FAQs: Digital Discernment + AI in Education

What is Digital Literacy?

Digital literacy is the ability to navigate, evaluate, and create within the digital world using a combination of technical skills, critical thinking, and ethical judgment. 

According to current educational and research perspectives, such as those from UNESCO and the US Department of Education, digital literacy encompasses ethical participation in digital spaces, awareness of privacy and data security, and the ability to utilize technology to collaborate, learn, and contribute positively to one’s community. In short, digital literacy refers to the ability to find reliable information, use digital tools effectively, and engage responsibly in online spaces.

Practicing digital literacy involves taking concrete actions: verifying the accuracy of information from media outlets and AI tools, understanding how algorithms influence the content we see, recognizing when media has been edited or manipulated, and safeguarding our privacy and data. It also means engaging with others respectfully, understanding the impact of our digital footprints, and using technology to learn, collaborate, and contribute to our communities.

In essence, digital literacy is not just about being online; it is also about being informed and responsible. It provides us with the practical knowledge to navigate digital spaces confidently and the foundation for developing digital discernment.

What is Digital Citizenship?

Digital citizenship refers to responsible, ethical, and intentional behavior online and across all digital spaces.

Responsible digital citizens: 

• Interact with others online kindly and compassionately 
• Carefully and cautiously share personal information only when necessary and secure 
• Practice upstanding behavior, reporting instances of cyberbullying and related behaviors to trusted adults, web moderators, and/or the proper authorities
• Source credible information and cite sources consistently and appropriately 
• Use strong passwords and maintain digital safety 
• Keep their devices organized and up-to-date for proper digital hygiene 

What is Digital Discernment? 

Digital discernment is the capacity to use technology and navigate the digital world with direction, integrity, and purpose. It’s a form of digital wayfinding, or an inner compass that helps us orient ourselves amid constant information, influence, and distraction.

Where digital literacy equips us with the skills to move through digital spaces—to search, post, and participate—and digital citizenship guides responsible and ethical behavior, digital discernment gives us the wisdom to decide where to go, whom to trust, and what truly matters. It’s the difference between simply moving and moving with meaning.

Practicing digital discernment means being aware of how digital environments shape our attention, behavior, and beliefs and choosing to engage with intention rather than impulse. It involves evaluating sources, questioning algorithms and incentives, setting boundaries that protect focus and well-being, and aligning our digital actions with our deeper values and goals.

How is Digital Literacy Different from Digital Discernment? 

Digital discernment and digital literacy together form the foundation of healthy, empowered engagement in the digital world. Digital discernment safeguards students’ well-being by helping them slow down, reflect, and take control of their attention amid the constant noise of online life. By cultivating this awareness, students strengthen focus, confidence, and self-regulation—skills essential to mental health and personal growth.

Meanwhile, digital literacy fosters informed, independent thinkers capable of critically evaluating information in an era of deepfakes, AI content, and misinformation. It equips students not only to determine what to believe but to justify their reasoning with evidence and logic, fostering truth, trust, and ethical participation in civic life.

Together, these capacities define what it means to be a Wayfinder in the digital age—someone who navigates information with curiosity, conscience, and critical thinking, charting an intentional path rather than being swept along by the stream.

How are Schools Using AI in Education? 

Common ways schools are starting to use AI include: 

• Curriculum and lesson planning: Some teachers are using AI tools like ChatGPT to help write and fine-tune their lesson plans. AI tools can help build plans around content standards and quickly check existing plans for standards alignment. They can also suggest ways to differentiate lessons for different learning styles, scaffold lessons for different ability levels, and help brainstorm new creative ways to teach and assess learning standards. 

Educators generally agree that human intervention is needed for curriculum planning. While AI can help spark ideas and check or strengthen standards alignment, teachers themselves still need to be involved to ensure that AI-supported lesson plans are engaging, relevant, and responsive. 

• Paperwork + administrative tasks: AI is helping teachers cut down on time spent on non-instructional tasks, supporting writing for district-required paperwork, family communications, and even IEPs and 504 plans. 

There is some contention around the ethics and effectiveness of using AI for IEPs and 504 plans. While proponents argue that it helps them focus more on the daily task of student support, opponents maintain that these tools do not and cannot have sufficient discernment to create plans that properly assess student needs and learning goals. 

