Some Wake County students are getting a lesson on how to properly use artificial intelligence for education.
State leaders will hold a presentation for students at Dillard Drive Middle School Thursday morning.
This is one of nine presentations planned for about 2,000 middle school students across Wake and Durham schools.
The presentation is designed to explain how to use the technology in a safe and age-appropriate way.
“Make sure that you are working with your kids to understand what they’re using, know what apps they’re on, be able to understand where they are, be able to learn with them and be able to do it to where you’re making sure that it is age appropriate,” North Carolina Department of Information Technology Secretary Teena Piccione said.
Piccione said it is also important to make sure your child does not upload any photos or personal information into AI software.
The use of AI in schools is been a hot topic with Wake County leaders considering how the school system can use artificial intelligence to improve its operations.
Wake schools already encourages the use of AI but doesn’t have set guidance for its use, other than a few parameters, such as using Google’s Gemini instead of ChatGPT. The district has an agreement with Gemini on student data privacy. It doesn’t with Chat GPT and has restricted access to ChatGPT on campuses.
Many other school boards in North Carolina have artificial intelligence policies, typically derived from a similar template. They usually encourage the use of AI and set expectations that all students will be AI literate — meaning, they understand what it is and how to use it properly. They also typically require AI training and AI guidelines, neither of which is defined in the policies.