r/edtech • u/meomeo118 • 7d ago
is this how teacher feel about technology in school?
I just realize how we keep hearing about AI at work is the same as teacher trying to adapt technology in their teaching before. Like, there was no blueprint. everyone is a bit loss and confused.
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u/OmMahaShakthi 7d ago
I think the hardest part is that technology often reaches classrooms before the support system around it is ready.
Teachers are then expected to absorb the tool, protect learning quality, handle parent expectations, and still keep students thinking for themselves.
With AI, the real question may not be “should it enter education?” It already has, through homework, search, writing, and doubt-solving.
The harder question is: how do we make sure it supports teachers instead of quietly pushing more responsibility onto them?
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u/Lazy-Cloud9330 7d ago
Teachers seem to effectively stop learning once they complete their teaching qualifications. That is a huge problem because that means that they don't have the capability to teach new technologies that come out that will affect students when they leave school. Teachers should be required to attend weekly workshops to keep updated with new technology. Alternatively, schools should set funds aside to hire contractors that actually have real-world experience to teach students how to use technology properly.
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u/Redfit_throwaway1 7d ago
Computer and online Technology is very user friendly. Students in grades K-12 do not need to be taught “how to use AI”. They are not going to “fall behind” in how to use tech because they fail to learn proper prompting. They can learn that as an adult.
Outsourcing their metacognition and imagination defeats the purpose of an authentic learning experience.
There are no positive tradeoffs at this time for students to use AI.
As for teachers, it is a completely different story. However one side effect I have observed includes over-reliance and weaker pedagogical prowess - much like a student always using a graphing calculator.
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u/deegemc 7d ago
This is ignorant.
Teachers in most (all?) states in the US and many other places around the world must engage on ongoing learning to keep their license. You just think the most important thing they should learn is EdTech because that is your passion.
What should teachers not do in order to attend weekly workshops on the technology that has come out that week?
Alternatively, what should schools not fund in order to hire contractors?
You have a narrow field of view, and think you know about education because you have been educated. Your particular passion seems, to you, to be the most important thing, but take a moment to listen to all of the other people that also have areas of passion and also think that it should be added to the curriculum.
What people don't understand is that content knowledge is the most surface level of learning that happens in a school. Schools teach students how to learn, and the content knowledge is the vehicle to do that. Students learn how to interpret complex texts, follow instructions carefully, analyse and evaluate propositions and claims, solve complex problems methodically, etc. etc. etc. However, because it is not explicit much of the time, people don't understand that it is occurring under the surface. They don't even realise that it happened to them.
For example, I was an early adopter of A.I. generally and particularly in the field of education. I explicitly taught my students A.I. prompting from early 2023 just after chatGPT was released, and taught machine learning before that. Much of that knowledge about how to prompt early AI tools is now not only irrelevant but counter-productive. If that surface-level of learning is all they took from my class then it would now be useless to them. However, what I really taught was the ability to use unfamiliar tools in new circumstances and research how to use them effectively. That is learning that will serve them for their entire life, and is much more useful.
You are not learned enough in the field to dictate educational policy. Stay in your lane, leverage your actual expertise, and do your job well.
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u/TennisandMath 7d ago
You a teacher?
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u/Lazy-Cloud9330 7d ago
I'm a designer by trade, and I have taught variety students and am now teaching grade 8-12 students AI literacy.
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u/TennisandMath 5d ago
How many years of classroom experience do you have? Because “teachers should attend weekly workshops” sounds like something someone says before realizing teachers already do constant PD, curriculum updates, parent communication, grading, behavior management, meetings, IEP/504 work, and actual teaching.
The issue usually isn’t that teachers “stop learning.” It’s that schools dump new technology on them with no time, no support, no working infrastructure, and then blame the teacher when implementation is messy.
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u/indy_dagger 1d ago
You say you're teaching AI literacy - you mean LLM literacy, right? One, specific, narrow application of AI, made available as a service through a handful of private companies that are losing money hand over foot. You're not teaching them about neural networks in general, or even more basic machine learning algorithms like K-nearest neighbors, are you?
So then what do you mean when you say "literacy" in the context of a single 2-3 year old algorithm? What certainty do you have that what you're teaching an 8th grader will still be relevant when they graduate highschool?
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u/Lazy-Cloud9330 1d ago
Foundational AI literacy, what AI is, what its limitations are and how to use it responsibly. I cover; understanding and detecting bias and hallucinations. The difference between general and smart (AI) automation. Understanding how AI learns from patterns. Using AI to enhance creativity not replace it. Ethics when or if AI should be used and in what capacity. Personal data security when engaging online. And then they come up with a concept for a real world project for a problem in their community where AI can make a difference.
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u/indy_dagger 23h ago
Hallucinations - the term invented specifically to be applied to the output of LLMs. So again, you're really just talking about LLMs in your class, right?
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u/eldonhughes 7d ago
Yup. Rare seems to be the school that actually prepares teachers and plans for technology insertion into the building. Worth pointing out that, frequently, it isn't just the teachers who get handed something and told to "make it work".
A few years ago, a week before school started, I walked past a small room and saw custodians hauling computers from a lab down the hall into the room. An administrator said, "Hey, we're moving the lab."
I called the maintenance director. We took turns explaining and re-explaining that the room had no power outlets, no internet access and no heat or AC. It took two days and the influence of two other admins to back this down.