Definition of AI in schools
Artificial intelligence, or AI, refers to software that learns patterns from large amounts of data and uses them for tasks such as generating text or making suggestions. In schools, it mostly appears in two forms:
- Language models process and write text, for example for worksheets or for answers in a conversation.
- Adaptive learning programs adjust exercises to a student's current level.
Where schools use AI
Schools use AI in these areas:
- Lesson preparation: teachers draft lesson plans and exercises and adapt them to their class.
- Practice and review: students get hints when they are stuck on a task and review topics at intervals.
- Language and inclusion: transcripts and translations help students who are still learning German follow lessons.
- Administration: school leaders and office staff plan timetables and substitutions with AI and draft letters to parents.
Opportunities and limits
AI pays off above all for routine work, such as a first draft that a teacher then revises.
Language models phrase incorrect information just as fluently as correct information. A teacher or another responsible person should therefore always check subject content, assessments, and statements about people.
With freely available chat services, it is often unclear where inputs are processed and whether the provider uses them to train its models. Students' personal data does not belong in such services.
Homework and exams also raise the question of which work comes from the students themselves.
Legal framework
When an AI system processes personal data, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies. The school needs a legal basis for this and has to inform the people concerned. If the provider processes the data on the school's behalf, the school signs a data processing agreement with it.
The EU AI Act classifies AI systems according to their risk. In educational institutions, it prohibits systems intended to infer emotions, except for medical or safety reasons.
Systems intended to decide on admission to educational institutions, evaluate learning outcomes, or detect prohibited behavior during tests are among those classed as high-risk. The regulation sets strict requirements for them, for example on documentation and human oversight.
The school laws of the German states and their guidance on using AI also apply. Teachers and staff conferences decide on grades, report cards, and whether students move up a year. The information in this article is not legal advice.
Learn more about data protection and security at OhayoSchool
Introducing AI at your school
Decide which tasks AI should support for your teachers and administration.
Ask where data is processed and who has access to it. Also find out whether requests go to external AI providers.
Record what teachers and students may use AI for and how students disclose its use.
Use examples from each teacher's own subject to show what working with AI looks like and where its limits are.
AI at OhayoSchool
In the Ohayo Terminal, you can chat with OhayoSchool about timetables, substitutions, or the class register, and students use it to learn in conversation. All eight functional areas include assistants for individual tasks, from the planning assistant for the timetable to the report card assistant.
Before OhayoSchool changes anything during a conversation, you confirm the change, and the log records it. OhayoSchool only reads what your role is allowed to see.
OhayoSchool runs its language models on its own servers in Germany, with no requests to external AI providers. For group suggestions in class, student names do not reach the language model, because OhayoSchool only passes it anonymized IDs.
Frequently asked questions
Can software reliably tell whether a student used AI to write a text?
No. Programs designed to detect AI-generated text regularly flag texts that students wrote themselves. Teachers are better off clearing up a suspicion by talking with the student about their text.
Is there training on OhayoSchool's AI?
Yes. Ohayo Academy offers training such as “Targeted support with learning data” and “Make time for teaching”, remote or at your school. OhayoSchool itself explains how individual functions work, right in the Ohayo Terminal. Go to Ohayo Academy
What do OhayoSchool's AI functions cost?
OhayoSchool's AI functions are included in both packages, Administration and Intelligence infrastructure. Accounts for teachers, office staff, and school leaders cost nothing extra. See pricing