Randolph MacLean compares trying to keep artificial intelligence out of New Brunswick schools to trying to holding back the Bay of Fundy’s tides — not something you can or should do.The superintendent of the Anglophone East School District is among the provincial administrators reacting to society’s latest technological advance. And he for one gladly embraces AI.”The walls of schools stopped being impermeable in 1980 when the personal computer was rolled out,” he said. “And from the personal computer we moved to wireless Internet, we moved to smartphones and the next generation is artificial intelligence.”The New Brunswick government has guidelines in place that define how AI should be used in the classroom, and MacLean’s district and two others have created their own guides that expand on the provincial one.WATCH | ‘The next generation is artificial intelligence,’ says superintendent:New Brunswick classrooms are welcoming AI, but carefullyArtificial intelligence has already arrived in New Brunswick’s classrooms. To address it, the province and three districts have created guidelines to outline the dos and don’ts of how AI should be used in schools.For now, Anglophone South and North as well as Francophone South and Northwest rely on the province’s guidelines and don’t have their own. “They leave our system at the end of Grade 12 and they’re going into a new economy in a new world,” MacLean said. “We want to make sure they have skills, capacities and habits of mind to be successful.”Tools and guidelines carefully vettedMacLean and his team, including district educational technology, artificial intelligence and innovation co-ordinator Jordan Smith, have worked with other school districts in the country and folks within Anglophone East to create their guidelines.The result is almost 70 pages that address what AI use should look like for administrators, teachers, students and parents.The guide points out that AI has limitations and can create misinformation. There is also a list of approved AI platforms the province has vetted — School AI, Padlet and Canva among them — and a description of how to use them. Jordan Smith is the educational technology, artificial intelligence and innovation co-ordinator for Anglophone East, and helps deliver professional learning sessions on AI. (Anglophone School District East/YouTube)Around a dozen of those AI tools can help take notes, adapt lessons into activities, create presentations, answer questions, or solve problems.For teachers, such tools can make planning and finding resources more efficient, to the delight of Josée Gaudet, who leads AI adoption for Northeastern Francophone schools. It’s the first time in my career that I see tools that will help the teachers gain time. And for once, it’s not something that we need to add.— Josée Gaudet, Northeastern Francophone School District”It’s the first time in my career that I see tools that will help the teachers gain time. And for once, it’s not something that we need to add, ‘Oh, no, not one more thing,'” said Gaudet.”It’s really fun to see the reaction of the people when they start to work with it and they realize how much it can do and what it’s going to be able to let them do in their classroom.”Gaudet was on the committee that honed the department’s guidelines. Her district and others in the province are now rolling out training for staff.”We knew that AI is not just here for a couple of months. It’s not just a trend. It’s here and it’s going to transform education. So we wanted to make sure that our staff was ready for that,” she said.WATCH: How classrooms in West Vancouver are using AI:How some schools are integrating AI in classrooms and reshaping learningIn the 1980s, classroom learning changed forever when computers were introduced and revolutionized schools. Something similar is happening right now in the age of AI. While many remain cautious about using it, some schools are leveraging its benefits to reshape the way they teach and the way students learn. West Vancouver School District’s superintendent of schools and CEO tells us how their classrooms are using AI.The province’s Education and Early Childhood Development Department said it couldn’t accommodate an interview about its AI guidelines.Instead, spokesperson Diana Chávez provided an emailed statement that said training is being offered in all districts, with more planning and training being developed. We sell our professional development opportunities for artificial intelligence faster than a Taylor Swift concert sells out.— Randolph MacLean, Anglophone East School DistrictMacLean said his district’s training sessions are quite a hit.”We sell our professional development opportunities for artificial intelligence faster than a Taylor Swift concert sells out.”MacLean said his district doesn’t approach AI with a “one-size-fits-all model,” realizing that the approved tools should be used differently based on the student, teacher, curriculum and abilities.”I have 1,600 teachers. It looks 1,600 different ways. There’s 20,500 students. It looks 20,500 different ways.”How AI is used in schools is up to guidelines and teacher discretion. Anglophone East Superintendent Randolph MacLean said there is no one-size-fits-all model. (Anglophone School District East/YouTube)Restricted to only some age groupsThough artificial intelligence use in New Brunswick schools has been outlined as fluid, there are some firm rules.The province’s guide recommends consent for AI use due to privacy concerns, since information input into a system like Chat GPT won’t be deleted. There’s no specified age for consent.However, Anglophone East restricts students under the age of 13 from using most of its tools.Gaudet said Francophone Northeast students under 13 should never use AI without supervision and guidance.Anglophone West has its own guide and requires consent for students under the age of 16.The department’s Policy 311, which addresses safe and age-appropriate use of technology, has some guardrails around AI use as well.Jon Hoyt-Hallett is Anglophone West’s director of curriculum and instruction. There, students under 16 need consent to use artificial intelligence in the classroom, and parents or guardians can opt out on their behalf. (CBC)”We provide guidelines and then allow that flexibility while at the same time providing support as to what we feel from a research standpoint is appropriate use,” said Jon Hoyt-Hallett, the director of curriculum and instruction for Anglophone West.While noting that AI is commonplace online, he said that if parents do opt out on behalf of their children, the district will do its best to limit interactions.The province and the three districts with their own guidelines discourage the use of tools that detect AI use and input a student’s personal information. Because of the design of AI, that personal information would become a part of the machine’s database and not erased, which is a privacy concern. Assessment formats are changing As for the worry that students will be using AI to do all their work, Hoyt-Hallett said changing student assessment methods can deal with that. “Rather than relying solely on the product of learning — the finished product, an essay or lab report, or something to that effect — we’re now shifting to a formative assessment approach, where we focus on the process of learning.”MacLean’s district seconds that approach.”We look at evaluation assessment through a different lens… [from] just producing a product to ‘how do we produce that?'” he said.All three districts say their guides and planning are not set in stone. They can’t be. “It’s always changing. We’re adapting to every new thing that is coming out. We need to evolve because our guide is not static. We need to move with with the trends,” said Gaudet.Hoyt-Hallett said policies are usually evaluated annually, but with the pace of AI evolution, that policy will be “assessed and evaluated even more frequently.”
Many N.B. classrooms carefully edging toward integrating the power of artificial intelligence
