Technology offers us more resources than we can ever use. Sometimes this feels like an overwhelming amount of resources that aren’t always focused on specific educational topics. Being able to sort through content easily is a dream for teachers. Focused Education provides resources that are easy to navigate for teachers and students and focused on specific areas of education. This enable teachers to select appropriate grade level, topics, and type of content they want for their lesson. Having Canadian specific content allows our teachers use relevant information, resources, and support. They also provide information that is specific to British Columbia, such as KnowBC and ProQuest through their digital classroom. Having resources that are already created, tested, and focused on topics that reflect relevant information takes a lot of the pressure off teachers. Teachers face high rates of burnout, but especially new teachers without a repertoire of teaching resources. Teachers more than ever need to support one another in a world that is ever changing. Using reliable resources like Focused Education provides is especially beneficial to cut down on time outside of classroom hours.
Using pre-existing resources provides us with options to cut down our use of GenAI, lowering our environmental digital footprint. Internet searches take up significantly less energy, so finding resources that are pre-existing is a great option for those who wish to lower their environmental impact. Personally, I find using pre-existing resources more helpful because they often are already used by teachers. GenAI can only understand the prompts you give which often aren’t as well thought out as if you had prepared the lesson plan yourself. Communicating with other teachers about expectations and what resources should look like for the grade level will often give you far more clarity than AI can provide. This is because as we do jobs, we become experts in our specific fields. GenAI is not an expert in any field, instead it draws from the resources it finds. GenAI can use information that may be paraphrased wrong, taken out of context, or not from reliable sources. These factors have a major impact on the reliability and validity of the resources you are creating, so make sure you fact check any information by looking at the sources AI links. One example is AI Overview, which provides the resources beside the summary provided from your Google search and is shown in the image above.
Educators are beginning to use GenAI, especially for assistance with creating and improving resources. This creates an ethical dilemma for many surrounding the environmental and socioeconomic impacts. While these impacts aren’t proven to be any more significant than our other life choices, such as driving, we still have to consider what ethics align with our beliefs. When we support GenAI we are also supporting large corporations. Let’s consider ChatGPT, which is owned by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and several others who have large investments in tech. You may not wish to fund corporate billionaires who don’t have policies or make choices that align with your own. If so, choosing to use other AI models that more closely represent your ethics might be something you choose to do. As educators, we will likely have to use GenAI in our lives, and won’t be able to completely boycott these tools. Students still need to have an understanding AI, therefore, so do we. Exploring different models is necessary to understand how these tools work. Having knowledge about different GenAI companies is also a part of your role as a teacher. You should know the benefits, ethical downfalls, and who you are supporting. As a user of GenAI, I am beginning to educate myself of different models that align best with what I want to support. I think that we have a responsibility to do this and teach students about the effects on communities that don’t always make it in the news.
Articles to learn about guidelines for using AI:
Articles to learn more about the environmental impact that AI poses on Canada: