Episode 12

Artificial Intelligence: How to Start The Learning Process in your School District … Safely

In this episode of the Digital Learning Today Podcast, Jeff welcomes Dr Jayne Lammers, Director of Learning Design at Edmentum on the podcast to discuss how your school district can begin using Artificial Intelligence to support staff, students, and the community. If you are a new listener to TeacherCast, we would love to hear from you.  Please visit our Contact Page and let us know how we can help you today!

In This Episode …

  • How do we define the term “Generative AI”?
  • Do we need to be worried about Privacy Agreements when using applications with AI?
  • What questions should Tech Directors be asking EdTech Companies about their AI features?
    • How will school districts be notified of changes in AI in apps?
    • What switches will the district have to control AI features?
  • What types of language should be in an AI policy?
  • Introducing AI to staff at a group meeting?
    • Start with a problem that is broad and discuss how AI can help solve it.
      • Language Support for MLL students and families (claude.ai)
  • Will AI ever replace teachers in the classroom?
  • How to teach AI to students as a “thought buddy”
  • The importance of sharing and reflecting after using AI so others can learn about it together

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About our Guest:

Dr. Lammers began her education career as a middle and high school literacy teacher and found a passion for supporting teachers in meeting the needs of striving readers. She earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction at Arizona State University and spent 15 years in higher education, preparing teachers for the challenges of today’s classrooms. Her research explored the intersection of students’ interests and technology’s affordances, aiming to make literacy instruction more meaningful and impactful. Now, as the Director of Learning Design at Edmentum, Dr. Lammers helps ensure that Edmentum's products designed to accelerate learning leverage research-based best practices and consider the realities of teachers’ work and students’ needs.

About EdMentum

Edmentum creates learning technology solutions designed to support educators and supplement existing curriculum with one goal in mind: positive student outcomes. They reach more than 43,000 schools, 420,000 educators, and 5.2 million students in all 50 states and more than 100 countries worldwide. Edmentum believes that every student deserves the opportunity to thrive everywhere learning occurs - whether they seek to catch up, stay on track, or chart their own path. When you pair Edmentum’s comprehensive, research-backed learning acceleration solutions with empowered and supported educators, you can change the direction of students’ lives.

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Transcript
::

Hello,

::

and welcome to the TeacherCast

::

Educational Network.

::

My name is Jeff Bradbury,

::

and welcome to Digital Learning Today.

::

On today's episode,

::

we're going to be talking

::

all about artificial intelligence.

::

We're going to be defining what it is,

::

how school districts are

::

currently taking advantage of it,

::

and how you can safely

::

deploy it in your classroom.

::

I have a fantastic guest on today,

::

Dr. Jane Lammers from Edmentum.

::

Dr. Lammers, how are you today?

::

Welcome to TeacherCast.

::

Thank you, Jeff.

::

I'm doing great.

::

And I'm really looking

::

forward to talking with you

::

about this subject that

::

everybody is talking about.

::

I am so excited to have you on.

::

You know,

::

we've been talking about

::

artificial intelligence here.

::

It seems like forever.

::

Every single time we have a guest come on,

::

it's the topic that we have to bring up.

::

But I'm excited about having

::

you on today because we've

::

never really had a chance

::

to really start from ground zero,

::

start from the beginning here.

::

Before we get into those fun questions,

::

tell us a little bit about

::

yourself and what's

::

happening these days at Edmentum.

::

Well, thanks for that invitation.

::

So, Jeff,

::

I was a teacher educator for 15 years.

::

I worked in higher education.

::

I was a tenured professor at

::

the University of Rochester.

::

I was a Fulbright scholar

::

who got to travel to

::

Indonesia just before the

::

pandemic and conduct

::

research with a partner

::

down there on the digital

::

literacy practices of Indonesian youth.

::

Had a lot of fun doing that

::

and was I ran an English

::

teacher preparation program

::

and also advised doctoral

::

students and really enjoyed

::

studying how young people

::

use technology for their

::

own interest driven learning purposes.

::

So that's where I kind of came from.

::

I was an English teacher

::

prior to going into higher ed.

::

But as with many folks,

::

the pandemic changed things, right?

::

And I wanted to be closer to family.

::

I wanted to have greater impact.

::

There was something about

::

the pandemic and the remote

::

emergency instruction that

::

happened as a result that

::

really put what I had been studying,

::

which was how are people

::

using technologies,

::

into the forefront and into

::

the conversation.

::

And then an opportunity came

::

up and I am now the

::

Director of Learning Design at Edmentum.

::

We are a K-12 digital curriculum provider.

::

We aim to be the premier

::

learning acceleration

::

company that helps get

::

young people all across the

::

country and in countries around the world

::

back up to speed and beyond

::

in their learning.

::

And we use technology to do

::

that in a variety of ways.

::

We have intervention programs.

::

We also have fully online

::

courses and a fully online academy.

::

And so my job is to make

::

sure that what we know

::

about good learning is

::

built into the design of our products.

::

And when you say good learning,

::

how do you define that,

::

especially in 2024?

::

What does good learning look like?

::

What does good learning look like?

::

Well,

::

engagement is on top of mind for most

::

of the educators I talk to

::

and most of the school district folks.

::

How do we actually get young

::

people to be and remain

::

engaged in the learning

::

that happens in their

::

formal schooling environments,

::

especially after the years

::

of disengagement?

::

And what I would argue is

::

couple that with all of the

::

engagement that they get in

::

other kinds of social media

::

and other kinds of social

::

learning spaces.

