[Music] Welcome to Almanac North.

I'm Maria Hwitt.

And I'm Brett Scott.

Thank you for joining us.

It's no secret AI is everywhere, but is it time for it to be used in our classrooms?

Local educators join us tonight to discuss how AI is making an impact across our regional school systems.

We dive into this topic and much more just ahead.

But first, we begin with headlines close to home this evening.

The Northland Foundation has awarded 23 grants totaling $680,000 to support people and communities across northeastern Minnesota, including tribal nations.

Over $180,000 will be helping fund summer and afterchool programs for kids in Itasa, Coocha King, Cucha King, Cuchching rather, and northern St. Louis counties as well as the Boys Fort Band of Chipua.

Other grants are supporting basic needs like food, housing, and health care services for older adult adults, mental health, and domestic violence prevention.

Funding also went toward early childhood education, legal support, and nonprofit capacity building, all aimed at improving life across our region.

A busy stretch of Arrowhead Road in Hermantown will be closed starting Monday, August 18th, for a utility installation project.

The closure runs from Steener Road to Hartwood Lane with a full shutdown at the Arrowhead and Steener intersection.

Drivers should use Steener or Levake Road to detour to Highway 53 or Maple Grove Road.

Local traffic will still be able to access homes in the area.

The road is expected to reopen by Friday, August 22nd.

The St. Louis County Board has unanimously approved a 19.5 million dollar bond sale to fund critical infrastructure upgrades.

The historic St. Louis County Depot in Duth will soon see the benefits of the vote.

$16.5 million will go toward replacing the aging HVAC and mechanical systems in the 133y old facility, which has faced delays in funding for years.

Another $3 million will support other county capital projects.

Commissioner said the decision follows years of seeking state support and reflects their commitment to preserving the depot as a cultural hub.

The depot draws about 200,000 visitors annually and will remain open during the multi-year renovation project.

Work is expected to be finished by 2027.

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Well, let's dive into our topic tonight, artificial intelligence, also known as AI.

Joining us is Dr. Alex Elder, a UMD philosophy for professor and an expert in technology ethics.

Alexis, it's great to have you on the show.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So AI, it's all over now, right?

What can you describe and what exactly is AI for most people?

That's a great question.

Uh because we run into it in both science fiction and real life.

Uh and it's been around in some form or other since the mid- 20th century where it's again referred to different things over the years, but for the past 30 or 40 years, it has often referred to technologies running on what are called artificial neural networks.

Despite the name, there's no neurons involved.

It's series of mathematical functions.

Uh but what they are very good at is uh modeling and reproducing patterns in data sets uh without a lot of human interference which sometimes means they pick up on patterns we don't know about.

Oh for good for better and worse.

Yeah.

Uh and that has been used in a variety of contexts over the years.

everything from like medical diagnostics uh to text prediction right out of a large language data set guessing what word is likely to come next uh and these days it's often used to refer to what's called generative AI which is about generating new content in the style uh that's come before which is I think often why like AI images look um very kind of like classic little like nostalgia soft you know soft lens the kinds of pictures that are like out there in mass and likely to be patterns we'd pick up So, you've been studying technology and this is a part big part of your field.

Um, and AI's been around for a bit, but it's become such a hot topic.

Like, when did that shift happen where all of a sudden like the mainstream is talking about it all the time?

Yes.

Yeah.

No, great question.

Um, I think really November of 2022 was when it sort of uh you know with the with the release of chat GPT uh which stuck out in my mind because that was right before finals.

Oh.

Oh, geez.

Um, for a while there, um, these neural network technologies were being used, but they weren't being called AI because that wasn't really a great way to raise funds.

There'd been some disappointment about failure of real AI to deliver on science fiction promises.

Um, but these days it's uh become more popular among investors and so many things are being relabeled as AI that might have been marketed under different titles before.

So, it's like a marketing strategy that essentially shifted how we think about it.

things that used to be called machine learning um or you know sort of other algorithms are suddenly being relabeled as AI.

