The recent developments around AI and anxiety over where it’s going feels a lot like aliens suddenly arriving on earth. Generated by DALL-E 3.
I’ll get write to it. I’m rebooting my blog because of AI.
I’ve worked in K-12 education for fourteen years, and I’ve never seen a new technology emerge with the power to radically change our world with such power and speed. Tablets, 3D printers, smartboards, 1:1 classrooms, those were iterative developments that (not always) enhanced learning.
Generative AI is another animal. It will revolutionize education. It’s powerful, rapidly advancing, and chaotic (see the recent drama around OpenAI). I feel a conflicting sense of awe and anxiety of its potential to help and harm. Is this how it would feel if we discovered aliens were entering our solar system and heading toward Earth?
I need to make sense of how AI is affecting K-12 education so I can help teachers and parents do the same. I’ve actually been journaling my thoughts and musings about AI for almost a year, but they’ve been fleeting and scattered. Publishing them forces me to be more thoughtful and accountable. And If I don’t have anything to write, it likely means I’m not doing my job keeping up with new developments, best-practices, or playing with AI enough. More importantly, I hope my readers will offer more ideas and new perspectives.
I want to explore questions like:
- Should we still teach coding in K-8?
- When and how do we allow and encourage use of AI tools?
- How will teaching and learning evolve?
- How can we ensure all students have access to AI technology without sacrificing privacy?
I think there’s a tremendous opportunity for AI to enhance education. It can enable teachers to spend more time engaging with students. Teachers can more easily tailor assignments to student interests, or, more aspirationally, to align with what they’re learning in other subjects. It can make the mechanics of writing more approachable for students, allowing them to focus more on ideas and thinking.
So with that in mind, I hope to write in a way that’s accessible to parents and teachers, and help them make good decisions for what’s right for their students, themselves, and their classrooms.
If you’re wondering whether this post was generated by ChatGPT or any other AI, good. Given how pervasive it’s becoming, you should ask that question about everything you read. For this post, I’ll pose a question: Would generative AI have written its first sentence?
Post your thoughts on that question or anything else in the comments.
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