At the annual CITE conference in San Diego on Tuesday, Thompson and Reznicek led a session on combining AI tools with those subjects to prepare students for the future.
“We can't use AI if we don't understand the fundamentals of media literacy and we don't understand the fundamentals of computer science,” Reznicek said. “Those have to be part of that journey, not just the cool tool that makes you write an email in 30 seconds instead of two minutes.”
As of this year, California requires schools to teach AI literacy and is updating curricula across subjects to reflect this mandate. Some schools have chosen to limit student interactions with AI tools, often due to concerns about data privacy, but Thompson said many AI tools that don’t require logging in can still be educational.
“You can teach students, even at the elementary level, about AI without actually having them log into AI,” Thompson said. “You can teach them the skills on how to critically look at things and evaluate and question.”
Media literacy, which includes understanding the credibility and point of view of media in a variety of contexts, is crucial in the context of AI, Reznicek said.
A practical way to teach these skills is Which Face Is Real?, a website that challenges users to identify real versus AI-generated images of human faces. Reznicek said the exercise prompts critical thinking about the credibility and intent behind media.
Abby Sourwine
Other AI tools can help students understand computer science, which the presenters described as the study of computers, algorithmic processes and their implications on society.
AI tools can also help integrate computer science concepts into general education, which might be useful in California, which ranks low in computer science education — only 5 percent of California high school students take computer science classes, according to the nonprofit Computer Science for California.
For example, Google's Quick, Draw! uses AI to guess what a user is drawing. The activity offers a brief, potentially fun way to show how AI draws from its inputs — in this case a database of millions of drawings — to recognize patterns and generate new ideas.
A more complex way to show students how AI models are trained is Teachable Machine, which allows users to train their own AI models to recognize different kinds of images, sounds or poses.
Thompson and Reznicek also cited the MagicSchool song generator as a versatile, popular tool among students for generating music given a particular style and topic.
For school IT leaders, supporting California's AI literacy education mandate could mean sharing their expertise with teachers where it's most needed. Thompson said many educators are concerned about data privacy, but they often lack a solid understanding of what the actual risks and regulations are, so IT leaders who are more attuned to those issues could help by recommending one or two AI resources that have been vetted, even if the district hasn't yet developed comprehensive guidelines on AI.
She added that these tools offer experiential learning opportunities in a subject that isn’t going anywhere.
“Our students need these skills, even at the youngest age,” Thompson said.
