March 7, 2025 • 21 mins
In this episode, we’re excited to discuss TSBA’s latest resource: the TSBA School Board Member Toolkit for Artificial Intelligence. Join us as we sit down with Nolan Combs, TSBA Director of Government Relations and one of the developers of this innovative toolkit, to explore how AI is shaping the future of K-12 education and why it’s essential for school board members to stay informed. Whether you’re an AI novice or already exploring its possibilities, this episode will provide valuable insights and practical guidance to navigate this rapidly evolving field. Tune in to discover how this resource empowers school board members to embrace the opportunities—and challenges—of artificial intelligence in education!
Click here to access the TSBA AI Toolkit.
Click here if you wish to read the transcript of today’s podcast episode.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
I'm Jenna Zwan and I'm Emily Warren and you'relistening to TSBA, Your Education Source. Hey
everyone and welcome back to the TSBA, YourEducation Source, the podcast. Today we are
talking about a very popular topic, AI,artificial intelligence. And for you all
(00:28):
listening today, we are talking about theunveiling of our new toolkit, the artificial
intelligence toolkit for school board members.And with us today to talk about this is Nolan Combs,
who is the director of government relations hereat TSBA. Nolan, thank you so much for being on the
podcast today. Thank you Emily, happy to be here. Ithink this is Nolan's second time, third time
(00:49):
being on the podcast. This is my third time on thepodcast. You're a pro. Maybe so. I do want to get
out, speaking of being a pro at something, I do wantto kind of get out ahead of this and caveat that I am
not an expert or a pro when it comes to artificialintelligence. I know enough to help to put this
toolkit together and so I'm happy to talk about it.But I certainly don't pretend to be an expert in
(01:14):
some of these things. Well I think it shows, thecaveat shows that you're a very smart individual
because I think anybody who says they do knoweverything about artificial intelligence, I
think they're feeding you a lot. I think you mightbe right about that. So to kick us off, will you give
us a brief overview of this AI toolkit and thereasoning why we felt the need to create such a
(01:36):
toolkit? Yeah absolutely. The school boardmember toolkit for artificial intelligence,
which is what this is called, came about as TSBAstarted to get more and more questions about
artificial intelligence from school boardmembers and from others and it became just more
clear that AI was going to have a significantimpact on K-12 education. One of the biggest
(02:01):
challenges when you're talking about artificialintelligence is just the learning curve for those
who haven't yet heard of AI outside of the contextof like a sci-fi movie or something like that. But
this toolkit that we prepared, it's verystraightforward, it's very easy to read, very
easy to understand. It doesn't get too in the weedsabout artificial intelligence, but it does try to
(02:26):
shrink that big learning curve for people who areless familiar with artificial intelligence. And
that was really the goal of this toolkit. We wantedto give school board members who are interested in
learning a little bit more about AI and itspossible uses and misuses in schools some kind of a
starting point when they want to know, you know,where do I go to start learning about this kind of
(02:47):
stuff? I think that's a great reason to create atoolkit and I think at TSBA, I mean, I don't want to
toot our own horns, but I think we always arelooking for a need from our school board members
and this is one of the needs that we wanted to kind offill that gap because this is such a huge,
expansive topic and it's something that I think ifyou googled, you could kind of get lost in the
(03:11):
weeds. So now you have this. Yeah, absolutely.There's a lot of Google stuff is artificial
intelligence generated. And so this is good old,we sat down at a computer and wrote it. So hopefully
it provides a good starting point. You're right.Sometimes pen and paper is better than what we've
been grown into. So but thinking through ourschool board members who are listening in today,
(03:33):
why is it important for them to learn aboutartificial intelligence? Yeah, so much like
email, smartphones or any other big advancementin technology that we've seen in recent years,
artificial intelligence, it's not going awayanytime soon. While board members don't need to
(03:54):
worry about trying to become experts in this, it'shelpful to know more about what people are talking
about when they mention artificialintelligence, I think. A law was passed in
Tennessee of Legislature last year that providesa great example of why it's important for school
board members to at least have some knowledge ofAI. So now all school boards in the state have to
(04:16):
have a policy on the use of AI in their schooldistrict. So just like everything your board
passes a policy on, you'd probably like to have atleast a basic understanding of what it is you're
trying to accomplish with that policy. And with AIspecifically, this technology is evolving very
quickly, it's changing all the time. This toolkitwill provide you a foundational understanding of
(04:40):
AI and help you better navigate thoseadvancements and what they mean for your
district. Which is super helpful because as AIcontinues to grow and it becomes a talking point,
