Latest / Integrate This! Ed Tech Podcast / AI for Educators: Teacher's Sidekick, Not Successor | Conversation with Thomas Hummel, Eduaide.ai

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AI for Educators: Teacher's Sidekick, Not Successor | Conversation with Thomas Hummel, Eduaide.ai · Integrate This! Ed Tech Podcast

0:00
Welcome to Integrate This, your go -to EdTech
0:03
podcast where curiosity meets classroom innovation.
0:07
Join your hosts, David Berner and Jeremy Mikla,
0:09
as we explore the rapidly evolving world of educational
0:12
technology. From game -changing tools to insightful
0:15
conversations with today's top EdTech voices,
0:18
we're here to help educators stay informed, inspired,
0:21
and ready to innovate. So tune in, level up,
0:25
and let's integrate this. Thank you for joining
0:41
us for the Integrate This EdTech podcast. We're
0:44
super excited to bring you another episode here
0:47
this summer. And we are fortunate enough, David
0:51
and I, to be joined by Thomas Hummel. Thomas
0:54
is a teacher, I think first and foremost is how
0:57
you would probably describe yourself. But in
0:59
addition to that, Thomas is also co -founder
1:02
of EduAid AI. a great platform for teachers to
1:10
find ways to incorporate AI into their lesson
1:14
planning, into their activities, assignments,
1:18
assessments, and really such a powerful way I
1:22
think to help bring more engaging learning to
1:25
your students. as well as to pick up on some
1:29
other instructional practices that can help really
1:33
ramp up your experiences in the classroom. And
1:37
so Thomas, you know, thank you so much for joining
1:39
us I think here first and foremost. You know,
1:43
we chatted a little bit off air before we started
1:47
the recording. And I know just from reading up
1:51
on you a little bit on the Edge 8 website, as
1:53
well as on LinkedIn, that you are by trade a
1:58
middle school teacher. Um, and you know, can
2:02
you tell us a little bit about your background
2:04
in teaching kind of what inspired you to get
2:07
into teaching and, and maybe even, you know,
2:10
as you progress through that description, what
2:13
led you to want to, to co -found an AI related
2:17
education company? Yeah. So thanks for having
2:20
me. First off, it's great to be here. And, um,
2:23
so my grandpa spent a lot of time with my grandparents
2:26
growing up and my grandpa was a teacher and a
2:29
coach. And I just saw the way that he impacted
2:32
like society and our community in this tiny little
2:35
town just north of Pittsburgh and like everybody
2:37
knew him. And like we'd sit on his porch and
2:40
people would come by and they'd have only nice
2:42
things to say about him. And so like I was pretty
2:45
much a disaster when I was in high school and
2:49
even probably early into college a little bit.
2:51
I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. I had
2:54
all this energy but like I was spending it doing
2:56
the wrong things and just couldn't really harness
2:58
what I wanted to do. And eventually I just came
3:01
to the conclusion, I was like, I might as well
3:03
just go out and try to do good. And so I followed
3:06
in my grandpa's footsteps, started taking some
3:08
teaching classes, fell in love with it, just
3:11
figured out like, wow, there's just so much to
3:13
it. Like, I never even knew as a student, how
3:16
much went into it. And it's funny, like it literally
3:18
took me, I was an adult to figure that out. And
3:22
so I started taking teaching classes, fell in
3:24
love with that, and took on some debt. ended
3:27
up having to pay that debt. And so I ended up
3:31
at a Title I school on the eastern shore of Maryland,
3:35
Caroline County. And because I was a science
3:38
teacher, a middle school science teacher, I was
3:41
going to get my loans paid off if I did five
3:43
years there. And so I just started teaching,
3:45
got into it, loved it more and more every day.
3:48
I was in a great community. I was able to coach
3:51
and stuff. And then, you know, my wife and I
3:55
I was commuting every day about 45 minutes. And
3:59
so like my wife and I were trying to do some
4:00
life planning and stuff. And I ended up moving
4:02
to a district closer to where my house is here
4:05
on the Eastern shore. So now I teach in the community
4:09
where I live, which is a totally different aspect
4:12
of itself, right? Like, you know, teaching, you
4:14
always have to be somebody different a little
4:17
bit. But so I live where I teach now. And I'm
4:22
starting my 10th year coming up, so a decade
4:25
in the classroom. So 10 full years, I'll be able
4:27
to get my pension and stuff. So that's kind of
4:32
where my teaching practice is. I've been teaching
4:34
middle school the whole time, middle school science.
4:37
And what I found along that journey is that teaching
4:41
is great, but everything else about teaching
4:44
pretty much sucks. And we don't really get treated
4:47
as professionals often. We get asked to do way
4:50
too much that doesn't really actually affect
4:53
our students. And we would go to these meetings,
4:58
we'd have these professional developments that
5:00
were just a total waste of time. Or if they weren't
5:03
a waste of time, they were important to the needs
5:07
of my community that I was at. And what I realized
5:11
was like, I'm sitting here teaching, but I'm
5:15
done growing. Like I'm done growing as a human.
5:18
And that just didn't really sit right with me.
5:20
And our school had a ton of problems, too, like,
5:23
and we just couldn't address them. We couldn't
5:25
get to what I loved about teaching because there's
5:27
just so many issues. And when I was teaching
5:30
at this school, they hired Thomas Thompson a
5:35
few years into it. And he came in. He was a great
5:38
teacher. He was just like so smart. He challenged
5:41
me in so many ways that made me as a professional
5:45
grow because he was so nitty gritty with the
5:47
learning sciences and the pedagogy and stuff.
5:50
and I was more of like the relationship building
5:52
teacher and we just ended up having like a great
5:55
bond and we'd stay after class and we'd do like
5:58
clubhouse. You guys ever heard of clubhouse before?
6:02
There's like this uh basically when COVID hit
6:05
it was like this audio app you could get on it
6:07
and you could just talk it out and we'd host
6:09
these rooms about educating and stuff like that
6:12
about education and the problems we saw in education
6:15
and eventually we just said like, nobody's coming
6:19
to solve these problems. Nobody's going to make
6:20
this easier as we get out of COVID. Let's build
6:23
something. And that's where Eduade came from.
6:26
And so, you know, we had this idea of doing like
6:29
open repository of stuff. But then when the AI
6:33
hit, we're like, okay, we can use this to create
6:36
this high quality content. And we just started
6:38
trying to put the learning sciences to the AI
6:42
models and generate high quality content. And
6:45
that's pretty much it. Yeah, I think, you know,
6:49
David and I both come from the experience in
6:52
the background of being in the classroom. I know
6:54
we were both in the areas of the social studies.
6:56
I was just been doing it a little bit longer
6:58
than he has. But, you know, I can definitely
7:02
relate to also what you were saying about teaching
7:06
in the community where you live. And I taught
7:09
22 years in Malacca and lived there. My kids
7:15
went through school there. So it is definitely
7:18
one of those things where in a small town like
7:22
Malacca is... everyone knows you, which is a
7:27
blessing and a curse. It's great that everyone
7:30
knows you, but then everyone sees and is watching
7:33
everything you do kind of closely, I feel like.
7:35
Well, it changes who you are in the classroom.
7:38
When I was able to teach at this other school,
7:40
I was able to be Mr. Hummel all the time while
7:43
I was there. And then as soon as I left the building,
7:45
I was Thomas Hummel. And it was just a nice divide.
7:48
and you don't have to be so much more real with
7:50
my students or like, you know, they see me mow
7:53
my grass and stuff. Like, it's just different
7:56
now. Yep. They're checking out your groceries.