How is AI affecting our daily lives right now?

There's people who say I'm not using AI.

I don't want to do it.

But we're all using it.

And part of the problem is it depends on what you mean by AI by AI, right?

Um certainly algorithms are informing decisions about who gets bank loans or what kind of medical treatment people are eligible for.

And these things are often kind of in the background but definitely shaping our lives.

uh that said more and more people are interacting with AI um sort of explicitly and intentionally from uh you know the popularity of AI among students uh who don't really want to put in the time on the homework uh through folks who are playing around with it in creative capacities uh or companies trying to like experiment and see if it can be useful in business.

Um so there there's a lot of um ethical questions when it comes to AI.

So are are there kind of set moral limits yet?

I mean it seems like everybody has kind of a different opinion about the good and the bad of AI.

Yes.

So among folks who've been working in AI ethics, I think um there are a number of concerns that have become pretty well established.

Um some of them are just about being transparent about its limitations, right?

It's about um as as we say, it's not an information retrieval system.

It's a a plausible uh generation system.

It's about making things that look right, not things that are right.

And that is when it's blurred for sort of end users, that can be ethically troubling because people will rely on it for information uh that needs to be accurate and it's just not built for that.

Um so that's one area.

Um because it reproduces patterns in large training data sets, often too large to be curated, we know it's going to pick up on and reproduce lots of patterns that we might not have intended and that we might not want to carry forward into the future.

um that becomes another concern and questions about who's responsible for a well recognized to be errorprone technology um right not just that it will make mistakes but kind of who's on the hook for those mistakes um I think it's not necessarily um you know an if but when question and having a clear line of decisions about who's going to cover the cost when something goes wrong recognizing that everyone's going to want to pass the buck to somebody else um these are the kinds of questions that I think AI ethicists often want to to center in their discussions.

We just have a few seconds left.

Unfortunately, we could talk all show.

How do you see AI evolving in maybe the next 5 to 10 years?

Something I'm really interested in is we've been pursuing this project of larger and larger data sets.

Uh and I think we're starting to see some hard limits like that that perceived advancement has kind of slowed.

So, I'm interested to see sort of what comes next.

Uh definitely there's a lot of enthusiasm right now.

Uh, but I think the history of AI is a history of folks encountering limits uh and then being disappointed.

And I'm interested to see sort of where we go next.

Yeah, I feel like we could go to sleep tonight and wake up and something else will have changed.

There'll be a new use case.

So, Dr. Elder, thank you so much for joining us.

My pleasure.

Thank you.

Well, just ahead, we'll speak with local school superintendents to hear their thoughts on AI in the classroom.

[Music] [Music] [Music] Now, Dr. Amy Starzki of the School District of Superior and Superintendent John Magus with Duth Public Schools join us.

Welcome.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having us.

Thanks for having us.

So AI in the classrooms, how long has this been on your radar and something that you are thinking about um as superintendents of your school districts?

Well, for us, uh we've had a future ready team in place for a number of years and even before the pandemic when technology really escalated quickly um for classrooms and classroom teachers, we were thinking about AI and how this was how this was going to impact our classrooms.

shortly after that kind of that transition of virtual learning.

This was kind of the next step I think in technology in the classroom.

And I'd say we we've been on a similar timeline.

I would say though that uh as of late things have really accelerated as as the world is changing and and we're at the uh cusp of such great change in in the world with technology and artificial intelligence.

Uh the the rate of acceleration for us and how we're planning to deal with it and how we need to deal with it both as a society and as a school system.

It's really forefront in our minds.

How is AI being implemented in your schools with with staff but then students also using AI?

You know, uh in Superior School District, we're taking AI very very ser uh very seriously, but also very slowly.

It just like John said, this is changing so rapidly and so quickly.

We want to be really be thoughtful about the policies and the procedures that we're putting in place.