you are going to have people of your community,parents, students, administration who are going
to be talking about this, asking you questions,especially with the requirement of a board
(05:02):
policy, that's in your board policy manual now.And that starts up conversation. So to be able to
have that basic understanding, to be able to havethat conversation, I think is super helpful. I
think absolutely. And like I said, it's not aboutbeing an expert in any one of these areas that we'll
talk about, I'm sure, in a moment. But beingconversational, if someone says something, it's
(05:25):
helpful to just have a basic understanding of whatis they're talking about, or at least know that you
have this resource in the background that you canrefer back to in order to answer their question or
have more context for what it is they're talkingabout. Absolutely. So when we're thinking about
this toolkit and thinking about topics that arehelpful for school board members to learn more
(05:46):
about, what are the few, I mean, I say few, but we'reat several, I'm looking at the contents right now,
what are some of the key topics that you think, if Iwas a school board member and had two minutes to
look at this toolkit, what should I really focuson? Yeah, so this was one of the things we
considered when we were designing the toolkit. Wewanted it not just to be one big resource, but more
(06:09):
so like a compilation of smaller ones. So if youhave a specific question, you can go to a section of
the toolkit and have that question answered,hopefully. And so I'll go through the sections
that are included in the toolkit. I'll readthrough the table of contents here. At first
there's a section on just artificialintelligence 101, the basics that covers exactly
(06:30):
what it sounds like. It talks a little bit aboutwhat people mean when they say artificial
intelligence. What is this new thing called agenerative artificial intelligence,
generative AI? Tools like chat, GPT fall underthat category, certainly ones that school board
members hear about all the time. Another sectionis AI and K-12 education specifically that dives
(06:52):
into topics like the school board's role with AI inways different stakeholders can use AI in that
setting. Another section is safety and securitywith AI. It covers things like deep fakes, child
sexual abuse materials, which have had problemswith AI in recent months and years, data privacy
(07:14):
considerations and things like that. Anothersection, legal considerations for AI, online
privacy for users and students, copyrightquestions, data security, and then various
federal laws that are relevant for AI use. And thenfinally there is the AI resource library, and
that's just a compilation of things. There's theTSBA model policy that we mentioned earlier,
(07:39):
various AI tools where you can go to access those,what it is that they do, and then also a glossary of
terms, something that I think is one of the morehelpful resources. Just if you hear in
conversation a word that you're not familiar withand someone's asking about AI, you can always
revert back to this glossary of terms and kind ofsee what that means or at least give you a good idea
(08:01):
of what's being discussed. Which honestly, if Iwas a school board member and I had this toolkit in
my hand, I would flip to page 16, the very last page.And I say 16, this is not a toolkit that is 50 pages
long. We're talking about 16, 17 pages. All of thishas been curated into a very readable, very
(08:23):
manageable amount of content. But honestly, likewhen I was reading through this, I had no idea what a
deep fake was. I had never heard that term before inmy life. So thankfully, I could turn to the very
back and look and see what that meant. Because whenthinking through AI honestly, and I was telling
Nolan this before we jumped on the podcast,ChatGPT is as far AI as I have ventured into. And
(08:51):
right now, ChatGPT is helping me pick the colorsfor my new house. It's helping me coordinate my
colors. I say that to say, when you look at thistoolkit, when you think about AI, we are talking
about school safety. We're talking aboutstudents using this to cheat. There are so many
(09:14):
different ways, whether it's a school project,coordinating your home paint colors, there are so
many different avenues that you can use whenyou're looking at this toolkit. But I want to think
about school board members. How do you envisionschool board members when they're using
artificial intelligence, using this toolkit intheir roles as school leaders? Yeah, I hope that
(09:35):
school board members will see this as a startingpoint for better understanding AI, like I said,
and also for understanding as possible uses ormisuses in schools. I also hope it helps boards
know what all considerations they need to makebefore making any of those decisions regarding
AI's use in their school district. This toolkit isalso organized, kind of like I said earlier, so
(09:58):
it's almost like several smaller resources boundtogether in the same booklet or packet. If you just
want a resource that helps you understand, forexample, the legal implications of using AI in a
certain scenario, then it can be that resource foryou, if that's what you need. If you want a simple
explanation of what AI is, and that's all you want,then you can just read the first few pages and
(10:20):
that's what you'll get. If you hear a term about AIand you aren't sure what it means, then you can flip
back to the back of the booklet, like we talkedabout earlier, and find that glossary. This is
just something that I hope is useful for members injust a variety of ways, not as one single thing, but