7:59
They're, you know, helping you out at the hardware
8:01
store and all those sort of things. Yeah. Yeah.
8:05
Cool. Thomas, in regard to NGA, you said, so
8:10
you had mentioned, like, you started having those
8:12
ideas about that platform even prior to the AI
8:16
stuff. really starting to take hold. What was
8:20
it specifically that the challenges that you
8:22
were hoping that that tool would address? Yeah,
8:25
like our initial thought was like if we could
8:28
supply people with better content, teachers wouldn't
8:31
have to put so much work in to trying to find
8:33
this, trying to scrap it together. Like I was
8:35
going home and typing all kinds of stuff just
8:37
so it would reach my community, so it would be
8:40
specific to my students. And it just like was
8:42
taking so much time. Not everybody, you know,
8:46
should be taking work home and planning a lot.
8:48
And so once that AI came out, we just saw we
8:52
don't even need to be sitting typing stuff out.
8:55
Like it's time to just let, you know, time to
8:59
constrain this stuff in the ways that education
9:02
is constrained. And so. You know, and like even
9:06
now, like in my school and everybody faces this,
9:09
like the cookie cutter stuff that your school
9:11
supplies you is usually not that good. And it
9:14
certainly doesn't reach the needs of all your
9:16
students. And it certainly can't be followed
9:22
to fidelity every day as a teacher. It doesn't
9:25
work like that. No teacher in the world will
9:27
tell you, I follow this scripted. You have to
9:30
adapt things to your students. And I think that
9:32
that was sort of the gap that we were trying
9:34
to fill there. And I think it's kind of always
9:38
been that way too. I think some of the planning
9:42
books that you would get from a textbook company
9:44
back in the day with, hey, you should do this
9:47
part with this. activity out of this workbook.
9:51
And then if you want to do an extension, you
9:53
tried this thing over here. But like you said,
9:57
you talked about how relationship building was
9:59
an important part of the way that you teach as
10:01
well. And really knowing your students and knowing
10:04
your classes is such a huge part of being able
10:08
to take those ideas, even AI generated ones,
10:12
and being able to implement them so that that
10:14
lesson becomes meaningful and impactful for those
10:17
students. And now I think that's where like the
10:20
power of AI is. I think that that's like I can
10:23
literally just make things so engaging for my
10:26
students. I think it's powerful. Right, and the
10:29
ability to adapt them and differentiate them
10:32
based upon those interests of those students
10:33
is even greater than what I could have come up
10:36
with before. You know, you've been talking here
10:39
a little bit about some of the challenges. Would
10:42
you say that the primary mission of EDU8 then
10:45
is to help teachers or what, how do you guys
10:47
describe that? Yeah, I mean, right, it's hard
10:50
because we are just a couple of teachers. So
10:52
like we've had a bunch of different sales slogans
10:55
and different ways of trying to get the message
10:57
across, but What we do is we try to save teachers
11:00
time and create higher quality lessons. So there's
11:04
a million different ways to say that, but that's
11:07
really it. It's like we try to give teachers
11:09
the ability to use their professional judgment
11:12
to pick from a suite of tools and generate content
11:16
based off of that professional judgment of picking
11:19
what they need when they need it. You know, Thomas,
11:23
in your view, and maybe even, you know, kind
11:25
of base it upon some of your practical experience
11:28
in the classroom as well, you know, how do you
11:31
think AI should complement without overshadowing
11:35
the role of the teacher in the classroom? And
11:38
does the technology behind that help serve educators
11:44
rather than dictating the pedagogy you have to
11:47
follow? Yeah, I think that that's sort of what
11:49
I was just getting at a little bit with that
11:51
last point. But I really worry when we as teachers
11:58
lose control of things because everybody thinks
12:02
that they know how to do it best. And that mentality
12:05
that sort of top down like the school district
12:09
or whoever is telling you how to do your job
12:11
is certainly not a good way to get buy in at
12:15
the least. I don't I would say. I would argue
12:17
that it's not effective at all. And I could go
12:19
down a list of XYZ, but I'm a little cynical.
12:22
But at the least, we can all agree that it doesn't
12:25
help with buy -in with the amount of teachers
12:28
leaving the profession and how hard it is to
12:31
fill those jobs. So this idea of giving up any
12:35
more power as a teacher is really concerning
12:41
to me when it comes to AI. And so, for example,
12:44
if I let the AI do or dictate the path of the
12:48
student, where is my professional judgment coming
12:53
into that? And should I even be offloading that
12:56
as a professional teacher? I would say no. And
12:59
so what we've done with EduAid is we've tried
13:01
to buy into the idea that teachers are the professionals
13:05
and that if you give them the tools that they
13:09
need, they will make the professional best decision
13:12
for their students. And so, for example, my students
13:15
are in seventh grade. They need to be doing things
13:19
that are hands -on all the time, or they're gonna
13:21
hate science, they're gonna hate this, their
13:24
grades are gonna suffer, the buy -in's gonna
13:26
go down. And so I have the ability to go and
13:29
pick from a variety of different labs, different
13:31
materials to supplement that and generate that
13:34
and keep it moving at a pace that we used to
13:38
not be able to do as a teacher. And so the goal
13:41
is to just save time and... in the process of
13:44
saving time to give you things that are of high
13:48
quality. We don't, right? It's a waste if you
13:51
offload all these tasks to the AI, you get them
13:54
back, they're all horrible and you have to go
13:56
and revise everything. It's just, I don't know,
13:59
I think it's a scary path that educators giving
14:04
up any sort of professional power does not lead
14:07
to higher quality of education. We're teachers.
14:11
We're the professionals. I just think that anything
14:16
other than that is makes this job really unbearable
14:19
sometimes. Yeah, it's an interesting point that
14:23
you made, because a lot of trainings that we've
14:25
done and working with educators like the one
14:28
thing that we continue to reiterate is that you
14:33
have like just because the system can spit out
14:37
a lesson plan. in five seconds doesn't mean that
14:41
the lesson plan is actually quality and it takes
14:44
the professional in that content area to actually
14:47
examine the lesson plan and figure out what's
14:51
usable, what's not, what actually matches what
14:54
they're doing in the classroom. Because a lot
14:56
of times too, you might be covering a unit or
14:58
a lesson plan, but there might be parts of that
15:01
lesson plan that an AI would spit out. that you
15:04
didn't have time in class to teach the students.
15:07
And so there's like a lot of things that come
15:09
up there where I like to have those conversations
15:12
with teachers because it's just, you know, reinforces
15:16
the idea that like this isn't going to replace
15:18
you. Like you have to still, you know, put in
15:22
the work and, and determine whether it's actually
15:24
worthwhile for your students. So exactly. And
15:27
that's where you get back to like, if your school
15:29
district has this framework of stuff. There's
15:32
a prior knowledge and a scaffolding that goes
15:34
into building upon that every year that if you
15:36
just generate with an AI, it has no freaking
15:39
clue. And you're going to miss out on so many
15:42
opportunities to build, or you're just going
15:44
to miss the context of the lesson. It just doesn't
15:46
make, it makes no logistical sense to just be
15:49
typing into chat GPT, give me this and that,
15:52
and then living off of that. It just, it makes
15:55
no sense. And so I don't think that that's really
15:59
where AI comes in. I think the AI comes into
16:01
the supplementing and not necessarily being the
16:04
end all be all, but letting the teacher be the
16:06
professional and wield that strong sword in their
16:10
planning time that is the AI to do those things,
16:13
right? I shouldn't have to go type multiple choice
16:15
questions. I can just create five in two seconds.
16:18
I shouldn't have to go and find five resources.
