Instructional Strategies

A.I. and Art Education (Ep. 440)

In today’s episode, Jen Leban joins Tim to talk about artificial intelligence and how it might affect the world of art education. In this conversation, they discuss their curiosity when it comes to AI and share some of their own explorations with various AI tools. Listen as they discuss their ethical concerns with these tools, the possibilities for teacher use and artistic creations, and the importance of thoughtful use and AI literacy.

Full episode transcript below.

Resources and Links

Transcript

Tim: Before we start today with this episode about artificial intelligence, I want to tell you about the Art of Education University’s graduate course, AI and Art Education. The AI in Art Education course is designed for teachers who want to prepare students not just for the present but for a tech-driven future.

The course explores how AI tools can be used creatively in the classroom, not just as tech add-ons, but as a means to spark new types of art and encourage students to explore media in ways they couldn’t before.

The course is structured around creating practical, actionable materials, including lesson plans and a code of ethics guide for AI use. 

And my favorite part of AOEU classes? The fact that you are working together with other art teachers. By bringing educators together to discuss, critique, and experiment with AI, the course fosters a collaborative environment where teachers learn not only from the course but from each other’s experiences and insights. You will leave the course equipped to implement strategies immediately.

If that sounds like a course you would love, you can find everything you need to know on the Art of Education website. Now let’s start with the show.

Welcome to Art Ed Radio, the podcast for art teachers. This show is produced by the Art of Education University, and I’m your host, Tim Bogatz.

Welcome, everyone. We have a very exciting show today, all about the use of artificial intelligence and art education. My guest today is going to be Jen Lebann, who has been on the podcast quite a bit in the past few months.

Jen, welcome. How are you?

Jen:

Hey, I’m good. I’m excited to talk about AI.

Tim:
Yeah. I feel like we should, at the beginning, kind of just set the stage and say, we are not experts when it comes to AI.

Jen:
No.

Tim:
But we are people who are curious about technology. Jen, in your case, I would say you are very good with technology.

But we’ve done a lot of experimentation and exploration with AI. We’ve learned about it. We’ve sort of explored what it can and can’t do. And I just kind of want to have a discussion because we’ve done some of the work for people, I suppose.

I know a lot of teachers have not used a lot of AI.

Jen:
Yeah.

Tim:
Whether that be because they don’t have time, or they’re just kind of scared of it, or they don’t understand it. But, you know, we’ve done all of those things, and so maybe we can pass along some of our experience and some of our knowledge.

Jen:
Yeah.

Tim:
So I guess I’d love to start with the big broad question of why do you think people are so fascinated with AI, Jen?

Jen:
Well, my simple answer to that is that it just it feels like magic. It feels magical. Like things can happen that were like, how did it do that? Like we don’t always know the the goings on behind the scenes.

Tim:
Right.

Jen:
It just seems to like happen. And I think that that’s just it’s intriguing for people and sometimes scary.

Tim:
No, I think magic is a good word, especially if you’re using generative AI to create images. You just type in two sentences about what you want, and it creates a painting.

It may be good. It may be the worst thing you’ve ever seen. You never know.

Jen:
Correct.

Tim:
But it is still magic. So that’s that’s kind of fun. But I would love to know, I was just talking to Amanda Heyn, another frequent podcast guest.

She was telling me about the community art club, the the studio time that you’re making. And she was asking generative AI to do a self-portrait. And she’s like, it’s a disaster. You just need to ask Jen about it. So of course, I waited until you’re on the podcast when you have a microphone in front of you. So, can you tell me about this experience?

Jen:
Okay, so so we have um a monthly art club meeting in the Art of Ed community, and every month is a different topic.

Tim:
Yeah.

Jen:
So this month was AI and sci-fi and all that magical, scary stuff, and we brought in a guest from Adobe EDU.

His name is Claudio Zavala, for those of you that don’t know him, want to give him a little shout-out for spending his time doing that, but he was showing us all the tools that you could use in Adobe Express, all the AI features, and there’s quite a bit there, but we focused on um the text to image generator really just for fun because one of the ways you learn as a teacher is by doing. So this was kind of a safe space where teachers could like type it in and see what happens. And the fun part is that like Sometimes it turns out well.

