The Double Edge Sword of AI in Education: Personalization or Surveillance?
Will AI in education lead to personalization or surveillance?
I talk with Karle Delo. Coach Karle is a lifelong educator and has held roles as a Director of Curriculum and Instruction and Tech Integration for a public school district in Michigan.
Karle and I talk about the double edge sword of AI in education. Karle also shares what the impact of AI has been in her school community, strategies for AI adoption, AI student usage, AI scams, AI detection, the role of AI education products, and much more.
Here’s my top takeaways from our conversation, though the full episode is definitely worth a listen as Coach Karle is dropping gems throughout:
Clear expectations, such as a red/yellow/green system, is setting up students for for a successful AI user experience on student assignments
Karle talks about how teachers in her district have invited students to leverage AI chatbots on assignments, such as to develop personas for the fictional characters in animal farm and developing a rap about science as Muhammad Ali.
AI adoption by educators is being stifled by feelings that it is cheating
While some teachers have jumped in and begun using AI to make their workflows more efficient, many teachers are hesitant to do so because they believe it is cheating or believe they will be labeled as cheaters by colleagues. How can we destigmatize AI usage?
AI in education is a marathon not a sprint
Karle highlights how the rapid updates in AI across the year led to tech burnout while grappling with feelings of AI fomo. She was then able to reground in her belief that it is about sound strategy, not products. How can we invite learning while mitigating burnout from new AI learners in education?
There is a place for ‘AI education wrappers’ and mainstream models
While so much emphasis is placed on tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, Karle highlights how there can be value for educators in leveraging boutique AI education-specific tools. Tools like ChatGPT offer powerful models but are vast, while AI education tools can be a helpful scaffold for new AI users.
AI scams are out there
Karle shares a scary moment where she was almost impacted by an AI scam, where they were leveraging deepfake audio tools to try and deceive her.
Learning about AI does not have to be mutually exclusive
Many schools are hesitant to bring AI learning because of the training and space scarcity. Learning about AI doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive — grounding AI conversations in the reality of the problems they solve and strengths they enhance in the context of the educational experience allows schools to talk about it more frequently and concretely.
Massive thank you to Karle Delo for sharing her expertise.
Check out our full conversation here. Join the conversation at TheAIEducationConversation.com
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