::

Young people need engaging learning.

::

So that's the first

::

definition of good learning.

::

It's engaging learning.

::

It meets learners where they

::

are and then helps to

::

leverage what they already

::

do know and get them to

::

where they need to be.

::

I love that definition.

::

Just a few hours before we

::

did this recording,

::

I brought home a Google

::

Sheets project that I'm

::

going to be giving in my

::

middle school soon.

::

And my middle school kids

::

know that before they get any assignment,

::

it has to pass a series of three tests.

::

And those tests, of course,

::

are my triplets.

::

So tonight,

::

my triplets were doing these

::

Google Sheets homeworks.

::

They're in fourth grade,

::

but they were doing the

::

middle school level work.

::

And just as you were saying,

::

meet the kids where they are,

::

give them something engaging,

::

and just sit back and watch what it is.

::

Adventum, of course, is in 43,000 schools,

::

hitting 420,000 educators

::

and 5.2 million students in

::

all 50 states.

::

I'm looking forward to this conversation.

::

You want to just dive right into this?

::

Absolutely.

::

Let's go.

::

Some people think that

::

artificial intelligence is only chat GPT.

::

We've got different terms, right?

::

We've got generative AI.

::

We've got design AI.

::

We've got text-based AI.

::

We've got AI in different

::

products like Canva and

::

Adobe and Microsoft and all

::

of these different things.

::

So I'm going to ask you,

::

I'm going to put you on the

::

hot seat here.

::

Millions of educators have

::

just stopped their cars and

::

pulled over to the side.

::

Jane?

::

How do you define the term generative AI?

::

When I'm talking about generative AI,

::

I am talking about any of

::

the tools that will generate

::

new content because they are

::

using the artificial

::

intelligence that they have

::

been programmed with to look for patterns,

::

to call from whatever large

::

language model usually,

::

so whatever big batch of

::

data they were given, to give the user

::

a response or a creation,

::

because it could be

::

image-based if we're

::

talking about something

::

like DALI or mid-journey or in Canva,

::

could be design-based, right?

::

But it gives the user what

::

it thinks it wants.

::

So that's important to know

::

that it provides what it

::

thinks you want based on

::

the prompt you gave it and

::

based on its training and in its model.

::

That sounds like my triplets.

::

Let me see what we can get a

::

couple of things here.

::

If I go on to a Google search and I say,

::

I need a recipe for cookies.

::

Is that generative AI?

::

I'm putting in a prompt.

::

It's giving me something.

::

Is that generative AI?

::

No, that's a search, right?

::

And artificial intelligence

::

might be involved in the search,

::

but that's not necessarily generative AI.

::

We'll say like when you're

::

starting to type,

::

give me a recipe and you

::

see all the stuff that pops up below it,

::

that is generative AI

::

because here it is using

::

its training to make a

::

prediction to give you what

::

it thinks you want, right?

::

But it's just filling in the

::

search right there.

::

But what I'm talking about

::

when I talk about

::

generative AI is when

::

you're using a tool like

::

Microsoft Copilot,

::

who any of the schools who

::

are on Microsoft tools,

::

they likely now have access,

::

whether they use it or ignore it,

::

to Copilot,

::

to have a chat feature that

::

they can put in and ask a question.

::

And when you ask that program a question,

::

Unlike a Google search,

::

you'll get a different sort

::

of generative answer.

::

You'll get a text-based answer,

::

often with different sources.

::

What Google gives you is a

::

list of what it thinks are

::

your most likely or best

::

paid for choices to answer your question.

::

And you then have to go out

::

and look at the site that

::

it links to you.

::

What the generative AI tool

::

will do with your question

::

is it will create text that

::

it thinks answers your question,

::

pulling and synthesizing

::

from a variety of sources.

::

And, you know,

::

while you're giving me that

::

amazing answer, of course,

::

I go on to Microsoft Copilot and I say,

::

start a knock knock joke.

::

And of course, it says knock knock.

::

Who's there?

::

Banana.

::

So this is where artificial

::

intelligence is, right?

::

If I go into these different programs,

::

we know that there's, as you mentioned,

::

a variety of different kinds.

::

I think the two biggies that are out there,

::

ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot.

::

And I would even throw a

::

third one in there.

::

Google has their BARD slash,

::

they're not calling it Gemini, right?

::

Right.

::

And...

::

The scary part is these

::

things are now starting to

::

be turned on at the admin

::

level for school districts.

::

This is not the AI world and

::

then the school world.

::

Microsoft is now every

::

single day putting out videos going,

::

here is Copilot with PowerPoint.

::

Here is Copilot with Outlook.

::

I got to be transparent.

::

I'm personally one of those

::

ones that are paying 30

::

bucks a month for Copilot.

::

I love it.

::

I love the fact that I can sit,

::

if nothing else,

::

30 bucks a month is paying

::

for me to look at a strand

::

of emails and have it read

::

the emails and give me like

::

a three sentence synopsis

::

of what the entire email thread is.

::

I absolutely love that.

::

Yeah, it's a time saver.

::

Huge time saver.

::

I'm still trying to figure things out.

::

Last night I was doing a

::

chat with a friend who was

::

at a Rangers game and I said, you know,

::

please take this picture

::

and put it in a Rangers

::

jersey and put the Stanley Cup.

::

I was doing the

::

designer.microsoft.com thing and

::

We were just having fun with it, right?

::

Right.