Sometimes it turns out awful. And you learn a lot about like the choices of words or prompts that you use with the AI.

And so one example would be, I think it was Janet Taylor put in, oh, 40-year-old you know woman making art. And it produced this gray-haired woman with all of these wrinkles, and she was like 80, and we were all horrified.

Tim:
Yeah.

Jen:
We were like, what does AI think of us? Because I’m like 45 years old. I’m like, what the heck? So it seemed like we either got like these old women or we got like the 12-year-old little like chubby character cartoons like that looked really young. So clearly, the AI is not fully learned and doesn’t understand the reality of of a 40-something year old. We do not look like grandmas.

Tim:
It reminds me, reminds me of like kindergartners and first graders who are just like, you’re so old. Like there’s no difference between 40 and 78 to them.

Jen:
yes yes because you come in as a brand new teacher and they’re like do you have any grandkids and you’re like horrified you’re like what no that’s a a ai as a kindergarten yeah

Tim:

Yeah, that’s fun. Basically, I mean, it seems like a pretty apt analogy, to be honest. No, I was just going to give a quick shout out too, because just a couple of weeks ago, Kyle Wood, who was actually just on the podcast last week, i read an article of his about how to engineer prompts for AI and so when you mention that, I was like oh, that was a good article.

So I want to shout that out We’ll link to that because that’s there if you want to explore a little bit more. That’s a really good one. So

Jen:
Yeah.

Tim:
Okay, I want to talk to you about just AI concerns, I guess, too.

It’s just something that I worry about. I know a lot of people worry about it. Just the idea that the use of AI can be problematic. like there are environmental concerns like how much energy and electricity that these machines are using and how our resources are being diverted to them are also concerns about sort of the ethical side of things about how it’s been trained you know using artists work and writers work sometimes with their permission a lot of times without their permission and companies are very rarely transparent about how they’re training their machines, very opaque.

Jen:
Yes. Correct.

Tim:
And so, you know, I don’t want to judge anyone for their their use of AI. But, you know, I do want to talk about those those concerns and I’d love to get your thoughts. Like, you know, what crosses your mind when when those topics are brought up?

Jen:
Yeah.

Tim:
How much thought have you put into that and and your own use of AI?

Jen:
The honest answer is some of it I had and some of it I had not really dug into. So I actually did research before we we came here because I wanted to know more.

Tim:
Okay. Yeah.

Jen:
And the environmental concerns, I had heard about them kind of like in a peripheral way, but I hadn’t really dug into it. And I found this great article from the UN Environmental Organization. They talked about how AI clearly like it uses a lot of energy and electricity But the amount of water that it uses to keep things cool because computers run really hot they how their own foot Yeah, so the amount of water that’s used for cooling but also the amount of like e-waste and electronic waste that it produces however, they sort of couch that with the opposite side that

Tim:
Yeah, they run so hot. Yep.

Jen:
AI itself can pinpoint ways that we are overusing, like, resource do you know what I mean? Like, it can kind of spot problematic areas and help us limit those and also kind of identify areas where we can, you know, source events that aren’t being utilized and things that are being over utilized. So it’s this weird, like, the balance of good and bad that, like, yes, it it does do these things, but does do the pros outweigh the cons, you know?

And I think we’re still kind of like, yeah, figuring that out.

Tim:
I was just going to say it could just be growing pains as well, where like right now, perhaps it’s using a ton of electricity.

Jen:
True.

Tim:
But later on, you know, we learned to find a better equilibrium.

Jen:
Yes.

Tim:
I don’t know if that’s the case, but it seems like a possibility.

Jen:
And I and I think no one does like a lot of these people come out and and say like, I’m an expert on AI. And it’s like, are any of us really experts on AI when you think about it? Like we’re all just kind of in this wild west of trying to figure stuff out.

Tim:
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Jen:
that’s ah Yeah.

Tim:
Well, and I wanted to ask you to just thinking about, you know, copyright issues. You talked about Claudio from Adobe and they’ve done a good job with um how they kind of train their AI, right?

Like with with the ethical concerns of people’s work.

Jen:
I at least everything that they have said everything they’ve come out with everything that I’ve heard and again I’m just one person but um is that Adobe they use all of like their their licensed stock images to um not to educate, to train their AI.

