Animas High School is setting out to discuss the opportunities – and challenges – facing parents and educators in an age of artificial intelligence.
The school will present “Raising Young Adults in an AI World,” a workshop and community conversation exploring how to navigate new tech systems that touch nearly every aspect of young learners’ lives at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 23 on the AHS campus, 22 Osprey Way.
The event, led by Lori Fisher, AHS director of curriculum and instruction, and John Fisher, San Juan College English professor and distinguished teaching chair for AI, will seek to answer what role AI will play in young adults’ lives, how teachers and students are using AI in schools, the impacts it has on learning, and what strategies parents and caregivers can use to discuss AI’s role in their children’s development and learning.
John and Lori Fisher were part of the founding team at AHS in 2009.
Lori – who is a parent herself and has her own concerns about the presence of AI in her children’s lives – said parents and educators are right to feel nervous about the rapid forward march of artificial intelligence.
“I think at the core of it is that our job as educators and as parents is to raise our children and our students to be creative and adaptable thinkers and to understand what real expertise looks like, so that they know when something (AI produces) is not real,” she said.
According to data in the 2025 Microsoft AI in Education Report, 86% of education organizations now use generative AI – the highest rate for any industry.
Training hasn’t kept pace with the rapid increase in AI adoption across education, Microsoft found.
The report described nearly half of educators globally and over half of U.S. students having not received any training in AI, despite respondents reporting using it frequently for learning and educating.
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For more information on the event, visit www.facebook.com/events/889354413809961
Supporters of AI in education say use of the rapidly burgeoning tech increases accessibility and acts as a learning tool, and that understanding how to use artificial intelligence is necessary for succeeding in an evolving work landscape.
Detractors say use of AI in schools creates complicit learners, damages development and contributes to cheating.
The key to helping students interact responsibly with AI, Lori said, is through intentional education and training – like through the workshop she and Fisher are presenting.
“I don't think there are easy answers, especially when this technology is evolving so fast,” she said. “... It can be really useful as a tool, but it needs so much guidance. And I think part of our job as teachers is to teach students how unreliable it is, and that it does need that level of (human) guidance. It’s not just something you can ask for easy answers all the time and have it be right.”
epond@durangoherald.com
