Notes on “ai” and education
In early January, Marty Sharpe thought he’d get a few dozen teachers to show up to his professional development course on using generative artificial intelligence in the classroom. After all, it was an optional workday after the two-week winter break at the Catawba County Schools in North Carolina.
Instead, Sharpe—the Catawba school district’s chief technology officer—was stunned that nearly a hundred educators signed up for the course, and that it had a waitlist. “We were maxed out,” said Sharpe, who afterward was flooded with emails from teachers who had missed the session asking him to schedule another. “It blew my mind.”
Over the last nine months, Catawba County Schools has gone all in on AI, propelled by a surge in demand from educators. Many teachers across the district’s 28 schools now regularly use generative AI tools to develop lesson plans, generate multiple choice quizzes and create customized chatbots to explain topics to students, said Sharpe.
The district recently got a six-figure, multiyear grant from the North Carolina State Board of Education to further those AI efforts. Sharpe says the district intends to use the money—up to $95,000 annually for three years—to roll out mandatory AI literacy courses for students and develop new generative AI tools for teachers.
