This month, the Future of Education Technology Conference in Orlando, Florida, is showcasing dozens of sessions and keynote speeches specifically about AI in education. Educators, district and technology leaders alike can take advantage of the numerous opportunities to better educate themselves about the topic and bring home some strategies to implement in their schools.

If you’re one of the many tech leaders still on the fence about AI and its ethical implications in education, check out these three sessions at FETC Jan. 23-26:

AI: The Game Changer for Personalized Education

Attendees will explore how teachers can harness the power of AI to reimagine their classroom instruction.

“When combined with research-based pedagogy, AI can create a dynamic and engaging learning experience that meets the unique needs of each student,” the session description reads.

Check out this session to learn more about how AI can aid in the transformation of teaching and learning while empowering educators to create personalized instruction for students.

Artificial Intelligence in Education: What Do We Need to Know?

This workshop will provide attendees with a brief overview and explanation of AI and how to teach with it in addition to some resources to explore. For instance, you’ll learn how these tools can be used in the classroom, including ways for students to explore and design their own chatbots.

“We will talk about ChatGPT and dive into its uses it, concerns and explore how it is evolving and the implications for education and the future of work,” the workshop description reads.

Generative AI: Build Your School or District Strategy Now

The most disruptive tech to hit since the birth of the internet, artificial intelligence, is forcing teachers and school districts to alter their approach to traditional education. Now, educators are even more concerned about plagiarism and cheating. So, what should your strategy be to ensure its equitable use?

This workshop will explore stories of success and anecdotes for learning, as well as best practices and checklists for you to take back to your schools.

Register for the Future of Education Technology Conference, or view the full program agenda.

The post Still confused about AI in education? Here are 3 resources that can help appeared first on District Administration.

Later this month, the U.S. Department of Education will be releasing this guidance. To help educators better understand how to incorporate this resource into their schools, FETC has invited Anita Vermeer and Christina Diamond, education specials at the Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs, to give conference attendees an inside look into this guidance and offer ways to enhance their school’s ability to support students with disabilities. FETC will be one of the first in the nation to share this guidance with educators.

More from DA: School shootings hit record high in 2023 as upward trend continues

During the session, Vermeer and Diamond will highlight the core tenets of the guidance and other related resources to support and enhance access to educational opportunities for students with disabilities and those who educate and support them.

“Participants will increase their understanding of the AT requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), learn facts around common misconceptions regarding AT devices and services, and identify resources to aid in the selection of appropriate AT,” the session’s description reads.

Other AT-related sessions to look out for:

Tech-ability: Google Tools for Students with Learning Disabilities

Implementing Assistive Technology to Break Down Barriers in Learning

Innovative Technology: Key to Increasing Accessibility for Special Needs Learners

The post FETC 2024: This new session will unveil never-before-seen guidance on assistive technology appeared first on District Administration.

As a result, IT leaders have eagerly stepped up to the challenge of meeting the demands of these rapid developments with great success. However, great leaders know that there’s always more to learn in this area.

From artificial intelligence to cybersecurity, here are three sessions at FETC 2024 IT leaders may find helpful ahead of the 2024-25 school year:

Bridging the divide between tech and teachers

We often hear from K12 technology leaders about the struggles of building strong relationships with teaching staff. IT departments are traditionally seen as the “fix it” crew. But in modern education, that has to change.

In this session, you’ll hear from Megan Gretzinger, director of instructional technology for the Clinton School District in Missouri, about how you can implement strategies to bridge this divide.

Read more about the session here.

Tech it up a north: Innovative tools to engage students

“Get ready to dive into a whirlwind of excitement as you join Trafera’s TLCs for a fun-filled session,” the description reads. In this session, you’ll hear from the experts at Trafera, a classroom technology integration company, about how you can utilize edtech to engage students in a way that’s “guaranteed to add a splash of fun and a sprinkle of magic to your teaching journey.”

Read more about the session here.

Know who is on your Wifi network

At a time when cybersecurity is tops on technology leaders’ lists of priorities, ensuring the security of your school’s network is crucial.

