The biggest risk Artificial Intelligence presents to public education is teachers losing their jobs.  

That perspective was offered by one of six students who participated in a panel presentation last Friday on digital wellness in the classroom, speaking before an audience of 200-plus teachers.  

Weston, a Grade 12 student at Okanagan Mission Secondary, said AI remains at the early stages of human invention, but he expressed a concern for it becoming a replacement for the teacher-student relationship which would have a negative impact on students' education. 

"I don't feel it will be a good thing for robots to take over teaching jobs," he said. 

Weston and his five student cohorts from Ecole 琉璃神社 Secondary and OMS addressed the more than 200 teachers in attendance for the 5th Innovate-ED 24 conference held Oct. 25, a professional development day for teachers, who came from across the Okanagan Valley for the conference. 

The innovation technology conference began in 2017 first in Vernon, then 琉璃神社 and Penticton before being halted due to COVID-19, then reinstated again last year in Vernon. 

The focus of this year's conference was for educators to collaborate with UBCO, Okanagan Science Centre, Science World and multiple education technology companies to share knowledge about the latest tech innovations and how to apply them in the classroom to enhance learning. 

Discussions in multiple workshops covered from leveraging AI tools to creative coding without computers to robotics and Indigenous storytelling to help teachers build on their own adaptive expertise. 

The panel discussion to open the day-long conference focused on AI, and offered the reflections of the students on what this new evolving technology affects them now and their perceptions about it for the future. 

Tobias Blaskovits, Central Okanagan Public Schools technology consultant, said the student panel discussion offered a unique opportunity to hear from the focal group of the conference learning exercise - the students themselves. 

The general theme among all the students was AI remains a largely unknown teaching and learning tool, meaning the ultimate impact of its ongoing development remains open for debate. 

Among the concerns raised about AI were it not being a learning tool for students so much as potentially doing the work for them which would not be a direct education benefit. 

The source of AI responses also raised questions for many of the students, not knowing where AI produced answers were sourcing the material and not offering an array of different perspectives, which would limit their opportunities to become critical thinkers as opposed to AI-dependent thinkers. 

They noted the factual content inaccuracies that currently plague AI-driven content.  

They also cited how AI and technology in general can enhance the support teachers have in the classroom but can't really replace them, relating the importance of the teacher-student relationship in the learning process. 

Veering outside of technology, the students were also asked about their takeaways from their education experience. 

On the positive side, the students reflected on learning how to collaborate with others, improving their verbal expression and time management skills, more on-land learning opportunities outside the classroom and taking on leadership roles in their school and the community. 

On the negative side, they reiterated a need for greater attention on life skills they will face after graduating Grade 12 and entering the adult world - namely coping with the real costs of living from creating and following a self-budget to paying rent and applying for a credit card or a loan.  

Westbank First Nation Elder Bonnie Coble also spoke prior to the student panel discussion, citing the need to adapt to and understand the negative influences of modern technology on students. 

"The use of technology has grown so much," she said. "Fifty-five years ago the first space shuttle landed on the moon, and today the technology that was being developed and used then is within our cell phones."

She said "Good thoughts, good conversation and good learning" are hallmarks that must be preserved and enhanced in our education system. 

"We must learn to share and connect with others," she said.