Conversation with kids about AI really matters

This past week I noticed that Common Sense Media has a new report—The Dawn of the AI Era: Teens, Parents, and the Adoption of Generative AI at Home and School. You’re probably familiar with Common Sense Media. I wrote about their new AI ratings system and AI curricular resources back in December, 2023. In that same post, I also included a YouTube video titled Artificial Intelligence for Kids—it’s a live presentation by Hod Lipson, Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University, given to an audience of 6- to 16-year-olds. 

I made the time yesterday to read the new 56 page Common Sense Media report. If a 56-page report seems impossible for you, take the time to scroll through (they’ve made it easy to capture highlights with bolded key points and color-coded graphs summarizing their data) and read the Conclusions on page 47. It is a fascinating report that will really up your insights into how generative AI is impacting young people, what they know, and what they don’t know that they need to know.

The main conclusion I take away from this report:

Conversation with kids about AI really matters. Most parents and teachers are not having those conversations. And schools are not having conversations with parents about AI, generative AI in particular.

For example:

Overall, gaps in parents' awareness of their child's gen AI use are quite significant; just 37% of parents whose teen reported using at least one generative AI platform in our survey thought their child had used gen AI. …

Discussions and lessons in school can help scaffold young people on how to interact with these technologies, encouraging teens to cautiously and skeptically read outputs and verify the information. Teens who had class activities focused on generative AI are more likely to report having checked other sources to verify the accuracy of their gen AI outputs than teens who have not had class discussions (55% vs. 43%). …

Only 11% of teens report that their teachers have asked them to look for false information, bias, or harmful stereotypes in generative AI outputs, highlighting a potential area for teacher education and support. …

To accompany the report, CSM has also created “Parents’ Ultimate Guide to Generative AI” to help you spark important conversations and AI test drives with your kids. (“Ultimate” is a little over the top, but I think you’ll find it helpful.) Note: The last section repeats the copy from the previous section. I’ve emailed them to correct that.

Meanwhile…

BirdCast. Check it out. Put your city in the BirdCast Migration Dashboard and see just how many birds and which species are passing overhead. We’re in the midst of the fall migration, an extraordinary event of the more-than-human world that we should be very attuned to…and BirdCast is helping. A live data feed begins each night after sunset.

Did you know “Migrating birds regularly fly up to 10,000 feet above ground, although seasonal timing and weather conditions dramatically impact their distributions”?

CornellLab put together a helpful post: How to Use BirdCast Dashboard to See Your Local Migration in Detail.

Dive down into how weather surveillance radar helps us study bird migration.

Breeding range and migration routes of the Connecticut warbler (Oporornis agilis). Bird Migration. 1915. From the book, Bird Migration, Authors: Cooke, Wells Woodbridge, US Department of Agriculture

Thanks so much for reading. Be well. And please consider sharing this post with family, friends, teachers, and/or colleagues who might appreciate it.