::

And let me stop you there, Jeff,

::

because what you're doing

::

is exactly what I'm trying

::

to advocate for to school leaders.

::

You're playing with it.

::

You're getting your hands in there.

::

You're trying different use cases.

::

The use case may be

::

entertaining your friend.

::

The use case may be digging

::

through your emails.

::

email and saving yourself time.

::

The use case may be for our

::

teacher friends listening,

::

designing a lesson plan or

::

giving a student sample to

::

meet the needs of their students, right?

::

You've spent time to play

::

and figure out where it

::

could be useful for you.

::

And that's what we're

::

advocating for our

::

education partners to do.

::

So at Edmentum,

::

we ran a series of

::

experiments to try to

::

figure out how would we want to advise,

::

especially last summer,

::

everybody was talking about it.

::

School districts had shut it down.

::

We're trying to figure out

::

what we could suggest to

::

to our partners and so we

::

got in there and started

::

running experiments and

::

that's the kind of thing

::

that we learned is that

::

teachers need or school

::

district leaders need to

::

get their hands in it try

::

different tools see how

::

they work so they can

::

figure out where it might

::

be useful for them

::

I'd like to have this

::

conversation from a couple

::

different chairs.

::

I'll try to tell you the

::

chair I'm doing the question from.

::

Right now,

::

I want to do this from the tech

::

director chair.

::

When I'm working with a

::

company and they say they

::

now are using artificial intelligence,

::

I know as a tech director,

::

I need to have a privacy

::

agreement signed with that

::

company for my users to log in?

::

Do I also need to ask

::

questions such as where is

::

that company getting their

::

artificial intelligence

::

originally sourced from?

::

And do I need to worry about

::

having a privacy agreement

::

with that source?

::

I think what you're hitting

::

on with that question there, Jeff,

::

that is on the minds of

::

every tech director and the

::

legal folks in districts, right,

::

is how do the data that get

::

put into an AI get used?

::

So one of the benefits of

::

using a Microsoft co-pilot, for example,

::

is the way that it's

::

attached to any enterprise

::

is it protects the privacy of the data.

::

That data doesn't get fed into the model.

::

But the important thing for

::

teachers to know, if, for example,

::

the only generative AI that

::

they think of is chat GPT,

::

What they need to know is

::

that ChatGPT will take

::

anything that you input

::

into it and it starts to

::

use it to train the model.

::

So the question from a tech

::

director seat is probably yes.

::

They need to figure out where...

::

what a company is using and which data,

::

like whether or not the data gets shared,

::

you're safer if they're

::

using Microsoft Copilot.

::

And there's also almost always,

::

as I've seen it,

::

data sharing agreements or

::

not that protect the privacy.

::

So even as an ed tech company,

::

all of the same rules and

::

regulations for protecting

::

student data apply to us as

::

they do to a school district.

::

So we can't use and share

::

and email and feed into a

::

system any student data.

::

when a tech director is

::

looking at an application

::

or when an application

::

comes to a tech director that says, hey,

::

now we have this extra thing on us,

::

what questions should a

::

tech director be asking of

::

their ed tech partners when

::

it comes to the topic of AI, AI features,

::

perhaps can I turn the AI

::

features on and off on my

::

side or are they now just a

::

part of this world?

::

What questions should school

::

districts be asking?

::

Well,

::

I think lots of people are asking

::

questions around age restrictions.

::

So those keep changing.

::

I would also,

::

speaking of the idea of changing,

::

this landscape and these

::

technologies are ever changing, right?

::

All of the models keep getting updated.

::

So I might want to ask if I

::

were a tech director,

::

How will I be notified of

::

changes to the model?

::

I think it is a good question to ask.

::

Is there a way to limit access,

::

turn features on and off?

::

The other thing to note

::

about the perspective that

::

I bring from Edmentum is

::

that we're not putting AI

::

into our products at this point.

::

We've taken a more kind of

::

cautious approach.

::

We're absolutely looking at

::

use cases for our own

::

efficiencies and the work

::

that we need to do to create things.

::

But when it comes to in our products,

::

No.

::

Rather,

::

what we're doing is trying to

::

figure out how to help

::

teachers who use our

::

products think about when

::

and if or how students

::

might use AI to complete assignments,

::

what they should worry

::

about or not when it comes to that,

::

and how to have the

::

teachers find their own

::

efficiencies with AI in

::

terms of using our products.

::

I wanna throw one more

::

question at you from the

::

tech director chair,

::

and this is a biggie.

::

And there are spreadsheets

::

running around the internet

::

right now that have all of

::

this information,

::

but I think there's a lot

::

that's premature right now.

::

Do you have any recommendations?

::

I know you're not legal, right?

::

But do you have any

::

recommendations on language

::

that should be in or things

::

that should be in some kind

::

of an official board doc AI policy?

::

I know school districts are jumping in,

::

but they don't have an AI policy.

::

Some school districts are saying,

::

why do I need one?

::

And then there's some school

::

districts that are making

::

the document that everything is in there.

::

Do you have any

::

recommendations or do you

::

have a chance to see what

::

other school districts and

::

stuff are doing?

::

So I've had a couple of

::

opportunities to see what

::

other school districts are doing.

::

One of the things I do on

::

the side is I still I

::

couldn't leave academia altogether.

::

So I still teach an

::

instructional technology

::

course at the University of Pennsylvania.

::

And I taught it last fall.

::

And the course gets taught

::

to school leaders.

::

And so I had a cohort of 20

::

something school leaders.

