Innovative Technologies

Trust and Transparency in AI Tool Selections

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PT

Location: 506 / Samish

Target Audience: Experienced Ed Tech Leaders/CTO/CIO; New or Aspiring Ed Tech Leaders/CTO/CIO; Instructional/Educational Technology Leaders

Speaker(s)

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Emma Braaten

Director of Digital Learning
The Friday Institute for Educational Innovation
Raleigh, North Carolina
Sierra Noakes

Director, Edtech Evaluation
Digital Promise
Redwood City, California
Patrick Gittisriboongul, EdD (he/him/his)

Asst. Superintendent, Technology & Innovation
Lynwood Unified School District
Lynwood, California
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Al S. McArthur

Director of Digital Learning and Libraries
Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools
Chapel Hill, North Carolina

In the ever-changing AI and edtech landscape, trust and transparency between industry and educators is critical. This panel session is designed to help technology leaders investigate edtech systems to ensure they are selecting safe and responsible platforms for their staff and students. Panelists and participants will explore key questions and answers for AI-enabled technologies, examine use cases and experiences, and consider equitable and ethical decision-making approaches. Before providing time for audience Q&As, the panel will role-play successful strategies for evaluating and selecting AI tools that participants can bring back to their district teams as they develop their own approaches to AI evaluation and procurement processes.

Key Take Aways:

Asking providers about their AI-enabled technology can be daunting. Session participants will walk away with a set of questions they feel empowered to ask vendors to understand more about the quality of the tool and to establish trust and transparency.
Through conversations with current district leaders and examples from use cases, attendees will learn about evaluation and procurement strategies for AI-enabled technologies they can bring back to their district team to guide decisions around new and existing provider contracts.
The audience will gain actionable insights to center ethics in their decision-making processes through the use of resources such as the forthcoming Ethically Designed AI Product Certification.