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Any Class, Any Teacher: Matt Miller on AI Literacy · Integrate This! Ed Tech Podcast

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Welcome to Integrate This, your go -to EdTech
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podcast where curiosity meets classroom innovation.
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Join your hosts, David Berner and Jeremy Mikla,
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as we explore the rapidly evolving world of educational
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technology. From game -changing tools to insightful
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conversations with today's top EdTech voices,
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we're here to help educators stay informed, inspired,
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and ready to innovate. So tune in, level up,
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and let's integrate this. Welcome to the Integrate
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This EdTech podcast. I'm Jeremy Mickle. I'm joined
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by cohost David Berner, as always. And we're
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excited today to welcome back as our first ever
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repeat guest on the podcast. And Matt Miller,
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we're excited to have you here. Believe it or
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not, when... David and I have kind of been doing
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the podcast thing for a couple of years, but
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we kind of did more like tutorial style things
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and less conversations with people. And so when
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we kind of started to add those into, you know,
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the collaborations that we have, you got to be
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our first guest. And that was almost exactly
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a year ago. And so we're bringing you back because
1:21
you know, I've heard a few things may have happened
1:24
over the course of the past year. And so You
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know, you want to give us a little bit quick
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of, you know, like an update of what you've been
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up to in the last year? Yeah, absolutely. So
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for anybody who didn't here the first episode.
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I'm Matt Miller, the author of Ditch That textbook
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and several other books. It's been an interesting
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year. I think we were talking about artificial
1:52
intelligence in the last episode. At that point,
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my book AI for Educators had been out for a little
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while. Since then, I've published another book
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called AI Literacy in Any Class. There's all
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of this talk about AI literacy and how are we
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going to teach it and how is it going to work
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and everything. My book is very focused on how
2:15
does that actually fit into a regular classroom
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that has content to cover and curriculum to deal
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with and all of that stuff. Since then, I've
2:25
also picked up a teaching job. class of high
2:31
school Spanish a day in person. If you're watching
2:34
the video, then you see me sitting at my teacher
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desk right now. So I've been doing that. That's
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been really nice to, you know, sort of stay connected
2:42
and grounded and to get to see students every
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single day and, you know, deal with the, you
2:48
know, sort of like the creative struggle of trying
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to engage them every day and everything. But,
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you know, still sending out my email newsletters
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and publishing things to the blog and social
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media and doing presentations at schools and
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conferences and all of that stuff. And, you know,
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so if I'm ever on the road doing that stuff,
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I just send my kids down to the library. They
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do sub plans like they would with anybody else
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who misses school, but it's been, yeah, it's
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been a busy year since we talked last. Yeah,
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so all of these different things you got going
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on, classroom teacher, consultant, speaker, blogger,
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newsletter, extraordinaire writer, and all of
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these different things. So really like. How many
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AI agents do you really have working for you?
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Probably not enough. I probably should try to
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get more of them to do all of that stuff. I do
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a lot of brainstorming with AI. I actually do
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it a lot of times when I'm out on a run. So I'm
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a runner and I run on my county roads in very
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rural West Central Indiana. And so I've got my
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headphones in and I'll just pull up chat GPT
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and I'll voice type to it. And then once it generates
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the response, I'll hit the little speaker button
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so that it'll speak it out to me. And it's almost
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like having a, you know, like a personalized
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podcast or I'm not trying to like run you guys
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out of business with, with AI or anything, but,
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uh, you know, it's a, it's a nice way to brainstorm
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all that stuff. And then whenever I get back,
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I've got the transcript of everything ready to
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go. So that's probably the biggest place, but
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yeah, I definitely, I still do an awful lot of
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for as much as I talk about AI, I still do an
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awful lot of, uh, of human work. Yes, I think
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we'll get into some of the things from the book
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but honestly as I finished reading the book last
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week and You know looking through All of the
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different content in the chapters that you set
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up. It has a great logical flow to it I think
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that is easily absorbable for teachers But I
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think if we were to have you back on and you
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didn't have the book I think we would be asking
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you about these same things anyway, right? So
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might as well write a book about it, right? Yeah,
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might as well write a book about it. That's right.
4:56
So and one of the things too, it's interesting
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to note that you've been working with students
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and I'm just wondering what have you seen this
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year as you've been knowing what you know about
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AI and you have the books and everything and
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what has that been like translating into the
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classroom as far as what students are doing?
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There's so much that you could do with AI and
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that you could do with technology. I think for
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me, one of the biggest things instructionally
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that I'm thinking about on a regular basis is
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when do I use it and when do I not use it? Trying
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to get that balance is the big thing. In the
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background, we've got this huge debate and dialogue
5:45
going on in lots of spaces about screen time
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and about device use and all of that stuff. And
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I understand where they're coming from on lots
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of that. But I think it all definitely comes
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down to the teacher and trying to figure out
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what's the best way to teach this particular
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lesson, to teach this particular topic so that
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students get this next step in the process? Is
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it, you know, having them write something on
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paper? Cool, let's do that. Is it, you know,
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are we going to all brainstorm together in a
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digital space? Are we going to do some sort of
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interactive digital activity? Am I going to get
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out the little mini whiteboards and have you
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just like do a whole bunch of little practice
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things? Are we going to do some turn and talk?