• Grading: This is another contentious issue regarding the use of AI in schools. Some educators make the case that using AI tools to help reduce time spent grading allows them to spend more time on other aspects of their jobs that cannot be assisted by technology. Others say that grading with AI is unethical and that only a teacher’s nuanced understanding of their students can properly complete the job. Others still argue for a mixed approach: that AI is fine to use for correcting technical errors (ex: grammar and spelling) but not for evaluating more complex work. 

A survey of students reported on by The New York Times showed mixed, somewhat negative student perception of teachers’ use of AI for grading, with reasons ranging from eroded trust in teachers to fairness in use policies. As with educator opinions, some students expressed a mixed point of view, noting that, at certain times, it might be fine, as long as teachers are still providing thoughtful feedback on work requiring critical thought and analysis. While some students felt it might help teachers be more objective in their grading, others feared the accuracy of the tools being used. 

Early research indicates that students could be validated in their concerns about bias in AI grading. A comparative study showed that the work of students of certain racial and ethnic backgrounds was consistently and inexplicably graded lower by AI than by expert human graders. 

All of these varied viewpoints and technological novelty underscore the need for more clarity around how AI grades and the nature of its biases, the possible need for more standardized AI policies, and—if it is going to continue to be used—the potential for more carefully crafted, educator-informed tools to help do the job fairly and effectively.

What is the Link Between AI and Critical Thinking? 

Although AI is still a fairly new technology, early research suggests negative correlations between AI use, cognition, and memory. A 2024 study from the MIT Media Lab, which examined the impact of students' use of ChatGPT, reveals numerous detrimental effects of AI on cognitive function and development. The limited study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, compared students’ performance in SAT-style essay writing, measuring students using only their brains, only Google search, and ChatGPT. The findings indicate the following: 

• Reduced brain engagement - ChatGPT users “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” 
• Reduced original thought - ChatGPT users produced more homogenous essays than non-users, both in terms of content and linguistic style.
• Reduced memory and ownership of work - ChatGPT users remembered less of what they wrote than those using just their brains and those using Google assistance. 

How Does AI Impact Academic Integrity?

AI offers new ways to undermine academic integrity, potentially even redefining what constitutes academic integrity. As a relatively new and powerful tool, AI makes it easy for students to pass off digitally generated work as their own. This presents a new pathway for cheating and circumventing the challenging thought processes that build academic and cognitive skills. Completing work with AI may go against what many people believe to be honest, fair, responsible, and respectful. 

However, as sometimes happens with the advent of new technologies, AI may prompt educators to rethink how they define academic integrity. With free language learning models like ChatGPT being widely available to students, some educators may choose to focus on responsible and intentional use of AI, potentially redefining what it means to complete one’s own work. With few states having established AI policies for schools, many schools and districts may be developing their own guardrails to outline acceptable AI practices for both students and teachers. 

What are the Pros and Cons of AI in Education? 

As noted earlier, thoughts on the benefits and drawbacks of AI in education are numerous, entangled, and continually evolving. Still, here is a non-exhaustive list of many of the commonly expressed pros and cons of AI in the classroom: 

How are Digital Literacy, Citizenship, and Discernment “Future-Ready” Skills?

Digital literacy, digital discernment, and digital citizenship are essential future-ready skills because they prepare students to navigate an increasingly complex digital world with integrity, critical thinking, and purpose. Just as AI challenges traditional notions of academic honesty, the rapid evolution of technology challenges students to engage thoughtfully and responsibly with the digital tools that shape their learning and lives. 

Digital literacy equips students with the ability to access, evaluate, and create information using digital tools—skills that are foundational for success in modern learning and the workplace. Digital discernment builds on it, empowering students to question sources, detect bias or misinformation across media outlets and AI technologies, and make informed decisions in a sea of constant content. When paired with digital citizenship—the ethical and respectful use of technology—students learn not only how to use digital tools effectively but also how to do so responsibly and with empathy toward others.

Together, digital literacy, citizenship, and discernment form a crucial element of future readiness. They help young people utilize technology as a force for learning, connection, and innovation, rather than distraction or harm—skills that are vital for thriving in an increasingly digital and interconnected world. 

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