Checking back in on AI. 

So, when it comes to gen AI in education – where do we start?  It is a question that is paralyzing many.  I am reminded of this Spiderman meme:

All levels in education point at the others expecting them to take the lead.  

One of the reasons that the gen AI conversation is moving forward in British Columbia is because we have largely clarified this – with different responsibilities for different levels within the system.  And this clarification allows the work to move forward.

Provincial Government

Always good to remind non-Canadian readers that education in Canada is under provincial jurisdiction with joint responsibility shared between provincial governments and local districts.   

In BC, government is providing high level consistent messaging around generative AI.  The materials they have developed (HERE) are excellent.  They provide a background on what everyone needs to know about AI, with documents for students, parents and staff.  They also have considerations for using AI tools in classrooms, connections to curriculum and learning stories on their use in classrooms.

The provincial government has given the nod that they acknowledge gen AI is part of our lives, and we need to consider its use throughout the school system.  They take away the questions of AI – yes or no (which is a terrible question anyways), and at the same time are not prescriptive over a particular tool, or even the requirement or expectation that it needs to be used.

School Districts

If the provincial government messages at 30,000 feet, then we try to be much closer to the ground as a school district.  We have identified a district staff member to have this as one of the key piece of their portfolio.  Cari Wilson (her blog is a great read with lots of AI content) works with our educators and IT staff to support the work across the district.  It is an interesting time, as we actually need dozens or hundreds of gen AI experiments in classrooms, but we also want to use some consistent tools so we have coherence in our system.

For us it has been Magic School that is the core tool we are using.   And first, we gave it to teachers to use and experiment. Then, we have rolled it out to students asteachers and schools were ready.  We are trying to take the lessons of the last 20 years of technology and think deeply about how we be the leaders of the technology rather than the technology running us.  We don’t need a repeat of “Hey – we all have iPads how should we use them?”  We need more “what do we want to do that we couldn’t do without AI, and how can it help us?”.

We are creating study groups, and pro-d opportunities, and bringing in outside experts, and telling stories of successes and failures.  We are bringing the community along  = like this recent virtual session for families which featured our staff and students talking about what AI looked like in the classroom,  in both an elementary and secondary setting.

And like with the Ministry, one important thing we do is to give permission to work and learn in this space.

Schools and Classes

We have a huge range of gen AI use in our schools.  Some teachers use Magic School all the time.  Some don’t.  And that is totally OK.  Without a doubt there will be more AI in classes next year than this year and I have trouble believing all staff will not find ways to use AI to support lesson planning, help with personalizing learning and interpreting data in coming years. 

We also want to have real conversations about the questions that exist – topics like academic integrity, online safety, equitable access, privacy concerns and reliance on technology are all real and worth exploring.  

And while we are using AI to help personalize learning, and offer additional supports and extensions for students, we should also use it to do some of the silly things it does well – like create a parody song to the tune of Shake it Off to review the elements of the periodic table.  

And I know this will not be popular with some AI champions, I don’t think we should be selling AI as the answer to efficiency in the classroom.  Gen AI will not make teaching easier or quicker – it will make it different and hopefully more purposeful and relevant.

My #1 Piece of Advice

What is my number one message for all involved in the gen AI conversation?  Network.  Everyone thinks they are behind and looking at others.  The most thoughtful systems will network with other similar minded systems (British Columbia should be connected with other provinces and countries like Australia and New Zealand doing interesting work in this space), and districts should be connected together (for us this is being part of 4 networks connected to AI that link us with districts in our region, our country and globally).  And this process should repeat itself at the school and teacher level as we look for ways this technology is leading to learning breakthroughs.  

I have written about AI a few times, and my thinking is a work in progress.  Over the last 18 months I have come to see the emerging tools as ones we want to influence in the hope that we can shape their use to allow us to do many things in education around reaching all learners that have often just lived in the world of the theoretical.  

Note:  The visual at the top of today’s post was generated by me pasting this blog post into Chat GPT 4.0 and asking it to generate some options of images that could accompany the post.