AI Tools in Education and Effectiveness

I, I wanna talk about AI-

Mm-hmm

... in the classroom. You issued guidance last week saying

schools should

evaluate AI tools based on evidence of effectim-

effectiveness and learning outcomes.

Um, the tools haven't been around very long,

so there are no

real studies, certainly not long-term comprehensive

studies.

It's not possible since AI is so new.

And yet Google, for example, expanded its use of AI, Gemini, in

classrooms. OpenAI just introduced ChatGPT

Teens.

Are you concerned that students are effectively becoming sort of

guinea pigs for chatbots?

Well, I do think that what we have to make sure we

are looking at is how

much screen time students have in school, but what, you know, what is that, what

is that screen time? We wanna make sure

that there's effectiveness for students.

And, and I've had the privilege of, uh, going down to, to

Austin, Texas to the Alpha School and seeing how

AI is really working in that, in, in that particular

school. The first couple of hours every day,

students really have on headphones,

they're in front of their computers, they're getting their subjects fed to

them,

with all teachers monitoring what they're doing.

And the, the beauty of that is that a student almost has a, a

one-on-one tutor. So the teacher can monitor to see

if a child

is a bit behind, and repeat, uh, information for them.

If a child is really excelling, then their programs get, uh, sped up a

bit. So it's a great tool, you know, to have in this

particular school, and I think that's what we have to look at

with AI,

is who's gonna get it, how long are students going to be, uh,

exposed to it, what is the outcome?

And you're right, there aren't a, a lot of metrics available now,

and I think

that's what we really have to look at is these ed tech companies are introducing

these new products, to see what is the effectiveness.

Are we seeing better outcomes in schools?

And if we're not, then that, then they should be pulled out.

But I have seen it work so well in the

introductions, uh, that I've seen.

So it's AI with guardrails,

and as we introduce it, I think slowly in schools,

it can be a very effective tool used properly.