Artificial Intelligence is amazing and terrorizing at the same time. There are so many helpful tasks able to be completed quickly by AI, freeing up time and energy for so many different people in various fields. However, AI can also make jobs, that used to require people, obsolete. AI is used multiple time a day by people all over the world, sometimes without people even realizing it. Wendy Gonzalez (2021), author of How AI Plays a Role in Everyday Life (and What it Means for Leaders), shared a few common ways AI is being used each day. She mentioned personalized shopping experiences, social media, and even job searching as the top ways people use AI daily.

So, what does this mean for education and libraries? There were a couple of suggestions from the generated AI list that resonated with me. The first being the use of an interactive reading companion. I have been a teacher for 17 years, mostly at Title I schools with a heavy English Learner population. Having an interactive reading companion that could rephrase difficult concepts or define words could be extremely helpful for those students. If the student is an English learner, then rephrasing those challenging concepts could help them understand them better. Also, having the interactive reader define words right then and there as the student is reading will help with comprehension of the material. English learners are responsible for so much new vocabulary, that it can become difficult to remember; the interactive reading companion could help alleviate some of that. Having the companion ask comprehension questions while reading e-books would help students with more practice. It is common for many of our students to get home from school while their parents are still working. Having the interactive reading companion ask comprehension questions while they are reading allows the students to complete their reading and not have to wait for a family member to be available.

These interactive reading companions have a lot of benefits for students, especially those who are English learners, but I could see some pitfalls too. Students do need to practice asking and answering questions generated on their own. Relying on the interactive reading companion to generate questions for them may decrease their ability to think intellectually about what they are reading. The reading companion could also decrease family engagement. It is good when families collaboratively learn and teach; it sparks conversation and interests. Perhaps using the interactive reading companion occasionally and not all the time could reduce the chances of negative outcomes, while still benefitting many students.

The other suggestion from the generated AI list that I though was interesting was an automated auditing system that could help a librarian identify outdates, inaccurate, or potentially inappropriate materials. Weeding is a necessary part of being a librarian, but it can be a daunting task when you are the only one in the school library. An automated auditing system could help make weeding so much easier. It could generate a report with significantly outdated books and the librarian can review the book to decide if it should be discarded or not. Using the auditing system to weed books with inaccurate information will help keep the science books up to date. Discoveries are happening at an extremely fast rate and often times information that was once thought to be true is just not so anymore. It is important that school libraries are providing students with books containing the most current information.

An automated auditing system can be very helpful, especially to a solo-school librarian, but librarians should take caution. This auditing system could deem books as inappropriate, which the librarian may disagree with some of the titles on the list. Melanie Kletter (2021), author of the article When Weeding Books, Librarians are Attending to Inclusion and Diversity, SLJ Survey Shows, stated librarians are “paying more attention to unconscious racial bias, inclusion, and diversity issues when culling titles” (para. 1). An automated auditing system would not be able to accurately attend to such things as inclusion or diversity issues. School librarians could still use the automated auditing system to get a starting point for weeding, but it is up to the librarian to use discretion when deciding to discard a book.

References

Gonzalez, W. (2021, Feb. 10). How AI plays a role in everyday life (and what it means for leaders). Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2021/02/10/how-ai-plays-a-role-in-everyday-life-and-what-it-means-for-leaders/?sh=39c3cee51d87

Kletter, M. (2021, June 6). Librarians are attending to inclusion and diversity, SLJ survey shows. School Library Journal. https://www.slj.com/story/when-it-comes-to-weeding-books-librarians-are-attending-to-inclusion-and-diversity-slj-survey-shows