In this session, you’ll hear from Christopher Lockhart, director of technology at Princeton City Schools, about the ways you can capture information about guests who want to use your school’s wifi network.

“You can allow them to connect, but let’s ask them for something in exchange,” per the session description.

Read more about the session here.

The post 3 must-attend sessions for IT leaders at FETC 2024 appeared first on District Administration.

The editors of District Administration® conducted a comprehensive evaluation of approximately 210 submissions—the highest number to date—including input from a panel of industry experts and analysts. Winners were chosen from large, midsize and small companies in seven categories: Curriculum & Instructional Technology, Future Learning Technology, Information Technology, Learning Environment & Student Support Technology, Management Systems Technology, Upskilling & Credential Technology, and Virtual Learning Technology. The following 21 solutions were named the winners:

CURRICULUM & INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY

LARGE: Explore Learning / Gizmos and Gizmos STEM Cases
MIDSIZE: Peekapak
SMALL: Speak Agent

FUTURE LEARNING TECHNOLOGY
LARGE: Kahoot! EDU
MIDSIZE: Skill Struck K-12 CS Platform
SMALL: Boddle Learning

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

LARGE: Clever MFA+
MIDSIZE: SchoolStatus
SMALL: K12Panel.com

LEARNING ENVIRONMENT & STUDENT SUPPORT TECHNOLOGY

LARGE: Presence Teletherapy Service
MIDSIZE: Sown to Grow / Weekly Emotional Check-in Platform
SMALL: Along

MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY

LARGE: RideIQ Strategic Routing
MIDSIZE: Abre
SMALL: Hilight / Teacher & School Staff Highlight Tool

UPSKILLING & CREDENTIAL TECHNOLOGY

LARGE: Avanti
MIDSIZE: YouScience Brightpath
SMALL: Educational Innovation 360 / How Video Teaching Can Help Teachers Improve Reading Achievement

VIRTUAL LEARNING TECHNOLOGY

LARGE: Hanover Research’s Educator Learning Center
MIDSIZE: ELSA Speak App
SMALL: Breakout Learning / AI to enhance the classroom experience

The post These are our Top EdTech Product winners of 2024! appeared first on District Administration.

That’s the consensus of Annie Chechitelli, chief product officer at Turnitin, a popular plagiarism detection tool used by schools across the country.

According to data shared with District Administration, Turnitin has analyzed more than 142 million student-authored papers for evidence of AI writing. Among those submissions, nearly 10 million were flagged, as 20% of their content was likely written by AI. Furthermore, another four million were flagged because 80% of their content was produced by AI.

“While many educators were surprised by the debut of generative AI tools and how quickly it impacted education, at Turnitin we were not surprised,” Chechitelli said in a statement. “Prior to the launch of ChatGPT, Turnitin had already recognized the potential impact and began investing in AI writing detection to ensure we would help provide educators with a tool that works alongside both an instructors’ expertise in assessing students’ work as well as academic integrity policies.”

More from DA: Bolder visions: What 6 new strategic plans look like online

It’s a trend that also impacts the higher education landscape. According to a recent survey from Tyton Partners in partnership with Turnitin, nearly half of college students surveyed are “regular users” of AI. Additionally, 75% of students said they’ll continue relying on it regardless of whether their professors or institutions ban it.

These findings come at a time when OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, is encouraging schools to use its technology in their classrooms.

According to reports from Reuters, the company is exploring how its chatbot can be used for classroom lessons. At a conference in San Francisco, chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said they’ll form a team to explore its educational applications.

“Most teachers are trying to figure out ways to incorporate (ChatGPT) into the curriculum and into the way they teach,” Lightcap said at the INSEAD Americans Conference earlier this month. “We at OpenAI are trying to help them think through the problem and next year we will probably establish a team with the sole intent of doing that.”

School districts, too, are reconsidering their initial concerns surrounding cheating with the chatbot. According to The New York Times, school districts like Walla Walla Public Schools have hosted daylong workshops on AI chatbots to inform teachers about the technology.