hopefully this is viewed as a few differentresources packaged together in one location so
(10:47):
that they can serve a variety of functions forboard members who are curious about this topic. So
I'm a huge fan of QR codes, but not everyonelistening in today knows what a QR code is. Kind of
explain what a QR code is, how to access it, and whythey're in this toolkit. Yeah, so throughout the
toolkit, one of the ways we were able to make thetoolkit so small is we utilized QR codes
(11:14):
throughout. So if there's something that wewanted to provide more information about that we
didn't feel it was so relevant to condense it andput it into the booklet itself, then we linked to
those things via a QR code. A QR code is kind of likeone of those square, almost looks like a really
small digital maze, I don't know, and you see thoseall over the place now. But they're stamped
(11:38):
throughout the booklet, so for example, there arevideos linked throughout the booklet. And
obviously in a paper bound copy of the book, youcan't watch the video, so what you would do is just
hover your phone's camera app over that QR code, alink will pop up, you click on that link and it will
redirect you to the video or the website orwhatever it is that's being linked. And yeah,
(12:00):
those are used throughout the booklet or thetoolkit in an effort to make this as comprehensive
as it can be without sacrificing any of thereadability. I think that's perfect. And I think
like Nolan said, hover your phone over that QRcode, you don't have to take a picture of it, it just
automatically the link will generate for you toclick on. When we think about it being introduced
(12:25):
into our K312 education system, I want to talkabout the negatives and I want to talk about the
benefits. So I think sometimes when something isnew, we as humans are adverse to change and we
sometimes always look at the negatives. But Ithink it's important to also be aware of some of the
concerns when we're talking about school boardmembers and when they come face to face with these
(12:47):
new AI technology. So I'm curious, I want to hearabout what you think some of the concerns that
school board members need to be looking out for,but then I want to talk about the benefits as well.
Yeah, so there are a lot of things. I'll start withthe more negative side of that question. First,
there are a lot of things that boards should beaware of when it comes to AI, most of which are
mentioned throughout the toolkit, which try to doa good job of that. But I'll read actually an
(13:10):
excerpt you mentioned deep fakes earlier, nothaving done what that was prior to reading this. So
I'll read just a couple of sentences from thebooklet about that and you can kind of see how we
address those areas of concern for school boardmembers. So this is in the safety and security
section under deep fakes. AI powered deep faketechnology has created a host of ethical and
(13:32):
security concerns about emerging AI technology.Deep fake technology can create hyper realistic
edited images or videos, raising concerns aboutits potential for misuse in K-12 schools from
cyber bullying with students to reputationdamaging content of teachers or staff for school
boards and district administration.Understanding deep fake technology is essential
(13:55):
for mitigating the risks that come with thistechnology. And so that's obviously an extreme
example, but it's one that school districtsacross the nation have had to deal with already.
And we mentioned the QR codes earlier. So forexample, under that deep fakes excerpt that I just
read, there are three links to three differentvideos that are geared towards. Can you spot a deep
(14:19):
fake? Is that social media post real or is it AIcreated? And then just an introduction to what
deep fake technology is and what that means. Theseare all videos that were prepared actually by the
Missouri School Boards Association who werereally helpful in the development of this. They
created an toolkit first and it kind of inspiredTSBA to do follow suit. But that's just an example
(14:42):
of some of the concerns school board membersshould be aware of. As far as benefits, just like
any tool or new technology, AI can be as beneficialas you want it to be in your life. And so this is
something that I, and this is my personal opinionhere. School boards first priority most of the
(15:03):
time is to provide students not only with aneducation, but an education they can carry into
the world beyond the 12th grade. This stuff ispresent. It exists in the workforce. This is stuff
that students are going to need to engage with. Andso I think not covering the benefits of AI, not
showing students how this can be usedresponsibly, not showing them how it can be used to
(15:26):
generate ideas. You talked about picking colorsfor your walls. That's another simple example,
but it's showing how this technology can be usedresponsibly. It can be helpful. It can cut down on
time spent doing tasks if it's used responsibly.And that's something that is ultimately left to
the vision of the school board and the directionthey want their district to go in. Is this
something that we want to teach our kids because weknow that they'll be encountering it or is it
(15:50):
something we want to shut them off from? That's adecision you'll have to wrestle with. But I think
that kind of, you know, speaks to the two sided coinof how AI can be dangerous technology, but there
are also uses that if used responsibly, it can makestudents and educators lives better and easier.
