New state guidance on the use of artificial intelligence in schools is now up on the Department of public instruction’s website. The guidelines are designed to help local schools develop their own AI policies and help teachers and administrators work more efficiently.
A group of educators drawn from North Dakota schools, the NDDPI, the Department of Career and Technical Education, and state information technology agencies developed the guidelines.
Steve Snow, assistant director of School Approval and Opportunity says the information guides teachers and school officials through what AI is, what its best used for, and where its boundaries are.
"We always say there has to be a human doing the prompt, a human building the algorithms. The AI does is magic, and there has to be human at the other end that interprets it, that puts a little common sense to it, and makes sure that it's applicable and relatable to what we're doing. So, we always need to see that human-AI-human workflow."
Snow says the NDDPI guidance is not a “how-to” manual for using AI, but it provides general suggestions for schools to develop policies for their unique situations.
"It's going to be a struggle, it's going to be something we got to figure out, but we can't hide it from the kids. We have to figure out a way to use it in conjunction with the other things we're doing, as kind of augmenting what we're already doing, but not replacing necessarily."
Snow says the guidance was kept very open to new technologies and advancements, so it should last long into the future.