Tim:
Right.

Jen:
And they also have a policy in place specifically with Adobe EDU, which is the great, you know, I just can’t speak to the other stuff because I’m not like a user of it. So it doesn’t mean that it’s not.

But if you generate something with their AI, like text image generator, it doesn’t take those prompts and those outcomes and then use that to train their AI. Their AI is not eating itself, you know, so it doesn’t take your information

And then use that so that’s kind of nice too is they do give you I mean, that’s their messaging is that they’re I Guess if there’s an ethical use of the AI that’s that’s it and they’re and they’re using it now The weird part about that is like ah in the case of Adobe edu like their product is free for schools Clearly not the other stuff, you know the professional stuff. They make a lot of money. Um, yeah They can um But the reason like why I talk about them specifically is not like I’m not making a commission or anything, but that a lot of the other products that are out there, if they’re free, you should really be skeptical of that because the saying generally is that if the if the product is free, it’s because you’re the product, you’re the thing that that it’s collecting and it’s getting trained off.

So teachers are very excited and you’ll see a lot of like teachers on TikTok that are like, use this tool and use this tool and use it. And it’s like, Are they cool? Yeah. Do they seem like magic? Yeah. But are they taking all of your information and working on ethically and stealing from other people?

We don’t know because they’re not being transparent. Like, it doesn’t automatically mean that, oh, they’re bad. But we don’t know. And that’s the part that’s sketchy.

Tim:
But yeah, I think just like anything else, you know, just look with a critical eye and use your thinking skills and you’ll have an idea of, you know, and that’s a choice for everybody to make, like how they want to approach that, how much they care about these issues.

Jen:
Yeah.

Tim:
But, you know, I i think it’s good to and to highlight them and and let people make their decisions about how they’re they’re feeling about them.

If we can shift gears for a little bit, I would love to talk a little bit about how we can use AI in the classroom, like how it can help benefit teachers.

Jen:
Yeah.

Tim:
Like the self-portraits of four-year-old women, it is super fun but also not helpful in the day-to-day things, the teaching realm. So, um, what have you found with AI that can be helpful for daily tasks or just work that you don’t want to do, for lack of a better term? You know, I found a few good things and I’ll share those in a bit. But like, what have you found that’s good and where have you find it found it to kind of struggle a little bit?

Jen:
Yeah, so I would describe AI as good for drudge drudge work, the stuff that you don’t you don’t want to do, like, OK, this some people might be like horrified by this.

I don’t know how to like exactly approach this, but say you got to you have to write a parent email. they’re never fun to write like especially if it’s about like a behavior issue you can actually like say those things in your head that you don’t want to say like man tim is interrupting the class and he’s being a jerk and he’s bullying kids and he’s you know never brings his stuff and he never does this and he’s always like say all those things run it into like a a chat gpt or some other ai tool and say hey can you say these things in a kind way or a friendlier way of saying these things nicely.

Tim:
Yeah, a professional way, yes.

Jen:
Yes, and it will tell you.

Tim:
No, this was, I know you said you you were skeptical to to bring this up. That was literally the first thing on my list as well, were writing emails that you don’t want to write.

Jen:
Yeah.

Tim:
And I’ve actually found it to be really chat GPT to be really good for for writing emails.

Jen:
Yeah.

Tim:
And, you know, uh, and when I first did my experiments, this was maybe a year ago, even, I just said, please, you know, write an email home to a parent from the perspective of a teacher, talking about a student with these concerns and then I listed the concerns and it just spit out exactly what I needed. And you know obviously, go through and make a few edits to give it your voice it doesn’t sound like it’s written by AI, but it was surprisingly good I don’t know if I should be surprised but I was surprised at how well it did with that.

Jen:
Yeah. No, and i I think you’ve identified the key point there is like I don’t want like people don’t like AI because they feel like it’s like it’s inauthentic like you just told it to write an email to a parent and you didn’t even like no there was a lot of thought behind it in fact there was more thought than if I had just said like Tim’s acting like a jerk in class like I wanted to say it in a nice professional way so I took the extra effort to do that and when it spit the answer out I didn’t just copy paste it into an email i I read through it that’s the important part he’s using it to draft your stuff and then reading through it like it’s still you, it’s still your thoughts. I still put a paragraph into ChatGPT and just asked it to rewrite it for me in a more friendly way and that’s, I think, what people don’t always understand.

