After 15 years of discussing 21st-century education skills, Artificial Intelligence (AI) programs are creating an impactful way to supplement and enhance education.

There is plenty of concern around using AI for plagiarism and cheating, but AI use is more nuanced, and some educators find real-time benefits. The capacity to both understand AI’s limitations and embrace its educational options depends on students’, teachers’, and administrators’ collective quickness, flexibility, and resiliency—and parents need to be engaged in the process, too.

The California Department of Education states unequivocally that technology cannot replace the importance of human interaction and relationships to build a solid education. Human relationships are imperative to teach others how to learn. AI programs facilitate more opportunities for humans to interact with one another because they organize data and offer options very quickly, allowing humans to decide what works best, and triggering people to think of greater creative possibilities.

Safety is a top priority, and digital citizenship education enables students and teachers to use AI to respond decisively to bullying situations, protect privacy, and provide social media awareness. Students require ongoing digital citizenship training against cyberbullying, deep fakes, ID misuse, social media abuses, and identifying false facts and scams.

Every research study on using AI concludes that it accomplishes data-intensive jobs faster, as long as users stay skeptical of AI outcomes and cross-check conclusions. This warns users to watch for potential AI glitches, and also brings the self-realization that the human brain is lazy and accepts AI conclusions without questioning outcomes, unless human skepticism is trained into the process. AI is math, not magic. It is not infallible or all-knowing, and students and educators must be wary of overdependence on any educational tool. Checking conclusions should be part of training as well as identifying fake photos, news, and information derived from AI.

Responsible student exposure to AI programs in controlled environments empowers students to use them wisely, responsibly, and ethically to automate lower-function tasks after students understand the procedure. It can foster time management and help develop critical thinking, analysis, and creative problem-solving.

Districts can provide intentional, ongoing training with ethical guidelines for instructors and students on the responsible use of educational AI applications. School board policies reflect their awareness of this fast-changing, unregulated technology’s impact on students and teachers. In addition to security and universal access (every student should be able to utilize AI), ethical use standards require parent input for best practices.

FSD trustees include responsible technology use and training for students as one of their five elementary board goals. Students learn AI utility with district-vetted AI programs accessible on their school devices and discuss both positive and unacceptable uses of AI, reflecting their understanding in age-appropriate stages beginning in kindergarten. Thinking about AI as a tool helps educators set reasonable goals, and digital citizenship training helps children take agency over AI applications.

FJUHSD’s BP 6163.4 concerning technology use mentions AI applications in conjunction with academic honesty and copyright infringement, and focuses on inappropriate AI use. Educational Services Director, Dr. Josh Porter, said the district is exploring AI programs and does not allow AI program access on district Chromebooks, but allows instructors to teach with AI programs for student interaction.

La Vista High School Mathematics Educator, Dr. Al Rabanera, recently spoke at the Aspen Ideas Festival about his utilization of AI in the classroom as an educational tool. Dr. Rabanera spends time learning about new AI applications while using AI to collate his students’ responses to focus on topics relevant to his students, identify alternative perspectives, and achieve lesson plans that engage students faster. Dr. Rabanera said AI-scanned written work shows him areas of student understanding and areas of challenges, allows him to individualize student lessons faster, and thus increase student access and cooperation in the learning process. Time saved also frees up his time to build better relationships with his students.

When he asked his students to use AI to explain the recent FJUHSD AI use guideline, they utilized various AI programs on their personal devices since FJUHSD blocks all AI apps on student Chromebooks. The students reported positive outcomes, gained tools to expand their vocabulary, examined the topic from various perspectives, and learned multiple ways to complete the assignment.

Educators can utilize AI tools to personalize lessons, granting greater educational access for special education and English language-learning students. Assessing lesson plans with AI tools provides multiple perspectives and identifies unconscious bias and equity issues. AI can help teachers take global issues while making lessons tailored to embedded communities and cultures.

School districts and boards need clear technology priorities supporting ongoing ethical training to control how AI is perceived and utilized responsibly by teachers and students, because AI use is here, and students will use it with skepticism and ethics or in ignorance and without guardrails.