Part 1: The Personal Digital Divide
Last week, the International Business Times reported on UNESCO's "Artificial Intelligence and Education: Guidance for Policy-makers" report. UNESCO is currently trying to grab the bull by the horns and issue guidance throughout multiple social and economic sectors as part of it's "AI For All" campaign (Summer).
I'll highlight several areas from their recommendation, and give my trench-level thoughts on if AI can be successful in bridging the gap in education!
This Ain't A Scene......
In my presentation on AI Literacy with Common Sense Education, I turned to the wisdom of the gods of pop-punk...Fall Out Boy. On their second album, they prophetically sang "This ain't a scene...it's a g*d d@$n arms race" (Rimmey and Ehehalt). That sentiment is 100000% true when it comes to not just AI, but the marketing of AI in the education space. In fact, UNESCO notes that AI in Education is expected to be worth an $6 billion by 2024 (Maio et al. i).
It feels like on a weekly basis, I am receiving emails about one to three new AI apps, innovations, or specific services dedicated to education, and these are solicitations to my regular school email. As I've increased my engagement on the education side of twitter, new accounts are popping up all over the place showing even more applications are on the horizon. My initial gut feeling is that these innovations are great! Innovation breeds new ideas, tested through competition, and brings us the best products, right? However, this also brings to the surface some fears many have articulated, including UNESCO.
While many of these existing and near-release applications have some version of a free-use model, clearly there is money to be made. The IBT notes that "the development of AI should not widen the technological divides within and between countries" (Summer). This technological divide is not just an international issue, but a domestic one as well. What happens in a world where the AI Arms Race continues to accelerate, and models evolve from free-to-use to a subscription model? What happens as free-to-use services gate their best items behind their subscription wall? In either world, the digital divide would continue to grow wider, as access to opportunities are not equal.
...the development of AI should not "widen the technological divides within and between countries".
I'm not naive. I understand that many of these start-ups have financial obligations to cover costs, agreements with VC supporters etc. However, as school budgets continue to tighten worldwide (Aiyar) there may be a growing number of educational institutions who simply become priced out of the market. These cost concerns present an important issue, but another element of the AI divide can come from either ability and/or willingness to access AI Applications.
In a recent post from the London School of Economics' Blog, the authors note "The competence to utilise and understand AI technologies is as vital as physical access, emphasising the need for digital education and training, particularly for marginalised communities" (Rana and Verhoeven). While this issue is larger than AI alone, again, these globalized issues can also be applied regionally throughout the United States. There have been some folks who have been early adopters and self-taught AI users, and there have been individuals who refuse (or are prohibited by their schools) to engage with AI applications.
The problem with either refusing to access AI or prohibiting the use of AI for educators is that students are going to be robbed of opportunities for understanding the technology of their future. I'm a huge fan of Matt Miller, in his most recent book AI For Educators he presents a very interesting analogy for the way we conceptualize the use of AI in the education space:
The attempt to eliminate AI usage from schools because we do not fully understand it, is a failure to think toward the future, because we are using our "today glasses" (Miller, 10.) Miller continues "AI is going to give us the most precious, most valuable, most sought-after resource for educators…the one that teachers never have enough of, the one that would empower them to realize their classroom dreams if they just had a little more" (Miller, 11).
So...What Can We Do?
While, as individuals, we lack the capacity to truly eliminate the broader elements of the digital divide, there are things we can do at our own localized levels to eliminate the divides we may currently face. Here are my best suggestions from my own personal challenges in incorporating AI.
1. From the sea of educational AI applications (or applications you use that now have AI integrations. Pick one to play with! Here are my quick go-to applications which are either AI-focused or incorporate AI.
Edpuzzle: I use Edpuzzle frequently in my classrooms to help deliver content, allow students to self-explore areas of content in broader depth, or to offer feedback on student performances etc. Edpuzzle is a great tool to lean into understanding AI because it allows you to generate questions from your selected video AND for the open-ended questions, you can offer the answer you are looking for and it will use AI to determine if your student's responses are in the right ballpark. Need help? Check out this quick 8-step tango guide!
