Perspective on AI in Edu

The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education has unlocked significant potential to enhance student creativity, democratize access to new ideas, and generally force educators to rethink what teaching and learning can look like now and moving forward. I remember delivering my first presentation about AI in Edu in 2018 and at that point the most significant impact educators had to consider was the ability of AI to auto grade student work. I recall making a statement regarding creative student work (art / visual / audio / video) and how AI could not impact or generate this type of content. Fast forward to today and we have clearly moved beyond auto graded essays and are grappling with the rapid emergence of not only text generative AI, but also multimedia content generated from a text prompt.

While the impact of AI in education will play out over the coming months and year, the educational landscape will ultimately change. AI-based educational tools can make learning more personalized, adaptive, and tailored to the individual needs of students. AI-powered educational platforms can track student performance, identify weaknesses, and provide customized feedback to improve learning outcomes. This approach to AI will shift the role of the educator and change the experience of the learner. While impactful, this domain of AI that impacts assessment and customized responsive experiences for students will likely be embedded in digital curriculum platforms that will act invisibly behind the scenes, with educators and students being removed from the active use of AI.

While AI will also streamlined administrative tasks for educators, freeing up time for more personalized instruction and support, there is an entirely separate side to AI in education that will impact student output, critical thinking, and creative expression. Whether AI is being used to create text, images, audio, or video, text generative AI creation removes nearly every barrier to student expression. This democratization of creation will likely shift what skills and abilities are valued both in education and in the future of work that our students will experience.

To help educators and school leaders navigate the quickly changing landscape of AI in Edu, The Kulowiec Group offers a 3 part, self-paced course that explores AI through the lense of education. Join the hundreds of educators and school districts that are taking the course to increase their awareness of AI to help craft what the future of AI will look like in education.

Our AI Philosophy

  • Active vs. Passive

    With AI increasingly embedded into the tools and platforms educators and students use on a regular basis, it is critical that we adopt a mindset where AI can be used actively and with clear intention. Educators and students must be keenly aware of their decision to use AI as opposed to AI impacting our thinking and work without awareness of the influence of the technology.

  • Redefining Skills

    With AI being readily accessible to students, educators must consider what new skills and abilities have emerged as increasingly relevant and which skills and abilities, while still important, may hold less relevance. In an AI supported environment where idea generation, feedback, concept explanation, and media creation is accessible to all learners, there are instantly implications for which skills hold more value moving forward.

    With the emergence of accessible AI tools, there is a fundamental shift from the value of finding answers vs. the skill of question creation & prompt crafting which is an increasingly valuable skill.

  • Documentation & Transparency

    While education institutions may attempt to limit or block student use of AI in a classroom environment, an approach that values documentation and transparency will yield an experience that will be more beneficial for students. When AI is used, all prompts and results should be documented as part of the student’s creative process. When AI generated ideas or content is used as inspiration, students can transparently share their original path of thinking and how the AI shifted their approach.

  • Thought Partner

    A critical mindset to adopt in order to maintain a culture of learning where educators and students value engaging in challenging academic work is to view AI as a thought partner. This philosophy begins with the understanding that use of AI takes place after the student has explored and examined an idea to the point where they are ready to expand their perspective, refine their understanding, or polish their final product.

  • Enhancing Creativity

    Whereas AI is typically viewed and understood as generative text, increasingly creative output including image, audio, and video can be generated with a text prompt. Consider the impact and implications for students when barriers to creativity are fundamentally removed. Whereas barriers to creative expression may have existed in terms of access to resources or technical skill, AI allows an idea to become a creative reality.

  • Target Equity

    Whereas there is much potential in the use of AI for educators to create dynamic learning experiences, and for students to enhance their understanding, receive feedback, and generate creative content, we must also consider equitable access to these tools. There is potential for AI to democratize opportunity, but inequity around access and the development of an understanding how to use AI can result in digital inequity growing.