🤔 10 AI answers for parents

👍 10 answers for parents about AI & edu

Last night, I did something I’ve never done before.

I talked to K-12 parents for an hour about artificial intelligence.

The meeting was at Plainfield High School (suburban Indianapolis), and maybe 40-50 people attended.

You can watch the whole thing here — and view my slides here.

All parents in the district were sent a survey ahead of time to gauge their feelings and concerns about AI.

The big one? The just didn’t see how AI could support student learning in schools. They were afraid problem solving, critical thinking, and human connection were out the door.

My response? We have to be careful of that, because AI can stand in the way of student thinking and skill development. But it can really support student learning, too.

🔥 AI is a tool like fire. Fire can be used to warm us, to cook, for light. But it can also be used for destruction and human harm. We have to learn to use this tool in the right ways.

Here are some of the examples of AI supporting student learning that I shared:

• An AI assistant can serve as a 24/7 tutor, answering questions and satisfying curiosity at any hour.

• An AI assistant can help students brainstorm, helping them develop big-picture ideas they’re excited to tackle.

• An AI assistant can give timely feedback to students, right when they need it so they can move forward.

But, I pointed out … AI isn’t just ChatGPT. This broad technology is used in lots of other ways — and in other tools.

• MirrorTalk (mirrortalk.ai) turns AI into a thought partner, helping students think and reflect on their work.

• Goblin Tools (goblin.tools) can help neurodivergent students (really, all students) to manage life.

• MagicStudent (magicschool.ai) and SchoolAI Spaces (schoolai.com) can bring history to life with character chatbots.

• AI image generators like Adobe Firefly (firefly.adobe.com) can help students visualize their ideas.

• Microsoft Translator (translator.microsoft.com) can break down language barriers for students, parents, and educators.

“Using AI,” I told them, doesn’t mean turning students over to the robot overlords. It can support really solid teaching and learning.

📺 You can watch the entire speech here.

💼 Access my presentation slides here.

PS: Want to help your teachers understand AI — and understand its place in education? I’m booking professional development for the 24-25 school year now. Email [email protected] for details.

🗣 DISCUSSION BOARD: AI first steps

Our discussion board question for the past week: What are some first steps teachers can take with AI?

View the whole discussion here. (It’s not too late to participate!)

• “I recently led a PD for teachers about AI and we started by dumping teachers into Magic Student for a check-in using the Adobe express image generator. They task was to create an image showing how they felt about ai. This allowed them to use the tool, see the teacher controls of it. Then we added more generators for our participants and let them explore. We found the approach of giving them the student experience with Magic school tools was really helpful because it gave them first-hand experience and peaked their interest in actually using AI with students.” — Galina Bell
  

• “Getting started is always very daunting for educators who are not comfortable with the thought of AI. I truly believe if they try something small that will be impactful in their normal daily tasks or teaching it is much more likely they will see the benefit and continue to try new things.” — Brent Mischnick

Brent went on to share a few places to get started with Curipod:

• Have teachers create one of the Full Lesson customizable lesson generators

• Use this slide deck to get teachers started with Curipod

He also suggested these sites for getting teacher tasks done more efficiently:

• MagicSchoolAI - A LOT of tools including some fun ones https://app.magicschool.ai/tools

• EduaideAI - VERY good for more focused educational-based tasks https://www.eduaide.ai/

• SchoolAI - known for their 'Spaces' BUT they have more features like tools & assistants https://app.schoolai.com/tools

This wasn’t in the discussion board, but Greg Kulowiec shared a presentation approach on AI bias for teachers …

• Display AI images and ask participants to guess the prompt

• Ask participants to prompt AI to create biased images or text

Read the whole post here.

🤖 A “teacherless” AI classroom

I found this article recently …

A private school in the UK is offering a “teacherless” high school course, using artificial intelligence, computers, and VR headsets.

Instead of teachers, they’ll employ “learning coaches” to monitor behavior and give support.

To me, this underlines a big question we’ll have to answer about education …

What parts rely on — thrive with — demand — the human touch?

When I taped an episode of Dr. Phil Primetime recently, the episode featured the Alpha School, a private school in Austin, Texas, with a very similar model.

You can read more about this new UK “teacherless” course here.

🗓 This week’s discussion topic

Here’s this week’s new discussion topic (posted under Other Topics):

What do parents want to know about the use of AI in education? What do you wish that they knew? What misconceptions do you think they have?

Click here to view the Other Topics discussion board to reply!

PS: Hit reply to this email and suggest a future discussion topic for the group!

🎙 Quote of the week

“When students start sharing how they’re leveraging AI without hesitation, you know the atmosphere you’ve created supports real learning and growth. Trust is the cornerstone of effective AI integration.”

— Nick Potkalitsky, Educating AI newsletter

Read more about this in Nick’s recent post, “When Students Trust You with Their AI Secrets, Real Learning Begins”

📚 New AI resources this week

1️⃣ 5 ways Google Gemini can help students study smarter (via Google’s The Keyword blog): I’m very interested in their integration with OpenStax to explain concepts through the context of academic textbooks.

2️⃣ AI cheating is overwhelming the education system — but teachers shouldn’t despair (via The Guardian): “The good news is that the problem isn’t insoluble – if educators in these disciplines are willing to rethink and adapt their teaching to the new reality. Other pedagogies are available. But they require, if not a change of heart, two changes of mindset.”

3️⃣ For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper (via Joseph Fasano): He’s a teacher who writes and posts poetry on Twitter. He wrote this short poem to a student who used AI in their work. “Two weeks later he turned in a paper about an issue he really cared about. It earned an A.”