::

And of course,

::

in an instructional technology module,

::

we were talking about

::

generative AI and policy.

::

So I got to see some of the

::

policies that those folks as my students,

::

but in their day jobs were

::

creating in their districts.

::

I've also been following

::

what New York City schools

::

have been doing, right?

::

They were one of the first

::

school districts to ban

::

chat GPT when it first came out,

::

when everybody was trying

::

to figure things out.

::

And now we see that they

::

have come around and

::

created a more thoughtful approach.

::

They've got a group working

::

on it and they're trying to

::

make things public.

::

So I think if I were your

::

tech director and I was in that chair,

::

what I would do is I would

::

probably go look to some of

::

the bigger districts who

::

have the resources and the

::

money and the manpower to

::

be thinking about this more deeply.

::

And I would look to see what

::

their current policy is and

::

see what language might

::

need to be included in my

::

own district's policy.

::

So let's take that hat off

::

for a second here and let's

::

put on the coaching hat or

::

the curricular hat, right?

::

One of the questions and

::

topics that have come up on

::

our Ask the Tech Coach show has been,

::

how do you introduce this

::

concept to teachers, right?

::

We think of this as the calculator, right?

::

Teachers are saying you can't use it,

::

you can't use it, you can't use it,

::

but now everybody has a calculator.

::

There's so many coaches out

::

there right now that are

::

jumping in and saying,

::

can I have 20 minutes at a

::

faculty meeting just to put

::

that first toe in,

::

just to have that conversation?

::

Even myself as a technology teacher,

::

I want to try this.

::

But I don't want to teach my

::

kids something.

::

I feel weird saying this.

::

I don't want to teach my

::

kids something that my

::

colleagues are going to be

::

uncomfortable with them knowing.

::

Right.

::

Right?

::

So all of that being said,

::

if you were somebody who

::

was in charge of

::

professional development...

::

How do,

::

and this is gonna be a two-part question.

::

How do you start the conversation?

::

What's an application that you would use?

::

Do you have an example of

::

maybe a first group assignment?

::

What's that 30 second pitch

::

or speech or anything that

::

you would do if you were

::

that coach and you were

::

given a faculty meeting and said,

::

introduce the topic,

::

but don't go too far in the water.

::

Right.

::

I love this question.

::

So this,

::

I have actually done a bunch of

::

thinking about is how to get it started.

::

I think I would take a

::

problem that is broad for

::

most of my colleagues.

::

And I would venture a guess

::

that most of your listeners

::

are dealing with the

::

challenge of the various

::

languages that our students

::

come to our classrooms

::

speaking and their families, right?

::

We have a huge variety of

::

multilingual learners who

::

are trying to learn our content,

::

but they still don't know

::

the English language that

::

we're speaking to them in.

::

So one of the things that I

::

might show my colleagues if

::

I were a coach is I'd show

::

them we found Clawed AI,

::

which is one that we have

::

not yet mentioned.

::

But Clawed AI was the tool

::

that we found at the time

::

when we ran our experiments

::

a few months ago was the

::

best at taking a prompt

::

and you put it in there and

::

you ask it to translate

::

that prompt and explain the

::

concept to a speaker of say, for example,

::

Moroccan Arabic.

::

So what Cloud AI does,

::

it's better than Google Translate,

::

which just gives you a

::

one-to-one translation and

::

who knows how good it is.

::

But what Cloud AI does is it

::

will give you the translation,

::

explain in both English and

::

in the language of choice,

::

the target language,

::

why it made choices that it did.

::

to explain the concept and

::

to make it more accessible.

::

So if you've got a teacher

::

who's got students who are

::

speaking maybe a handful of

::

languages in their class

::

and they're just trying to

::

teach them math and you're

::

trying to explain to them

::

the Pythagorean theorem and

::

how that works and you need

::

your multilingual learners

::

to understand it,

::

I might show them how that

::

works and how easy that is

::

to give them the explanation

::

that will allow them to differentiate.

::

The next thing I'd do is I'd say,

::

so who's interested in learning more?

::

And I think professional

::

development in this area

::

needs to start with a

::

coalition of the willing.

::

So bring together the

::

teachers who aren't fully afraid of it,

::

who want to dip their toes in the water.

::

And what we advocated when

::

we wrote about this last year,

::

we advocated for bringing

::

this group together and

::

creating a culture of experimentation.

::

So getting the school to

::

give them some space, some time,

::

maybe some professional

::

development hours.

::

to start running their own experiments,

::

to start using these

::

different tools to see what works.

::

There's also,

::

we haven't talked yet about

::

all of the generative AI

::

that are school focused, right?

::

That are not these other ones.

::

So like school AI, magic school,

::

These ones that essentially

::

take a chat GPT engine,

::

put it in a wrapper and

::

start to program it and

::

give it a personality and a

::

persona that meets

::

different grade levels or

::

subject areas and starts to

::

do some of the design work for teachers.

::

So it lessens the load,

::

the burden about designing

::

your own prompts.

::

And just have these folks

::

experiment and learn about

::

the different cases that it

::

might work and then let it

::

start to spread.

::

When you're looking,

::

I'm gonna go back a hat.

::

When you're looking at, you know,

::

here's Claude, here's Magic School.

::

You're suggesting that this

::

be at the teacher level,

::

which to the best of my

::

knowledge means I don't

::

need to worry about privacy agreements,

::

or is this where you go to

::

your tech director as the

::

tech coach and say,

::

I'd like to try this Claude thing,

::

go get an agreement.