I didn’t just say like write a parent email this kid’s a jerk you know and then they did that.

Tim:

No, I was just going to say, though, I love the idea of doing that busy work or just first first drafts of stuff.

Jen:
Mm hmm.

Tim:
You know, I was doing some curriculum work last year, and just like as a first draft, of a rubric or a vocabulary list or things like that.
And it can save you a ton of time rather than me thinking about vocabulary definitions of 15 different words and looking up, you know, making sure that I’ve got everything covered in its comprehension.

Have them do that busy work for you and then you can review yourself.

Jen:
Yep.

Tim:
And so I have enjoyed that.

Jen:
yep and absolutely rubrics lists of criteria things to like i want my kids to write a report about impressionism what are the important things they should include it will spit out a list for you it’s pretty incredible you know so yes who no no it doesn’t always and that’s the part

Tim:
Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, it does a good job with that. You need to refine. You need to check it over and make sure it is doing things right because it doesn’t always do things right. But it is a good starting point. So I just want to dive into that.

Jen:
Well, that’s the part that gets to me is that, like, once you do use AI more frequently, you will start to notice that there are quirks or things that start to sound similar. If I were to look at a list of conference proposal session titles,I can probably guess pretty well which ones were chatgbt, and this is as someone who has used it for that exact purpose. There are things that I notice that I see over and over again and it’s hard for me to like give specifics but I know that there was a chat conference and there was i don’t remember I feel like it was the word like unpacking or a explore or something that I saw so many times that I was like wait a minute this is this seems sketchy so and the reason I say that is because when someone uses a tool like ChatGPT for the first time they’re like this is wonderful and I can copy and paste it just as it is because it is new and fresh to you but you have to remember a lot of people have

Tim:
Yeah. yeah

Jen:
seen, though, like after a while, it does kind of give you that uncanny-like feeling.

Tim:
Yes.

Jen:
So you have to be really careful of of that, I guess. Am I saying that correctly? Also, AI detectors are are garbage. They don’t work. Don’t use them. So at that same time, don’t rely on those now.

Tim:
No, no, that’s fair. That’s fair. I also wanted to ask you too. I know you have more experiences than I do with generative AI or art making for creation.

Jen:
Yeah.

Tim:
We touched on a little bit at the beginning, but I would just love to hear your perspective more.

Jen:
Hmm.

Tim:
I know you’ve used this, like I said, a ton more than me. What’s good? What’s not so good when it comes to image creation?

Jen:
Yeah, let me take a deep breath here. I think that AI and image creation, it’s good to use as a step or a part of a larger project, like I think in and of itself, unless you’re doing something like a little one off sub lesson plan or thing with your coworkers where you’re trying to create little AI, you know, I don’t know, avatars for your Google class or something like, sure, have fun with that.

Tim:
Yeah, yeah.

Jen:
But otherwise use it for things like, and okay, if you could remember when when you were in middle school and when I was in middle school and you were going into art class and you were kind of broaching that that mental state where you were going from like the concrete to the abstract and you would have all these great ideas in your head. And pictures in your head and like you would go to put it down on paper. Have you ever seen that meme that’s like here’s a horse like in my head and then when I draw it and it’s like a stick figure, so you’re in that stage of life. Generative AI can be so great because it can produce that picture or a version of that picture of what’s in your head and like make it real.

Tim:
Yeah.

Jen:
So I think that it’s kind of cool with the idea of using that maybe at that stage because kids can conceptualize a little bit better and it does really train them to write about art and use descriptive language because if they can’t do that they’re not going to get the picture.

So that I think is just a truly useful skill but also think about, sorry I’m kind of rambling here but I get very excited, um think about like when you teach grid drawing.

Like you teach grid drawing you go on the internet and you Google an image and you find an image and the kids print it out and then they grid that image. They’re really just copying a picture from the internet.

Tim:
Right. Yes.

Jen:
So what if they use generative AI to create that picture first and then grid that image and then draw that? Because then they’re doing a copy of a thing that they also generated and created.

