The Fact Check First Initiative

The Biggest Risk of AI isn’t Cheating—It’s Cognitive Offloading.
We often talk about AI in schools in terms of "how do we stop students from using it to write essays?" But as Susana Tomaz (Director of Futures and AI Strategy at Westlake Girls' High School) points out in the latest Education Gazette, the real risk is a lack of AI literacy.

A recent pilot of the "Day of AI" across nine NZ schools revealed a startling gap: while 92% of students had used AI, almost none could explain how it actually works.

By localizing MIT’s "Day of AI" resources for Aotearoa, educators are now:
✅ Moving students from seeing AI as "magic" to seeing it as a "system to be checked."
✅ Integrating te ao Māori values to explore data sovereignty and ethics.
✅ Closing the "AI Literacy Divide" to ensure equity across all deciles.

AI is no longer just a tool; it’s a "human-in-the-loop" actor in the thinking process. It’s time we teach our ākonga not just to use the machine, but to understand the ghost inside it. 🤖🇳🇿

Read more about the initiative here: https://zurl.co/IN5ir

NZ