::

So I can now go do my 30

::

minute faculty meeting.

::

what's the legalities on that?

::

At what point does school

::

districts need to be

::

reaching out to all these

::

different companies?

::

There's no students.

::

You have not yet said student logs into,

::

right?

::

Right.

::

But you're still asking

::

teachers to log into that.

::

And that's kind of where I

::

am right now is I'd love to

::

start trying these things,

::

but I don't want to be

::

crossing the district line

::

that I might not know exists.

::

As the director of learning design,

::

thankfully,

::

the legal aspect of it is not my purview.

::

So I am not the best person

::

to answer that question.

::

fair okay so you're the tech

::

director so you're the tech

::

coach and I love the idea

::

let's have a conversation

::

with a problem the problem

::

is I've got students that I

::

need to be able to

::

communicate with here's how

::

this works if anybody else

::

wants more and we talk a

::

lot on this show about the

::

innovation curve where once

::

you get to that 13 or so

::

percent now you got your

::

first followers right how

::

do you get to that next 23

::

to get your we talk about

::

that one a lot on here excellent what

::

other ideas do you have for

::

bringing these topics in by

::

the way and I love coming

::

coming from a school

::

district that supported 75

::

languages and being the guy

::

that brought in things like

::

powerpoint live and

::

microsoft translate and

::

here's the app I love the idea for mlls

::

What's the dog and pony, right?

::

Is the dog and pony,

::

here's designer.microsoft,

::

give me a prompt and it's

::

going to make a picture.

::

Now go try something.

::

What's the next thing

::

outside of MLL students?

::

I think...

::

I think you'll get most

::

teachers to buy in and want

::

to understand more if we

::

help solve problems for them.

::

So I don't actually think

::

it's the cool whiz bang dog and pony.

::

Even I myself don't always

::

appreciate what an AI tool

::

can do in terms of making a

::

presentation look better

::

because I've got years of

::

doing a presentation.

::

That's not a problem I feel

::

like I'm trying to solve.

::

I think if you go at

::

authentic problems that

::

teachers are trying to

::

solve and then think about it.

::

I think there's always the

::

problem of differentiation.

::

We talked about multilingual learners,

::

but another way of thinking

::

about differentiation.

::

A lesson I have learned when

::

it comes to generative AI

::

is you always need to keep

::

humans in the loop.

::

You cannot just totally rely

::

on what the generative AI

::

produces for you.

::

You've got to keep checking it.

::

And so that's why I think

::

We'll never see AI fully replace teachers.

::

We need their humanity and

::

their understanding and

::

their relationships with

::

kids in the loop.

::

So one way that we can leverage that is,

::

say this is a middle school

::

teacher in your context,

::

and they have multiple classes of kids,

::

and they're still, again,

::

trying to teach maybe a

::

social studies concept or a math concept.

::

But they've got five sections of kids,

::

and they all like different things.

::

And the teacher can't keep

::

coming up with all of these

::

different examples

::

Now give me an example to teach that.

::

x math concept to all of

::

these kids and it will

::

generate it in seconds and

::

I love that you just said

::

that because a couple weeks

::

ago I was teaching my kids

::

how to do autobiographies

::

and right in front of them

::

I opened up copilot and

::

said I need an

::

autobiography that has this

::

this and I basically

::

plugged in what their

::

assignment was and the kids

::

were just like wait how'd you do that and

::

That was kind of fun.

::

But let me put on my third

::

hat here as the technology teacher,

::

as somebody who's in the classrooms.

::

I'm still nervous to show

::

this stuff to my students,

::

even though it's on my accounts,

::

even though they're not

::

getting their hands on it.

::

I still feel like I'm the

::

guy that's teaching them

::

how to use the calculator

::

when the math teacher says no calculator,

::

right?

::

Right.

::

I still feel like if I go in

::

there and I show them how

::

to use these things,

::

eventually they're going to

::

find the... And I don't

::

want to be blamed as the

::

guy who's teaching them all

::

the back doors.

::

Right.

::

So...

::

We talked about when you're doing the PD,

::

help the teacher solve the problem,

::

get them interested,

::

and then you start to build from there.

::

What...

::

advice would you have for

::

anybody trying to show off

::

artificial intelligence for

::

to students but doing in a

::

way that's not the oh it's

::

going to help me cheat on

::

my you know right that

::

stuff right how do you

::

actually start to bring in

::

this as a tool and we can

::

discuss the canvas of the

::

world and the fireflies

::

like but what what's a good

::

couple intro lessons for students

::

So where I like to go is

::

common sense education.

::

I don't know if you've looked at,

::

they're really well known

::

for their digital citizenship curriculum,

::

and they've now put out a

::

series of lessons for students

::

on AI that explains what it

::

is and also kind of takes

::

this digital citizenship

::

approach to teaching and

::

learning about AI.

::

So if I were in your shoes

::

as the tech teacher,

::

I'd probably start there

::

with their lessons because

::

you're building an

::

understanding of the tool,

::

not just showing the cool

::

whiz bang how it would help me.

::

kind of a thing.

::

So I think it's really

::

important when we're

::

talking with students that

::

we help them understand

::

what the tools do and don't do.

::

We help them understand the

::

biases that are built into them.

::

We help them understand what

::

they need to look out for

::

that they can't just

::

put in a prompt and turn in

::

whatever it spits out.

::

So again,

::

translating the humans in the

::

loop back to them.