Tim:

They played a part in its creation rather than just, yeah, copy.

Jen:
Yeah. Yeah. So I think Yeah, using it as a step in a larger project is super useful on its own. I’m like, I don’t know, like it’s not a replacement like it. And the only way I can describe like the hilarity and also like horrors that you can get from ada AI sometimes is to literally just try it. like tell it like You have to use it. um Say like a 40-year-old white woman making art at a computer, you know like something like that. Type it in and see what it produces. AI is notoriously bad at like hands it doesn’t produce hands very well when you start to get multiples of something if you say a crowd of people they’ll start to have two heads and like merge together like it’s it is really funny so like that in itself could be an interesting activity is having kids generate these images and then evaluating them and being like where did this fail you know that’s it’s so ah there’s a lot

Tim:

Well, I was just going to say, I also struggle with drawing crowds and drawing hands myself, so . . .

Jen:
You are AI. It’s been revealed, Tim.

Tim:

Just really quickly, there are a ton of, you know, generative image creators out there.

If people haven’t used them before, do you have a recommendation of a good one to start with?

Jen:
I don’t want to harp on the same thing, but Adobe, you so Adobe Express has Adobe Firefly built into it.

And because it is an EDU product, it is not gated, but if you tell it to like, draw me a gun shooting some, it’s not going to do it. If you tell it like do Van Gogh starry night, it’s not going to do that.

Tim:
Right.

Jen:
So I like that kind of safeguards that are in place.

Tim:
Yeah. Yeah, the parameters then. Well, and I was going to say that’s where I started because you did the NOW conference presentation. That was about a year ago now, that introduced me to Adobe Express, and I hit me, and he was like, this is great. I need to use this. So no, I think that’s a good one. Like we said, we’re not trying to harp a ton on Adobe, but that is a good starting point.

OK, I have a big picture question ah that I want to ask you, and then we can kind of close up shop with some advice for people, too. So I just want to say, again, I’m just thinking through all of these ideas. And there are people who have just really embraced AI wholeheartedly. They’re like evangelists for the practice of AI in the classroom.

Like you said, the the TikTok people are like, this is so exciting. And i they love all of it. And there are others who are on the opposite side of the spectrum. You know, I’m thinking of the College Board who has just banned the use of AI in any part of AP courses or portfolio development. You know, you have to certify that AI was not used in any part of the process.

And so, I mean, that’s that’s very much the opposite in the spectrum. And I’m just curious to know, like, where do you fall on this spectrum and where do you think most teachers are on that spectrum?

Jen:
Yeah. Well, I think it’s pretty clear that I fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, and maybe I haven’t made my anti-AI very clear, to be honest. like I think I’ve i’ve only said like good things about it, but there’s plenty of… it’s the unknown, really. It’s the unknown that… ah scares me, but scares a lot of teachers, I think. And the best way to make something not be scary is to, you know, learn about it. And whether it’s people or it’s I like, we got to learn, and we got to have empathy, and we got to try things.

Tim:
Yes.

Jen:
And the more we know, the less scary things are, you know. um So that’s what I would say is if after listening to this podcast, you go and you try out some generative AI just to like, what is this ai all about? And you do it like, please, then that’s that’s a win. Teachers spend their whole life preaching to kids about how great learning is.

Tim:
Yes.

Jen:
And then they they get afraid to teach something because they feel like they don’t know all the things. And we just said, we’re not experts about A.I. And here we are recording a podcast about A.I. We don’t know everything either. You have to kind of live in that that zone.

Tim:
I was going to say, I don’t know how many hundreds of times on this podcast, I have said, learn it together with your kids.

Jen:
Yeah.

Tim:
You don’t have to know everything. You don’t have to be the expert. You can learn together. And so that’s just me bringing that point up again.

Jen:
Yeah. And they can tell you.

Tim:
Yes, you can learn from them.

Tim:
Alright, so I love the idea of teachers exploring with kids, learning together with them, and kind of you know figuring this out as we go. And I guess my big question there and I think a good spot to end it is. You know, how do we help teachers, you know, how do we help ourselves improve our literacy when it comes to utilizing AI?

