As a parent, I’d sit in the bleachers and watch one of my kids play baseball. Well, tee-ball. It was quite fun. Some kids, especially those in left field or right, would take their baseball glove off in the sun, stare into space, or doing anything except keep their eye on the ball. Winning often involves hot, sweaty work that means you don’t take your eye off the ball, even when there’s more exciting things happening (e.g. butterfly swarm).

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Photo by Karina Vorozheeva on Unsplash

Tim at Assorted Stuff makes some interesting points. He suggests that AI is a tool that will do miraculous things in schools. He writes:

New learning tools like these allow teachers to propose more complex and realistic problems for their students to tackle. But that requires kids to learn how to evaluate the output. Not only is the result correct, but does it clearly address the problem to be solved.

Over time, graphing calculators evolved into more powerful and portable computational engines. AI systems like ChatGPT (which right now are certainly artificial but hardly intelligent) are only just getting started in their progress.

Now is when we all need to start learning the best ways to make them work for us and our students. But always, always, check the output.

While I agree with his assertion that NOW is the best time to start learning (after all, NOW is always the best time to be learning something, especially when it’s new), let’s not take our eye off the ball again.

I get it. It’s so much fun to look at the latest new gadget and gizmo, the latest new REVOLUTIONARY, TRANFORMATIONAL tool, and say, “Surely, this, THIS, will change how schools work. Teachers will be so excited to embrace yet another digital tool.”

Sure, go ahead, keep track of the latest swarm of butterflies, do anything and everything but pay attention and use high-effect size instructional strategies in schools. I’m sure that the track record for edtech will show that technology has made a huge difference in how schools operate, changing them for the better.

Oh, wait. Seen that UNESCO report?