Scranton School District <\/a>said the key is teaching students how to use AI responsibly, not to simply find answers, but to deepen their understanding through research and critical thinking.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s being able to educate not only our students but also our parents in the proper use of it. As we talked about, it was the internet that came out in classroom computers came out, and now AI is that new trend. And we just want to make sure that not only are we integrating properly into the classroom, but that we have proper use from our teachers and at home as well,\u201d said Summa.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don’t want to see you just get the answer. We want to see you use it as a tool that can help you find the answer through more research, instead of just getting right to the point, because obviously you’re not learning anything that way,\u201d said Summa.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think one of the big pushes that we’re making is to create is safe and healthy digital citizens, how do we do that? So, it’s giving people the knowledge that they need to interact with technology in the way that’s beneficial to them, but safe and healthy at the same time. So, that encompasses a great deal of things even beyond AI,\u201d said Keating.<\/p>\n
Dr. Keating said the district has built safeguards around technology use, limiting screen time for younger students while giving older students more responsibility with their devices. <\/p>\n
\u201cScranton already took a step towards regulating screen time. When Chris came in as the director of technology, we put carts in all of our classrooms K-8. So, teachers regulate when students are able to access computers in the classroom and how they use them at that elementary and intermediate level. So that was a first step in regulating screen time. At our high school level, students do have a 1 to 1 device. But they’re also more mature and they can handle the choices at that point. Our job is to make sure that when we can’t control through filters, people accessing negative information, that they understand the parameters around what is a safe search, what are safe sites, what is a healthy way to engage with technology versus an unhealthy way,\u201d said Keating.<\/p>\n
Summa shared that the district has also introduced “Tech Genies,\u201d trained staff members who help peers effectively use tools like AI in the classroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a department here in the district, we have integrated and implemented with the help of the administration, \u2018tech genies,\u2019 as we’re calling them. They\u2019re groups as teachers in each building, depending on the size of the building, that will not only help us integrate curricular needs, but also, we’re establishing an AI task force out of those folks,\u201d said Summa.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo those folks, plus the students and parents, we want feedback from all those different stakeholder groups to be able to navigate these waters because there’s fairly deep waters of AI. Different flavors of clouds and ChatGPT and Gemini and everything. We can’t just dive in and have a stopgap. We need to make sure that we’re fully educated, and we have voices from all those different groups,\u201d said Summa.<\/p>\n
Summa and Keating said AI use is monitored through classroom supervision, internet safeguards, and ongoing student education. They compare today’s AI challenges to the early days of the internet, stressing that parents play an important role by talking with their children about using AI responsibly and becoming good digital citizens.<\/p>\n
\u201cParents need to educate themselves on the technologies as well. I know I’ve hit a different age level in my life, and I’m definitely separated from the younger generation in screen time and technology use. But you have to make sure that you’re up to date and relevant with what’s going on, and you need to have conversations with your child about cyber safety and being a healthy and safe digital citizen, and the things that are out there,\u201d said Keating.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to get in and see what your kids are accessing, because that’s the only way you’re going to really find out what they’re doing, because they’re smarter and better than you at utilizing the technology. So, you’ve got to stay on top of it,\u201d said Keating.<\/p>\n
The Scranton School District<\/a> welcomes back students Wednesday, August 26. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 As AI becomes more common in education, questions remain about its role in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-259943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}