“I do want students to learn to use it,” one teacher told The New York Times. “They are going to grow up in a world where this is the norm.”

The post Happy anniversary ChatGPT: How has generative AI impacted K12 education? appeared first on District Administration.

AI’s undeniable impact on K12 education as a whole

“I can target my instruction and tailor it better to their [students’] needs whether individually or as a whole class,” says Rachelle Dené Poth, an author, Spanish and STEAM educator at Riverview Junior-Senior High School. She notes that not only does AI prove beneficial for students as it engages them and meets their specific needs, but it can also serve as a teacher assistant and a virtual tutor, allowing educators to focus on multiple students at once. Poth also says she’s witnessing AI’s impact on education in three primary ways:

• Personalized learning: AI algorithms are able to adapt learning experiences to a student’s individual needs and offer tailored support and feedback as a result.
• Intelligent tutoring: Similarly, virtual tutors are able to provide personal guidance and assistance while matching the student’s learning styles and pace of learning.
• Data-driven insights: One of the best ways teachers can leverage AI is to make informed decisions based on class-wide assessments made possible by AI. It’s capable of analyzing large datasets to identify certain patterns and trends, streamlining the decision-making process for educators.

Integrating diverse AI techniques to tailor education for students

Meeting students where they are is essential for educators who seek to understand how to better serve their classes. Fortunately, educators now have access to a variety of innovative tools that shave off tons of time for teachers so they can spend more time doing what’s most important: teaching students. Microsoft, for example, has a service called “Reading Progress,” a free tool available in Microsoft Teams that assesses students’ reading proficiency in real time and provides actionable feedback. What used to take weeks to assess students’ reading proficiency is now streamlined for the benefit of students and educators alike. “This is now five minutes on the computer,” says Victoria Thompson, an education industry executive at Microsoft. “Students can put in their headphones, they can speak directly into the device and they can receive direct feedback based off of their reading.”

More from DA: ESSER drop: New calculations aim to measure the fiscal cliff

They’re also in the process of releasing Math Coach, a similar tool that analyzes students’ steps while completing math problems. These are just a few of the innovative services Microsoft has developed to enhance student learning, not replace it, and to provide students with the foundation necessary for STEM education. “These are learning accelerators,” Thompson says. “We all know that they’re learning tools and they’re here to help you. But they accelerate your learning. They elevate your learning. They help you be better as a student alongside your teacher.”

Addressing the responsible use of AI

Leaders are responsible for educating their students and staff about the ethical uses of AI in education. Believe it or not, many edtech companies have already integrated some sort of AI functionality within their products. Students must understand its implications and grasp how to use it to enhance their learning experiences. Thompson often refers to these four questions when taking into account the ethical considerations of certain uses of AI:

• Learning objectives: What are the areas in which AI can enhance critical thinking for students?
• Students’ needs and abilities: Products like Microsoft Word and Google Forms leverage AI behind the scenes without users ever realizing it. How should we approach them considering students’ needs and abilities?
• Subject matter: What’s the curriculum? What are the topics? How can educators provide these resources? Understand that while AI is fluent in certain areas, it doesn’t know everything. Refrain from allowing these tools to fully provide these resources and instead “use it on the side,” Thompson says.
• Data availability: AI has to rely on data for its functionality. If you’re using chatbots like ChatGPT that rely on language-learning models (LLMs), always consider where it may be pulling information from, and whether it’s relevant.

The post AI’s impact on STEM education: 3 takeaways from FETC’s latest webinar appeared first on District Administration.

If you’re one of the many leaders prioritizing postsecondary readiness, or career and technical education, you might be interested in these three sessions taking place at FETC 2024 Jan. 23-26:

Teaching AI and Coding: Skill Trajectory Leading to CTE Success

In this session, you’ll learn about the benefits of incorporating AI concepts, coding and hands-on AI applications into upper elementary and middle school grades and how they can provide students with a trajectory of skills necessary for the workforce.

Participants will learn how they can implement effective AI instruction, coding and robotics instruction “that develops core concepts, as well as specific soft skills that prepare for CTE pathways and future-readiness,” per the program description.

