New podcast helps parents explore AI’s place in their children’s education
Parents wondering when artificial intelligence can help their children learn and when it might do too much of the thinking have a new place to explore those questions.
Prompt to Pause is a podcast from the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario hosted by Kelsey Walsh, the board’s learning technologies consultant for kindergarten to Grade 12.
The first episode is available through CDSBEO on Spotify or the board’s website. Further conversations with guests from the board and beyond are planned throughout the school year.
“I hope the podcast makes conversations about AI feel more accessible and less intimidating,” Walsh said in an email to The Rustler on Oct. 28. “I am not interested in presenting AI as either the answer to everything or something we should fear.”
The podcast explores what Walsh calls the human side of AI in education. Its conversations will consider opportunities and concerns about emerging technology alongside its effects on learning, relationships and well-being.
“At its heart, the podcast is about keeping people, relationships, learning and well-being at the centre of the conversation.”
The first episode features Shelley Montgomery, the board’s chief executive officer and chief education officer. It explores AI in education from the perspective of educational leadership.
The idea grew out of Walsh’s conversations with educators about AI and the controversies surrounding it. With technology changing quickly she wanted room to consider more than the next new tool.
“I wanted to create a space where we could do the opposite: slow down, ask bigger questions, and hear from people with different perspectives and areas of expertise.”
Pause is this year’s focus within the board’s broader spiritual theme, A Listening Presence Changes Hearts. It encourages school communities to slow down, pay attention to God’s presence and listen more attentively to one another. The board’s October Pause to Celebrate week announcement outlined prayer, reflection and activities involving community connections, gratitude and recognizing other people’s contributions. The theme helped inspire the podcast’s title and its emphasis on thinking about why, when and how people use AI.
Walsh plans to address difficult questions about mental health, human relationships, Catholic faith and the environment as well as concerns raised by parents and families.
Schools and parents face many of the same questions because AI is already embedded in technologies children encounter. Those questions include when students should use it and when they should not, and how to protect their ability to think critically and creatively.
“I also want parental concerns to be part of the conversation, including concerns that may challenge how we think about AI,” Walsh said. “The podcast gives us a way to bring those voices together and make the conversation more transparent and accessible to families.”
For people uneasy about AI in education, Walsh said hesitation can be useful.
“I would say that hesitation is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, some of the most important conversations about AI begin with concerns.”
Those concerns include accuracy, privacy, bias and academic integrity, along with what happens when students rely too heavily on technology to do their thinking.
Walsh said the responsibility is to understand AI well enough to make thoughtful choices rather than ignore it or accept it without question.
“One of the ideas that keeps coming up in Prompt to Pause is that AI should support human abilities, not replace them.”
She hopes listeners leave more informed and more comfortable asking questions about technology’s place in their children’s lives.
“If a tool saves us time, the bigger question is: what are we going to do with that time? Ideally, we use it to create more space for thinking, creativity, relationships, and the parts of learning that are deeply human.”
To contact Kelsey Walsh about the podcast, email kelsey.walsh@cdsbeo.on.ca.