Technolandy

Day 171 (of 2024/25) synthesizing some thinking about  focus groups thinking about AI…

Preamble… Especially reflecting on how Steve Jobs and Henry Ford viewed focus groups… not fondly as so often people/groups want ‘more of what we had/have’ and need to be shown ‘different’. Good starting points for some airing of grievances, wishes, and hopes for how to take on this ‘Netflix’ to our ‘Blockbuster’ system of education!

Loving some of the thinking and interplay going on with AIs influence on Education – our district is asking some focus groups for some thoughts on the following:

Are you interested in how Artificial Intelligence can be used in K-12 education? 

How would you like to see AI integrated into K-12 education? How do you currently use AI? What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of using AI in K-12 education?

I’m thinking that we are well into the AI integration of education whether we are ready or not… I know many will bring out the drawbacks (similar to when other media & tools were made ‘mainstream’ – such as the book <— people have long worried about this tool as a distraction from pure learning…)

We know that AI tools can offer versatile applications to enhance various aspects of BC’s education system. We also know that education, by its nature, is relational. Effective AI use should enhance, not replace, the critical human elements that foster learning and understanding. Used appropriately, AI integration has the potential to enhance teaching and learning, streamline administrative and organizational tasks, enhance efficiency, and enable a dedicated focus on student-centered activities. Districts and schools can also leverage AI to foster collaboration, communication, and meaningful interactions within the entire school community. 

Methinks this question is trying to steer some of the thinking before it is even fully prompted… I’m gonna push the idea that we not think of AI as a tool, but rather as a collaborator. By it’s very nature (and through some experiments that are going on) it is showing to be much more than a calculator… and has great potential in helping with student understanding and new learnings… and feedback in a timely manner that most of us could only dream of providing – especially for those members who do not trust having interactions with any of the other humans within a school community… expanding our concept of what our ‘neighbourhood’ might include!

Good to have some terms for alignment:

AI Will Richardson

With all of the current freak out about kids cheating with AI which is bringing about the downfall of higher education and perhaps the end of democracy, let us remember this:

The kids are learning. 

I know it’s not necessarily rocket science for someone to learn how to choose the right LLM to use for the task, write an effective prompt to drop in, then revise and massage the output it until they get it “right,” then take the draft and run it through a plagiarism app to make sure it’s not detected, then find the right tool to dumb it down (if needed) and then, finally, give it a once or twice over with some tweaks to make sure it all fits the assignment…but it is learning. 

And, actually, it’s highly motivated learning and problem solving and critical thinking and more. 

That’s the thing about learning in schools: sometimes what kids learn isn’t what’s in the script. Sometimes it’s stuff that doesn’t end up in the gradebook. Heck, sometimes it’s stuff that lands them in trouble. 

But they are learning…constantly.

It’s not a binary, but who or what has to change now in this new landscape?

If you think it’s just the kids, maybe you’re the one who isn’t learning. 

– via LinkedIn

AI 

Empowering vs Enabling

Focus with Core Competencies

* Communicating

* Collaborating (Burnout from humans book)

* Creative Thinking (prompts/edits/immediacy)

* Critical and Reflective thinking (what is real what is generated)

* Personal Awareness and Responsibility (can schools look like the ‘real world’ – or do we work artificially by banning screens and AI)

* Positive Personal & Cultural Identity

* Social Awareness and Responsibility – what is being assessed? A task… or the learning… when is it intrinsically important vs extrinsically rewarded… if focus is reward system (eg Gov General award) then the tools matter.

• What examples of AI use have you already seen or heard about? What examples specific to education have you already seen or heard about?
  • Finding copilot very limiting in it’s current setup (eg ms designer not available for our organization) 
  • Chatbots and Virtual Assistants – chatgpt remains more popular than copilot for our families because of its use for visualization and visual creations – esp as we better understand aphantasia (not being able to create visuals in the brain)
  • Assistive and Adaptive platforms (reframe, edit etc) 
  • Accessibility and inclusion – helping with reading, writing, visualizing, mathing, creating (for perfectionism when others would give up) 
  • Microsoft Learning Accelerators – esp Reading Coach and the immediate feedback/assessment for reading inventories… 
  • Personalized learning directions – take a rabbit hole journey; quiz along the way; 
  • pi.ai; khanmigo (khan academy) magicschool; Brisk (fabulous for differentiation) 
  • Other shares: Ludia (UDL framework); joyschooler (very nice ‘coach/ea’ providing prompts and feedback rather than filling-in-the-blanks);  
• How comfortable are you with using AI tools in your current role? How do you think AI could change your day-to-day workload? In what ways might it help or add challenges?
  • Very – would love to add some students to a virtual teacher and see if they can tell the difference…
  • Need to model it’s use… AI enhanced emails/letters/etc – helps with Brene Brown’s reminder that: Clear is Kind
  • Summarizing bigger compositions to see if it’s worth the deeper dive (read) eg summarize the Admin Procedures to ask questions..  (Alex Couros) 
  • Don’t use AI as google
  • Concern of AI to complete tasks… stay intrinsic, not extrinsic…
    • Is it okay to make use of AI to do those task completions…  
• What worries or concerns do you have about using AI in schools or education?
  • What are we preparing students for beyond k-12?  If we don’t embrace the role of our new collaborator – how will we share some emerging best practices (use for learning, not use to complete tasks) Do schools become more irrelevant – all the learning I want is at my fingertips… <— not my comment, but I love this framing!  Why do we teach addition.. or even writing… when so many ‘don’t ‘ after graduation… 
  • Need the key skills (reading/writing/mathing) to know if AI is accurate or not… 
  • Environmental impact… foipop (personal information) 
• How can AI tools be used creatively to support learning within classrooms, schools, or the organization?
  • Personalizing the learning journey rather than ‘whole group’
  • Autofeedback is key; editing suggestions
  • Starting points
  • Creating exemplars
  • Why we would gather to learn together vs focusing on our own… 
• What kinds of support or training would help you feel more confident using AI?
  • Bring in Will Richardson – Alex Couros
  • Explore Burnout from Humans
  • Baby steps approach to guide some people into the AI sphere… 
  • what is safe?
  • Focused/specific?