This is our third time having Joseph take us on as an audience, and though I’d quite forgotten what the talk would be on, I was immediately stoked about whatever it was we were going to learn. Mr. Jeffery presents information in common language, at a digestible pace, with interesting stories, making him a very educational and engaging presenter. The presentation, this time, was on FIPPA, the Freedom of Information and Personal Privacy Act. 

FOIPOP: Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy. General term for looking up information. FIPPA is BC’s Law, and it is one of the strictest FOIPOP laws in the world. 

For the school district of the Prince George area, fortunately, teachers have access to a useful resource called the SD57 Digital Toolbox, which help teachers easily operate on various online platforms while respecting FIPPA. This is because the toolbox provides a table for the most commonly used educational platforms online, which includes information on a) whether a consent form is needed from parents for students to use the platform, b) whether the platform is subscribed to by SD57, c) what legal paperwork is attached to responsibly using that platform. 

Interestingly, one of the topics that came up in conversation was AI, and how AI has been a part of our digital lives for some time. This topic has of course featured in many discussions about the future of education, often with particular and perhaps unproductive focus on plagiarism, after the debut of ChatGPT. 

Image by Ioana Cristiana on Unsplashed.

One thing that Joseph mentioned, which got me thinking, is how AI has been a part of our lives for quite some time, and has not been given the recognition it warrants given the roles it plays. Which is why I think that the focus on plagiarism when thinking about AI ad education is unproductive. Yes, using AI can diminish creativity and critical thinking in students, and help them produce materials and content which is neither theirs, nor demonstrative of their learning. Yet, why would we freight over AI doing this when our education system has been diminishing creativity and critical thinking, and evaluating products and content that didn’t represent the student or their learning for years! I think the issue is not the AI, but the way we are cultivating and evaluating student learning.  We need to think outside the box. 

Many educators have been already been pushing the envelope, and their influence has been magnified by the internet, which has made possible virtual communities of practice, which help spread innovative and impactful pedagogies. Certainly, if we continue to teach with a focus on product over process, and student performance over student progress, AI will harm “learning”. However, if we shift our practices, perhaps we will see that learning has never been an individual practice, and should never have been measured that way to begin with. Perhaps, AI can help us put into better perspective, how communal and reciprocal learning is. 

If we consider AI as an ally, it can afford a multitude of opportunities and an unprecedented spectrum of access to learners. Moreover, it is our responsibility as educators to know the points of impacts between our students and the digital world, for better and for worse. Though it has only recently become invariably clear to the public to what extent AI has permeated our lives, it has been around for some time, and looks to be weaving its way into our future every moment. So, instead of shutting out this entity from our classrooms, when it permeates the world, let’s learn with our students, what does it mean to be in a relationship with AI? What does it look like to be in a healthy or unhealthy relationship with AI? This is what they need to know–just like how they need to know what it looks like to protect their information, and to leave their information unprotected. 

Works Cited

Anyoha, Rockwell. “The History of Artificial Intelligence”. SITN. Special Ed. Aug. 28, 2017. www.sitn.hms.harvard.edu/