Today I share an important AI policy release for US public schools from the White House, as well as some resources for creating a deepfake crisis plan and why we should all be concerned. I also share some resources for April, classroom ideas, how to empower women leaders, some important articles on AI in assessment and why lawmakers are banning cell phones in schools.

Ideas

BLOG 🌷 8 Ideas for April​

Remember your 8 Ideas for April. While the eclipse is past, we have tax day in the US on Monday, Earth Day on April 22nd, Arbor Day on the 27th and April is Financial Literacy month. I shared lots of links for all of these and test review.

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WEBINAR 🖥️ Artificial Intelligence in the Learning Landscape​

This webinar is on next Thursday. I have learned that the webinar will be delivered on demand if the time is not good for you so you can still get the 2 CEU credits for $25 (to benefit the Darton Foundation for student scholarships.)

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PODCAST 🎙️ 4 Ingredients to Engage Students in an AI Age​

AJ Juliani shares some useful, practical tips for schools who are figuring out how to engage students and use AI.

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PODCAST 🎙️ Sculpting the Future: How Women's Unique Insights Transform Leadership​

How we treat each other is so important, but it isn't always easy to understand people who have different perspectives than we do. Dr. Tracee Perryman shares valuable insights on encouraging women to express their individual needs and words for all of us to become more confident.

News

URGENT: 🛑 Deepfakes: Time to Create Policies and Crisis Plans

Teenage girls are struggling with having their faces put on nude bodies in deepfake nudes. The New York Times shared "Teen Girls Confront an Epidemic of Deepfake Nudes in Schools" on how middle and high school girls are having classmates fabricate deepfake nude pictures of them and then are sharing them.The Washington Post shared "AI Hustlers Stole Women's Faces to Put on Ads. The Law Can't Help Them." sharing how ordinary people are finding their likenesses taken and used to push offensive products and even used in deepfake pornography.

How do we protect our children? The only way to protect someone is to stop posting pictures on unprotected social sites on in public places. However, it is deeper than that. A student could be completely off social media but have their photo snapped by another student in school and have the same effect. Or for that matter, if the student is at a sporting event, a photo could happen there as well. That said, I believe that publicly posted photos are going to be something that parents begin to balk at, understandably. I recommend that parents, if they share photos of their children, to share them with a limited group of friends. The EU AI Act is being pointed at as a landmark act that many will be reviewing. This Act threatens fines of up to 6% of global revenue for violators. The time to act is now to protect our children.

In the meantime, developing a Deepfake Crisis plan is wise. For example, in March 2023, a principal had deep fake video made of him saying racist things and posted to TikTok. The video was created by students and was not true. It was fake. Again, this issue in an election year should alarm us all and requires immediate action.

🔥I am looking for copies of deepfake school policies and crisis plans. Please let me know if you know of experts I can follow on this. As alwways, I'll share what I find.

IMPORTANT ⚠️ New Government-Wide Policies to Impact Public Schools

In 2022 the Whitehouse released their Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and the October 2023 Executive Order on the use of AI in the government. The US Federal Government Office of Management and Budget has issued a government-wide policy to mitigate the risk of AI use. Under the "rights impacting" uses mentioned in section 2, it says,

And states that organizations must "Stop using any safety-impacting or rightsimpacting AI that is not in compliance with Section 5(c) and has not received an extension or waiver" by December 1, 2024.

The way I read this that if you're attempting to use AI to detect student cheating or plagiarism or any of these other purposes, that must stop by December 1, 2024.

This is one of those documents that appropriate leaders need to review now.

My Questions. Many of the new security systems include AI in their platforms as well (something I personally think can be useful for our often-stretched security officers.) Additionally, AI can be useful in monitoring and has been used for a while with "trigger words" and such notifying school officials. I'm not sure how it will impact services like SchoolAI and the tutoring/chatbots that are emerging as really useful ways to help students learn.

ARS Technica 🤖 Claude's AI surpasses ChatGPT from OpenAI​

Researchers in AI keep a leaderboard called "Chatbot Arena" that ranks the capabilities of various AI models. On March 26, Claude surpassed chat GPT. I've been testing Claude, but for my research, I still prefer Perplexity.ai.

Hechinger Report 🤖 How AI Could Transform the Way We Assess Kids​

The Hechinger Report has a useful article on the future of AI and assessment, however, it mentions that the PISA organization is planning to assess student abilities to use AI tools and recognize AI-generated information. (Good luck with that last one.)

TREND📱Lawmakers Look to Ban Cell Phones​

With a UNESCO Study recommending a ban on cell phones in classrooms, the conversations are happening (and should be.) Now that we have bring your own devices and devices for students, and with the advent of deep fake (see above) and other issues, as well as the research showing that it takes 20 minutes to get back on task after a distraction, cell phones just don't belong in the classroom anymore. As someone who argued for cell phones in the early days (because we didn't have tech and we also didn't have the distractions we have today), I believe removing cell phones from classrooms is wise.

Finishing well

Remember that finishing well is a lifelong habit. This is a tiring and busy time of year and it is easy to get emotional and upset. Of course, I say this as I'm writing this newsletter at 11:17 pm. So, I'd better finish. I've been digging deep into these articles.

As always, you -- my newsletter subscribers get the first information as I'm reading it. Just because you're awesome. Some of these will be on my blog soon as well.

I'm working hard to prepare my students for the AP Exam and enjoying the last few weeks with my seniors. I sure do love teaching them!

We're programming in Python in Code Combat in my 9th grade and learning about databases in 8th grade. We're working hard, as always, until the end of the school year.

I hope you all are well.

Joyfully in your service!

Your friend,

Vicki

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