It's no secret that digital technologies have transformed society, altering the way we buy food, use car services and even date and fall in love, said Jean-Claude Brizard. But when it comes to education, digital transformation has too often arrived late to class.
“There is a lot of educational technology in schools, but it is often not adopted consistently,” he said Brizard, president and CEO of Promesa Digital. Brizard made these comments as part of his keynote address during the virtual conference. #NYCSchoolsTech Leadership Summit 2023which can be viewed on demand here.
During his keynote address, Brizard shared the strategies Digital Promise has developed to make digital transformation more consistent and effective in schools, as well as ways ai can be used to empower students and teachers.
Of course, the first step to a successful technology transformation incorporating ai is providing digital access to all students, and Digital Promise focuses much of its work in that area. Once all students have access, there are specific ways that ai and other digital technologies can be better used in the classroom. Here are some tips along those lines from Brizard.
<h2 id="1-focus-technology-integration-on-personalized-learning-xa0″>1. Focus technology integration in personalized learning
As educators know, one of the best ways to help a student grow is to provide personalized education. But for overworked teachers, that advice can sometimes seem like the same thing as saying that the best way to make more money is to make more money. Brizard understands.
“When we talk about student-centered teaching or learning ideas, for example, we often have teachers with 34 kids in the classroom, we give them a chalkboard and say, 'Go ahead, make it personal,'” he said. . “We all know that's not possible (when you teach) five classes a day and 150 kids.”
By focusing technology integration in schools on supporting teachers to provide personalized learning, technology can help overcome long-standing digital inequalities, Brizard said. ai, in particular, has great potential in this regard.
<h2 id="2-ai-enabled-strength-based-ieps-xa0″>2. ai-Enabled Strengths-Based IEPs
One of the many ways Digital Promise is working to use technology to better help students is by changing the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) model with the help of ai.
“We are in the process of developing the idea of a strengths-based IEP that is supported by artificial intelligence,” Brizard said. “That means moving the IEP from a deficit-based construct to one that focuses on science learning and is a strengths-based document.”
ai has the potential to make this possible by better identifying the needs of all students and helping teachers provide individualized resources to meet those needs. “We know that technology can be a great enabler in achieving this,” Brizard added.
3. Computational thinking across the curriculum
Another way schools can better use technology is to incorporate computational thinking lessons throughout the curriculum. During his keynote address, Brizard played a video from Talladega County Schools, a rural district in Alabama, where schools are already doing this.
“We saw a vision around technology that was pervasive throughout the district,” Brizard said of a visit he made with other educators to the district. “I walked into a preschool class and saw 4- and 5-year-olds building birdhouses and talking about pathways or computational thinking skills.”
Discussions on computational thinking also took place as part of a conversation about Shakespeare in a 12th grade honors English class that Brizard visited. These conversations also occurred in the district's CTE classes. “So he was everywhere, he was omnipresent,” he said.
<h2 id="4-teach-don-x2019-t-ban-ai-xa0″>4. Teach, not prohibit, ai
Brizard advised educators to broaden their thinking when it comes to ai. “ai is many things, it is not just ChatGPT. “It is not just about great linguistic models,” he stated.
Addressing those who might be concerned about the pitfalls of ai, he shared how when he started as a science teacher in New York City, graphing calculators were banned, but eventually became a must-have for all students.
“People started to see the calculator as a tool, as a facilitator, rather than a cheating tool,” he said. The same kind of evolution needs to happen around ai in education. Instead of rejecting ai, Brizard talked about how educators can use ai to prepare students for the future.
<h2 id="5-remember-ai-is-evolving-xa0″>5. Remember, ai is evolving
Digital Promise representatives are working with the U.S. Department of Education to help develop and publish guidance on how to address ai, which continues to evolve rapidly.
“We're finalizing an ai acceptable use policy with the feds that should come out very, very soon,” Brizard said. Part of these efforts will include guidance on better ways to detect ai. “People should know when ai appears in their work, how it appears, so that the human remains in control,” he said.
Brizard added that ai also has the potential to help alleviate the workload of teachers so they can focus more on providing individualized feedback to students. “ai assistance for teachers (can) reduce their workload by 30 percent. Can you imagine what that could do for a classroom teacher?
