Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) has become a major discussion point in research, teaching, and learning due in large part to the emergence of tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot and also more education-specific tools such as MagicSchool and Eduaide.ai. In simple terms, GenAI “refers to algorithms and models that can generate new data, be it text, images, music, or even complex designs” (University of British Columbia: Generative AI, 2024). Over the past few years, many of these tools have evolved to be multimodal and include the ability to produce text, audio, music, images, illustrations, animations, video and code.
Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay
AI is not new and has been integrated into software, websites, and social media platforms for many years. The development of tools like ChatGPT, which generate large amounts of content very quickly based on a user’s prompting, and the incorporation of tools into web browsers, has led to a rapid rise is use and has made these tools almost ubiquitous.
In your work as a teacher, you may be thinking of using these tools for planning and assessment tools. You might also be considering how to integrate these into your teaching practice and for use with students (as tutors, to create games, presentations etc). Your students are also likely to be experimenting with AI which leads to additional teaching considerations (especially related to assessment).
With this in mind, it is important to be thoughtful about how and when you might use GenAI. Remember, you are modeling for your students.
If you are considering using any GenAI tools in your teaching context, below are a few recommendations (this is not an exhaustive list):
1. District, School, Ministry Guidance – Start by ensuring that you know about any expectations in your jurisdiction about the use of GenAI. Your school librarian or admin may be a source of information. Your district resource portal likely has information. In particular, there are special considerations for protecting student data Privacy.
2. Accuracy – Although you can get often-accurate (or accurate sounding) answers and information from GenAI tools, they are also known to regularly produce hallucinations and provide false information. The way these models are trained can actually encourage them to provide you with ‘any’ answer if it doesn’t find a ‘correct’ answer. Further, the data they are trained on may not be the most currently available information. AI’s can be quite insistent and confident sounding; leading us to potentially accept what they provide without critically evaluating it. It is also important to remember that GenAI is trained on specific sets of data, and that data is not always current to the day you are using the tool. Knowing that GenAI is not always producing real, accurate, or timely content, here are some questions to consider when using these tools (from UBC Education Library Inquiry Research guidance):
- Is the generated response accurate? Do you have the knowledge of this topic/concept to identify inaccuracies? What steps can you take to ensure the information is true?
- What information/data is the AI trained on? Is that information accurate? Is there any way to verify this?
- Is the AI trained on current information? If not, what is the cutoff date for its training data?
For teachers, an additional consideration when using AI to support lesson planning or assessment, is to carefully prompt, review and revise to ensure appropriate pedagogies are employed and that connections to curriculum, local context, inclusion, diverse representation and classroom make up are incorporated. This can take some careful prompting and reprompting. Some recent research and reviews are showing that many AI generated lesson plans using some of the K12 teaching specific tools are quite teacher-directed and lack active learning and inclusive approaches.
While it makes sense to seek out tools to help with efficiency and to support improving our practice, it is important to do so in a way that does not interfere with agency including the personal and creative nature of teaching.
3. Ethical considerations – Knowing how GenAI tools are built (who builds them) and how they operate is essential in order to make informed decisions about use. These are just some of the questions you can consider when deciding (from UBC Education Library Guidance for Inquiry Research):
- Who created the AI? Is it profit-generating, and for whom?
- Does the AI collect personal information? How is this information stored and used? (in particular, ‘free’ use often is far less than free considering the data collected and how your inputs are gathered and help train the machines)
- From where does the AI retrieve its training data? Does the AI itself, or does your use of it, violate copyright, intellectual property, or fair dealing guidelines?
- How does your chosen AI tool–or the increase in overall AI use–impact the environment?
- What biases and limitations affect the content generated by this AI?
It is also essential to consider the information you are inputting into a GenAI tool before using it, especially when it comes to inputting personal information, student information and copywritten, cultural or other sensitive material.