And so we're slowly and gradually rolling this out to our staff and our students.

Our staff are are experimenting with AI tools for lesson planning, assessment development, uh feedback to students, but we haven't quite rolled this out um to students using our school devices.

We know students are using it at home and through their own personal devices.

Uh but our intent in the months ahead is to really start to roll this out slowly to our students uh while we're teaching them really the the ethical aspects of how you use uh I AI AI.

Yeah.

And similarly in in our district we are focusing first on staff making sure that they are uh gaining the skills gaining the training and really when we think about how how do we roll it out with staff and how do we roll it out with students there's two main aspects we think about first of all we need to think about uh cyber security and safety of data because we want to make sure that we're not releasing vast amount of data with to our to our uh to to the internet and to others uh related to that.

That's when we work with staff.

uh when we work with students, we want to think about what are we doing related to uh their sense of ethics and what are we doing related to uh citizenship around AI and making sure that we're using it ethically.

So those are two things that we consider but we also realize that the world is about to change very very quickly and we need to make sure that we are learning as much as possible so that we can responsibly adapt to the changes coming forward.

Yeah.

how difficult to come up with policies and structure when it's constantly evolving and very quickly.

Yes.

And that's why we've taken our time and cautious uh as we move forward.

So what stands out as big pros for AI use in the classroom like the positive the number one thing for me is efficiency for teachers and I think differentiation and personalization of learning for students.

I think those are two things that stand out to me.

I think AI is going to give us the ability to really personalize learning, differentiate to highest the highest levels possible.

Um, and I think for staff, it's really going to give them some efficiencies and be able to do their job um, even even more skilled than they already are.

Mhm.

I would say um again similarly those are those are factors we think about and I think it comes to how are we going to use AI as a learning tool for feedback for our learners so that we can give very personalized intentional feedback and also uh diff differentiate based on students abilities and their interests.

Uh but also I think it's it's really the move from using AI as an answer machine uh to thinking about how are we using it as a learning guide and a a support that that gives uh again greater custo customization for all of our students.

And I think there's there's a pretty good chance that AI is going to revolutionize the way we teach our students.

We have to be very thoughtful about it.

uh but I think it really represents a potential major sea change not in the way just in the way we educate students but just for the world in general but we have to think about how do we enter into that field cautiously we often hear about AI taking jobs away from people of course what are what are your concerns over that do you think we could see AI being a teacher one day or well I will say my I go back again to the pandemic because it taught us so much because it it really um escalated our our work through virtual learning.

I think one thing we learned through that experience was how important relationships are in those classrooms and the impact it has on teaching and learning.

And so I think it's going to make teaching and learning better.

I don't think it's going to replace teaching and learning.

And I think you know our kids come to school and they they rely on our food service.

They rely on those extracurricular activities.

They rely on those those valuable relationships with their peers and their teachers.

And those can't be replaced.

I think AI will just make our teachers better and it'll allow our students just to become even more um critical thinkers and prepared for the world ahead of them.

Yes.

Additionally, I think um when the teachers are freed up due to some of the efficiencies that they they get through lesson uh planning and uh paperwork uh thing things like that that that will be uh sped up through use of AI.

It'll allow them to spend more individualized time with students.

Really getting back to that relationship piece.

uh our students really all students really need to know that the teachers care.

They want to know uh that that the teachers have that relationship with them and this will allow our teachers really to to customize that support through AI but then use the extra time that's saved through those efficiencies to develop and bond with with students and families and really go deeper with uh the the human aspects.

I think when a lot of people think about um AI in the classroom, they immediately go to how do high school students I mean I think of how many five-page papers I had to write like how do you AI and generative AI can create a paper so fast?

How how do you combat that and make sure that kids are are still thinking for themselves?

Well, I think one thing is there are tools to identify whether um uh doc or whether essays are are written um is has been generated by AI.

So there are tools that teachers can use.

