How will artificial intelligence impact education in Eagle County?

Artificial intelligence is here and it’s developing rapidly. Much like any industry right now, education professionals are starting to evaluate the benefits and implications of AI.  

This spring, the Eagle County School District is putting together an AI Think Tank to better understand how the benefits and pitfalls of the technology and create guidance for its future use in schools.  

“With so many large language models being released and improving rapidly, the time is now. This is considered to be a transformational technology so we cannot fall behind the curve and must be prepared for AI’s use,” said Matt Miano, the school district’s chief communications officer.

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The think tank will be comprised of local educators and led by the district’s ed-tech department. Philip Qualman, the district’s superintendent, said that there will be two different groups — each meeting four times this spring — to discuss the topic. In May, both groups will convene and create a summary report for the district and its board of education.

Currently, the district has no policy around AI, but the hope is that the group will provide “guidelines around policy” for “how generative AI can be leveraged and incorporated in what we do,” Qualman said.

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“We’re not going down this road with a mentality of: ‘We’re going to try to keep it out of our schools.’ I think we see there’s value in it, and if we treat it like a tool and we learn how to use it correctly, it can help our students, it can help our staff and our organization,” Qualman added.

Ultimately, by bringing together staff that work in different capacities, the goal is that the think tank will bring diverse ideas and opinions to the table to collaboratively achieve that result.

Miano said that already teachers are reaching out to the district to ask if “they are able to teach various AI tools and have no doubt that students will find these tools on their own as well and have already done so.”

“All research and data and the continued development of Generative AI lead us to believe that it is paramount that we have policies in place to aid and assist people’s understanding and use of AI. Both students and teachers stand to benefit from its use with policies that clearly outline appropriate use,” Miano said.

As the think tank begins to meet, Miano said that the district is looking to craft specific policies around the “responsible understanding of the use of AI.”

“I should not be used to provide a student with answers or a teacher with lesson plans but rather used in conjunction with independent thought and research and all use should be cited appropriately,” Miano said.

Part of this responsibility includes awareness around “keeping student data private,” he added. “Policy surrounding that is a necessity.”

The Eagle County School District is not alone in attempting to understand how AI will fit into schools. Other schools and districts across the country are in the same position, Miano said.

“The time is now to learn and implement guidance for AI’s inevitable presence in all schools,” he added.

Concurrently to the district’s think tank, it was announced in December that the Colorado Education Initiative was partnering with the AI Education Project to create a statewide AI in Colorado Education Steering Committee.

The steering committee will have five working groups comprised of teachers, principals, superintendents, school board members, content specialists, community and parent groups, AI experts, Colorado Department of Education representatives and many more.

The committee will “identify urgent policy and practice priorities and pathways to create conditions that foster promising solutions for AI in education in Colorado, specifically in spaces and communities that have historically lacked access to economic advancement,” according to the press release.

Before making the final recommendations, the steering committee intends to design, test and share best practices.

In addition to ensuring equitable access to the technology across Colorado, the group will also focus on preparing students for a workforce impacted by AI and evaluating how teachers can use it to further learning (and save time).

Both across the state and locally, understanding the technology will go a long way in dictating what the future of AI in schools will be.

“AI in schools will transform the way students learn much like the internet and social media have impacted our communities. So we will continue to stay at the forefront and work together to integrate it in the most positive and effective manner possible,” Miano said.