Gemini for Students - Case for allowing

[tbrass]

Hi All,

I'll be leading a generative AI working group for my school, and I'd like to make a case for allowing our upper school students (grades 9-12) to have Gemini access. We currently have Workspace for Education Plus and don't have budget available to do Gemini Education for any of our users.

Questions I'm being asked:

- What are the advantages to allowing Gemini for students (Gemini Teen)?

I've got this resource but would like to have specific talking points. Right now I'm thinking safety features, data privacy, access in school ecosystem, and not being able to delete your prompt history. What other selling points would you have to skeptical teachers/admins?

- What schools/districts already allow it?

I know St. Paul Public Schools recently announced access. I'd love to learn of others.

Thanks for anything you can provide!

[panderson]

When they ask "What are the advantages to allowing Gemini for students (Gemini Teen)?" do they mean not using AI at all?  It has safeguards in place for the target audience.  It doesn't use the data for their models. Commonsense media rates it safer than ChatGPT (https://www.commonsensemedia.org/ai-ratings/gemini).  The only thing I am wary about is that it doesn't save the chats or no way for admins to find any history.  That is one the reasons why we haven't pushed it. 

[tbrass]

We do have a batch of teachers and administrators who would prefer to ban AI. I believe they're questioning whether we are serving our students by providing easier access to a tool they'd rather avoid.

We did enable Gemini for a testing student account, and they're not able to delete their history. That said, I agree with the concern about admins not having access.

[panderson]

What I meant about saving the chat is on the side of the chat window (for regular Gemini) it has all the previous chats and they can't be deleted.  I believe as Admins we can find this information somewhere (not sure where).  To me AI in education is like calculators were a few years back. Lets face it, students are going to use AI, teaching them how to use it and use it ethically and responsibly is probably a good thing.  Gemini for Teens is focused for those users, the others not so much.  Good Luck and as TraceyP says, if you can share the results I think many would like to see it.

[TraceyP]

I’d love to see what you get in the end if you can share. Thanks!