As AI technologies evolve, local educators work to develop best practices.
The presence and the shadow of artificial intelligence is growing on modern society.
Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, its influence and effect entered the spotlight — but it’s been around in some form since the 1940s, with pioneering scientist Alan Turing really bringing the idea of thinking machines to the forefront of science with his famous Turing Test in 1950. Even in the 21st Century, as we edge closer to AI actually involved in nearly everything we do, our struggle to get it right continues.
Preparing kids for the future has already been more difficult the last few years. Adding the promise and peril of AI to current school curriculums seems a risk, but one that must be taken, if we want the future to be in our control. And in our children’s control. We are at the beginning of attempting to make such transformative technology into a dog Spot, a man Friday and the most can-do personal assistant you could ever ask for. Hopefully not a Frankenstein’s Monster, a Hal-9000 or an Ultron.
Generation Alpha (those born since the early 2010s) will grow up with artificial intelligence in their everyday lives. They’ll be the first to incorporate computer systems with characteristics similar to our brains as a way to learn more, be better at their jobs and do other things we can’t even imagine yet. If the adults get it right.
As the topic continues to evolve in classrooms, different schools and organizations are taking different approaches.
Starting in the 2022-2023 school year, Laguna Beach Unified School District partnered with Challenge Success, a Stanford University program and ran focus groups with their middle and high school students to survey their understanding of AI and how they might use it for school.
“Our findings revealed that students already used AI for schoolwork,” says District Director of Communications Anakaren Cardenas Ureno, “but faced uncertainty about its appropriate use due to a lack of clear guidelines.”
That lead to the district forming AI Empowered Educators, a small group of teachers and librarians focused on finding AI potential in education. The best way to do that was with their own hands-on testing of tools like SchoolAI and MagicSchool. The programs are teacher-monitored AI environments in guided learning for kids younger than 13. But at the same time, “our leadership teams regularly explore AI tools and real-world use scenarios during scheduled meetings,” Ureno says.
Michael Morrison, the district’s chief technology officer, says that in just the few years they’ve been using AI in their classrooms, they’ve updated policy, including acceptable use.
“We always make sure the products we use with students have a signed student data privacy agreement for California,” Morrison says. “These agreements are signed for a three-year term by our superintendent and a representative from the company.”
Morrison says it’s the mutual interest of students and teachers driving their programs.
“At every AI Empowered Educator meeting, we have a student present how they are using AI.” He says it’s “humbling and inspiring to see how they use it to build websites, study the stock market and even learn Spanish. Teachers share what they are doing for efficiency during class and that is inspiring.”
And it’s all right in line with what Orange County Superintendent of Schools Stefan Bean told Parenting OC about how AI “is foundational to our vision for the future of education” and that access is as critical as ethics. Bean hopes by this year 90 percent of the county’s school districts will have the resources needed to benefit from the technology as well as ethical guidelines for its use. He is emphasizing fluency programs to help in teachers’ work becoming “more efficient and targeted” but also wants “collaborative spaces where students and educators can explore AI’s potential together.”
And the programs the district bought, Morrison says, “are district-wide applications, so the cost per student is relatively low compared to curriculum materials.”
Recent court cases have only ratcheted up the need for more careful usage and understanding of the evolving technology, an advantage school-use programs already have.
According to CNN, in October 2024, two families sued artificial intelligence chatbot company Character.AI, alleging it provided sexual content to a child, encouraged another’s suicide and encouraged the murder of a child’s parents. According to the news report, the families are asking for the company to shut down the chatbot until its alleged dangers are fixed. Character.AI is a private chatbot, while Laguna Beach’s is not.
“The [SchoolAI and MagicSchool] chatbots we use with our students have areas that are monitored by teachers,” Morrison says. “Teachers are informed if a student is off track and they can see the full interaction between the student and the AI chatbot.”
The district also brought in the Google add-on, AI Trust You, designed to promote transparency by helping teachers put clear guardrails for AI use in classroom assignments and allowing students to document their usage of chatbots like ChatGPT.
Research done with Stanford showed both district teachers and students were nervous about using AI, which in turn created an uneasy environment of guilt and policing around using it. The new add-on is designed to stimulate conversation via a common language and ultimately lead to ethical practices as students use AI. Morrison says it helps that their AI committees include staff who are parents.
But Morrison is eager to see how it can stir creativity.
“I think the most interesting thing that we haven’t fully explored yet is the ability to make movies and tell stories with AI tools. Sora from OpenAI has just opened up and we are excited to see how this can impact education,” he says.
As the evolution of artificial intelligence continues, AI programs aren’t just for kids in traditional classrooms.
Jacob Garcia, a teacher for the visually impaired at Beyond Blindness, says the Santa Ana nonprofit’s after-school program, Social Society, was created to help kids develop independent living skills, social skills, and improve their orientation and mobility.
They use AI apps like Seeing Eye GPS and Seeing AI with great success. Seeing Eye GPS provides real-time navigation assistance for blind and visually impaired users, while Seeing AI assists blind and visually impaired users with object recognition, color recognition, text recognition, barcode scanning and more.
“We also use AI technology to create sensory stories or find suggestions [on] how to adapt our lessons to include a multi-sensory experience,” Garcia says. “Our students also rely on smart assistants like Siri and Alexa to navigate their technology. One of the most fascinating applications of AI technology in our program is during trips to the grocery store to gather ingredients for our cooking projects. Seeing AI’s object recognition identifies which products are located in specific aisles. Once they navigate to the correct aisle, they employ the barcode scanner to pinpoint the exact product they need, fostering greater independence and confidence in community settings.”
And because the apps Beyond Blindness uses are leading to greater student independence, Garcia says parents have been very supportive.
“Most of the AI technology we are using includes applications downloaded from the App Store. Fortunately, these apps have been free. However, a key challenge arises when training students to use this technology in the community, as parents often face difficulties learning how to use it themselves. Since our program meets only once a week, it can be harder for families to reinforce these skills at home. This highlights a growing need to involve parents more in learning and understanding the technology their children are using, so they can better support their child’s independence outside of the program.”
By Shawn Price
Leave a Reply