Image above created with the following prompt using Gemini: Please create an image of an African American 15-year-old girl using an AI tool in a classroom to learn art concepts, in a cartoon style. Include other students making art in the image.
I have been diving down the AI rabbit hole lately, not so much using AI tools as listening to podcasts about what can be done with them, and what the future looks like.
One thing that really popped out at me a few days ago was information about schools like Alpha Schools which use AI based tools to provide educational experiences for children.
From a Forbes article:
The AI-driven system assesses their knowledge in real time, identifying gaps and ensuring they achieve mastery before progressing. This mastery-based approach allows students to advance far beyond grade level if they are ready or to fill in foundational gaps before proceeding.
The results have been astonishingly good, and I can see why. In a standard classroom, it is impossible for teachers to tailor the learning experience to every student to the extent which would be ideal. AI can be used to meet each student where they are and give them what they need at that moment in a way which a classroom teacher with 25 students cannot.
A few caveats: schools is not just about mastering content, it is also about learning to work with other people, develop soft skills, and much more. But I can see the results of the current educational system. As hard as us teachers try, students are not getting as good of an education as they could if their learning experience was more tailored to each individual.
So how does this apply to art education? In my opinion, to a large extent, art education needs to be hands on, not screen based. It is inherently about learning to manipulate things in the three dimensional world, using our senses of touch and sight. However, I do spend a lot of time helping students learn art vocabulary and concepts so they can give and receive feedback on artworks in a useful way. I have no doubt a lot of the vocab and concepts could be taught much more effectively with the right AI tools. I don’t think there is a tool out there at the moment designed to be an AI art tutor, but I would welcome it, because it would help my young artists.
While I am quite conversant with making digital art, I use computers very little in my classroom, partly because I do not want to manage a bunch of laptops, and partly because internet connected laptops pose a distraction for students. I also think, for many reasons, it is really valuable for students to have hands on experience with real world art materials with no digital distractions.
But I would change my approach if we had good AI tools to help them learn art concepts as long as they would not open up the option for our young artists to be distracted by general access to the internet.
I have a cousin who is an award winning illustrator who feels that AI is an abomination. I can see where she is coming from, but as we navigate the future, I cannot ignore the potential benefits of AI for student learning everywhere, including the art studio.