16:22
I can go create a couple that are individualized
16:24
to these students, Lexile levels. That's where
16:27
we're at. But it's scary. It's scary. Even when
16:32
it comes to chat bots, if you put a student with
16:35
an AI in front of it and you take the teacher
16:38
out of it, I think that there's risk involved
16:41
there too. As a teacher, if you offload your
16:45
professional decision making, there's risk involved
16:48
there. And along the same lines too, and I know
16:51
David and I have had a lot of conversations about,
16:54
you know, there still needs to be that struggle
16:55
there for the students as well. We don't want
16:57
to see the cognitive offloading take place there
17:00
to the extent that they don't experience discomfort
17:03
and struggle in their quest to add knowledge,
17:09
to add skill to whatever it is that they're attempting
17:12
to learning. And it should be the same way for
17:14
teachers. You know, teachers should, if they
17:17
want to, you know, you talked about, you know,
17:19
a problem earlier about not feeling like you
17:22
had the ability to grow in the position that
17:24
you were in, um, until edgy eight kind of comes
17:27
along. But, you know, teachers need to feel like
17:29
you were saying that they're growing as well.
17:31
And, and part of that means that you still have
17:34
to be the one in, in charge to make those decisions
17:37
about what is best for the learning of your students.
17:41
Yeah. And I'll put it another way is like, yeah.
17:45
It's really a lot to go in and to tweak lessons
17:48
as a teacher. Like it's a lot when you've had
17:51
a lesson and you deliver it and it was good.
17:53
It may not have been great. It was good. It's
17:56
really a lot to go in there and tweak that and
17:58
make that better. Like it's a hard mental task.
18:01
It's time consuming. And I think what AI does
18:04
is it lowers the cost of experimenting where
18:07
now it provides me with the amount of context
18:10
and the amount of content that I need where I
18:12
can go and I can try something new that I never
18:16
would have done before because it would have
18:17
just taken too much time. And so there's like
18:19
this beautiful thing that comes out of this or
18:23
at least that we're trying to have come out of
18:24
this is that like education is a practice, right?
18:29
It's a, it's a performance in some regard too.
18:31
And it's like, if it costs you so much to change
18:36
up your lessons to make them better, It's so
18:38
tasking, takes away from your time with your
18:40
wife, your kids, all these things. Like if we
18:42
can take away from that burden a little bit,
18:45
I think that it allows teachers to try new things
18:47
and ultimately have better lessons. So. Yeah,
18:53
that's a great point. And so if we could, if
18:57
we could just move into the features and functionality
19:00
of Eduade, what are some of the things that you
19:04
view as the Standout features of that platform
19:09
that so kind of going off what you were just
19:11
saying like There are certain things that you
19:14
indicated that teachers should be using this
19:16
for because it will save them time To you know
19:20
be able to make like Modifications to a lesson
19:22
that they've been doing for the last five years
19:24
or something like that to give them some fresh
19:25
ideas What what are some of the standout features
19:29
that you see in edgy aid that you think are the
19:31
most beneficial? if they were going through the
19:33
tool, what would you say is the Yeah, I mean,
19:36
it just depends where you're at as a professional.
19:39
You know, I think if you're early and you have
19:41
to do lots of lesson planning, we have a great
19:43
content generator. That's awesome. If you are
19:46
later in your career and you want to spice things
19:48
up or you want to make them more fun, we have
19:50
game generating. If you are a language arts teacher
19:54
and you want to do and you need to like get more
19:57
feedback on writing because you're falling behind,
19:59
like we offer that. And so it's hard for me to
20:01
generalize that because each teacher does so
20:03
many specific things. on how to do it. But I
20:07
would just say what stands out for us and what
20:09
we're trying to do. And we have a partnership
20:12
with the Chan Zuckerberg initiative, CZI with
20:16
Metta. And we are trying to test the quality
20:21
of all of our generations and to ensure that
20:25
they meet the linear path of a student. So like
20:28
a student in first grade has a certain level
20:31
that a range that they're working in and that
20:34
RAI is generating stuff that is specific to that
20:37
grade and as you track through that we're reaching
20:39
that linear path of like a child's development
20:42
right and like Nobody else is really testing
20:45
it to see to make sure like that their stuff
20:48
is going that way and on that track and so I
20:52
Would say the quality of our content is often
20:55
the best Is one of the best anyways, we try to
20:59
that's something that we're really focused on
21:03
We also Like we just we're really like mission
21:07
driven so like we could you know be charging
21:10
a lot more for our product But we keep it down
21:12
by a lot and so that's like a huge aspect. We've
21:16
given away a hundred percent of all scholarships
21:18
That's a huge aspect of our company like we I
21:21
would say all those things kind of make us viable
21:25
in today's community like of competition like
21:27
you guys could go down the list there's a thousand
21:29
other tools and You know, there's a bunch of
21:32
them, and we just feel really fortunate that
21:35
we add value in many different ways for a variety
21:39
of different teachers. You know, you mentioned
21:41
that there are many different platforms and tools
21:43
that are out there and available. I think one
21:45
that makes EdgeAid so unique is that you and
21:50
Thomas are both teachers. Yeah. Right. And so
21:54
I think what you're putting out there is really
21:58
coming in my mind, coming from the trenches.
22:01
And so when I promote different tools, that's
22:04
the thing that I think really stands out. And
22:06
you talked about that with your mission and your
22:09
belief in wanting to put things out there that
22:11
are gonna definitely be there to help teachers.
22:15
One of the areas when I've used EGA that I find
22:18
is really meaningful and powerful is the assessments
22:22
area. And just the sheer number of different
22:26
Possible tools that you have in there that that
22:29
can be applied to whatever topic whatever grade
22:32
level Cross whatever content areas that you're
22:37
dealing with, you know everything from creating
22:40
exam questions to more holistic rubrics to self
22:45
assessments You know different matrices and things
22:49
that you have their project based assessments
22:51
and stuff like that You know Is there a tool
22:55
there in the assessments that you think stands
22:58
out or is it just the ability to be able to dive
23:02
across the section of them based upon a particular
23:05
need of the of the teacher at the time? Yeah,
23:07
like I have a hard time saying which one's the
23:09
best because like any time you need something
23:12
different like I'm really biased towards the
23:15
games like I think our games are awesome because
23:17
nobody else is doing those structured games like
23:19
that and like having them filled in but with
23:22
the assessments it's like you know on a Wednesday
23:24
I might need some sort of formative assessment
23:25
but on a Friday I need this and it's like what
23:28
we provide is that we allow teachers to take
23:30
what they need and just get rid of everything
23:32
else that they don't and that is the I think
23:35
that's the beauty of it it's like having that
23:37
right there that is structured and speaking your
23:41
professional language as a teacher I just think
23:44
It's hard for me to say which tool is the best.
23:46
And the ability to provide that meaningful feedback
23:50
to students when they need it, too, I think is
23:54
extremely valuable. We go back and forth because
23:57
we had that feedback bot, and it was one of our
24:01
highest features for a long time. but what we
24:04
found was that teachers were using it to grade
24:06
student work at the end. I'm not talking about
24:08
that. I know, but it's like, and so we tried
24:11
to scale back. We're actually trying to like
24:13
move it in a way that it can't do that. And so
24:15
it's like really interesting as developing this,
24:18
like what is appropriate, what is not appropriate.