Well, thank you. Like you said, this is somethingthat is inevitably going to pop up in a student's
(16:14):
life, whether it's here in a K-12 environment orpost graduation, whether it's a trade school and
the workforce environment in a college setting,they need to know. And I think as our jobs as K
through 12, it's our job to prepare our studentsfor after or post graduation. So helping them
(16:35):
realize what's real and what's not real. And we'vehad that it's an age old thing that we have always
seen with the creation of something new, cellphone, social media, having to figure out what's
fake news and what's real news. So being able toeducate our youth, that was something I think
(16:56):
that's invaluable in starting with our schoolboards and making sure we have the right, we have
the right tools at our fingertips. I think is veryhelpful. We've talked about that K-12 education
setting. How do you see AI impacting that in thecoming years? But how rapidly everything in the
(17:18):
field of artificial intelligence, intelligenceis evolving. I think it's pretty tough to say what
AI will look like in even just a few years time. Imean, this is something that's changing daily
even. But my guess is that we're going to see someareas embrace AI tools and try to integrate those
into their curriculum, their pedagogy. And Ithink other areas are going to do the opposite. I
(17:41):
think they're going to try and say, we are, we'reabsolutely not going to try to do those things. We
want to keep students away from AI. It's a form ofcheating. Another topic, by the way, which is
addressing the toolkit. But my personal opinionis kind of just restating what I said earlier that
this technology is not going anywhere. It's goingto be around students are going to encounter it.
(18:02):
Like you said, Emily out in, I'm doing air quotes,the real world. And even if you're not thrilled
about the implications of more and more AI cominginto our lives, it's important that students are
aware of the AI landscape and know how to use some ofthose tools. It's even more important that
students learn how to use AI tools responsibly.And I really think that's the key is how can in the
(18:28):
K-12 setting where there's some level of controlover what students are able to be taught, how can we
teach them to use these tools responsibly?Because I know that they use them. And it's one of
those things where you can see, you know, this is,you see, like kids who are eight or nine years old,
pick up an iPad who've never touched one before andthey can somehow figure out how to make it work.
(18:48):
It's just like that. Kids are using these tools.They can figure it out on their own, but there has to
be some kind of guide there, I think, to show themhow it can be used to make their life better, not to
cause harm to themselves or others. And so I thinkthat's going to be something that indicates what
education setting specifically we wrestle withover the coming years. But I certainly don't think
(19:11):
it's going anywhere. I think a good comparison iscalculators. You know, I think that's a mess. Not
to try to compare apples to oranges, but to thinkabout tools that our students utilize to help
during their studies. We use calculators. We usesoftwares on computers. This is just something if
(19:32):
used responsibly can be another helpful tool.Yeah, absolutely. Just like any tool, it's as
helpful as you make it. And it can also be, you know,there are times you don't want your students to use
a calculator because you want to test theirknowledge of a subject. And so in that case, it's
cheating in times where you're just, you know,you're doing the work yourself, but you figure out
ways to make it faster, which a calculator is verygood at. Very glad I have a calculator at my desk to
(19:57):
do that. Then it can be a great thing. Yeah. SoNolan, before we hop off here, where can school
board members access the toolkit and how can theystart using it today? So as of the time this podcast
is airing, this has been distributed to schoolboard members if you were in attendance at TSPAs
legislative and legal institute. And if you werenot able to attend, this has been mailed out. So if
(20:22):
you haven't received a physical copy, you should,but there will also be a digital copy made
available on the TSPA website. So you'll have theaccess to the digital copy and you'll have access
to the hard copy. If you don't get a hard copy in themail, reach out to Nolan. He will be able to make
sure you get one because I think it's, it's awonderful tool and it has a lot of valuable
(20:43):
information inside of it. Absolutely. We'rereally excited to have this out there. I think
it'll be great. I do too. Nolan, thank you so muchfor being on the podcast again today. Thanks for
joining us today. Whether you're driving to workor on your back porch enjoying your morning
coffee, we hope you enjoyed this dive into publiceducation. For future episodes, subscribe to our
(21:07):
podcast by going to iTunes and search for TSPA,your education source and click subscribe. Or you
can check us out on our website at tsba.net. If youhave any questions about today's discussion,
please feel free to reach out to us at podcast attsba.net. Also, please rate this episode to let us
(21:28):
know how we're doing and tell us what topics youwant to hear about. Thanks again for listening. We 218 00:21:33,380 --> hope you join us next time on TSPA, your education source.
