Nicole Burns

I kind of feel like I haven't learned a lot - it's about careful judgement, which we already need and use in everyday teaching. It is interesting to see where the program leans on teachers to use AI in their classrooms, but reminds them that the liability for that use falls upon the person, not the program. I wonder how many individual teachers get to choose the system that the district uses for their program?

I need to keep up, and keep my own growth mindset. But I also need to balance the positives represented here with real industry and socioeconomic problems, ethical problems, and more that come with using AI. I think it's important to consider carefully how to integrate AI into my curriculum to enhance learning and ability, not replace it. And have those hard conversations about the problems in the real world. 

I actually... enjoyed... using AI as a brainstorming partner. It was irritating - I'm so accustomed to being angry with AI. (I'm an English teacher, and some students insist on using it to do writing for them.) But it can actually be used productively and effectively.

I remain concerned about the ethical implications, about addiction, about lack of critical thinking, but it is a tool. So the question becomes, how do we help students reap the benefits without doing harm?

Yes, students are going to be living and working in a world with increased reliance on and use of AI. How do we make that... good for them. How do we go about "fostering a culture of lifelong learning and adaptability" in a world where answers are always at their fingertips, and a phone is a safer companion than a human being. 

I honestly question whether we are ready to implement AI ethically in most of our classrooms and districts. Continuous training to address the rapid development of AI is expensive, as is equipment. And of course the question lingers for me, as an English teacher especially: how do we get AI to be used to enhance learning, rather than replacing critical thinking and skill building? How do we *not* become a dystopian sci-fi monstrosity in which our children are either unthinking zombies or societal outcasts, to put it in extreme terms? I appreciate learning more about AI - I WANT to… >>>

I'm trying to be open to AI opportunities, but I worry about the obvious positive bias in the lesson. I know AI is big right now, but I worry more about the ethical considerations, the *lack* of legal and regulatory frameworks (the lesson didn't even cite any examples), and the *suggestion* that ethicists and sociologists could help prevent bias - are they really being employed and listened to? I'm grateful that these ideas are even mentioned in the lesson, but  ... the idea that AI must "complement, not replace, hands-on learning experience" should not just be a footnote in a… >>>

Love the idea of building stories with the purpose of getting students to ask "why?" Student questions are so key to figuring out what their thought processes are, and whether they're able to understand and apply the information received.

I love the phrase, "Stories are vessels of culture." Using stories to share cultures, to expand awareness of and knowledge about them, is to open our eyes to aspects of our school community that often go unseen.

I love storytelling, and it's a must for my CTE course (Yearbook). Here, I appreciate the clear connection between humor and laughter, dopamine, and long-term memory and goal-setting motivation. I also appreciate what every yearbook teacher should know: stories are a way to help students feel seen, valued, and respected. Telling those stories, and telling them well, is an important function of our class. Our students need to see stories like this to *produce* them.