And how do we pass that along to our students as well? Like how do we help them with their visual literacy and their literacy when it comes to how they use artificial intelligence?

Jen:
Yeah. Yeah, so there there are a lot of teachers that almost wear that like, I’m not good at technology, like badge with pride.

Tim:
Yes.

Jen:
And it’s like, just like, don’t, don’t wave that flag that like, I’m going to advertise this. and like five Find a kid that you can trust. It could be a student. It could be a relative in my case.

And I do like tech and I’m not afraid to dive into something and fail miserably.

Tim:
Right.

Jen:
I had at the time high school age nieces and I was like, show me all about this Snapchat or what is it about the TikToks that everybody’s going on and on about? And they they i would like explain to me like I’m five and have them show you their phone and walk you through it and do that like do that first, like be curious, ask someone, try it out.

Tim:
Yeah.

Jen:
OK. And then as far as like advice for for students and asking your kids and how to become more adept at like navigating this is AI literacy. I’ll make that up. it’s It’s not that different from other media literacy. like If something seems sketchy or off or not quite right because there is that uncanny valley when it comes to, you know, anything tech and like AI, double check your sources. Can you verify this information or this photo that you’re seeing in another spot? And the other one that they use for media literacy that also applies here is the red flag.

If something sparks a strong emotion in you, like outrage or like, oh, I can’t believe that. How could that be?

Tim:
Yes.

Jen:
That’s actually like hold yourself for a second there. Be like, why is this happening? and Try to verify it somewhere, because sometimes they’ll learn It’s intentional, you know?

Tim:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, I think that’s some really good advice. And I think the idea just to to try it, to use it to work you to figure it out is the best.

Jen:
Yeah.

Tim:
And you may figure it out and be like, this is not for me. But if you have a better understanding of how it’s created and how it can be used, I i think that’s that’s going whether you choose to use it or not.

Jen:
Yes.

Tim:
i think It’s a good thing to know a little bit more about it.

Jen:
Yeah.

Tim:

Jen, thank you so much for for coming on and talking through these ideas as, you know, I’m trying to figure out my own opinions, my own ah approach to to using all of this. I appreciate your perspective. Appreciate you talking through things with me.

So thank you.

Jen:
Tim, I think you need to come to the Art of Ed community and we could start a thread of horrifying AI creations and discuss this more.

Tim:
Oh my gosh. I was going to say I’m already in the community, but I feel like that might be a good place to post.

We’ll hold that until the episode is published.

Jen:
Heck yeah.

Tim:
And then whatever day you’re listening to this, please go to the Art of Ed Community and either Jen or I will have started a thread of our favorite AI fails.

Jen:
A.I. fails, yes. Love it.

Tim:
So Jen, thank you so much.

Jen:
Thank you for having me.

Tim:

As Jen said, there is an entire world out there when it comes to A.I., and we’re all kind of diving in together. So you should explore! Learn what works for you, what doesn’t, and figure out if and how you can use AI for your own purposes and if and how you can use it to teach and to help your students.

And if AI is a topic you want to explore further, I would encourage you to check out the graduate course from AOEU that I mentioned before the episode started. It’s an opportunity to explore not only the how what and why of AI in the art room, but some of the bigger picture issues as well.

You have the chance to talk about Ethics and AI in the Classroom, as one part of the course is the emphasis on ethical issues—such as data privacy, misinformation, and bias—helping teachers navigate these responsibly and teach students to do the same. The course offers a balanced view of AI’s benefits and challenges, and gives you a good chance to work through some of these bigger issues that we raised today. Again, if that is a course that interests you, you can learn more about it and sign up on the AOEU website, and we will also link to it in the show notes.

But for now, go explore, go learn, go use AI. Develop your AI literacy, and see if you are ready to bring it back to your classroom.

Art Ed Radio is produced by the Art of Education University, with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. 

Again, please email me to submit any questions for the November mailbag, which I will be doing with Amanda Heyn that first week of November–we would love to hear from you–any questions you have about AI, art teaching, or anything else you want to hear us discuss.

Magazine articles and podcasts are opinions of professional education contributors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Art of Education University (AOEU) or its academic offerings. Contributors use terms in the way they are most often talked about in the scope of their educational experiences.