Thinking Out Loud: AI

On Tuesday, we held the first of our Thinking Out Loud online discussions.

Featuring input from Associates Mark Anderson, Nina Jackson, Dave Harris and Hywel Roberts and hosted by Ian Gilbert, the topic was AI.

What was covered was not only what it meant for the humans in our classrooms but also, more existentially, what it means to be human in our classrooms now.

Especially when we are in a situation where, to quote one of many memorable lines from a paper by Hamilton, William and Hattie shared by our ICTEvangelist Mark Anderson, we now have access to the thoughts of:

‘…thousands of geniuses thinking millions of things at once.’

The conversation was inspired partly by a 2024 article in The Times by Sir Anthony Seldon (see more about what he had to say in a previous blog page here) and also the direction of travel since Ian’s celebrated 2011 book, Why Do I Need a Teacher When I’ve got Google?.

Below is our (human) overview of the conversation, aided in orange italics by what Zoom’s built-in AI-assisted notetaking tool suggest were the key points.

Mark Anderson

“Mark emphasized the need for pragmatism and full embrace of AI while also being cautious about its potential”

Mark called for pragmatism in the use of AI, especially as it entered the phase of AGI or Artificial General Intelligence. This is where the systems know a lot about a lot. Think ChatGPT vs a chess simulation for example, the latter being an example of ‘Narrow AI’.

AI literacy should be incorporated into the curriculum along with a better understanding of how it can be used to save teachers time and effort in areas such as assessment and pedagogy.

Question 1 – What is your school’s AI strategy and how will it develop as the AI becomes both more powerful and more prevalent? (Mark’s blog on the topic for us may be of help here.)

Nina Jackson

“Nina expressed her frustration about the lack of awareness and utilization of AI accessible tools in educational settings, particularly for children with special educational needs.”

Nina then spoken passionately in true Nina style about the use of technology to support children with ‘learning and living differences’ in the classroom.

A long-time advocate of what she calls the ‘handtop’ (as opposed to the desk or lap), she explained how many assistive tools exist on even a basic smartphone (excuse the oxymoron but we are through the looking glass these days) that can help children access the curriculum.

For Nina, taking the sim card out gets rid of many of the issues that schools worldwide are battling with when it comes to having such devices in the classroom.

This combined with using the schools security systems to ensure the learners are accessing the online world appropriately.

While there are schools that have embraced technology in this way, there are many who are not allowing their students to access this ‘digital pencil case’, to the detriment of their learning.

In the chat, a number of websites and applications were suggested as suitable for children with SEND including Goblin.Tools and Google Labs.

Question 2 – How are you using assistive technologies to support children with ‘living and learning differences in your school and are there readily available technologies that your school rules are actually denying them?

Dave Harris

“David (sic), the leadership guru, discussed the significant changes in society over the past 20 years and the need for schools to adapt to these changes."

Dave Harris is both grounded in the reality of school life but is also adamant that schools will have to change over the next few years.

Staying the same is no longer an option and AI will be a significant part of that change. For example, he is an advocate for not so much what the teacher teachers but the questions he or she asks.

That said, his work with schools in the areas of curiosity and wonder, is evidence that the ‘physical manipulation of interesting things’ is something that no technology can replace.

Virtual reality may have its uses to transport us though time and space but actually picking up and holding an object is something that no haptic technologies can compete with yet.

From a leadership perspective, it is clear that AI can be used to significantly cut time spent on paperwork such as producing policies to free school leaders up to spend more time doing what the tech can’t do yet – spend more time focusing on values, culture and person-to-person relationships.

In the chat, SLTAI was suggested as a useful AI tool for leaders

Question 3 – Do your lessons incorporate objects of interest and curiosity so that learning is a physical as well as cerebral process? And is your school encouraging the use of AI to free the humans up to do the work that only the humans can?

Hywel Roberts

“Hywel expressed concerns about the lack of a roadmap for the integration of AI in education, particularly its potential impact on teachers and students.”

Hywel’s work is all about bringing warmth and humanity to bear on any classroom.

While he is no Luddite, he is keen to ensure that such an approach is not lost in the race to 'unleash' AI across the UK, as declared by the UK government in January 2025.

If it can help teachers (it will definitely help the tech companies) then ‘crack on’ but with caution.

A passionate advocate for teachers to be using their ‘professional imaginations’, Hywel cited the most recent list of trending skills put forward by the World Economic Forum in their Future of Jobs Report for 2025:

1.     Analytical thinking

2.     Resilience, flexibility and agility

3.     Leadership and social influence

4.     Creative thinking

5.     Motivation and self-awareness

This is where are focus could be, as educators, to help us AI-proof ourselves and our children, at least in the short to medium term.

Interestingly, the same report highlights the skills most at risk of being replaced by AI.

‘Reading, writing and maths’, ‘Systems thinking’ and ‘multi-lingualism’ are among the top five skills most readily replaced by AI.

'Teaching, mentoring and coaching’, ‘Creative thinking’, ‘Empathy and active listening’ and (cf Dave Harris’ views above) ‘Sensory processing abilities’ were deemed to be least at risk currently.

Question 4 – Is the use of ‘professional imagination’ encouraged and celebrated in your school, highlighting the importance of the sorts of skills that are not going to be replaced by AI any time soon?

Three other areas were also introduced into the discussion.

Equity

Any conversation about the use and application of AI has to also include one about ensuring equality of access to AI.

Question 5 – If we are suggesting, for example, AI can perform certain teacher roles such as assessment and one-to-one tutoring, do all your families (and staff) have access to this?

Bias

AI doesn’t create knowledge, it scrapes it.

Like a dredger harvesting scallops, it also dredges up all the other crap that’s lying around.

Even a cursory glance at Twitter these days reveals how much crap that is.

This tendency to present bias as facts will only compounded as the input of the next generations of AI will be the output of the current generation of AI.

An example Ian had come across was asking ChatGPT to produce an image of ten clocks showing a time such as 07.33.

However, the vast majority of existing pictures of clocks show the time as 13.50 (because it resembles a smiling face. No-one wants to buy a miserable 08.20 sort of watch!).

This means that ChatGPT creates an image where all the clocks are at ten to two.

The same applies when you ask it to produce an image of a child writing with their left hand.

As most images are of right handers, that’s what you get.

And where do we start with this?!

Now extrapolate such bias across every other question you ask… 

Question 6 – How are you teaching your students (and staff) to watch out for bias and downright disinformation in the answers they are finding through AI?

The Environment

Mark pointed out the amount of water that is used up every time we interact with something like ChatGPT. The data centres (there is no cloud!) that do the work produce extraordinary amounts of heat energy and need to be cooled with pure, drinkable water that then evaporates away.

According to The Times, a Western family of four is estimated to use 1.6 million litres of water over a decade whereas Google uses 24.2 billion litres in a single year.

Question 7 – Does the use of technology feature in your school’s approach to sustainability and do your students know about the link between the tech they use on a daily basis and climate change vulnerabilities?

As you can see, it was quite the discussion so let’s allow the AI to have the final word”

“The team agreed on the need to consider the broader implications of AI on education and society, and to focus on the skills that AI cannot replicate, such as creativity and adaptability. The conversation ended with a call to action to reconvene in a year's time to assess progress.”

For help both in using AI in your school and also AI-proofing your staff and your children and young people, give us a call on 01267 211432 or email us for a free, no-obligation conversation.

With a human.[ITL]