Wales' Approach to Generative AI and My Gut Feeling

Screen grab from the Education Wales blog.

In the last couple of days this blog has been published on the Education Wales website. The blog basically outlines what the Welsh Government are doing with support the introduction of generative AI into the classroom. They outline the different sectors involved in implementing this strategy, what Estyn recommended in their AI report, the professional learning they are developing and delivering to practitioners, the generative AI tools available through Hwb and mention is also made of the 'refresh' to the DCF. I recently wrote about my hopes for this DCF refresh, hoping that we see an inclusion of critical AI literacy, not just the technical competence but also a critical competence to look at this technology with their eyes open. Dr Sam Illingworth outlines this critical AI literacy as the ability for learners to:

1. Evaluate AI outputs for bias, error, and missing context.
2. Recognise how AI shapes your thinking, your voice, and your behaviour over time.
3. Assess when AI helps and when it harms, and how to tell the difference.
4. Understand the costs behind AI systems: the labour, the ecological footprint, the social consequences.
5. Make deliberate choices about when to use AI and when to refuse it.

I'm really hoping that the opportunities to develop critical AI literacy with our learners is clearly defined in the refresh and allows teachers to develop the five points above with our learners.   

Lastly, in the Estyn AI section they reminded us of the key findings from the report:

• Reducing workload: AI tools can save significant time in lesson planning, resource creation and report writing.
• Supporting personalised learning: teachers found AI helpful for meeting diverse learner needs, including those with complex learning profiles.
• Pedagogy matters: the most effective use of AI happened where schools integrated it with strong pedagogical principles.
• Early stages of adoption: many schools are still experimenting with AI and need further guidance and structured professional learning.

Am I missing something here? Are these key findings related to the role of teacher only? What does the learner actually get from using generative AI, especially in the primary school? What impact on the learner does using these generative AI have, do learner standards improve? Why am I getting this gut feeling that this is just another new, shiny thing, the new bit of digital technology to seduce state education yet again, with very little evidence that the introduction of digital technologies has ever improved learner standards?