Whether you agree with it or not, artificial intelligence is here to stay, but its very presence is creating challenges for both education professionals and school boards.
The bottom line, according to Laura Hruska, a member of the Riverside-Brookfield High School District 208 board, is for school board members in the area to educate themselves about the technology in order to understand both its limitations and potential for misuse.
Read: AI isn’t to be feared, but to be understood.
“We have to know how to use it,” said Hruska, who is also a substitute teacher. “We have to learn how to use it. We have to identify what the misuse will be.”
As part of her commitment to board member training, Hruska attended a West Cook Division meeting of the Illinois Association of School Boards on April 9 with a presentation titled, “AI: Board Member Roles and Responsibilities, What Every Board Member Should Know.”
The presentation was made by Dr. Jim Batson, an education technology consultant who is also the board president for Community High School District 128 in Vernon Hills. He is also a nationally Certified Education Technology Leader (CETL).
“He put up a slide that showed me how dangerous this could be,” Hruska said, placing emphasis on the word could. “It showed how rapidly it was accepted. If you look at the different technologies, it took Netflix years to get accepted.
“(AI) was accepted almost immediately. Anything embraced immediately should give us concern.”
Why? The potential for conflicting or outright false information, coupled with the likelihood that students may not have the discernment to realize something is simply not true. An AI tool, she said, is a “super crawler … It’s a computer. It’s collecting and synthesizing by sheer number and power. (Information) can be correct or incorrect.”
That’s not limited to education, she said.
“I had a short conversation with one of our board members. He’s an attorney, he’s heard of some attorneys using AI and some of the case information is incorrect,” she said.
Of course, there are many other concerns, she said. Students could use AI to write a paper for them, which is prohibited. Kylie Lindquist, District 208 assistant principal for curriculum and instruction, noted recently that the RB student handbook is clear that unchecked use of AI for the purpose of plagiarism in doing an assignment that should be a student’s authentic work would be treated in the same way as would cheating.
Lindquist also said that District 208 is awaiting guidance regarding development of an AI policy from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) that should come this summer.
Hruska is quick to point out that she can’t speak for her entire board nor summarize its collective viewpoint on the subject. But knowledge is power, and usage creates knowledge. For example, Hruska said she is using AI to do information searches and to create lists.
RB senior Charlie Rodis has his own concerns about AI use among his peers.
“I believe AI can be used as a tool to help students learn, but I see far too often kids using it as a reliance, and not a way to either use it as a quick brainstorm or a launching pad for actual work, or just a way to fact check or get a second opinion on something,” Rodis said.
“As a pure tool for learning, there is a time and place for it, but personally I’ve seen firsthand people use it as their main way of thinking. They use it as way to have something else think for them rather than having to rely on their own brain.”