::

I would start with that

::

resource and that

::

collection of lessons as my

::

first place to go.

::

Then I would probably if

::

your school allows you, you know,

::

you've asked you've raised

::

a bunch of important

::

questions about the

::

legalities of data sharing

::

and having the right agreement.

::

So let's say you do have

::

permission to show it and

::

your school has worked out

::

all those legal details.

::

I would probably start with

::

the brainstorming capacity that AI does.

::

So not doing the finished

::

product part of it,

::

because that's where some

::

of your colleagues are

::

probably kind of got their

::

hackles up about cheating

::

and the potential for cheating.

::

And until we get all of our

::

colleagues to change their

::

pedagogy from the kinds of

::

assignments that could be

::

replicated and spit out by

::

a generative AI,

::

what I think we're best to

::

do with the youth is to

::

teach them how the tools

::

could be a thought buddy,

::

a brainstorming partner,

::

an idea generator.

::

Tools like ChatGPT are great for that.

::

All of these topics that

::

we're talking about are

::

going to be detailed in our show notes.

::

I'm making sure that we have

::

links to all the different AI tools.

::

I found the link to the

::

Common Sense article.

::

And speaking of articles, Dr. Lammers,

::

you recently at Edmentum

::

published an article about generative AI.

::

And that article was called

::

AI in Education Experiments,

::

Lessons Learned.

::

Talk to us a little bit

::

about this post and specifically,

::

what have some of the

::

lessons been that you and

::

your team have learned about AI?

::

Well,

::

I've already shared a couple of them.

::

So the experiment from

::

Claude and translating

::

comes directly from that

::

article that you'll link to.

::

The other thing that we did is...

::

The needing to try different

::

tools and to try them over

::

time to see how they work

::

and how they change.

::

So to see whether or not

::

ChatGPT might be better at

::

something versus Copilot

::

versus Gemini versus Cloud AI.

::

The other thing that when I

::

go back to this idea of the

::

coalition of the willing

::

who are going to run

::

experiments and try things,

::

that I think this works best

::

if they can then have the

::

time and space to come

::

together and critically

::

reflect on what they've learned,

::

to share resources,

::

that there be created some sort of a hub.

::

For us at Edmentum,

::

we used a Microsoft Teams channel,

::

which we called our AI brainstorming hub.

::

And any resource gets shared

::

there so that anyone who's

::

interested can follow along,

::

can dialogue about it.

::

So I think that idea of

::

creating this space for

::

experimentation is really helpful.

::

The article also shares the

::

lesson we've already talked about,

::

about keeping humans in the loop,

::

that you need to have

::

people look over what the AI creates,

::

find hallucinations,

::

which that's another key

::

term that we haven't touched on,

::

but because of the way AI is designed,

::

it could generate

::

falsehoods that look very believable,

::

because again,

::

it's just trying to please you.

::

It's trying to give you what

::

it thinks you want.

::

And so if you get to the

::

point where you are using

::

AI with students,

::

that article also has some

::

lessons learned that

::

specifically speak to work with students.

::

And this idea that we need

::

to promote critical

::

thinking and reflection on

::

the student's part as they

::

analyze AI's output.

::

You mentioned Cloud AI

::

earlier about being a good tool for MLL.

::

I want to say this the right way.

::

Have you focused these AI tools

::

for certain subjects.

::

For instance,

::

have you noticed that Copilot

::

might be good at some subjects,

::

but Gemini is better at others?

::

I find there's people in

::

certain circles that

::

they're just going to try

::

100 different AI tools,

::

and they're going to always

::

have 100 AI tools because

::

they know what's there.

::

But the majority of teachers are either,

::

I don't want it,

::

or show me the one that I need.

::

Right, exactly.

::

In a school district, look,

::

if you're a Google school,

::

you're going to do this one.

::

If you're a Microsoft school,

::

you're going to do this one.

::

If you're not,

::

here are some other options.

::

Have you found some

::

favorites yet and for specific reasons?

::

Well,

::

I know that when we were trying to

::

use ChatGPT to do certain calculations,

::

it couldn't always be

::

trusted with the math.

::

Now,

::

I say that with a huge caveat that

::

when we were doing our experiments,

::

that was last year.

::

That might as well be a

::

decade ago in AI terms, right?

::

So it is ever-changing.

::

So I don't know that there

::

is a great answer to your

::

question definitively, Jeff.

::

I think that as these models

::

continue to change,

::

that's why we need a

::

culture of experimentation.

::

There is another...

::

form of ai that we haven't

::

talked about yet and I

::

really haven't talked about

::

it much on this channel

::

because I'm still

::

fascinated by how it works

::

and I'm just gonna I don't

::

even know what this is

::

specifically called but I i

::

like the term second brain

::

so I i call it your second

::

brain ai and specifically things that

::

They will look at all of

::

your personal information

::

and help you make decisions,

::

help you organize.

::

I'll give you two examples

::

that helped me run my life

::

and helped me run TeacherCast.

::

I'm a big fan of an

::

application called Notion.

::

And Notion is a note-taking

::

application on one level,

::

but it's also a way to

::

create databases and

::

note-take and you name it.

::

Basically,

::

everything that you've ever seen

::

on TeacherCast for the last

::

couple of years is designed in Notion.

::

And recently,

::

Notion came out with their own AI tool,

::

but instead of searching the world,

::

it's searching itself, right?

::

So when we say things like

::

the term second brain,

::

it literally is thinking for me.

::

And I can actually go into

::

the AI tool and I can ask it,

::

tell me how many times Dr.