I'm Jenna Zwan and I'm Emily Warren and you'relistening to TSBA, Your Education Source. Hey
everyone and welcome back to the TSBA, YourEducation Source, the podcast. Today we are
talking about a very popular topic, AI,artificial intelligence. And for you all
(00:28):
listening today, we are talking about theunveiling of our new toolkit, the artificial
intelligence toolkit for school board members.And with us today to talk about this is Nolan Combs,
who is the director of government relations hereat TSBA. Nolan, thank you so much for being on the
podcast today. Thank you Emily, happy to be here. Ithink this is Nolan's second time, third time
(00:49):
being on the podcast. This is my third time on thepodcast. You're a pro. Maybe so. I do want to get
out, speaking of being a pro at something, I do wantto kind of get out ahead of this and caveat that I am
not an expert or a pro when it comes to artificialintelligence. I know enough to help to put this
toolkit together and so I'm happy to talk about it.But I certainly don't pretend to be an expert in
(01:14):
some of these things. Well I think it shows, thecaveat shows that you're a very smart individual
because I think anybody who says they do knoweverything about artificial intelligence, I
think they're feeding you a lot. I think you mightbe right about that. So to kick us off, will you give
us a brief overview of this AI toolkit and thereasoning why we felt the need to create such a
(01:36):
toolkit? Yeah absolutely. The school boardmember toolkit for artificial intelligence,
which is what this is called, came about as TSBAstarted to get more and more questions about
artificial intelligence from school boardmembers and from others and it became just more
clear that AI was going to have a significantimpact on K-12 education. One of the biggest
(02:01):
challenges when you're talking about artificialintelligence is just the learning curve for those
who haven't yet heard of AI outside of the contextof like a sci-fi movie or something like that. But
this toolkit that we prepared, it's verystraightforward, it's very easy to read, very
easy to understand. It doesn't get too in the weedsabout artificial intelligence, but it does try to
(02:26):
shrink that big learning curve for people who areless familiar with artificial intelligence. And
that was really the goal of this toolkit. We wantedto give school board members who are interested in
learning a little bit more about AI and itspossible uses and misuses in schools some kind of a
starting point when they want to know, you know,where do I go to start learning about this kind of
(02:47):
stuff? I think that's a great reason to create atoolkit and I think at TSBA, I mean, I don't want to
toot our own horns, but I think we always arelooking for a need from our school board members
and this is one of the needs that we wanted to kind offill that gap because this is such a huge,
expansive topic and it's something that I think ifyou googled, you could kind of get lost in the
(03:11):
weeds. So now you have this. Yeah, absolutely.There's a lot of Google stuff is artificial
intelligence generated. And so this is good old,we sat down at a computer and wrote it. So hopefully
it provides a good starting point. You're right.Sometimes pen and paper is better than what we've
been grown into. So but thinking through ourschool board members who are listening in today,
(03:33):
why is it important for them to learn aboutartificial intelligence? Yeah, so much like
email, smartphones or any other big advancementin technology that we've seen in recent years,
artificial intelligence, it's not going awayanytime soon. While board members don't need to
(03:54):
worry about trying to become experts in this, it'shelpful to know more about what people are talking
about when they mention artificialintelligence, I think. A law was passed in
Tennessee of Legislature last year that providesa great example of why it's important for school
board members to at least have some knowledge ofAI. So now all school boards in the state have to
(04:16):
have a policy on the use of AI in their schooldistrict. So just like everything your board
passes a policy on, you'd probably like to have atleast a basic understanding of what it is you're
trying to accomplish with that policy. And with AIspecifically, this technology is evolving very
quickly, it's changing all the time. This toolkitwill provide you a foundational understanding of
(04:40):
AI and help you better navigate thoseadvancements and what they mean for your
district. Which is super helpful because as AIcontinues to grow and it becomes a talking point,
you are going to have people of your community,parents, students, administration who are going
to be talking about this, asking you questions,especially with the requirement of a board
(05:02):
policy, that's in your board policy manual now.And that starts up conversation. So to be able to
have that basic understanding, to be able to havethat conversation, I think is super helpful. I
think absolutely. And like I said, it's not aboutbeing an expert in any one of these areas that we'll
talk about, I'm sure, in a moment. But beingconversational, if someone says something, it's
(05:25):
helpful to just have a basic understanding of whatis they're talking about, or at least know that you
