Ed Tech Confronts GenAI, Cybersecurity and Tech Use Issues

Many ed-tech challenges in 2024 reached a point that demanded leadership, and decision-makers at state and local levels across the U.S. stepped up. Current events forced tentative answers to looming questions: Record cyber attacks prompted new federal investments to meet them; ubiquitous worry about generative artificial intelligence led to a subsequent domino effect of guidance policies for students and staff; news surfacing about TikTok’s relationship with the Chinese government fueled bans by institutions as well as state and local governments; data and discussion around smartphones and social media use encouraged new restrictions at the state, district and school levels.

Going by headlines alone, one would be forgiven for thinking the greatest threats to schools over the past 12 months were things like cellphones or cheating with artificial intelligence, but no, the undisputed tech terror for K-12 and higher education remains cyber attacks. There is no shortage of eyes on the problem, but most studies tell a similar story: an approximate doubling of cyber attacks on schools globally and across the U.S. in the most recent year.

Not a moment too soon — for K-12 at least — the Federal Communications Commission in June announced a long-awaited pilot program making $200 million in telecommunications funds eligible for cybersecurity expenses, with the possibility of making it a permanent fixture of the E-rate program in the future. School districts will be able to use it to pay for firewalls, endpoint protection, identity authentication, monitoring systems and other expenses while giving the FCC data on what is most needed, which the FCC can then share with federal agencies.
In response to widespread questions from students and staff about what constituted allowable and effective use of new AI tools, both K-12 and higher education institutions handed out, and were handed, a slew of guidance policies and documents from leaders at all levels. By August, over 20 state departments of education had issued official AI guidance on things like best practices, literacy and privacy. In June, the U.S. Department of Education issued a series of recommendations for ed-tech developers, vendors and the school officials who work with them regarding AI. In higher education, amid rising AI use but falling expectations for its near-term potential, AI maintained an upward trajectory. Some universities like UC San Diego and the University of Michigan continued developing their own in-house AI tools, or introducing AI-based tutors and teaching assistants. Across the education sector, broad embracing and novel uses of the technology carried on: improving student support, simulating job interviews, translating lectures into quizzes and outlines.

Many K-12 districts and universities joined their colleagues in state and local government in banning TikTok from networks and devices. But perhaps the most widespread and intense debates around technology access in 2024 centered not on AI or TikTok, but smartphones in K-12 schools. If teachers and administrators remember the year for anything in particular, it may be as the moment they finally and officially had it with smartphones and all the distractions, cyber bullying and apparent mental health problems that go with them. School boards across the U.S. had contentious public meetings, and districts and individual schools started buying storage pouches and enforcing stricter policies or banning phones altogether. By early October 2024, at least 15 states had either enacted laws, issued policy recommendations or launched pilot projects backing the authority of K-12 schools to restrict cellphone use in classrooms.

This story originally appeared in the November/December 2024 issue of Government Technology magazine. Click here to view the full digital edition online.