24:21
Like, you know, being able to give feedback is
24:24
really powerful. But if you take that one step
24:26
farther and you allow that to start assigning
24:28
grades, like is that ethical? I don't. Like I
24:31
don't, you know what I mean? So it's really,
24:33
it's an interesting field that you get into with
24:36
like any of this stuff. Like if you generate
24:40
a test, did you put in the standards that you
24:45
were trying to assess? If not, are you actually
24:49
assessing the validity and the mastery of those
24:53
standards? And so. it gets really ethically blurred
24:57
I think sometimes if you try to offload too much
25:00
to this. Yeah, one of the cool things in there
25:04
too is you have like the timeline game like and
25:07
well and just in general the ability to either
25:10
like type in a topic or you can plug in like
25:14
a document or a website. Is there any like really
25:17
cool timeline ones that you've seen or I don't
25:19
know if you have example off the top of your
25:21
head but just kind of curious because that one
25:23
Yeah, that's a Thomas Thompson. It's funny. It's
25:27
like some of these tools are mine. Some of those
25:29
are his. Some of those come from feedback. A
25:32
lot of them come from feedback from our users.
25:35
But he, you know, when it comes to like, it's
25:37
funny because we test these and we'll do these
25:39
in meetings and stuff like that. And he always
25:41
will be doing like World War II and we'll be
25:43
looking at it and we'll be trying to like make
25:45
sure that it's giving good content. So I think
25:48
anything around the wars is really interesting
25:50
just kind of because as you look back in that
25:53
in history, like those are sort of landmark,
25:55
there's like landmark events. So it makes that
25:57
a little bit more useful of a tool, I would say
26:00
in that regard. So yeah, you're getting a lot
26:02
of the ideas for the different tools from the
26:04
users of edgy platform or do they come? Do you
26:07
guys sit around in a meeting and just be like,
26:10
man, I want to be able to do this. And like,
26:12
I've got this lesson coming up next week and
26:14
it's going to be on this topic. And boy, I wish
26:17
I had a tool that I could use. And then you go
26:19
back and you develop it or what? Exactly. A little
26:21
bit of all of that, all the above. I mean, we
26:23
had this thing, we had like the backbones of
26:25
it. We had the gist of what we wanted to do,
26:27
but We get feedback all the time. We spend one
26:29
day a week, like one meeting a week, just literally
26:34
just reading feedback because we get so much
26:36
and we try to really make this the best that
26:40
we can for teachers. Like that's what the mission
26:41
that we set out to do. And so we're really committed
26:44
to that. Thomas Thompson, he ended up quitting
26:48
his teaching job. So he pretty much just reads
26:50
all day, reads like scientific, like educational
26:53
science, literature and stuff like that. So he'll
26:55
come up with all kinds of crazy different things
26:57
and he'll come up with ideas that way. And then
27:01
one thing that I think that I bring is like,
27:04
I am usually the first teacher in the building.
27:07
So I do some planning in the morning. I just
27:09
had a son. So like, I tried not to bring too
27:11
much stuff home. I get up and grind and get it
27:13
done. so I'll be there in the morning trying
27:16
to use edu8 to like enhance my lesson for that
27:18
day or something and when it fails or if it comes
27:21
up short like I'll blow these guys up at like
27:23
5 30 6 o 'clock in the morning like hey this
27:26
thing needs fixed like asap and like we're on
27:29
it we just try to you know I'm trying to build
27:32
this into my actual practice as a teacher so
27:36
it's funny is like some days I'll wake up and
27:38
I'll just be pissed because like we came up short,
27:41
I'm trying to do a lesson and I have to move
27:43
over to chat GPT. This is wrong. Like, why are
27:46
we not having a better product here in that regard?
27:49
So it's funny. Yeah, that's, that's interesting
27:52
too. Cause well, I was going to ask like, this
27:54
is a kind of a sidebar question, but the, um,
27:57
you know, you going in and trying to like tinker
28:00
with it. Cause you actually want to use it during
28:02
the day. Have you had Well, what has the reception
28:05
been like or like conversations been like at
28:07
the district you're at when you're talking about
28:09
eduating like with with educators that are actually
28:11
at your school and stuff like it's super weird
28:15
because like for a long time I was trying to
28:18
be like under the radar a little bit because
28:21
you know, like you have your teaching job and
28:23
then this is technically a job to like outside
28:26
of here outside of my teaching job. So I was
28:30
trying to do that. And then like some teachers
28:31
found out and thought it was really cool. And
28:34
so like a couple, I had like my neighbor teacher,
28:37
she's actually on our board of advisors, because
28:40
she's just like so brilliant teacher of the year
28:42
kind of person. And so she kept it under wraps
28:45
for a while. But like, we had CBS that wanted
28:48
to, this was like a year and a half, almost two
28:51
years ago, we were like one of the only tools.
28:52
CBS wanted to come do a news article and film
28:55
in our school and my district turned them away
28:58
because like I'm not my AI uses shouldn't be
29:01
really associated with the district and so it's
29:04
become a whole thing but recently they put me
29:08
on the on the board for policy use and stuff
29:10
so I think they're starting to see like the good
29:12
in it rather than like the fear and it's taken
29:16
almost two years of that so it's insane though
29:19
like My old district, we've given them a free
29:22
pilot. We just want to do good by it. I offer
29:24
the same thing to the district I work in and
29:27
can't even get an email back sometimes. And so
29:30
it's really weird how it is. We have schools
29:34
using this in 100 countries around the world.
29:38
And my own school is so far behind. And so I'm
29:42
living in chaos sometimes. It's like my online
29:46
life. I'm talking to all these people all over
29:48
the place. In my professional life, it's like
29:50
pulling teeth. We're talking about kegging structures
29:52
still like from the 70s. And it's like it's crazy
29:56
how schools work like that. Yeah, that's interesting
30:00
that that's the dynamic that you have right now.
30:02
I know it is. It's something for sure because
30:05
it's like it's not common. Like you don't see,
30:08
you know, nobody knows. It's not it's not their
30:10
fault. It's not my fault. It's like they don't
30:12
understand. You know, and so like here's something
30:15
that's funny is I just went over to. the Maryland
30:20
AI education summit and I was a presenter there
30:23
and not a single person from my school district
30:26
was at this free summit. And so it's like, I'm
30:29
over by DC and Baltimore making a big impact
30:33
where these schools are already well funded.
30:35
I had like these pack sessions, like I gave away
30:38
free eduator accounts to all these administrators,
30:40
told them like, call me and stuff. And then you
30:43
go across the bridge. And now there's all these
30:45
Title I schools where I live and stuff. And nobody
30:49
even came over there to learn. And so there's
30:52
a huge discrepancy. And that was a huge takeaway
30:54
that I had. I'm really fearful that this AI stuff,
30:58
the digital divide, is going to get even worse.
31:02
Fear cannot cause paralysis in this moment with
31:06
it. You have to embrace it on some level. You
31:09
have to lean in. at a district level, at some
31:12
level, or you're going to get left behind. And
31:15
it's like, I don't know what that looks like
31:17
for you or your community. I'm not here to tell
31:19
you that. But it's not going away. And to be,
31:23
you know, I think it's negligent to not be leaning
31:26
in on AI in some front this summer. Yeah, and
31:30
I would. I would agree with that completely and
31:32
I think that's where like leadership is so important
31:35
and because you know if you don't have the people
31:38
at the top saying like this is important it's
31:41
kind of trickles down from there and you have
31:43
a disadvantage among the teachers and then ultimately
31:46
the students as well right you think that's what
31:49
it is or are we just at a point where like our
31:51
schools are just doing so much and providing
31:53
so many needs that like can they not embrace
31:57
one the next thing like have you ever thought
32:00
about that Yeah, I guess I would say it's a bit
32:03
of both because in my own experience I think
32:06
that there there are some that There's definitely
32:10
time issues and I know it probably varies by
32:12
state so we like we can only speak to Minnesota
32:15
for our example, but like I know we've had in
32:19
Minnesota we've had to read act And so we've
32:23
had teachers spending the last three years now
32:27
going through the Yeah, they're going through
32:33
that training. But I will say even with that,
32:38
there are superintendents, even though that's
32:40
been going on, there's been superintendents that
32:42
have reached out to get training on AI very intentionally.