Um but I think more importantly we need to be able to use AI and we need to teach students how to use AI when it comes to using it as a tool to to expand their writing.

So for example I know some teachers might ask students submit your paper into AI.

See what critical feedback it gives to you and what kind of changes can you make through that.

So how do you you use AI to support your learning um instead of replacing your learning.

Yeah, I I I agree.

And I think that really thinking about how do we use AI as that feedback tool, I think that uh really the the feedback that AI can produce, it's it's one thing to ask AI to write an essay for you.

It's another thing to write the essay and then ask AI for feedback on how it could be improved.

And really some of the the quality of feedback, having been a former English teacher myself, the quality of feedback is really high level and it comes out immediately and it's very personalized and customized.

I also uh know that there's a lot of research being done around using AI as uh a tutoring agent for people so that if if somebody's struggling they can get that on-time real support.

So if you're at home and studying highle math and maybe your your parents aren't or your family members aren't able to give that support that you can use AI to guide you more through Socratic questioning as opposed to just giving you the answer.

It's kind of like if you were uh teaching division, you can use a calculator to to get the answer readily, but how do you use uh the the um the information to really lead you forward and get that deeper knowledge is really what we we need to focus on.

Definitely.

We have about one minute left.

I don't want to talk all about AI.

Are you preparing for the new school year and how are you doing it?

We are super excited about this upcoming school year.

We actually just had about a 100 teachers in our district uh this week looking at uh in school improvement plans and we are rolling out a new strategic plan for the next five years.

So they were aligning those new school improvement plans and school goals to our strategic plan and we're we're super excited about the vision ahead for our district and we're really thrilled here.

We we had our uh new teacher and new staff orientation today and really making those connections with staff.

uh thinking we want to make sure that we're modeling that sense of belonging when it comes to our staff so that they in turn are are fostering that with our students.

And we really had some great results with our our graduation rates uh this past year with some significant increases and especially closing gaps with many of our historically underperforming students.

So, we have that leverage.

Things are moving forward very solidly and we just want to make sure that we're continuing that positive momentum through our great staff and students.

Here's to a wonderful school year ahead.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

There's no summer break.

The work continues, right?

We work hard.

Yeah.

Thank you both for being with us.

Thank you.

And before we go, just a few more headlines to share with you this evening.

More than 100 people have gathered at Northwood Technical College in Ashland.

They did earlier this week for a hearing challenging Wisconsin's DNR approval of Enbridge line 5 pipeline reroute.

The 41mm project would move the oil and gas line around the Bad River Reservation after a federal judge ordered Enbridge to stop operating on tribal land by 2026.

The Bad River Band, backed by Earth Justice, argues the reroute threatens wetlands and waterways vital to the trib's culture and livelihood.

Supporters say the project meets environmental standards and will create hundreds of construction jobs, while opponents say the risk to water and tribal rights are too high.

The multi-week hearings continue September 3rd in Madison.

A judge has upheld a jury's guilty verdict against former Clo police officer Lacy Sillyard, who was convicted in May of attempting to swindle over $150,000 from a 78-year-old woman with dementia.

Silly had become the woman's guardian and took control of her finances before her death in 2020.

Prosecutors say she failed to notify the woman's aranged husband and tried to inherit from the estate.

The judge rejected claims of insufficient evidence and juror misconduct, saying the case showed clear intent to defraud.

Silord, who now lives in Sartell, will be sentenced on September 19th.

She resigned from the Clo Police Department in 2022 following a settlement.

More Minnesota Wick families are getting off to a healthy start with breastfeeding.

The state reports nearly half of Wick infants are now exclusively breastfed during their hospital stay.

a 5.5 increase or percent rather increase since 2020 and long-term breastfeeding rates are well above the national average.

August is breastfeeding awareness month and Minnesota Wick is offering support and resources including a private nursing nest at the state fair.

Open daily from 8 in the morning until 9 at night near Sweet Martha's Cookies.

That's a good spot.

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