Digital skills curricula for adult learners needs to be mindful of possible artificial intelligence bias, according to Caroline McKinnon, director of SkillRise and adult education. SkillRise is an ISTE initiative.

Regarding bias, she says, “I’m not sure that we can fully eliminate it because I think humans carry a bias anyway. But I do think that it’s about getting the right people at the development stage. Even the people working in the space of equity and AI are not representative of the people that it should be helping. I think it’s creating the opportunities for people to shape this technology and provides safeguards.”

She notes learners need to understand the benefit of AI to alleviate fears.

McKinnon joined WorkingNation’s editor-in-chief Ramona Schindelheim for WorkingNation Overheard at SXSW EDU 2024 in Austin.

She explains, “We work a lot with adult education colleges and workforce development. We work with partner institutions who have job seekers or adult learners who are looking for skills.

“And we have the unique position in the fact that we are grant-funded so we get to try things out and keep things low-cost so that we can really work with people who need our skills, but maybe can’t afford to look elsewhere.”

Learn more about SkillRise.
Learn more about ISTE.