::

Lammers was on the show and

::

what the episodes were about.

::

Maybe because in six months

::

you're going to be back on

::

and I want to make sure

::

that we're having a similar

::

yet different conversation.

::

Or I can say,

::

show me all the podcast

::

episodes that we discussed.

::

artificial intelligence

::

because maybe I'm doing a

::

blog post on my top 10

::

whatever and I want to

::

start to reference other

::

shows so notion is a way

::

that it'll actually take

::

your your again your second

::

brain it'll only think

::

inside of that co-pilot is

::

another option co-pilot

::

depending on how you're

::

using it and I i again I

::

pay for it inside of my

::

teacher cast domain

::

as a switch that says internal,

::

I forget what the exact words are,

::

but basically it's internal

::

of your domain or the web.

::

So if I click on the

::

internal switch and I don't

::

remember the name of it, but I can say,

::

show me all of my podcast

::

episodes and it'll find

::

only the podcast episodes

::

inside of my OneDrive.

::

Whereas if I search the web,

::

now it's basically doing a Bing search.

::

And so I love these

::

companies that are coming

::

up with ways for us to do

::

more using the tools that

::

we're currently building, right?

::

So I spend a lot of time

::

on my Notion, on my dashboards,

::

I'm making sure that

::

everything is there and named correctly,

::

because I know someday soon

::

I'm going to need to pull

::

that information out.

::

And the same thing with Microsoft.

::

Microsoft is checking all of

::

your PowerPoints and words

::

and Excels and it's

::

checking the entire

::

knowledge graph out there of yourself.

::

So that way you can find what you need.

::

Now, obviously,

::

if I'm searching my own stuff,

::

it doesn't know what you as

::

my coworkers doing.

::

But that's okay because I

::

don't always want to know

::

what the entire planet's doing.

::

I just want to know what's

::

in my own bedroom or my own house.

::

Do you have any experience

::

using any applications like that?

::

Or you were shaking your

::

head about using the co-pilot stuff.

::

Are you one or is your team

::

one to be making these second brains,

::

second thinking,

::

digital versions of yourself?

::

And if so,

::

do you have any suggestions on those?

::

Yeah.

::

The only place that I have used this,

::

I have not dug into this

::

kind of second brain AI for

::

myself very much beyond, you know,

::

working in a corporation

::

that uses Microsoft

::

products and also Atlassian products,

::

Confluence, right?

::

We use SharePoint, there's stuff on Teams,

::

there's files that get emailed to you,

::

all of this.

::

So I often use the tool

::

Delve in Microsoft to find, okay,

::

I know this person sent me a file.

::

Where is it?

::

Help me find it.

::

And so I don't have to

::

search email and then

::

search Teams and then search, you know,

::

Confluence.

::

That's probably the best one that I use.

::

And I use it regularly

::

because I know I saw that

::

file from somebody.

::

Yes.

::

Mm-hmm.

::

There's a lot, right?

::

There's a lot.

::

And I think where we are

::

right now is we're at that

::

point in the curve where

::

people are jumping on board

::

or some of them are even saying,

::

I don't have the time.

::

So much stuff, grades, curriculum, parents,

::

post-pandemic, behavior.

::

I don't have time for one more thing.

::

And you've got this wave of

::

educators coming in going, no, no, no,

::

this is the thing.

::

Right?

::

And even a couple of shows ago, we did the,

::

you know,

::

how would you relate AI to other

::

recent things?

::

And we're like, no,

::

this isn't Google Cardboard

::

where many people try it

::

and now it's in the corner.

::

Like,

::

This is the thing, right?

::

Like this is the thing that

::

we're going to look at and go,

::

this isn't going anywhere.

::

This is the calculator that

::

suddenly you turn around

::

and everyone's got one in their pocket.

::

Like everything is going into here.

::

So how do we learn?

::

And let's take one final lap around here.

::

If you were listening to

::

this show and you wanted to

::

take that first step to try things,

::

as you said, button push, test things out,

::

play with things.

::

what would be one of the

::

first things that you would

::

do or the first

::

applications that you would

::

look towards just to sit in

::

your office one day and

::

push some buttons?

::

Well,

::

if I'm at a school that uses Microsoft,

::

I would use Microsoft

::

Copilot because it's

::

probably the easiest one to

::

know that the data is protected,

::

so I won't get in trouble.

::

If I'm not at a school that uses that,

::

I just go to chat GPT

::

because there's a lot

::

talked about jet chat GPT.

::

And so I could find resources easily.

::

So I'd pick one of those two,

::

whichever one is the most accessible.

::

And then I would sit down

::

and think about what are

::

all of the repetitive tasks

::

that take me lots of time

::

and how might I find or try myself

::

a prompt that helps me save

::

time with any one of those tasks,

::

whether it's parent communications,

::

whether it's designing

::

student samples for essays

::

as I'm trying to teach

::

something in my English class,

::

whatever it may be,

::

if it's a differentiation task,

::

and I'm trying to make sure that

::

All of the kids have

::

examples that relate to

::

their particular interest.

::

Whatever it may be,

::

I would use one of those

::

tools to try to create

::

things that save me time.

::

And I would add in there,

::

try prompts that are serious.

::

Try prompts that are silly.

::

There's nothing wrong with

::

opening up Copilot or any

::

of these and saying,

::

tell me a knock-knock joke.

::

Right.

::

Just try something.

::

You know,

::

today was the last day of our

::

marking period.