32:46
But then we have some that I think have avoided
32:50
the conversation. So it's probably a bit of both.
32:53
I mean, I guess that'd be my opinion. all the
32:59
sales pitches of some of these companies like
33:02
are true, right? They do come true and they do
33:04
enhance education so much and you don't make
33:07
a move as a school leader, right? And you're
33:10
already behind, right? Like you're already behind.
33:14
Like the districts that I've taught are already
33:17
in the bottom 20 % of the state. And it's like,
33:21
I just don't understand. I just have a really
33:25
hard time understanding how we can get to a point
33:28
where there's this next thing that has some hope
33:32
and that we're not leaning in on it a little
33:35
bit harder. It could be one of those things.
33:39
If you want to talk about like in our area, you
33:43
go back even 10 years, it's rural broadband and
33:47
not getting districts and people in their homes
33:50
connected to high -speed internet so that students
33:54
could even do their homework at home. then you
33:57
hit COVID comes around, right? And then that
34:00
just accelerates that divide even greater. And
34:03
you've got schools that are trying to provide
34:06
wireless hotspots and be used in their homes
34:10
and they're checking them out to kids or, you
34:13
know, like, I remember stories when I was teaching
34:16
during COVID and families that would drive up
34:19
and they would park behind the school building
34:21
on the wifi. um of them and and that was just
34:26
crazy and now now you're talking about ai and
34:29
if you have those same districts that aren't
34:32
making steps towards you know implementing some
34:36
sort of guidance or policy towards using ai how
34:40
that's just going to leave them even further
34:42
behind Right? And I'm not sure what the solution
34:45
there is, but I mean, I think it's definitely
34:48
something that we should be concerned about is
34:50
that if it's going to be something that's going
34:52
to increase that AI divide, what do we do to
34:55
try to shrink that? Yeah, I get very concerned
34:58
about it. And like, you know, it's easy to be
35:00
hyperbolic, like AI's doomsday, but I just think
35:03
there's going to be so many real world implications
35:06
of this. And I just think we're not on steady
35:11
ground. Education itself is not on a great foundation
35:15
right now coming out of COVID. So it's interesting.
35:20
Yeah, even just from the career aspect, students
35:23
that are going into various careers, at least
35:28
being involved with what's going on with AI so
35:31
that you can relate to your students what can
35:34
be expected as they leave school, which is an
35:37
inevitability. So it's like... how you could
35:41
not have that as part of the forefront of your
35:45
mission is, you know, I think it's very important,
35:48
but one other question we had just about the
35:51
features and functionality of it, of EduAid with
35:55
the, and this kind of gets more into like diverse
35:58
student needs, but how does EduAid support differentiated
36:03
instruction to cater to students of varying needs?
36:07
Yeah, so I mean, again, like we just try to provide
36:11
teachers with the best tools. We do have one
36:13
quick one click differentiation, which allows
36:16
you to like scaffold the text up and down in
36:19
the chat menu. So that's nice. And translation,
36:24
same thing. You could translate things with AI
36:26
like instantly. You don't have to go over to
36:27
Google Translate. You don't have to do that.
36:29
And so like I feel like you have the opportunity
36:31
to really meet students where they're at there
36:34
and to pull them up to the level that they need
36:36
to get to. or to push students. I think something
36:38
too, like a bigger thing in education, like we
36:41
don't push students that are higher students
36:42
that hard anymore. And I think that there's an
36:44
opportunity to do that with AI. So that's how
36:48
we try to set it up is that at the end of the
36:51
day, nobody knows the students better than the
36:53
teacher because the students are sitting in front
36:56
of them for a minimum of 45 minutes a day, probably
36:59
an hour and something a day. And we just believe
37:03
that, you know, we if you give the teachers the
37:06
ability to scaffold text, to create content,
37:10
to translate, to do the things that they've been
37:12
asked to do for the last decade for students,
37:17
which has been impossible to do. I think that
37:20
that's how you're going to get there. That's
37:22
how you're going to meet the students and get
37:24
them what they need. Right. And, you know, when
37:29
you talk about students here, too, and, you know,
37:32
I'm assuming EdgeEA does everything they can
37:34
to protect student data privacy. um you know
37:37
is that a big issue for you guys or do you think
37:40
you've kind of dealt with that and now you can
37:42
focus on other responsible use of the platform
37:45
yeah i mean huge issue right like students under
37:49
18 or under yeah 18 i think it is or to 13 can't
37:53
even use chat gbt or anthropic if you go into
37:56
their um privacy use or if you go into their
37:59
terms of use so it's really interesting how Some
38:02
companies are going student facing on top of
38:05
those models. It's like a huge concern for me.
38:08
Like I don't really understand how that's happening.
38:10
But we what we set out to do was to only be teacher
38:13
facing. And so we don't collect or we don't encourage
38:17
any student information. And we actually were
38:20
finding that with the feedback bot when we were
38:22
really hitting it hard was like. teachers were
38:24
being a little lazy. They were putting names
38:25
in. And so we tried to totally get rid of that.
38:29
Like we don't want any piece of student information
38:31
at all. We don't think that the AI should have
38:34
it because ultimately it's either Anthropic or
38:37
OpenAI that these things are getting fed back
38:40
to. And so we could do bots. It's not that hard
38:45
to do to build like chat bots of Abraham Lincoln
38:49
and all those things on top of and have student
38:51
rooms. But I just really, really don't think
38:55
that that's ethically appropriate. I think it
38:59
is misleading to students too, right? You tell
39:03
them that they're talking to Abraham Lincoln.
39:06
I think that that is really gives them a skewed
39:09
perspective on reality that I just don't know
39:12
that that's ethical. So we didn't do student
39:15
stuff that way. The other reason why is like
39:18
these models are probable probabilistic models.
39:21
So like At some level, they do make mistakes.
39:24
They hallucinate, they lie, they come up with
39:26
things. And whose responsibility is that if you
39:30
put a student down in front of an AI chatbot
39:33
and it lies to them? Is it my responsibility
39:38
as a teacher? Is it the AI models? So like now
39:42
I'm a teacher, I would A, I would never put my
39:45
student, a middle school student that I have
39:46
12, 13, 11. whatever in there. I wouldn't do
39:50
it because if it lies, I feel like I'm on the
39:52
hook, right? God forbid that it says something
39:55
outrageous, talking to a character. It's just
39:59
hard because you ask these things to pretend
40:01
that they're these characters out of context
40:03
of the time and the date and the societal norms
40:07
of today. I think you're opening yourself up
40:09
for some serious issues down the road. And just
40:12
probabilistically, because the models are probable,
40:16
probabilistic models, it's going to happen. Like
40:18
it's going to happen. Like these things are going
40:20
to say something to a student. They're going
40:22
to screenshot it and it's going to be, I mean,
40:24
we don't want that. I don't want that headache
40:26
as a tech owner. I don't want that headache as
40:28
a, as a teacher. And so we don't want any student
40:32
data. We don't even want the teacher's names.
