Thoughts from James who recently held a Gen AI literacy workshop for older teenagers.
On risks:
One idea I had was to ask a generative model a question and fact check points in front of students, allowing them to see fact checking as part of the process. Upfront, it must be clear that while AI-generated text may be convincing, it may not be accurate.
On usage:
Generative text should not be positioned as, or used as, a tool to entirely replace tasks; that could disempower. Rather, it should be taught to be used as a creativity aid. Such a class should involve an exercise of making something.
Is tech/internet literacy in general taught in schools the way media literacy used to be? i am guessing it is not.
Not at all, from my experience they teach you how to use the websites and programs needed to complete assignments and nothing more, same went for teachers and faculty who would have no idea how to do things like change inputs on displays, turn on projectors, tell the difference between online and local versions of software, etc
not as far as I know from my younger sisters. to be fair, we didn’t learn much media literacy in my time either.