More and more students are using artificial intelligence, whether it’s helping or hindering their learning. At Oxford Learning in Halifax, AI has been incorporated into the agenda in order to help students prepare for their futures. “AI is not going away, so teaching students how to use it properly is something that we need to do,” said director Lorelei Burgess. “We need to recognize that it’s here. How can we use it properly and how can we teach students to use it properly?” Burgess said the biggest factor is teaching children how to think critically when using these digital tools. “AI can be used to support thinking, support learning, but what we don’t want to see is it replace learning and that’s where if they’re just asking for answers and not asking for clarification or, ‘Explain this to me differently or provide steps so I can understand this,’ it’s very different,” she said. Learning about AI isn’t just for students. “Parents need to go out and just play around with these tools. Figure them out. Not just one tool but try different tools and different uses for them. We have to figure out what tool is right at the right age,” said digital anthropologist Giles Crouch. As children adapt to these tools, experts say it’s still crucial to monitor how they’re using them. “Providing safer environments, filters, automated flags, reviews, moderators,” said Ed Kim with Code Ninjas. “There’s still a human component, right? We can AI-ify all that monitoring too, but also having a set of human eyes to keep an eye on things is always important.” Crouch said parents should stress to their children that AI is just that – artificial. It does not have feelings or emotions, even though it may respond to prompts as if it does. “We’re putting a lot on parents,” said Crouch. “They’ve already had to work with their kids through social media, now they’ve got to add AI into that, and then what’s the right thing and not right thing to do with it?” AI seems to be just one more tool in an ever-changing toolbox. “Students have always had access to information, so this is not a whole lot different than when the internet came out or Google and you could just get information their quickly, more readily. I think now it’s just becoming more prevalent,” said Burgess.