40:33
We literally just need your email and we'll give
40:35
you all the access to this stuff. Like we're
40:38
not, we're not a tech company. We're just teachers
40:40
that made a product. So we've really tried not
40:42
to have any data at all. Uh, and that's sort
40:46
of our philosophy. And on that with the teachers,
40:50
like as we kind of look ahead to, you know, the
40:53
next, I don't know, three months, six months,
40:56
whatever, whatever you have in mind. Is there,
40:59
is there things that you guys have in the works
41:02
for upcoming features that teachers can be on
41:05
a lookout for that, you know, to like, if you,
41:10
so what's really nice about EduAid and this is
41:12
sort of something that we're a campaign that
41:13
we're going to do is that we were the first tool
41:15
to drop and like it was like chat GPT and then
41:19
we were right after and we came in March and
41:22
then I think manager school came in and some
41:24
of these other ones ended up coming in and so
41:27
what we've really been able to do is we've been
41:30
able to grow the way that we wanted to but we
41:33
also have a subset of users who haven't really
41:35
seen that growth they've kind of transitioned
41:37
to these other things and so what I would encourage
41:40
them to do is to come back and to check out like
41:43
the new setup, how we have, we just sort of we
41:47
transitioned from like a vertical setup to a
41:50
left to right. And then we just dropped the graphic
41:53
organizers, which is super powerful. It's right,
41:57
it's everything that you would ever go to teachers
41:59
pay teachers for. But now you can just type in
42:01
like World War Two or photosynthesis or whatever,
42:04
and create all kinds of finished content that
42:06
is really print friendly. And that's what we
42:10
wanted because we like For me as a teacher anyways,
42:14
like if the less time I can get my kids on the
42:16
device the better like I want them working with
42:18
things I want them engaged straight in front
42:21
of me like that's just how I've been working
42:23
since COVID but everything we've done in that
42:26
graphic organizers and then the structured games
42:28
we just dropped out that last week to Like this
42:31
tic -tac -toe stuff is like so awesome It'll
42:33
give you like a full tic -tac -toe board with
42:35
all these questions that you can just give to
42:37
a kid as a warm -up where they have to play a
42:39
friend and like actually have review questions
42:41
or like Battleship and it's structured and everything's
42:44
ready to go print print friendly. So super excited
42:47
about that We're anticipating huge growth off
42:49
of that again some getting some people back because
42:52
nobody really does games like that in the space
42:55
and You know, we're just trying to find ways
42:57
to remain relevant as a company but stay grounded
43:03
to the ethics that we believe in too with this
43:05
AI stuff, so That's kind of where We just dropped
43:11
graphic organizers and games. So I wouldn't look
43:13
for anything new here coming into the fall or
43:16
anything like that. We're trying to push that
43:18
really hard and trying to get some users back.
43:20
But that's great. As you're gearing up to the
43:23
fall, if you're that classroom teacher, knowing
43:25
that these are tools and options available to
43:29
you, I think it's definitely worth some time,
43:31
even during your summer. carve out a little bit
43:34
here and there or you know as soon as you get
43:36
back to those workshops in the fall to definitely
43:39
give those some exploration. You know do you
43:44
do you have like any future glasses right looking
43:47
a little further down the road can you see in
43:50
your mind's eye where education is going and
43:54
maybe even the role of AI in the next, you know,
43:57
as these, this group of students passes through
44:00
and the next one kind of keeps coming around.
44:02
You know what I mean? I don't know. I mean, I
44:05
have like, I have like a doomsday bad vision
44:09
and I have like my utopian vision. So I don't
44:13
know. I could give you a little bit of all of
44:15
them, but I would say something that I hope that
44:17
doesn't happen where, or I think, I think the
44:20
highest probability. of something happening,
44:23
and this is like in the future, but with AI is
44:27
that this Alpha school in Texas is, and all the,
44:31
they're getting ridiculously good test scores.
44:33
And so like these kids, they'll be on an AI model
44:36
for two hours a day, and then they do life skills
44:37
the rest of the day. And their test scores are
44:41
through the roof. So I think they're totally
44:44
blowing the, I don't want to say lie, but. the
44:50
lie that education is all about the amount of
44:53
time spent in a classroom and stuff like that.
44:54
So they're blowing the lid off of that, which
44:56
we all know to be true, right? Like probably
44:59
if you let a kid run around for 10 minutes before
45:01
learning is probably going to help them more.
45:03
You know, I mean, just like simple stuff like
45:05
that. So I'm really worried that we're going
45:09
to move to like this two hour model because it's
45:12
a super cheap teachers are going to be disregarded.
45:16
I think that as a society, we already don't value
45:19
teachers enough. I don't think it would take
45:20
that big of a push to get us over the edge of
45:23
being disregarded. And I think that if the results
45:27
of these AI models, tutoring students continues
45:30
to be in the top two, three percent. I think
45:32
if you're a parent and you have to ask yourself,
45:35
should I send my kid to this public school where
45:37
you hear about X, Y and Z happening or I can
45:39
send them to this place at a relatively reasonable
45:43
price, even though it is AI? I don't know how
45:47
you make that decision. I just don't, I don't
45:49
know. So that's my doomsday scenario is that
45:53
teachers become less valuable because of AI and
45:56
AI is the authority of teaching. I think that
45:59
that's a bad route to go. And that's part of
46:01
like why I'm like anti -chat bots. Like I think
46:03
that's a bad route is to assign the authority
46:06
of learning to technology. I think we've spent
46:10
the entire time of education. We're trying to
46:13
cite our sources and like, don't just trust Google.
46:16
Like how many times have you said that to a kid?
46:18
You know what I mean? So I get really worried
46:20
that that is where education is going to trend
46:23
in the long run is assigning the authority to,
46:26
uh, to the technology, which is scary. And I
46:30
would say positive things that tools like edu
46:34
-aid, curi -pod, um, you know, magic school,
46:38
school AIs, you know, they're all doing great
46:40
things. Like I don't want to be a hater. And
46:42
I think that you could see teachers really embracing
46:46
them and enjoying teaching more and therefore
46:50
like getting what we need out of our students.
46:52
And I think we could see a push too. So could
46:56
be great, could be really bad. I think that if
47:00
we let, I think that if we let investment money
47:04
and we let, and we give up powers of teachers
47:08
to dictate what the direction that we go, I think
47:12
that that's a dangerous path. Right. So hopefully
47:15
it lands somewhere where you've got a highly
47:18
qualified teacher with kids who are ready to
47:21
learn and you've got these tools that can do
47:24
nothing but either to accommodate or to help
47:26
accelerate their learning, right? Totally. And
47:29
here's, you know, this is going to sound horrible.
47:33
I don't know. But we're already hiring people
47:36
who are not qualified teachers to fill the room
47:39
in classrooms. And that's the reality of this.
47:42
We can't even find enough qualified teachers.
47:44
And so I think that that's where AI can also
47:46
bridge that gap is they can help meet those people,
47:49
bring the professionalism and the pedagogy and
47:51
the learning sciences to those teachers that
47:53
are actually doing the work. But we just need
47:55
good people in front of teachers at this point
47:56
that are help that are. Going to help kids grow
48:00
as humans and and help them grow as academics
48:03
too. It's like I think education word like my
48:06
school I spent this whole year planning for a
48:08
class that we couldn't even hire somebody for
48:11
like that's where we're at like Mm -hmm, right?
48:14
I think like 60 % of all buildings have staffing
48:17
needs like that's insanity like So it's definitely
48:21
the same around here, too. It's everywhere. It's
48:24
nationally. Yeah, and I and you know, we We don't
48:26
value teachers as a society. Like, you know,
48:29
I've seen a big shift just in my own world. It's
48:32
like you have an issue with the kid or something
48:34
happens. Like, does the even does the admin or
48:38
does the teacher do they or the parents, do they
48:40
even trust the teacher enough that they can help
48:43
that kid? Or is it become an issue? And it's
48:45
like teachers don't want that issue. And like,
48:48
you know, admin doesn't want issues. So we have
48:51
a hard time even helping. We're at a point where
48:53
It can even be difficult to help kids because
48:55
the perception of teachers is so poor. And that's
48:59
where I really worry about this Alpha school
49:01
stuff. Like I think that it's cool. I think what
49:04
they're doing is cool. I think all that this
49:07
like two hour learning. I think it's cool, but
49:10
I don't think that education has a huge leg to
49:13
stand on anymore. Like we have been trending
49:16
in a four direction my almost my entire life.
