Colin Kaepernick still wakes up every morning and trains like a professional football player. The former quarterback hasn’t been on an NFL team since the 2016 season, but said it’s important to always be ready for the future.
He’s bringing that spirit to classrooms across the United States with his artificial intelligence platform Lumi Story AI, which helps students write and visualize graphic novels to enhance literacy. It launched in Prince George’s County Public Schools earlier this year.
“We want to make sure [students} are prepared for the future,” Kaepernick said during a demonstration at Largo High School in early December. “We are dealing with a very dynamic landscape right now, where we are seeing industries change overnight. We also need to make sure that we are changing.”
With Lumi Story, students can input their own writing and ask the platform how to make it better. Students in Prince George’s County Public Schools’s journalism and graphic arts classes use Lumi for assignments.
Kaepernick, who was effectively banished from the NFL after kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial inequality and police violence against Black Americans, said teaching students how to use the AI tool can help pave the way for diverse voices to be more represented in the technology workforce.
“We cannot just be consumers of the technology, we have to be builders of it,” he said. “We have to make sure that our communities are represented.”
As AI seeps into the world, educators across the country are thinking about how to keep curriculum up-to-date with the new demands of the digital age. The Maryland Department of Education has released cybersecurity guidelines to help schools safely implement the technology, but guidelines for in classroom use are still being rolled out, with the next wave expected in January, according to a statement from the department. In the meantime, individual districts have been developing their own frameworks.
In 2023, just one year after AI surged in popularity with the launch of ChatGPT, Prince George’s County Schools adopted a three-year plan to teach students how to use the technology ethically and responsibly. The board of education also passed a policy in 2024 that specifies AI should not replace the work of classrooms teachers, but rather be used as a supplemental tool.
In total, the Prince George’s district is currently piloting eight AI platforms. All middle and high schools have access to at least one AI program, ranging from general support like Google’s Gemini, to curriculum programs like Lumi Story.
Interim superintendent Shawn Joseph said the main focus of AI implementation this year has been training teachers how to effectively bring the technology into classrooms. The district will “dramatically expand” opportunities for professional development centered around AI next year, Joseph said.
“If teachers don’t model this, students will learn AI in isolation without ethics, without context or without reflection. To me, silence is not neutrality, it’s an abnegation,” he said in an interview. “We have to seize the moment to make this a teaching opportunity.”
Joseph said AI platforms are used to provide instructional support with a focus on student literacy and creativity. Right now, families have the option to opt-out of AI pilot programs because they aren’t part of the core curriculum.
Next year, Joseph said, it’s likely every student and teacher will be expected to use AI.
Director of technology integration Kimberly Roberson said the district is working to educate parents and teachers about how AI can be used to bolster learning, not diminish it. Curriculum developers are creating guidelines for when AI should or should not be used across the district. In general, Roberson said AI won’t be used in classrooms to replace cognitive skills.
Roberson said the district had to create a focused effort to integrate AI and create equitable access for students. Over 90 percent of students enrolled in the Prince George’s school district are Black or Latino, groups historically underrepresented in the technology sector. She said AI literacy is becoming quintessential to succeed.
“AI is going to make a huge impact everywhere, not just in education,” Roberson said.
Joseph said teaching AI is a matter of equity. Students that don’t have access to AI education will fall behind once they are in the real world, which is increasingly being governed by AI programs, he said.
“If schools avoid teaching AI, only the privileged students in our country will learn to use it critically outside of school,” Joseph said. “But, when we as teachers use AI responsibly in the classroom, we democratize access to power.”
The post Colin Kaepernick, Md. school district team to push more students to use AI appeared first on Washington Post.