Read more about this session here.

5 Ways to Elevate and Evolve Your CTE Programs

It’s crucial that we prepare students for careers in current and emerging professions. That’s the message behind this session. Attendees will be given ideas on how to teach students to research local job markets, strategies for elevating their CTE programs to ensure they’re driven by what employers actually want, and how to help students obtain employability skills.

“To ensure ever-evolving student populations graduate high school and go immediately into high-demand, high-wage jobs or continue with postsecondary education, schools must develop long-term goals for CTE that allow programs of study to evolve over time,” the session description reads.

Read more about this session here.

Creating Edtech Pathways for High School Students

The edtech industry is growing faster than ever. This may be no surprise to those who were in the education profession during the pandemic. As a result, students have various opportunities to enter job fields related to AI software, virtual and augmented reality technology, and other innovative solutions relevant to K12 education.

In this session, participants will hear from Georgetown University instructor Jordan Davis about how they can introduce students to the field of education technology while implementing fun and engaging assignments in the classroom.

Read more about this session here.

The post Prioritizing postsecondary readiness? These 3 sessions may help appeared first on District Administration.

But that was just a glimpse into some of his priorities for him and his staff. One of his primary goals is to drive transformation in the system, starting with the IT department.

“We’re working on all of the procedural and organizational change stuff that we believe will make a big impact and a big splash in our systems,” Higle says.

But in order to begin driving this momentum, it required them to take a step back and evaluate what they were doing.

“We actually had a peer review done of our technology operations to gather feedback on what was working well, what could use improvement,” he says. “That was really valuable and a bit humbling. We found that we had a lot of procedures of things, but our documentation was lacking.”

Like most school districts across the country, Higle has dealt with a lot of turnover in the last few years. And when people leave, vital knowledge also vanishes. Thus, documenting everything and staying up to date is crucial.

“We really had to evaluate the services we’re providing, our processes and procedures and figuring out what we need to do to make things run more efficiently,” he says.

But most importantly, this review process helped them to understand how the IT department can provide the best experience for their students and staff.

“We focused on just being efficient and effective and implementing frameworks like ITSM (IT Service Management) and organization structure changes to support this work,” he says.

More from DA: After-school programs met K12 leaders’ list of priorities in 2023-24

Then they began the process of making structural changes. Higle reorganized his teams and put in place this concept of operational focus teams, or OFTS for short.

“We’re grouping individuals together, like our systems people, our data people, and our support people and have those teams be more cohesive and work with each other to produce the work or solve challenges that come up,” he explains. “Also, to reinforce that documentation so that there are processes that are developed for the work that they do. You get more consistency.”

This initiative is driving much of their work, he explains. Better yet, he believes it’s helped to improve morale throughout the entire department.

“We definitely had a morale dip coming out of the pandemic,” he says. “We feel like this is also helping broaden the skill level of our team because you have a lot more crossover between job areas, and there’s a lot of collaboration and sharing of the work.”

Earning a seat at the table as a CTO

Since the pandemic, K12 technology leaders, including Higle, have witnessed a profound shift in their responsibilities and their overall importance in their district. Now more than ever, IT leaders are being included in district-level conversations.

“I’m definitely starting to see a shift out there in organizations and in K12,” he says. “I think that’s a good thing. We need to be seen as strategic partners, not just the fix it people that solve problems.”

Make no mistake, Higle’s job was already complex before the pandemic. But COVID helped organizations to realize just how important technology infrastructure and the folks providing that service are.

“When you have a shift overnight to virtual learning, you realize, ‘Wow. Those IT people are really important,'” he says. “I’m just thankful we already had a lot of good things in place. We were in a good position to build and improve on what we were doing.”

But, of course, the complexities of the job have certainly grown, he says. He mentions that cybersecurity is top of mind for every CTO in education.

“I think that’s what keeps us up at night at times,” he says. “It’s one of those things that we just have to continually adapt and put a lot of effort into.”

At the end of the day, Higle’s philosophy and advice for other leaders in his role is to be proactive and invite yourself to the table. Don’t make excuses.