49:21
Yeah, and it's interesting to just to hear you
49:23
talk about like the Exodus piece of it as well
49:25
You know of student of students like it if parents
49:28
are just saying like well You know you have these
49:30
chat bot options that are tutors essentially
49:32
that they could work with these Obviously one
49:37
huge component missing there would be the social
49:39
element right like if you go that route obviously
49:41
there's There is some downsides because that's
49:45
what let me ask you this. I mean if you surveyed
49:47
a kid and this is If you surveyed a kid and you
49:50
asked them, where do they feel the most themselves,
49:53
they're going to tell you online. That's where
49:57
they feel the most themselves. So I don't know
50:00
how far fetched it is to say, here, do this in
50:02
your room and then go play some games with your
50:04
friends online. And then that you're going to
50:06
lose any more social. It's crazy. Like my school
50:10
this year, we're going to lock down their phones
50:11
trying to help their social skills. And I just
50:15
think it's like, is that the right path? I don't
50:17
know. I just don't. I don't think any of us really
50:20
know. Like, I don't think we really know what
50:23
these kids are going through and how they even
50:26
view themselves in this world in this time. Yeah.
50:30
Yeah. It's an interesting time for sure. Yeah,
50:33
it is. And it's tough to be an educator and it's
50:35
tough to help teachers and it's tough to, but
50:39
somebody's got to do it. Like we can't let this
50:41
old system crumble, you know? Right. Yeah. Yeah,
50:44
it is tough to be a teacher. It's also tough
50:47
to be a teacher and also a tech entrepreneur
50:50
at the same time, right? So how would you say
50:53
that you balance your responsibilities between
50:55
those two things? And you got a newborn you mentioned,
50:58
so it's kind of a whirlwind for you right now,
51:00
I'm sure, right? Yeah, I think I do all of them
51:02
poorly. That's probably my wife's assessment
51:06
on that right now. I'm just trying to do the
51:10
best I can, trying to help as many people as
51:12
we can. If you hit us up on EduAid, we just try
51:15
to help. We have the system trying to basically
51:19
run itself. If you can't afford it, let us know.
51:22
We'll give it to you. We're just trying to make
51:25
a difference. And I try to bring that presidency
51:28
to everything I do. If I'm doing it, I'm going
51:30
to do the best I can. And we're going to leave
51:33
it at that. Right. Along those lines, you know
51:37
what? being in these couple of different worlds,
51:40
what do you think has been the most surprising
51:43
lesson or thing that you've learned, either about
51:46
yourself or about education in general? Yeah,
51:52
about myself is one, as I do all this stuff,
51:57
I realize I really had way more time when I was
52:01
younger than I thought I did. And it's like...
52:04
Holy smokes, you spent a lot of time doing XYZ.
52:07
Not that it was bad, but it's like when you really
52:09
embrace the grind, it's like you really have
52:11
a lot of time in the day. And if you stay up,
52:14
if you get up a little bit earlier, you stay
52:16
up a little bit later, you can get a lot accomplished.
52:20
As far as the education space, I would say that
52:25
something that surprised me is how many teachers
52:31
are out there. that are truly committed to being
52:35
their best selves. And I don't know that if EduA
52:38
is necessarily a reflection of that, but we have
52:41
almost a million teachers or like eight, a little
52:43
bit over 800 ,000 teachers that have found our
52:45
site. We've done no marketing. And so like they've
52:48
just sought that out to do better for themselves
52:50
in there. That's almost one in five teachers
52:52
in America, you know? And so that's a huge percentage
52:56
that I don't think I ever saw that coming. whenever
53:00
we started this project. And that's really, really
53:02
cool to me that other people love education as
53:05
much as I do, if not more, probably, and are
53:08
like passionate about it. And on the ed tech
53:13
like side, something that stood out to me is
53:15
that. Oh, this is going to sound horrible, but
53:20
I'm just going to say it like we are where we
53:23
are because not because we don't have the ability
53:27
to do better. but because the EdTechs community
53:31
is really not geared up to put the best quality
53:36
in front of teachers all the time. And we get
53:40
crowded out by people trying to make money off
53:43
of teachers and students and grift and grab.
53:48
And it really, like I've seen, like I see it.
53:51
I've seen it happen. I've had meetings that are
53:55
like a ridiculous amount of money requested just
53:58
to speak to a superintendent. It's absurd and
54:01
it's wrong. And it's no wonder that we're in
54:05
the position that we're in with education. If
54:08
just EdTech is like this, where, you know, it
54:11
could cost you 15 grand to meet with five superintendents.
54:15
Like, what are we doing here? Like, who can afford
54:18
that? Like, it's crazy. So, you know, I think
54:21
that's where this idea of tech bros and society
54:26
and teachers, we are really out of touch with
54:30
our students as far as technology. We've been
54:33
throwing Chromebooks in front of them. You name
54:35
it. You name it. And we've only gotten worse.
54:40
And students are only not learning. Kids are
54:44
only having a harder time dealing with themselves
54:46
and depression. You name it in the last 15 years
54:51
with technology or whatever, and it's only trended
54:54
poorly. And so I just really see, I don't want
54:58
to call it corruption, but I just see a world
55:00
where teachers and students are not actually
55:04
getting what's best put in front of them because
55:07
of outside influences that I would have never
55:10
even imagined exist as a teacher. Yeah, it's
55:14
it's interesting because that echoes a little
55:16
bit sentiment that Matt Miller shared with us
55:18
when we interviewed him I know Jeremy Jeremy
55:22
made me remember this too, but he talked a lot
55:25
about like we got to figure out what our goal
55:27
is Yeah, it's like and he actually commented
55:31
as well on Companies that are you know, they're
55:35
trying to make money as opposed to like Is it
55:40
actually a quality tool that will aid teachers
55:43
and students in the long term? Which is extremely
55:46
important. So really it reminded me instantly
55:48
of that because like I think you're on the same
55:51
same wavelength of like the main thing is the
55:55
students and their success, right? So yeah, well,
55:57
and I think that that's one thing that we like
56:00
we tried to address problems that we were facing,
56:03
right? And if you try to build something, you
56:05
try to help people and try to help other people's
56:07
problems. you really don't know what somebody
56:10
else is going through. And it's just like hard
56:14
to get the only reason why some things resonate
56:16
is because of like marketing strategies rather
56:19
than actual actual like quality and actual outcomes.
56:26
And that's concerning, right? Like, who's put
56:29
like, as a teacher, I'm trusting in the district
56:32
that I work in and the people who are vetting
56:34
these things to put them in front of me because
56:36
I think that they're making their best professional
56:38
decision and that's not true at all they're just
56:41
getting like nice t -shirts and stuff and then
56:43
they put that and that's really really concerning
56:46
like your poor students like your poor like you
56:50
know i mean you know, as someone who just came
56:55
back from ISTE too, I can picture many of those
56:59
companies that you're probably referring to without
57:01
naming them. They give up this swag and, you
57:06
know, like, hey, sign up for this and, you know,
57:10
we'll give you, you know, this t -shirt or this
57:12
hat or this, you know, we'll throw this nice
57:15
party and you can come and get free food, which
57:18
You know, hey, don't get me wrong. I'm not gonna
57:21
not take advantage of that because when do teachers
57:24
ever get like free food? You know exactly but
57:28
but exactly and that's what kills me is that
57:31
where it's Teachers are such a vulnerable population
57:36
of people because they're not paid enough That
57:40
if you offer them free things, they're gonna
57:42
take them. And so it's like it just is really
57:45
crazy like We did this giveaway one time, where
57:49
we did anybody who comments their Amazon Prime
57:52
thing, we're going to get it. It went insane.
