Let's Talk about Accessibility and AI #HourOfAI #withSchoolAI

If you are new to my site, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Nicholas Provenzano and I am a neurodivergent learner. I went undiagnosed until college. I am dyslexic, have ADHD, manage anxiety, and battle depression. I have slowly learned these things about me over the course of 20+ years and they have profoundly influenced who I am as an educator. I mean, who the heck chooses to me an English teacher when they are dyslexic? This guy!

Now you know a little about me, I hope you have a better understanding of why I am such an advocate for accessibility for all learners. I came to age as a teacher during the great technology movement in the early 2000s. Google made the teacher's edition of the textbook a non-factor and wikipedia became the bane of every teacher's existence when it came to citations. early adopters did their best to calm the nerves of tech directors and admins, but the need to ban the unknown was too strong. I sat in meetings begging to have YouTube unblocked, to have access to Google Docs, and other early tech because I know how powerful it could be in my classroom. Block now and hope nobody asks was the standard in many schools and districts across the country. I understand the urge, but these tactics ALWAYS impact the most vulnerable students in our classroom. 

Block AI because it is just used by students to cheat and not learn anything. That is the typical thought when I hear people discussing AI in the classroom. My main issue with this is that most people do not know that AI is used in many popular applications. For example, Grammarly is an amazing tool for students that support accessibility. It is a tool that I wish I had access to as a student. I probably would not have felt so dumb if I had something, anything, that would have guided and helped organize my thoughts. Grammarly also uses AI as part of the application. Does this mean that Grammarly should be banned in the classroom? Who is exactly being punished by doing this?

Have you done a Google search lately? The first thing that pops up is a Gemini answer to your search. Does this mean Google is now banned in all schools? Who is punished if this happens?

The reality of blindly banning things is that the students who benefit the most from edtech tools are the students who are hurt the most when they are banned. These tools are designed to help students share what they know. Is it possible that some students use technology to do the work for them and are not learning? Yup. How is this different than the students breaking out their home edition of Encyclopedia Britannica?

Working for an AI company now has not stopped by advocacy for accessibility for students. To be honest, it has only ramped it up. AI can be used to help so many of our students who feel that education is just out of their reach. By finding the right tools, helping students understand how to use them to support their learning, and making sure the maintain access is what accessibility is all about. Taking a UDL approach to you classroom even makes the use of these tools advantageous to all of your students. 

I hope you take a moment and think about any policy that takes something away from students and ask who is really going to benefit and who is going to be hurt by making this decision. There is plenty of room for nuanced conversations, but let's have them before we start banning and blocking. 

Hugs and High Fives, 

NP