“I think sometimes IT leaders get very frustrated and say, ‘They never came to talk to us.’ You can’t wait for them to come to you,” he says. “Invite yourself and just come to the table and say, ‘Hey, I can help. I can be a partner.'”

The post How one CTO is driving ‘transformational change’ to the system appeared first on District Administration.

That’s according to Chris Higle, chief technology officer at the Ceres Unified School District in California, who will be attending the Future of Education Technology Conference for the first time ever—as a presenter.

Higle and his team across the district’s IT department are known for their “transformational” work through technology solutions, a goal many other like-minded K12 technology leaders share. Unfortunately, there’s little guidance out there for folks like Chris on how to achieve such a priority.

“I think this transformation and improvement work in K12 technology… it turns out there’s not a playbook for it,” he told District Administration.

“I think that’s been my struggle. Last year, we were evaluating all of our systems, our processes, and it kept coming up, ‘Oh, you need to be putting in best practice and ITSM (IT Service Management).’ And I’d say, ‘Great, how do you do it?'”

There’s an abundance of resources available for IT leaders that offer some sort of guidance, Higle adds. But at the end of the day, most professionals are left on their own to figure out the work themselves.

“There’s no playbook that I’ve found that says step by step on how to do that,” he says. “So I really want to share that with people. There are some great resources and strategies in the presentation. I think people can benefit from it.”

“I want it to be a presentation that I would want to go to,” he adds. “I’d want to go to a presentation where you walk away with a couple of nuggets, some ideas and things that you can implement immediately.”

“That’s what I hope to provide people. Here’s our story, our journey and some great resources, and here’s how we started. It won’t be a whole lot of talk about technology. It’ll be more about strategic things you can actually do to achieve this kind of work in your environment.”

‘This has been on my radar for a long time’

Higle has long awaited the opportunity to attend FETC because he says “It looks amazing.” When he’s not presenting, he looks forward to simply seeing what’s out there beyond his scope as a CTO, because he believes it’s imperative to be knowledgeable of all things happening in K12 education.

“I don’t typically like to just stay in like IT tech lane,” he explains. “I like to look at the administrative and the educational side. I think as a technology leader in a school district, you have to do that.”

The post Why this first-time attendee and speaker is excited about FETC 2024 appeared first on District Administration.

Just yesterday, the Biden Administration issued an executive order outlining new rules and safeguards for companies working with AI. For similar reasons, organizations are calling on edtech providers to ensure their products are created with the well-being of students and district communities in mind.

Last week, the Software and Information Industry Association released its seven “Principles for AI in Education,” a guide for edtech vendors on how they should incorporate AI technology into their products in a way that’s ethical and efficient.

“From tutoring and test preparation to assessing learner performance to relatively simple tasks like checking the spelling and grammar of a document, AI technologies are and can have great impact on teaching and learning,” the guide reads. “Because of this and in order to realize AI’s promise, stakeholders must address and mitigate risks attendant to these technologies.”

More from DA: Overcoming misogyny in the workplace: It goes both ways in the superintendency

The seven principles SIIA advises edtech companies to adhere to read as follows:

• AI in education should address learners, educators and families’ needs.
• AI technology must consider educational equity, inclusion and civil rights as important components of successful learning environments.
• The technology must protect student privacy and data.
• Products should aim for transparency to support schools and communities to effectively understand and engage with these tools.
• Edtech companies should work with educational institutions and key stakeholders and outline the opportunities and risks of new AI technologies.
• Developers should adhere to best practices for accountability, assurance and ethics in order to mitigate risks and achieve the goals outlined in these principles.
• The edtech sector should engage with the greater education community to identify ways to support and communicate AI literacy for those using it.

“With AI being used by many teachers and educational institutions, we determined it was critical to work with the education technology industry to develop a set of principles to guide the future development and deployment of these innovative technologies,” SIIA President Chris Mohr said in a statement.

The post 7 ways edtech providers can make AI in education safer and more efficient for students appeared first on District Administration.