Artificial Intelligence (AI) has rapidly expanded over the past five years. From search engines to household appliances, AI is quickly becoming a part of everyday activities. Many homeschoolers have adopted artificial intelligence at a faster pace than traditional education. In fact, it’s reported that 44% of homeschool educators are using ChatGPT compared to classroom educators (only 34%). This is unsurprising as homeschoolers have historically embraced new technology in their educational practices.
There is also a clear draw for homeschool parents, it can streamline many administrative tasks, allowing parents to spend more time actually educating and exploring with their kids. On the other hand, AI has some serious, potentially negative implications that parents should be aware of if they choose to integrate AI into their homeschool.
AI has shown to cause serious mental health crises in children; it can produce false information, and it doesn’t always clearly cite where it pulls information from. Additionally, Studies have shown that using AI to search for information causes people to remember less and have a shallower understanding of the subject matter compared to old-fashioned web searching. AI use raises serious concerns about a loss of critical thinking skills for children, and this raises questions about the role of responsible AI use in homeschool education.
Like anything on the internet, it is important to be thoughtful about how you approach AI. In this article, we will outline things to keep in mind and best practices if you choose to use artificial intelligence on your homeschool journey.
Healthy Ways of Using AI in Homeschooling
AI can be a powerful tool for homeschool education when incorporated appropriately.
Saving Parents Time:
AI can help with lesson planning, activity ideas, grading support, and administrative tasks. Allowing you to spend less time doing the administrative work of homeschooling and more time directly engaging with your children.
Making Learning More Accessible:
For students struggling in certain subject areas, AI can rephrase information, simplify complex topics, or provide step-by-step guidance. Work with your student to learn to create appropriate prompts and cross-check information to gain important skills for AI usage as they get older.
Personalization:
AI can help you personalize classroom activities to your family, making content engaging and exciting with less work.
Get Help Right Away:
AI can be a helpful supplement for students who may need help right away when studying or working through complex subjects when they aren’t able to immediately receive guidance from a parent or educator.
It's Only Just Beginning:
The best part of homeschooling is how adaptable and personalized education can be, so get curious and do some research about innovative ways that AI is aiding education right now. AI will be a part of our children’s lives, so teaching students how to healthily use it can be a critical skill as we head into this new technology landscape.
Risks to Keep in Mind If Using AI
While AI can be a potentially helpful tool to incorporate into your child’s education, there are important limitations to keep in mind.
AI can be wrong:
AI will always present information as fact, even when it is incorrect. It may oversimplify, use poor citations, or “hallucinate”, meaning it will generate information that is completely wrong.
AI works by guessing, so it’s not actually thinking, it’s just predicting the best next word, and it does that pretty well. Its system is also programmed to come across confident. While it is really good at guessing, it’s not a real person’s thinking nor does it have actual logic skills, it’s just a computer program, so it’s critical to question and verify information.
Free AI is becoming influenced by paid ads:
Just like anything on the internet, if you aren’t paying for it, that means you (or your child) is the product. Recently, ChatGPT and other companies have begun to include ads in their models, meaning that responses are skewed and answers may change based on paid product placement. Because of this, it is extremely important to verify information.
Overreliance:
Just like how a calculator is extremely helpful to have on hand, AI can be a tool to use to speed up work. However, just like in math, you don’t want to only rely on a calculator, but instead understand how to add and subtract before you start using the tool. Similarly, AI can become a crutch for students. Have clear limits on usage. Some research suggests that when students rely on AI to generate answers instead of searching, reading, and creating work themselves, it may lead to less comprehension or memory formation. The act of working through a problem, researching or analyzing confusing information is an important part of learning. This is especially important to keep in mind for projects and assignments.
Newness:
Artificial Intelligence is still in its early stages, and there are only limited studies on its long-term impact on children. The current lack of clear effects does not mean there won’t be any. This generation will be the first to reveal any long-term potentially negative outcomes. Keep this in mind when thinking about boundaries around AI usage.
The bottom line:
Artificial intelligence is a powerful tool, and with thoughtful supervision and clear boundaries, it could be a positive addition to your homeschool education. Parents should take the lead in how it is used, and some may choose to limit direct use to adults in their home.
Teaching students to be critical of generated answers and not assume that everything they read is true is an important tool in building critical thinking, especially considering the risks above.
Artificial Intelligence is only growing in its importance, and many homeschoolers have fully embraced using it. It will be a part of our children’s future, but like anything on the internet, AI requires supervision. If you choose to include it in your homeschooling, be thoughtful of what boundaries make sense to keep your family safe and healthy.
I agree with the article. Right now is a good time to use free AI, but it won’t be this good for long. The good AI will have to be paid for. Because it is still new, they have to figure out how to please the customer. Otherwise, they will be doing the ads model that doesn’t respect your private data. My biggest concern is that the people behind most tech companies also created models that lean culturally where they personally stand. Eventually they’re going to have curated robots who will assist in homeschool. These robots will have a deeper database of information on the subjects than you could ever dream of having.