::

I had to write those emails to parents.

::

There's nothing wrong with

::

going in and saying,

::

write me a letter to this

::

parent about their student

::

who is not doing so well.

::

And you don't have to send it,

::

but just see what it comes back with.

::

And what I like to do in the

::

write me a letter kind of

::

use case is write me a letter about,

::

you know, student.

::

You put the student's name in.

::

You're still protecting privacy because,

::

you know, they don't know that student.

::

You use the first name.

::

And you say,

::

and I want to make sure that I

::

tell the parent three things.

::

And you just put it in bullet point form.

::

And I need it to be clear.

::

Two paragraphs long, I need it to come,

::

whatever.

::

However much you want to give it,

::

and you'll see that it

::

creates something for you.

::

And then the other thing

::

that I would tell the

::

teachers who are just trying this out,

::

remember that this is a chat.

::

So if you don't like what it gave you,

::

tell it to change something, right?

::

So you don't have to take

::

the initial output and then use it or say,

::

this doesn't work.

::

Because where the real power

::

comes is in its ability to

::

iterate based on feedback from you.

::

I first got into chat GPT

::

when I was redesigning my

::

resume and I popped it in

::

and I popped the entire resume and I said,

::

make it better, right?

::

Because that's basic.

::

You're learning how to do stuff.

::

And it was okay,

::

but still on that overall horrible side.

::

And so then I just ended up,

::

I went bullet point by bullet point.

::

Here's a thing that's on my resume.

::

Please make this sound more professional.

::

And little by little,

::

I just started carving out my documents.

::

And then I went into my bio.

::

Here's what I have.

::

Please add these three or four new things.

::

And then here it is.

::

And then you put down,

::

please give me this for a job interview.

::

Please give me this for my website.

::

Please give me this for a presentation.

::

Please give me this in 150 words or less.

::

And again,

::

whether you use them or not is a

::

different kind,

::

but you're just trying

::

things and you're putting

::

stuff out there.

::

You're putting your toe in

::

the water and seeing where it is.

::

Obviously,

::

you mentioned that your team

::

started doing this research last year.

::

Where are you today?

::

Where do you plan on being tomorrow?

::

What's in the future for

::

your team in studying and

::

in using and in sharing the

::

knowledge about artificial

::

intelligence with the world?

::

Well,

::

we continue to run experiments and do

::

projects to help figure out

::

how to save us time.

::

So as you mentioned at the beginning,

::

we have our products in

::

districts around the country.

::

So we're always looking to

::

make sure that our products

::

meet the standards for all

::

of these different states.

::

And since we don't have a

::

centralized curriculum in

::

the United States,

::

you can imagine that a

::

large language model and

::

different machine learning

::

could help us look across

::

all of the state standards

::

to make sure that we have

::

the alignment that we say we do.

::

So that's one very popular

::

project and one use that

::

we're using AI for.

::

But what we're continuing to

::

do is to try to have

::

conversations with our

::

education partners and the

::

folks in the schools who

::

use our products and who

::

are worried about our AI.

::

And we're continuing to have

::

this kind of internal

::

experimentation so that we

::

know how to advise our

::

education partners.

::

One of the things that I

::

really enjoy about working

::

for a company that really

::

values educators first,

::

like Edmentum does,

::

is that we're not just

::

trying to sell our products.

::

We're really trying to be in

::

relationship with those

::

folks who use it and to

::

understand their daily

::

realities and to help them

::

figure out how to make

::

things work best for those

::

daily realities.

::

Talking today to Dr. Jane

::

Lambers from Edmentum.

::

Jane,

::

where can we learn more about the

::

great work you're doing and

::

how do we get in touch with

::

you if you have any other questions?

::

I think LinkedIn is the best

::

way to reach me and I'll

::

make sure you have that to

::

put in your show notes.

::

And of course,

::

you can find out more

::

information over at edmentum.com.

::

All of our show notes are

::

going to be over there.

::

This is Digital Learning Today.

::

You can, of course,

::

check out everything we

::

have going on over at the

::

TeacherCast Educational Network.

::

Find out more information,

::

like and subscribe,

::

all that great stuff over

::

at teachercast.net.

::

Dr. Lammers,

::

thank you so much for joining us today.

::

Thank you, Jeff.

::

It was a pleasure.

::

And that wraps up this

::

episode of Digital Learning today.

::

I hope you guys had a good

::

time and I hope you learned

::

something that you can

::

share with your faculty.

::

There's one thing that we

::

know here about artificial intelligence.

::

It ain't going away.

::

So have a good time with it.

::

Let us know what you're thinking.

::

And if you're interested,

::

reach out to me.

::

Would love to have you be a

::

guest on this show as we

::

get into the summertime.

::

And that wraps up this

::

episode of TeacherCast.

::

On behalf of Dr. Lammers and

::

everybody here on TeacherCast,

::

my name is Jeff Bradbury,

::

reminding you guys to keep

::

up the great work in your

::

classrooms and continue

::

sharing your passions with your students.

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About the Podcast

Show artwork for Digital Learning Today: Where Productivity Meets Innovation in the Classroom.
Digital Learning Today: Where Productivity Meets Innovation in the Classroom.
Transforming the Classroom into a Dynamic Hub of Innovative Learning

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About your host

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Jeffrey Bradbury

Jeff Bradbury is a globally-recognized educator, educational broadcaster, public speaker, and entrepreneur whose powerful message has inspired thousands of educators through the TeacherCast Educational Network.