57:54
We spent so much money. Instead of doing the
57:58
meeting with the superintendent, we just gave
57:59
it back to teachers. And it's like, why is nobody
58:02
else doing that kind of promoting? Because their
58:05
teachers, they want the district people to come
58:09
to their meeting. And it's just like, I love
58:13
those. I love a lot of the CEOs of these other
58:16
companies. I think they're great. I think they're
58:17
trying to help teachers. But I just think like
58:19
the whole space in general and the ethos of how
58:23
we get things in front of our students and our
58:25
teachers is just fundamentally wrong and fundamentally
58:30
broken. Like, let me ask you this. Have you guys
58:34
seen an evaluator of the outputs between School
58:40
AI, Brisk, Magic School, EduAid? Have you ever
58:43
seen something like that? No. No, because nobody's
58:48
doing that. That's what we should be doing is
58:52
we should be evaluating them objectively and
58:54
then having that promoted to the schools based
58:57
on that rather than the companies getting direct
59:00
access to superintendents because they have funding.
59:04
And I think that that would serve us better if
59:07
we had a governing body or somebody who's just
59:11
able to verify the claims that are out there
59:15
about things, because if not, it's just like,
59:19
when somebody learns something, it's hard to
59:21
unlearn it, right? Like the next cool thing's
59:24
gonna come out, it's gonna get shoved in front
59:25
of teachers' faces, and then like, what are we
59:29
gonna do? It's gonna get stuck. Like, I mean,
59:32
my school district has 100 tabs of things that
59:35
nobody even uses, like, it's absurd. Yeah. Yeah,
59:41
it's a... It's kind of interesting and it's you
59:44
know to watch because obviously the edtech space
59:46
is not new but the ai space is for sure everybody's
59:50
trying to like figure things out um while trying
59:54
like jeremy and i have done some sessions on
59:56
you know the foundational concepts of ai like
59:59
learn how to actually use the ai effectively
1:00:01
first and then that will that will lend itself
1:00:04
to any tool that you want to use but the tools
1:00:06
get shoved out there so quickly that it can it
1:00:08
can be overwhelming yeah did you guys see google
1:00:11
You see Google just put out those educational
1:00:14
courses this weekend at ISTE. That'll be a great
1:00:17
resource for you guys to help go through and
1:00:20
pick out things that you like for your teachers
1:00:22
and stuff, I think. So, you know, teaching them
1:00:24
that. But, you know, the original thesis of EduA2
1:00:28
is like we wanted teachers to save time and stuff,
1:00:30
but I really never thought that I'd sit in a
1:00:33
PD and learn how to appropriately prompt an AI
1:00:36
model. Like, who's going to show me that? Who's
1:00:39
going to come to this cornfield school on the
1:00:42
Eastern Shore of Maryland and show me how to
1:00:45
prompt this to get the highest quality content
1:00:48
that aligns to actual educational needs? And
1:00:50
I was just like, this is never going to happen.
1:00:52
Like we have to do this. We have to do this work.
1:00:54
And so that's sort of, you know, an original
1:00:56
thesis of where this came from. Yeah, right.
1:00:59
And that honestly is something that we tried
1:01:02
to do, but we know we're not getting everywhere.
1:01:05
And this is like. But through products like yours,
1:01:08
through maybe a podcast such as this, we can
1:01:10
get those messages out to people. Exactly. And
1:01:13
that's great. The work that you guys are doing
1:01:16
is so important because at the end day, a teacher
1:01:19
and a student shouldn't need tools that are built
1:01:23
on top of models to make them work more efficiently.
1:01:26
We should be able to interface with the model
1:01:28
and interface with it appropriately and naturally
1:01:31
that it becomes a seamless part of our lives
1:01:34
because that's where it will be. That's where
1:01:37
it's going. Like, you know, how many Uber drivers
1:01:40
now that if you go somewhere or just talking
1:01:42
to their chat GPT, like, it's unbelievable. It's
1:01:46
unbelievable. Like, and that's so much more natural
1:01:48
than getting on some frivolous tool, whether
1:01:51
it's whatever edu a with 100 different suite
1:01:54
of things. Like, I just think, like, we're just
1:01:58
trying to bridge that gap. We don't know, you
1:02:00
know, there should be a time where there's so
1:02:02
many teachers that are AI and, and AI savvy and
1:02:07
AI literate that they don't need tools to do
1:02:10
this, that they can do it themselves at a higher
1:02:12
quality. Right. Well, as we kind of wrap up here
1:02:17
and we appreciate all your thoughts on things
1:02:21
and stuff, work that Edu8 is doing, is there
1:02:24
anything coming up that you'd like to share?
1:02:26
We always like to put everything in our descriptions
1:02:29
of the videos just to make connections. So is
1:02:31
there anything coming up with? that you have
1:02:35
coming up that you'd like to plug or plug in,
1:02:39
you know, like your socials and everything too.
1:02:41
Is there anything there that you? Yeah, I would
1:02:44
say on a selfish side, on the business side,
1:02:46
like we're down to help any school and, you know,
1:02:50
we are not going to collect your data and we
1:02:52
will beat any price that any other tool has.
1:02:56
And that's a real benefit to where we are and
1:02:59
what we've been able to do and how we've been
1:03:00
able to stay competitive because We just want
1:03:03
to get this in front of teachers hands. And so
1:03:06
we're also funding with some help of some friends,
1:03:09
but the million teacher movement in Africa and
1:03:12
every single person that comes out of that graduating
1:03:15
class, those graduating classes, if we get their
1:03:19
email through, you know, our chain of people,
1:03:21
we're giving them free education for life. So,
1:03:24
you know, it's really awesome how much we're
1:03:26
able to do, how much good we're able to do. and
1:03:31
maintain a product that is alive and functioning.
1:03:36
So nothing really to look forward to as far as
1:03:39
events, just school years coming up. If you wanna
1:03:42
help your teachers save time and create higher
1:03:44
quality lessons, let us know. If you guys have
1:03:47
anybody in your personal eco and network or whatever
1:03:52
that you think that they could benefit from,
1:03:55
just send me their email, give it to them for
1:03:57
free. We're on a mission to help teachers everywhere.
1:04:01
So that's it. And you're on LinkedIn. I don't
1:04:07
know if you're on anything else. Yeah, there
1:04:10
are companies on all kinds of stuff. Oh, let
1:04:12
me tell you this. We're doing giveaways in our
1:04:16
Facebook community all summer. We're giving away
1:04:18
$100 to a teacher every Friday. So if they want
1:04:21
to join that group on Facebook, it's the Edu
1:04:25
-Aid Educators. And we literally just give away
1:04:29
a hundred bucks to a teacher who comments one
1:04:31
thing that they enjoy about their summer break
1:04:33
every Friday throughout the summer. So pretty
1:04:35
fun thing to do. We like doing stuff like that.
1:04:37
We like, you know, really taking care of our
1:04:39
teachers and trying to give back that way. Cool.
1:04:43
And we'll make sure we have that information
1:04:45
in the description too, so that teachers can
1:04:47
access that. Cool. Thanks guys. This was awesome.