Ariel Han

1. Writing proficiency is widely recognized as foundational to academic success yet develops slowly through sustained practice, making upper elementary years a particularly important period for sup...

Schoolchildren in the United States are increasingly exposed to Educational Technologies (EdTech) , many of which are or will be infused with AI. Despite this growing integration, there is limited understanding of the current perceptions and attitudes toward EdTech with AI among parents, teachers, and teens. To address this gap, we conducted a mixed-method study involving an A/B experiment through an online survey with 3,051 participants and complemented by focus group discussions with 80 participants. Providing a comprehensive snapshot of AI perception in education in 2024, our findings indicate that participants, particularly teachers, may hold more negative perceptions of our AI-powered EdTech mock-up compared to the one powered by human tutors. Based on these insights, we discuss the future of EdTech regarding the current perceptions. This research contributes to an empirical understanding of the perceptions and attitudes toward AI in K-12 education, providing valuable insights through a comprehensive national survey and in-depth focus group sessions.

The viral launch of new generative AI (GAI) systems, such as ChatGPT and Text-to-Image (TTL) generators, sparked questions about how they can be effectively incorporated into writing education. However, it is still unclear how teachers, parents, and students perceive and suspect GAI systems in elementary school settings. We conducted a workshop with twelve families (parent-child dyads) with children ages 8-12 and interviewed sixteen teachers in order to understand each stakeholder’s perspectives and opinions on GAI systems for learning and teaching writing. We found that the GAI systems could be beneficial in generating adaptable teaching materials for teachers, enhancing ideation, and providing students with personalized, timely feedback. However, there are concerns over authorship, students’ agency in learning, and uncertainty concerning bias and misinformation. In this article, we discuss design strategies to mitigate these constraints by implementing an adults-oversight system, balancing AI-role allocation, and facilitating customization to enhance students’ agency over writing projects.

The study examines the design implications of leveraging generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, Midjourney for literacy development and creative expression for children [6, 8, 18]. We sought to elicit insights on the applicability of generative AI for educational purposes from various stakeholders (i.e., parents, teachers, and AI researchers). We recruited nine participants to elicit their perspectives on designing a visual narrative app with generative AI. We examined the opportunities and limitations of the current generative AI tools. Using the implications from our evaluation, we propose AIStory, an AI-powered visual storytelling application prototype that can be used for children’s creative expression, storytelling, and literacy development.