and ways to monitor this in your class and help create an environment of more engaged learning.
Google Gemini was another recommended resource from Cari for teachers. This can help with lesson planning, content creation, tracking students progress, and personalize learning. One thing to note about AI usage is privacy, and it is vital that we protect our students privacy. Sites like Chat GPT share the data that you input into its site, so student identities, like name and age must never be shared in sites like this. With Google Classroom it is a secure platform similar to Google Workplace, so none of the information inputted will be shared and is protected. With that being said, it is still important to be careful with what you upload onto the internet and into AI sites about your students. Personal information like a students address, school address or photos of the student should never be shared on any platform.
Overall AI has provided teachers with its challenges, but it has also given teachers an area of opportunity. It is important that we teach our students how to use AI responsibly to set them up for a digitally literate life.
More resources shared from Cari Wilson’s talk: