AI Guidance
Overview:
Richardson ISD recognizes and acknowledges that artificial intelligence (AI) will impact teaching and learning in and outside of the classroom. The impact of generative AI may be positive, negative, or neutral depending on the unique circumstances of each use case. RISD aims to enable transparent, responsible and safe use of AI technologies while emphasizing and encouraging academic integrity, critical thinking, deep understanding, cybersecurity and data privacy.
Academic Use
AI-generated content is not considered a student’s own work. It is important to understand assigned material and complete assignments appropriately. If a student chooses to use AI-generated content, with consent from the teacher, it must be cited appropriately. MLA, APA, and Chicago have all issued guidance on how to cite AI-generated content. Any time a student uses AI tools it should be as a supplement, and cited appropriately, rather than a replacement of the work. Furthermore, do not assume AI responses are always correct.
All student work is still subject to RISD’s guidelines and expectations for plagiarism. See the RISD Student Code of Conduct for expectations and consequences related to plagiarism.
Teachers should model appropriate digital citizenship related to using AI tools. Examples include:
- Using prompts to generate ideas to explore further.
- Using prompts to review and discuss content.
- Using prompts to elicit feedback on an idea.
- Using prompts to explain something differently or clarify.
While a teacher may use AI content to enhance their lesson and meet the learning objectives, teachers should not assign students to access AI content, like ChatGPT and DALL-E as part of the assignment, as these tools have age limit restrictions.
Safety and Data Privacy
RISD prioritizes keeping students and data safe. Staff should make students aware of data privacy concerns, as well as when it is appropriate to provide personal information online. Personal information should never be shared with AI tools, like ChatGPT.
Users should never include personal information, including names, phone numbers, addresses, social security numbers, grades, license plate number, birthdates, or anything else that may be used to identify an individual. Generative AI learns, in part, from data provided in prompts and could potentially share personally identifiable information with other users under certain circumstances.
AI Tools
RISD internet filters block generative AI tools for all student use in RISD. If a staff member requests an AI tool to be unblocked, Instructional Technology works with Teaching & Learning to evaluate the tool’s alignment to the curriculum and what is needed to use it. Tools that require a student login or have age requirements are not unblocked. For example, ChatGPT specifically does not allow users under the age of 13. Students between the ages of 13 and 18, must have parent/guardian permission to create an account. RISD will not establish accounts for students in ChatGPT or similar tools with these restrictions. Because of the age restrictions, parents/guardians are encouraged to supervise students when using these tools.
For the 2024-2025 school year, RISD is piloting two AI tools specifically for students – Magic School and SchoolAI. Teachers have been provided training on these two tools and are encouraged to use them with students as they align to lessons they are teaching. At the end of the school year, Instructional Technology will gather feedback to determine if these tools will continue to be used or additional ones will be evaluated.
Staff have access and may, independently, use sites to enhance their lessons and model responsible use. Staff must respect intellectual property and exercise judgment related to AI tools and copyrighted materials. Just because copying and pasting into AI tools is available, does not mean you have the right to.
Definitions
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) – The simulation of human intelligence by machines.
- Generative AI – AI that can produce various types of content, including text, imagery, audio, and synthetic data.
- ChatGPT – Currently the most widely recognized generative AI tool developed by OpenAI. It is an AI chatbot technology that can process natural human language and generate a response. Stands for: Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer.
- DALL-E – DALL-E 2 is an AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language.
Resources (for Parents & Family)
Created 10/16/2023. Updated 4/4/2025.