Happy Saturday, and welcome to Inside Voices, a weekly newsletter that features a collection of ideas, perspectives and solutions from across Utah — without any of the vitriol or yelling that’s become all too common on other platforms. Subscribe here.
We’ve heard a lot about cellphones in classrooms — but what about the technology administered to students by schools, like laptops and tablets?
A proposed bill intends to create “model policies on the use of technology and artificial intelligence in a public school classroom,” and it has Utahns talking.
Kelli Cannon, a mother, a 13-year veteran of Utah schools and a board member of the Utah Coalition for Educational Technology, wrote in a recent op-ed that HB273 — also known as the BALANCE Act — goes “past safety and into the realm of prohibition.”
“While these acts aim to protect children from online harm and too much screentime, their broad language limits the digital tools that make personalized learning possible,” she writes. “Labeling paper as ‘safe’ and screens as ‘dangerous’ misses the point of modern education. Just as a child needs a pool and lessons to learn to swim, students need technology to learn digital citizenship. They need guided instruction, not avoidance.”
Liz Jenkins, a mother and a volunteer advisor with The Child First Policy Center, offered a counterpoint in another recently published op-ed.
Education technology “promised to ‘personalize learning’ with programs that adapt to individual students,” she writes. “In reality, Edtech has made school more impersonal. Children isolate themselves on devices while teachers compete with glowing screens for attention. This bill puts teachers back at the center of instruction. After all, what’s more personal than real-time feedback from a caring mentor? A computer can spit back scores and rankings, but only a human teacher can tell whether an answer reflects real learning or a lucky guess.”
Tell me what you think: How do Utah schools find a modern balance between technology and more analog tools?
Utah Voices
(Chiura Obata | Utah Museum of Fine Arts) Chiura Obata’s 1943 watercolor “Topaz War Relocation Center by Moonlight” is now part of the permanent collection of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, part of a gift from the artist’s estate.
The following excerpts come from op-eds recently published in The Tribune.
My family was imprisoned in internment camps. I’m watching our government do it again.
“Look at my government now,” writes Hazel Inoway-Yim. “You did this to my family, now and you’re doing it again. You called us enemies and domestic terrorists and criminals. My grandmother was four years old, barely younger than Liam Ramos. You knocked on her door and forced her family from their home. James Wakasa was walking his dog near Topaz, and his killing was ruled as ‘justified.’ Renee Good was dropping her son off at school.” Read more.
Utah open enrollment needs to be more parent-friendly
“Utah’s open enrollment law has been consistently ranked high year after year,” writes Christine Cooke Fairbanks, the education policy fellow for Sutherland Institute. “But that ranking only measures what’s written in the statute and doesn’t incorporate compliance or the parent experience, both of which need reform.” Read more.
Restricting auto loans could hurt the most vulnerable Utahns
“The insight of this study is not that the system is broken,” writes Mark Jansen, an assistant professor in the David Eccles School of Business’s Department of Finance. “It is that the system is serving a difficult purpose imperfectly. Lower-income borrowers buy cars with low resale value. To extend credit in those cases, lenders must rely on borrower income. When those loans fail, borrowers keep paying because that is what made the lending possible in the first place. That’s not a story of exploitation, it’s a story about how financial markets stretch to enable mobility for households who otherwise could not finance a car at all, and about the painful edges exposed when those households fall behind.” Read more.
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FILE – The OpenAI logo appears on a mobile phone in front of a screen showing a portion of the company website, Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023, in New York. Sports Illustrated is the latest media company damaged by being less than forthcoming about who or what is writing its stories. The website Futurism reported that the once-grand magazine used articles with “authors” who apparently don’t exist, with photos generated by AI. The magazine denied claims that some articles themselves were AI-assisted, but has cut ties with a vendor it hired to produce the articles. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)
What are the challenges and opportunities artificial intelligence — or AI — presents in your life and community? Let me know what you think.
I’m always looking for unique perspectives, ideas and solutions that move our state forward. Learn more about our guidelines for an op-ed, guest essay, letter to the editor and more here, and drop me a note at voices@sltrib.com.
