AI Insights

School leaders, teachers work on policies for artificial intelligence

Published

1 month ago

August 4, 2025

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — The use of artificial intelligence continues to become more widespread, especially over the past year.

“AI is not the future, it’s the present,” said Mark Mansour, lead teacher of the Career Academy for International Culture and Commerce at Clearwater High School.

AI is something Mansour has embraced.

WATCH: School leaders, teachers work on policies for artificial intelligence

AI in the classroom

“Let’s face it. It’s here. It’s here and we have to deal with it, and we have to teach our students how to use it,” said Mansour.

He’s incorporated it into his teaching.

“AI, when we use it in the classroom, I concentrate so well on, ‘How can we do a better job using artificial intelligence? ‘” said Mansour.

Even some teachers at the elementary school level have started acknowledging AI in their classrooms in some way.

“We’re teaching children how to code. How to use the technology is something that I introduced last year,” said Hillsborough County teacher Consuelo Blake.

The technology can help teachers with their lesson planning, too.

“It does help us to write down higher thinking questions. You can even tailor your lesson plans to specific students,” said Mansour.

So where do school districts stand with its use? Mostly, different school leaders have said that the use of AI is up to individual teachers at this point, if they choose to incorporate it into their lessons, depending on the subject matter.

In Hillsborough County, Superintendent Van Ayres said there’s a committee and a board dedicated to AI to figure out how to work with it.

“AI is ever evolving. It’s changing constantly, so we’re always trying to keep up with it,” said Ayres.

However, leaders are on alert for the possibility of students abusing AI to cheat, plagiarize, or not learn material. That’s a big part of why districts are trying to come up with policies right now.

“That is always something that we are being mindful of, knowing that they’re always going to use it. Everyone’s got the technology. They’re gonna use it. So it’s the monitoring of that and us being mindful that students aren’t abusing it,” said Ayres.

That’s something teachers like Mansour are trying to stay ahead of when talking to students about the technology.

“I usually start with ethics. Using AI and ethics about AI. And they love it because, you know, I get them really excited about, ‘Hey, we’re going to be using AI, but I really want to show you how to use, how to use it properly to the point where you’re not hurting yourself, you’re helping yourself,’” said Mansour.

Overall, leaders have said they are figuring out how to work with AI because it isn’t going away.

“I think we all realize that, so how do we then use that as a tool to help instruction?” said Ayres.

Source link

Up Next

Alibaba’s maps app gets an AI upgrade with Qwen-powered agent

Don't Miss

Opinion | Manus leaving China reflects tough balancing act amid geopolitical tensions

The Editors

Click to comment

AI Insights

Oakland Ballers to use artificial intelligence to manage Saturday home game against Great Falls

Published

2 hours ago

September 4, 2025

The Editors

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Oakland Ballers manager Aaron Miles will leave it to artificial intelligence to decide when to pinch hit or replace his pitcher.

The playoff-bound Ballers of the independent Pioneer League are turning to AI to manage most aspects of Saturday’s home game against the Great Falls Voyagers at Raimondi Park. So it might feel almost like a day off for the skipper, whose lineup and in-game decisions will even be made for him — from a tablet he will have in the dugout providing instructions.

The starting pitcher is already set.

“Luckily it’s only game. Maybe we’ve done so well that the AI will just keep doing what we’re doing,” Miles joked Wednesday. “Being a 70-win team we’ve got a very good bench. It’s hard to write a lineup without leaving somebody out that’s really good. This game I’ll be like, ‘Hey, it’s not on me for not writing you in there, it’s on the computer.’ It won’t be my fault if somebody’s not in the lineup, I guess I’ll enjoy that.”

Yet Miles knows he still might have to step in with some lineup adjustments, because the human element still matters when it comes to someone who could need rest or take a break because of injury or other circumstances.

Co—founder Paul Freedman said the second-year club will produce the first AI-powered professional sporting event. It happens to be Fan Appreciation day, too.

Last year, during the Ballers’ inaugural season, they had a game in which fans wrote the lineup and chose the uniforms — but Oakland lost. So the Ballers are doing it differently this time by partnering with AI company Distillery to control almost everything.

“The AI won’t be able to do third-base coaching, we don’t have the technology for that yet,” Freedman said. “The human will be responsible for waving somebody home or throwing up the hand. But those kind of situational decisions, we will look to the machine to make the call.”

Freedman figures with the Ballers having locked up the top seed for playoffs, this is a perfect opportunity to give AI a try.

And no need for Miles to be concerned with job security, even with the greater potential for Monday-morning quarterbacking when it comes to his moves.

“The good news is Aaron has won 100 games for us and right now our winning percentage is well over 75%, I think his job is pretty safe,” Freedman said. “And we’re happy with the decisions he’s made, but we do think it’s cool. One of the fun things about being a sports fan is being able to engage in conversations after the game about the key decisions. So this is a breadcrumb for us for what we think could be something if it works well could be part of a fan experience application or something that we do where after a game we kind of highlight what the key decisions were that our manager made and which ones kind of went against the grain — either for right or wrong.”

Miles has already experimented with AI a couple of times but earlier this season one roster showed up as the 2024 group. He expects AI might end up making a smarter decision just based on real-time data.

“I fooled around with this before just for fun, now it’s for real,” he said, “for one game.”

Ballers catcher Tyler Lozano is open-minded to incorporating new elements into the game to complement the analytics — as long as the treasured traditions aren’t lost.

“It’s immersive, it’s definitely involving new technology, new everything. It’s interesting to see what an AI platform or AI software can do for a baseball team,” Lozano said. “There’s always going to be a human element in the game of baseball. I think in sports period there’s going to be some type of human element because you’re live, you’re there. These AI platforms aren’t watching the game or don’t see all of the intricate moments that happen throughout the game and the human element of the player. I don’t think you’re going to lose that.”

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Source link