Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the nation’s third-largest school district, is at the forefront of a fast-moving national experiment to embed generative A.I. technologies into teaching and learning. Over the last year, the district has trained more than 1,000 educators on new A.I. tools and is now introducing Google chatbots for more than 105,000 high schoolers — the largest U.S. school district deployment of its kind to date.
It is a sharp turnabout from two years ago, when districts like Miami blocked A.I. chatbots over fears of mass cheating and misinformation. The chatbots, which are trained on databases of texts, can quickly generate humanish emails, class quizzes and lesson plans. They also make stuff up, which could mislead students.
Now some formerly wary schools are introducing generative A.I. tools with the idea of helping students prepare for evolving job demands. Miami school leaders say they also want students to learn how to critically assess new A.I. tools and use them responsibly.
