At a time when technology is revolutionizing job markets far beyond STEM fields, even creative careers will require future professionals to be tech-savvy enough to reach online audiences, respect intellectual property laws, manage their digital footprints and protect their data. And those lessons should start in K-12.
That was the position articulated Wednesday by ed-tech consultant Katherine Fielding and Tim Belmont, a technology specialist at Lyndhurst Public Schools in New Jersey, at the Future of Education Technology Conference in Orlando.
Leading a 45-minute session on how creative assignments involving presentations, podcasts, books, videos or music can prepare students for that future, Belmont said no matter what it is, students should approach each project with a ready-to-publish mindset.
“It’s the idea that if a student is making a presentation, by following some of these guidelines, if they have decided ‘I want to post this online,’ it should be appropriate for that,” he said. “[Podcasting] is something I do a lot in my job as a teacher. I try to make it as authentic as possible and release it to as wide an audience as possible, but even when I can’t, I always talk to students and I say, ‘Make this so if you did want to post it online, you could.’”
Fielding recommended that educators assign projects involving steps that can’t be accomplished by generative artificial intelligence.
“AI can create presentations, or music, or books, but try to make some of those projects where there’s less of a possibility of robots talking to robots,” she said. “Like, I as a teacher maybe helped generate my lesson plan with AI, and now I have a student basically put that prompt into AI and generate the project. We want to make sure there’s a process on the student side of that project.”
Belmont and Fielding shared tips to help students make various creative projects suitable for digital public consumption:
- For presentations, they should provide varied mediums, include alt text, use contrast that’s visible to people with visual impairments, and be transparent about their sources of information.
- For podcasts, students should make clear distinctions between subjective and objective claims, follow copyright laws with respect to public domain and creative commons, and think about their audience.
“Knowing where to get content that is in the public domain or has a creative commons license is really, really helpful,” Belmont said. “We use Soundtrap to record our podcasts, which is a platform that I really like, and they have sound and music on there that is royalty-free, so you know students can use this and they don’t have to worry about any ethical issues with it.” - For writing books, teachers should emphasize the importance of including audiobook or e-book options with text-to-speech, and encourage the inclusion of varied perspectives.
- For recording videos, students should learn to respect people’s privacy, use collaboration and teamwork, and share and promote the work ethically, which includes disclosing when content has been generated by AI.
“Video recording and audio recording laws in the U.S. are all over the place. There isn’t a consistent rule, so if you film somebody and they’re like ‘It’s illegal,’ it’s like, ‘Well, maybe not,’” Belmont said. “But from just a human being [or] decency standpoint, you want to consider who’s in the video, whose likeness are you sharing online, and it’s helpful to share that idea early on.” - For music, teachers should define “sampling” and its legal implications, offer examples of creative commons or public domain music resources, and encourage projects that remix traditional songs with modern elements, respecting intellectual property.