have this resource in the background that you canrefer back to in order to answer their question or
have more context for what it is they're talkingabout. Absolutely. So when we're thinking about
this toolkit and thinking about topics that arehelpful for school board members to learn more
(05:46):
about, what are the few, I mean, I say few, but we'reat several, I'm looking at the contents right now,
what are some of the key topics that you think, if Iwas a school board member and had two minutes to
look at this toolkit, what should I really focuson? Yeah, so this was one of the things we
considered when we were designing the toolkit. Wewanted it not just to be one big resource, but more
(06:09):
so like a compilation of smaller ones. So if youhave a specific question, you can go to a section of
the toolkit and have that question answered,hopefully. And so I'll go through the sections
that are included in the toolkit. I'll readthrough the table of contents here. At first
there's a section on just artificialintelligence 101, the basics that covers exactly
(06:30):
what it sounds like. It talks a little bit aboutwhat people mean when they say artificial
intelligence. What is this new thing called agenerative artificial intelligence,
generative AI? Tools like chat, GPT fall underthat category, certainly ones that school board
members hear about all the time. Another sectionis AI and K-12 education specifically that dives
(06:52):
into topics like the school board's role with AI inways different stakeholders can use AI in that
setting. Another section is safety and securitywith AI. It covers things like deep fakes, child
sexual abuse materials, which have had problemswith AI in recent months and years, data privacy
(07:14):
considerations and things like that. Anothersection, legal considerations for AI, online
privacy for users and students, copyrightquestions, data security, and then various
federal laws that are relevant for AI use. And thenfinally there is the AI resource library, and
that's just a compilation of things. There's theTSBA model policy that we mentioned earlier,
(07:39):
various AI tools where you can go to access those,what it is that they do, and then also a glossary of
terms, something that I think is one of the morehelpful resources. Just if you hear in
conversation a word that you're not familiar withand someone's asking about AI, you can always
revert back to this glossary of terms and kind ofsee what that means or at least give you a good idea
(08:01):
of what's being discussed. Which honestly, if Iwas a school board member and I had this toolkit in
my hand, I would flip to page 16, the very last page.And I say 16, this is not a toolkit that is 50 pages
long. We're talking about 16, 17 pages. All of thishas been curated into a very readable, very
(08:23):
manageable amount of content. But honestly, likewhen I was reading through this, I had no idea what a
deep fake was. I had never heard that term before inmy life. So thankfully, I could turn to the very
back and look and see what that meant. Because whenthinking through AI honestly, and I was telling
Nolan this before we jumped on the podcast,ChatGPT is as far AI as I have ventured into. And
(08:51):
right now, ChatGPT is helping me pick the colorsfor my new house. It's helping me coordinate my
colors. I say that to say, when you look at thistoolkit, when you think about AI, we are talking
about school safety. We're talking aboutstudents using this to cheat. There are so many
(09:14):
different ways, whether it's a school project,coordinating your home paint colors, there are so
many different avenues that you can use whenyou're looking at this toolkit. But I want to think
about school board members. How do you envisionschool board members when they're using
artificial intelligence, using this toolkit intheir roles as school leaders? Yeah, I hope that
(09:35):
school board members will see this as a startingpoint for better understanding AI, like I said,
and also for understanding as possible uses ormisuses in schools. I also hope it helps boards
know what all considerations they need to makebefore making any of those decisions regarding
AI's use in their school district. This toolkit isalso organized, kind of like I said earlier, so
(09:58):
it's almost like several smaller resources boundtogether in the same booklet or packet. If you just
want a resource that helps you understand, forexample, the legal implications of using AI in a
certain scenario, then it can be that resource foryou, if that's what you need. If you want a simple
explanation of what AI is, and that's all you want,then you can just read the first few pages and
(10:20):
that's what you'll get. If you hear a term about AIand you aren't sure what it means, then you can flip
back to the back of the booklet, like we talkedabout earlier, and find that glossary. This is
just something that I hope is useful for members injust a variety of ways, not as one single thing, but
hopefully this is viewed as a few differentresources packaged together in one location so
(10:47):
that they can serve a variety of functions forboard members who are curious about this topic. So
I'm a huge fan of QR codes, but not everyonelistening in today knows what a QR code is. Kind of
