Artificial Intelligence and Education

By Rachel Mortimer | Posted: Monday May 29, 2023

There is a role for artificial intelligence in our schools but not for completion of assignments.

There has been a lot happening in the Artificial Intelligence space since our first article back in March, only two months ago! They are the way of the future and we don't choose to ban their use as they have so many helpful applications but like most schools and universities, we are now grappling with the negative aspects of these tools; students using them to complete assignments. 

We are in the process of writing guidelines for our teachers in terms of detecting AI in assignments and more importantly, how to prevent it becoming an issue that involves confronting a student regarding its use. Our young people are under pressure to succeed but using AI to write their work is a short term cure. 

We are also finalising our new digital use agreement that will be rolled out to all students, staff and shared with caregivers. It now has a section on acceptable use of AI and part of our role is to always remind students of our values, particularly around tika (justice) and pono (truth) and where these sit with regards to using AI ethically as well as maintaining their own self-respect. 

There is a blog article in our cybersafety hub on Chat GPT and its role in Education that you may find interesting, as you too learn to navigate a new digital tool that is improving and changing our lives very quickly.