How Ohio is navigating AI in the classroom

OCRI Executive Staff Director Rebekah Michael offers insight

WLWT reported that Ohio is the first state to require artificial intelligence policies in all public K-12 schools.

Rebekah Michael, Executive Staff Director of the Ohio Cyber Range Institute, weighed in on AI in schools. 

“The technology of the time is AI,” Michael, who is also a professor at the University of Cincinnati’s School of Information Technology, told WLWT. “If we're using AI to help write our papers — which is a great tool — we don't know what that source of information is. So, it is something that we're addressing.”

Michael also noted that “critical thinking is at risk” when implementing AI into the classroom, especially in verifying if information is correct.

“If we put some rules and regulations around it, it makes it easier for us to instruct in the classroom,” Michael said. “It also makes it easier for the students to not be afraid of it, but instead kind of have those rules around it so that they can use it.”

See the full report on WLWT.

Featured image at top of kids on laptops in the classroom. Photo/iStock/adamkaz

Related Stories

2

Parakeet males, females equally likely to fight

September 14, 2026

Researchers from the University of Cincinnati and Duke University studied captive monk parakeets and found that sex has little effect on who starts fights, who is targeted or who rises in the dominance hierarchy, as reported in Integrative & Comparative Biology.

3

UC researchers seek to combat youth weight gain from bipolar medication

September 14, 2026

Cleveland.com highlighted a University of Cincinnati initiative approved for funding by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to expand the implementation of healthy lifestyle interventions and metformin prescription to help manage weight gain in overweight or obese youth taking second-generation antipsychotic medications.