UBC Resources:
- UBC Education Library Generative AI Libguide: https://guides.library.ubc.ca/GenAI
- Faculty of Education/LDDI – AI Corner: https://learningdesignviews.educ.ubc.ca/ai-corner/
- UBC – Generative AI: https://genai.ubc.ca/
AI Litearcy in K12 Context
Means having the knowledge, skills, and judgment to understand how AI works and involves how to:
- use AI tools responsibly and for effective teaching and to support student learning,
- recognize risks and limitations,
- model and students engage with AI critically, creatively, ethically, and safely.
The following are important related elements for teachers:
- Technical understanding: knowing the basics of what AI and generative AI are, how tools such as chatbots or image generators produce outputs, and why those outputs may be inaccurate, biased, or incomplete.
- Pedagogical use: understanding when AI can support planning, differentiation, feedback, accessibility, inquiry, creativity, and assessment, while keeping teacher professional judgment at the centre.
- Critical and ethical awareness: recognizing issues such as bias, misinformation, privacy, data protection, copyright, academic integrity, environmental impact, and unequal access.
- Student guidance and safety: helping students use AI in age-appropriate ways, ask better questions, verify information, protect personal data, and understand when AI use is helpful or harmful.
- Human-centred decision-making: using AI to support, not replace, relationships, inclusion, cultural responsiveness, Indigenous perspectives, student agency, and meaningful learning.
Resources
A small selection of curated resources with a focus on more recent and relevant to K12 teaching contexts *I will be adding some additional resources over the next few weeks… stay tuned! Aug 2026
Guidance Documents
Ref: BC Ministry of Education AI in Education
- UNESCO AI and technologies in Education includes information and links related to AI-specific resources including AI Competency Frameworks for students and teachers and guidance for policy makers.
- BC Ministry of Education Guidance on AI is an important resource for BC teachers and includes sample lessons and ideas to support student digital literacy.
- School Districts have or are actively developing guidance documents and resources to support teachers and students and even parents. For example, the Surrey School District, SD36, has a Hub titled “Surrey One” It is important to check your district for locally developed resources!
Digital (AI) Literacy
For Teachers & Students:
- The MET AI Literacy Hub shared by the UBC Master of Educational Technology Program as an open Canvas resource for educators. It includes a wide variety of well-researched and curated resources including ‘What is GenAI’, Policies and Guidelines, Academic Integrity, Ethical and Pedagogical considerations and more.
- MediaSmarts is a Canadian-based open educational resource that includes research, articles, videos and lesson plans to support digital literacy (including integrated and AI specific literacy) across the curriculum in K12. The website has a powerful search engine that can be filtered by topic, grade level, subject area and more. This What is AI resource may also provide some good basic background for educators.
- ISTE and ACSD AI in Education hub includes 8 Core Principles for enhancing student learning & self-assessment tools, a profile of an AI ready graduate and a variety of literacy-focused resources.
As we consider literacy and the impact of AI on students, we are reminded of issues including student agency and learning impacts. Having open communication with our learners is essential. When we model and openly share with students about our own AI use, our questions, our successes and concerns, we help them develop their literacy. Below is a video I found to be a powerful example of student inquiry shared with their permission on Youtube by their teacher, Danny Leeming, at Mt Sentinel Secondary in SD8 Kootenays. You may be surprised by the skill level, depth of thought and the conclusions the students came to:
For Parents:
- It is becoming more and more important for parents to be aware of the impact of AI on education and how their children are being exposed. To help parents develop their own digital literacies, some districts have offered information sessions and are developing parent-facing AI resources. Below are a small selection.
- SD36 Surrey School District, https://surreyschoolsone.ca/ai/parents/
Prompting
*coming soon…
Tool-based
*coming soon…
Research: Open Publications
*coming soon…
It is crucial you understand that this temporary waiver of license fees for reading aloud in-print books, and the posting of the video recording online, only applies to a list of participating publishers and authors. You can look here for the