explain what a QR code is, how to access it, and whythey're in this toolkit. Yeah, so throughout the
toolkit, one of the ways we were able to make thetoolkit so small is we utilized QR codes
(11:14):
throughout. So if there's something that wewanted to provide more information about that we
didn't feel it was so relevant to condense it andput it into the booklet itself, then we linked to
those things via a QR code. A QR code is kind of likeone of those square, almost looks like a really
small digital maze, I don't know, and you see thoseall over the place now. But they're stamped
(11:38):
throughout the booklet, so for example, there arevideos linked throughout the booklet. And
obviously in a paper bound copy of the book, youcan't watch the video, so what you would do is just
hover your phone's camera app over that QR code, alink will pop up, you click on that link and it will
redirect you to the video or the website orwhatever it is that's being linked. And yeah,
(12:00):
those are used throughout the booklet or thetoolkit in an effort to make this as comprehensive
as it can be without sacrificing any of thereadability. I think that's perfect. And I think
like Nolan said, hover your phone over that QRcode, you don't have to take a picture of it, it just
automatically the link will generate for you toclick on. When we think about it being introduced
(12:25):
into our K312 education system, I want to talkabout the negatives and I want to talk about the
benefits. So I think sometimes when something isnew, we as humans are adverse to change and we
sometimes always look at the negatives. But Ithink it's important to also be aware of some of the
concerns when we're talking about school boardmembers and when they come face to face with these
(12:47):
new AI technology. So I'm curious, I want to hearabout what you think some of the concerns that
school board members need to be looking out for,but then I want to talk about the benefits as well.
Yeah, so there are a lot of things. I'll start withthe more negative side of that question. First,
there are a lot of things that boards should beaware of when it comes to AI, most of which are
mentioned throughout the toolkit, which try to doa good job of that. But I'll read actually an
(13:10):
excerpt you mentioned deep fakes earlier, nothaving done what that was prior to reading this. So
I'll read just a couple of sentences from thebooklet about that and you can kind of see how we
address those areas of concern for school boardmembers. So this is in the safety and security
section under deep fakes. AI powered deep faketechnology has created a host of ethical and
(13:32):
security concerns about emerging AI technology.Deep fake technology can create hyper realistic
edited images or videos, raising concerns aboutits potential for misuse in K-12 schools from
cyber bullying with students to reputationdamaging content of teachers or staff for school
boards and district administration.Understanding deep fake technology is essential
(13:55):
for mitigating the risks that come with thistechnology. And so that's obviously an extreme
example, but it's one that school districtsacross the nation have had to deal with already.
And we mentioned the QR codes earlier. So forexample, under that deep fakes excerpt that I just
read, there are three links to three differentvideos that are geared towards. Can you spot a deep
(14:19):
fake? Is that social media post real or is it AIcreated? And then just an introduction to what
deep fake technology is and what that means. Theseare all videos that were prepared actually by the
Missouri School Boards Association who werereally helpful in the development of this. They
created an toolkit first and it kind of inspiredTSBA to do follow suit. But that's just an example
(14:42):
of some of the concerns school board membersshould be aware of. As far as benefits, just like
any tool or new technology, AI can be as beneficialas you want it to be in your life. And so this is
something that I, and this is my personal opinionhere. School boards first priority most of the
(15:03):
time is to provide students not only with aneducation, but an education they can carry into
the world beyond the 12th grade. This stuff ispresent. It exists in the workforce. This is stuff
that students are going to need to engage with. Andso I think not covering the benefits of AI, not
showing students how this can be usedresponsibly, not showing them how it can be used to
(15:26):
generate ideas. You talked about picking colorsfor your walls. That's another simple example,
but it's showing how this technology can be usedresponsibly. It can be helpful. It can cut down on
time spent doing tasks if it's used responsibly.And that's something that is ultimately left to
the vision of the school board and the directionthey want their district to go in. Is this
something that we want to teach our kids because weknow that they'll be encountering it or is it
(15:50):
something we want to shut them off from? That's adecision you'll have to wrestle with. But I think
that kind of, you know, speaks to the two sided coinof how AI can be dangerous technology, but there
are also uses that if used responsibly, it can makestudents and educators lives better and easier.
