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Last year was big for technology in education. As with many other sectors, artificial intelligence (AI) came to the fore with students and teachers using applications such as ChatGPT in their work and planning to do so in ever greater numbers. Whilst the benefits of AI to a sector like education cannot be understated, the threats the new technology poses are also great—prompting calls from education professionals, parents, and governments to regulate its usage on a global level.
Alongside this discourse surrounding AI in education has been the call to regulate cell phone usage in K-12 settings. In the US and UK, steps have been taken at a local and national level to severely restrict or ban the use of cell phones in the classroom—a move welcomed by teachers and some parents. But will these efforts work in the long term? And what effect will regulation have on other areas of technology use, such as “bring your own device” (BYOD) settings?
Bad Reception: The Move to Ban Cell Phones in the Classroom
In August of last year, The New York Times published an article reporting that eight states had adopted measures to limit cell phone use in the classroom. In Indiana, the ban forbids cell phone usage during instructional time, but makes dispensations for those who need a device for medical or disability reasons. Many of the original reasons for allowing cell phone usage at school—such as for emergency contact and for allowing students from low-income families to access schoolwork when a laptop might not be available—have been solved by other solutions, and educators and parents welcome measures to tackle the issues of distraction in class, bullying, and tech misuse.
At the same time, similar measures have been debated at a national level in the UK. In February 2024, the Department for Education issued guidance for schools in England on how and why they should prohibit the use of cell phones in schools. These were only guidelines and did not call for an outright ban of cell phone usage but, as the year progressed, calls for a legislated outright ban grew stronger among teachers and union representatives.
I spoke with a principal of a London secondary school in September 2024 (his school has a “zero-tolerance” approach to cell phone usage and has implemented an outright ban for over 20 years) and he welcomed the legislation attempts. “Every headteacher [principal],” he said, “would mandate a zero tolerance to mobile phones if they could. Even a partial ban is a problem to enforce during the school day. They undoubtably contribute to cases of bullying and misuse that distracts teaching professionals from the job they are there to do—teach!”
Interestingly, the calls for regulation of cell phone use in the classroom also come from the recent research conducted on the subject. The UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report from 2023 concludes that smart phones should only be allowed in school when they clearly support learning and that debates around data privacy, safety, well-being also underpins how this technology should be used. Cell phone bans are commonplace in other parts of the world, such as Asia, and other studies (such as one conducted by MIT in 2016 and another conducted recently by the London School of Economics) show that students who did not have access to cell phones during lesson times generally did better in exams because removing this technology has shown to improve the quality of teaching.
AI Implementation and Regulation
During the conversation with the high school principal in London, we broached the subject of AI use in school and attitudes towards use for homework. His remarks surprised me…not least because he did not seem concerned with the influence of AI and potential misuse on student’s work. “If a student has used AI to write a report or exam response,” he said, “it will be easy to know because it will be too perfect.” He does have a point, but what happens over the coming years when AI becomes more nuanced in what it can do and student ability for prompt writing becomes more advanced? Added to the concerns over safeguarding and wellbeing, the issue of misusing AI for schoolwork will continue to be a thorn in the side of education professionals at the coalface.
One of the major questions continuing from last year will be around AI readiness: are educators and establishments ready for AI and can they manage it effectively? To meet the needs of students and educators, those implementing AI solutions need to ensure that the generative solutions are data-driven in an ethical way and are relevant to those using them. Implementing solutions for the sake of it will not benefit either students or educators. They also need to ensure that “privacy by design” is embedded into any solution. Complying with privacy regulations and cybersecurity standards is imperative, but AI providers must also go further to ensure that solutions can be flexible to meet the needs of individual institutions.
Global efforts to regulate AI development and usage are still in their infancy. The EU passed the landmark AI Act in March 2024 and the US has passed the US AI Government Act, but both only cover the broader aspects of AI creation and implementation. More granular regulation for AI use in education will likely come at a local level, and education institutions will likely need to regulate usage individually to suit their needs and concerns. The importance remains on continuing to monitor AI development and usage and to be proactive in adjusting regulations and guidelines when changes are necessary.
Bett 2025
The Bett EdTech show in London later this month (which Keypoint Intelligence is looking forward to attending!) will no doubt provide further information and clarity on the latest developments in AI for education and safeguarding initiatives. Last year’s show enabled educators the chance to understand how to tailor AI solutions to the needs of their institution, as well as implement checks and balances for ethical usage. This year, emphasis is on leadership, skills, sustainability, wellbeing, and AI, but it will be interesting to see how the discourse around AI regulation at a local level has developed and how educators propose to monitor AI usage.
Keypoint Intelligence Opinion
Technology, whether it be in the form of a cell phone or ChatGPT, is unavoidable in an education setting. Educators and students have never had so much choice in what technology they use and how they use it. With that, however, comes the opportunity for misuse. Educators, parents, and legislators are now attempting to grapple with the issues around misuse in the classroom, and calls for sensible, pragmatic regulation continue to grow stronger. What remains to be seen, and what will be interesting, is how far this regulation of use will stretch. Institutional regulation over BYOD varies but will this become more standardised as time goes on and the potential for misuse continues to grow. Ultimately, technology must only be used to aid learning. When it fails to fulfil this requirement, and student wellbeing becomes an issue, it is up to institutions and legislators to work together to provide proactive guidelines and regulation to ensure the tools are benefiting the users.
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