yvonne gray retweetledi
Google for Edu definitely made a splash at ISTE. But I have concerns about moves it's making with Gemini.
You can learn all about the news they released at ISTE here (link below).
Of course, with big tech companies and edtech startups, you have to cut through the hype to get to hard truths.
Here’s one that I haven’t seen discussed enough …
Google is putting Gemini, its large language model assistant, in the hands of students of all ages. That will extend to NotebookLM in coming months.
It feels a bit like letting kids out to recess on the playground without supervision.
An excerpt from their release:
The Gemini app is now available to students of all ages and as a core Workspace service, and in the coming months we’re making NotebookLM available to students of all ages while using their Google Workspace for Education accounts to help them study and better understand their class materials.
AI startups like SchoolAI, MagicSchool, Brisk Teaching, and others offer something that Google does not. (I’ve looked and looked and can’t seem to find it.)
Monitoring.
A place where teachers can monitor the conversations that students are having with AI chatbots in real time.
>> They include granular line-by-line transcripts of student conversations with AI.
>> They summarize student conversations into insights that teachers can see at a glance in their teacher dashboards.
>> They flag student interactions that might be inappropriate or harmful so the teacher can follow up immediately.
Google doesn’t appear to have this at the teacher level. It’s available at the admin level — and Google boasts about how it helps districts come into legal compliance with their admin access.
But let’s be honest. The admin isn’t going to spend their days monitoring student interactions with AI line by line.
Even if Google flags dangerous student interactions with AI, there are several layers of communication (and even some physical distance) that need to be crossed before it gets back to the student.
When the teacher doesn’t have direct access to the students’ AI interactions, they miss out on insights AI can provide them about the student interactions — what students struggle with, what interests students are showing, etc.
That’s valuable data for teachers to have — especially if it’s instantaneous.
You know that Google has seen their competitors’ products. This is an intentional decision not to include that feature.
If you're going to turn on Gemini for students, there are tons of ethical and AI literacy implications. Tread cautiously.
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