Well, thank you. Like you said, this is somethingthat is inevitably going to pop up in a student's
(16:14):
life, whether it's here in a K-12 environment orpost graduation, whether it's a trade school and
the workforce environment in a college setting,they need to know. And I think as our jobs as K
through 12, it's our job to prepare our studentsfor after or post graduation. So helping them
(16:35):
realize what's real and what's not real. And we'vehad that it's an age old thing that we have always
seen with the creation of something new, cellphone, social media, having to figure out what's
fake news and what's real news. So being able toeducate our youth, that was something I think
(16:56):
that's invaluable in starting with our schoolboards and making sure we have the right, we have
the right tools at our fingertips. I think is veryhelpful. We've talked about that K-12 education
setting. How do you see AI impacting that in thecoming years? But how rapidly everything in the
(17:18):
field of artificial intelligence, intelligenceis evolving. I think it's pretty tough to say what
AI will look like in even just a few years time. Imean, this is something that's changing daily
even. But my guess is that we're going to see someareas embrace AI tools and try to integrate those
into their curriculum, their pedagogy. And Ithink other areas are going to do the opposite. I
(17:41):
think they're going to try and say, we are, we'reabsolutely not going to try to do those things. We
want to keep students away from AI. It's a form ofcheating. Another topic, by the way, which is
addressing the toolkit. But my personal opinionis kind of just restating what I said earlier that
this technology is not going anywhere. It's goingto be around students are going to encounter it.
(18:02):
Like you said, Emily out in, I'm doing air quotes,the real world. And even if you're not thrilled
about the implications of more and more AI cominginto our lives, it's important that students are
aware of the AI landscape and know how to use some ofthose tools. It's even more important that
students learn how to use AI tools responsibly.And I really think that's the key is how can in the
(18:28):
K-12 setting where there's some level of controlover what students are able to be taught, how can we
teach them to use these tools responsibly?Because I know that they use them. And it's one of
those things where you can see, you know, this is,you see, like kids who are eight or nine years old,
pick up an iPad who've never touched one before andthey can somehow figure out how to make it work.
(18:48):
It's just like that. Kids are using these tools.They can figure it out on their own, but there has to
be some kind of guide there, I think, to show themhow it can be used to make their life better, not to
cause harm to themselves or others. And so I thinkthat's going to be something that indicates what
education setting specifically we wrestle withover the coming years. But I certainly don't think
(19:11):
it's going anywhere. I think a good comparison iscalculators. You know, I think that's a mess. Not
to try to compare apples to oranges, but to thinkabout tools that our students utilize to help
during their studies. We use calculators. We usesoftwares on computers. This is just something if
(19:32):
used responsibly can be another helpful tool.Yeah, absolutely. Just like any tool, it's as
helpful as you make it. And it can also be, you know,there are times you don't want your students to use
a calculator because you want to test theirknowledge of a subject. And so in that case, it's
cheating in times where you're just, you know,you're doing the work yourself, but you figure out
ways to make it faster, which a calculator is verygood at. Very glad I have a calculator at my desk to
(19:57):
do that. Then it can be a great thing. Yeah. SoNolan, before we hop off here, where can school
board members access the toolkit and how can theystart using it today? So as of the time this podcast
is airing, this has been distributed to schoolboard members if you were in attendance at TSPAs
legislative and legal institute. And if you werenot able to attend, this has been mailed out. So if
(20:22):
you haven't received a physical copy, you should,but there will also be a digital copy made
available on the TSPA website. So you'll have theaccess to the digital copy and you'll have access
to the hard copy. If you don't get a hard copy in themail, reach out to Nolan. He will be able to make
sure you get one because I think it's, it's awonderful tool and it has a lot of valuable
(20:43):
information inside of it. Absolutely. We'rereally excited to have this out there. I think
it'll be great. I do too. Nolan, thank you so muchfor being on the podcast again today. Thanks for
joining us today. Whether you're driving to workor on your back porch enjoying your morning
coffee, we hope you enjoyed this dive into publiceducation. For future episodes, subscribe to our
(21:07):
podcast by going to iTunes and search for TSPA,your education source and click subscribe. Or you
can check us out on our website at tsba.net. If youhave any questions about today's discussion,
please feel free to reach out to us at podcast attsba.net. Also, please rate this episode to let us
(21:28):
know how we're doing and tell us what topics youwant to hear about. Thanks again for listening. We 218 00:21:33,380 --> hope you join us next time on TSPA, your education source.
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