Diffit: I've used diffit a lot recently to generate short reading passages, vocabulary activities, and/or activities surrounding videos. I love this form of generative AI, especially because it cites its sources via footnotes for any of the reading passages. This is a game-changer for me, because unlike sources like chat-GPT which either doesn't offer footnotes, or offers incorrect information, you can review the passage for accuracy within seconds.I also love that you can instantly translate your creation into different languages, or scaffold the passage to a variety of different reading levels. Again, check out the quick guide here.
Adobe Express: If you want to, or have your students try to play with generative AI and image creation, it is incredibly simple to do so. I also love the idea of using Adobe as a starter, because they offer a wide variety of lessons to help spark not just the AI usage, but to spark creativity in the classroom!
2. Have conversations with your students. While I know there are fears of misuse of AI in the classroom by "inventive" students. If you ask them, they will show you. They may have apps, sites, and other things they like to use. If you have a simple part of a day where you talk about different applications to complete assignments, you'll be amazed of what students show you. I've learned of new image generators, text-to speech and transcription programs and more, simply by asking "does anyone use an app that does X."
3. If you have students who think you are using AI to "cheat" on an assignment, ask questions, don't Iob accusations. I just recently had a student who submitted a speech, that in parts sounded like them, and in others, did not. Instead of accusing them of plagiarism, and moving on, I simply asked, hey, did you use AI to help with part of this assignment? They said that they didn't like how their draft looked, so they ran it through an AI tool as an editor, and submitted it. So, I asked if they could share their draft before they ran it through, and they shared it with me within seconds.
That gave us an excellent opportunity to have a conversation as a class on how to use AI to help edit sections of the speech without sucking the soul or human essence out of the speech. I showed them how I used AI tool, but kept the voice, essence, and main idea as my own, while allowing for some simple edits.
Parting Thoughts
While there are a variety of very real challenges and issues surrounding the ethical uses of and affordability of AI applications to use with our students. Attempting to use AI in your classroom is something you can control in helping everyone understand this technology which is actively reshaping the world we live in. The more we as educators use a variety of applications and can argue for their value to administrators. We can argue for elements of funding, we can advocate for an open marketplace, or our presence can help show the importance of these tools, and private entities can help assist in funding technological developments (these partnerships exist all over the education space at present).
If we look at the present AI Arms race with our "tomorrow glasses" we can more effectively advocate for fair and easy access for anyone, who has internet access. It may be a small start, but the more of us who are willing to engage and play with technologies we might not yet understand, can help reincorporate a sense of wonder and/or a spirit of play in our learning. If we are ready to take risks with things we don't fully understand, it will help us show our students its ok to play, take risks, and be willing to fail.
Works Cited
Aiyar, Yamini. “Countries around the World Are Slashing Education Budgets. Children Will Suffer Most | CNN Business.” CNN, Cable News Network, 22 Mar. 2022, www.cnn.com/2022/03/21/perspectives/imf-children-education-pandemic/index.html.
Maio, Fengchun, et al. “AI and Education: Guidance for Policy-Makers.” Unesdoc.Unesco.Org, United Nations, 2021, unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000376709.
Miller, Matt. AI for Educators: Learning Strategies, Teacher Efficiencies, and a Vision for an Artificial Intelligence Future. Dave Burgess Consulting, Incorporated, 2023.
Rana, Vishal, and Bert Verhoeven. “How to Bridge the Artificial Intelligence Divide.” London School of Economics Business Review, LSE, 4 Aug. 2023, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2023/08/04/how-to-bridge-the-artificial-intelligence-divide/#:~:text=Fundamentally%2C%20the%20AI%20digital%20divide,internet%20connectivity%20and%20digital%20literacy. Accessed 28 Nov. 2023.
Rimmey, Dustin, and Jennifer Ehehalt. “Bringing AI Literacy Lessons to Life.” A Common Sense Ed Webinar. Bringing AI Literacy Lessons to Life, 7 Nov. 2023, edweb.net, Edweb.Net.
Summer, Danielle. “How Should Teachers Be Using AI? UNESCO Believes It Could Solve Education’s Biggest Challenges.” International Business Times UK, International Business Times UK, 21 Nov. 2023, www.ibtimes.co.uk/how-should-teachers-using-ai-unesco-believes-it-could-solve-educations-biggest-challenges-1721680.
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