A group of upper elementary students huddled together to create a flyer for their school Read-a-Thon. They decided to use Canva’s AI image designer to showcase their school mascot reading a book.

Down the hall, younger students were learning skills like coding that will help them as they move into their higher grades.

What do all of these students have in common?

Two things: One is Allatesha Cain, their teacher, who is dedicated to creating safe and ethical AI users of the future. The other is a growing digital literacy that will help them throughout their lives.

The Educator

Allatesha Cain works with all elementary grade levels at CF Hard Elementary School in Bessemer, Alabama, to help students develop foundational digital literacy skills needed within elementary school and for their future learning success.

From fifth graders designing school posters to the younger students improving their coding and typing skills, Cain’s elementary school students are learning how to safely use artificial intelligence and technology.

How Have You Used AI in Your Classroom?

Cain’s AI use in her classrooms varies by grade. She works with her lower elementary students by developing their typing skills along with more complex technological skills such as coding.

More importantly, she focuses on educating all students about online safety and protecting their personal data, which is crucial for their future as proficient users of AI and other online platforms.

As students progress to upper elementary grades, Cain expands on this foundation by introducing them to the AI features embedded in various online tools, such as Canva and Google Docs.

For instance, her upper-grade students helped design flyers and posters for school events and newsletters using Canva’s embedded AI feature for image design.

They creatively depicted their school mascot, The Ram, in various poses, including the ram reading a book for the school’s Read-A-Thon.

As a Google-certified educator, Cain also ensures students become familiar with Google’s products. Recently, her students discovered the built-in auto-complete feature in Google Docs, which predicts possible next words in a sentence.

This feature may help students build their vocabulary and improve their spelling. In another project, she had fifth-grade students design stop animations using Google Slides.

In addition to working with AI features within these tools, Cain introduced students to fundamental concepts of AI. She had them experiment with Quick Draw, a tool demonstrating how AI uses pattern recognition.

Users create simple doodles for the AI system to guess in this activity. Students were fascinated by how accurately the AI could interpret their drawings.

To further deepen their understanding of AI, Cain guided her upper elementary students through the Code.org module titled “AI in the Oceans.” One task involved teaching an AI bot to distinguish between fish and trash and eventually to interpret the emotions of fish. The students were highly engaged, and they were curious about how AI works.

“Kids naturally find this stuff exciting, and they kept asking, ‘How does it do that?’” Cain said.

What Has Been the Impact of AI on Your Teaching and Learning?

Cain found that AI has made her job significantly easier in many ways. In addition to working directly with students, she uses AI to enhance her lessons and manage administrative tasks. For instance, she is responsible for all the school’s social media posts and uses generative AI tools to create content for the school’s social media pages.

As the new 504 coordinator, Cain has also benefited from the AI system, Magic School, which assists her in crafting appropriate wording for student accommodations.

What Tips or Tricks Can You Give Educators Who Want to Start Using AI?

Cain recognized that many teachers still struggle with implementing technology in their classrooms and fear what AI might do. Recently, in an effort to improve her school’s writing scores, she had her students respond to writing prompts.

She employed AI to offer personalized feedback to each student, helping them improve their writing skills. She later showed this to other teachers and how they could use this tool to streamline the feedback process considerably.

“Just dive in and see what it can do,” she said. “You have to try something so you can know how it will help your classroom.”

She encouraged teachers to seek professional development offerings to get more comfortable with this new technology. Teachers must be ready for students to come to them with questions about AI and how best to use it so they “can guide them in the most responsible way possible.”

Improving Students’ Comfort With AI

Although elementary students may not use AI often, teachers can establish a strong foundation of digital literacy skills. Cain leans into Pillar 4 as she works to enhance students’ comfort with technology and guide them to explore what AI is and how to use it.

A great place to start is to teach students how to embedded AI within technology they’re already familiar with, such as those found in Google Workspace and Canva. Another essential component is developing students’ knowledge about online safety and protecting their data privacy as AI tools become more widespread within society.