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So we're going to, you know, it's like what there's
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all of these possibilities. all of these options,
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and they all have pros and cons to them. And
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I think that's the thing that gets sort of lost
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in that big debate. And really, it just comes
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down to the experienced educator that has practice
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in some of these things. Or even if they're not
6:48
experienced, just trying things and figuring
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out what is good and what isn't. What do I like
6:53
better than other things? And you're just making
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those value judgments on almost like a minute
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-to -minute basis. And that's one of the big
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things that I'm dealing with right now. Work
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with ditch that textbook. I see lots of apps
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and lots of tools and lots of use cases and everything
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and everybody wants to you know talk about their
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you know, their new their new app or their new
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way of using AI and everything and The teacher
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side of me is looking at that and going, will
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that help my students learn Spanish better than
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what I'm already doing? And that's a much higher
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bar for me. And I hope that, you know, just educators
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in general are doing that for themselves is that
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they see lots of possibilities, but they set
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the very high bar of will this do better than
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what I'm already doing? So anyway, sort of a
7:43
long winded response to your question, but that's
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that's really one of the big things I think that
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I'm I'm really trying to do. do as a teacher
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and it has the school that you're currently working
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with. Have they moved into like a higher phase
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of using AI as district, which is probably difficult
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to answer because. As you said, it's kind of
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up to the teacher, right? So it's probably most
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schools. You have some that are implementing
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it here and others that are just like no, thank
8:13
you. You know, stay away from it. So but have
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you seen any interesting use cases as you like
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talk with other teachers or anything like that?
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Has it given you any new insights at all? Yeah,
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at my school, it's exactly the way that you described
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it, David. It's, you know, there's there's a
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spectrum, you know, just like at any other school,
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I do lots of, you know, professional development
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schools and school districts and stuff. And I
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see it everywhere that I go. You've got some
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of the high flyers that are doing, you know,
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innovative, cool stuff and are trying lots of
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new things. And you've got some folks that are
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sticking to their very traditional methods, and
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then they've got some stuff all in between. And,
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yeah, so our school is a lot like that. I've
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actually led some professional development here
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on some different AI tools that I thought are
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helpful. And so I know that at our school, we've
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got some teachers that are definitely using AI
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to help them lesson plan and brainstorm ideas
9:08
and create resources. And so that's, you know,
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sort of like that, you know, some of those introductory
9:13
steps into AI. But, you know, within my class,
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we're doing some we'll do some AI chatbots sometimes
9:21
where I'll have students read things and then
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the chatbot will ask them comprehension questions
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and stuff. I like to do a lot of that stuff whenever
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I'm not in class. It's a much better way, I think,
9:33
to do subplans because it gets students that
9:35
immediate feedback. Anyway, we've got a variety
9:39
of that and it matches up, I think, with what
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I'm seeing across the board and really to do
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the second part of your question. Some of the
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innovative things that I've seen out there, you've
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got teachers that are doing really neat things
9:57
with image generation, with a lot of the immediate
10:04
feedback stuff by integrating tools like snorkel
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and. There's some of them that are getting more
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into the student chat bots and having them do
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some higher order things and doing some more
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impressive prompts and all of that. Maybe you've
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got thoughts on this too. I still feel like by
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and large, we're all still trying to figure out.
10:33
what this technology does and how it relates
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to teaching. And it seems like the teacher prep
10:42
side of it is the easiest, most no brainer implementation
10:46
of it. But then with students, I think so many
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teachers have seen students that like will outsource
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the thinking. I was funny. today in class I only
10:57
had about half of my students and so I was actually
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sitting right here at my desk and all my students
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are over here at their at their desks and so
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I've got like I've got a class of 33 and I only
11:08
had about 13 of them in class today and so I
11:10
heard you know you hear things from the teacher
11:12
desk you hear things and they don't realize that
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you hear it and I heard some of them talking
11:16
about how there's this like sort of meaningless
11:19
pointless assignment and they're like yeah I'm
11:23
pretty much going to use AI to do that. And teachers
11:26
have seen a lot of that and that's one of the
11:28
biggest hurdles. And I think maybe that's why
11:30
they're a little nervous to dabble and jump into
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all of that is because it's going to encourage
11:35
kids to do more of that. But I think on the opposite,
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what it also does is it starts to set a culture
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of. This is how you use it responsibly. This
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is how it can actually be used to help you learn
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instead of bypass learning. I think we need more
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of that, but I think a lot of teachers are hesitant
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to do it because they've seen the shortcutting
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of the learning, the cognitive offloading, where
11:58
students use the AI to do the thinking for them
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so that they don't have to think. Again, long
12:06
-winded answer, sorry, but that's some of the
12:08
stuff that I'm seeing when it comes to all of
12:10
that. Yeah, no, that's helpful to hear and I
12:12
think you the the point that you brought up that
12:15
I really appreciate is that we everybody is still
12:19
trying to figure it out and it I think I don't
12:23
know what you think about this, but There's obviously
12:26
a tension there right like there's like because
12:29
you have on the one side You have where? Everybody
12:33
is saying teachers you need to make sure that
12:36
you're opening these doors for students so that
12:39
they they don't have the consequences of being
12:42
prepared for like these new jobs and new reality
12:45
of AI and all that type of thing, but then they
12:48
have their current reality of needing to assess
12:51
students and having, you know, making it so that
12:54
they can assess them effectively. Do you, what
12:57
do you think about that tension or how that relates
13:01
to where we're at? I mean, and you did give a
13:05
little bit of an example there of the students
13:07
that were talking about it, but Do you see on
13:10
the opposite side with that tension from outside
13:15
or like the things that they're hearing as far
13:17
as the teachers are concerned? Do you think that's
13:19
the biggest barrier or are there other things
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that? Yeah, related to that. Tension, one of
13:26
the things that you just said, David, was you've
13:29
got some of the folks that are saying, you know,
13:31
we need to be using this technology. We need
13:33
to prepare them for the future. We don't want
13:34
to fall behind. AI is not going anywhere. I hear
13:38
a lot of that from a lot of folks, but sometimes
13:42
I've found that that's a hard sell for teachers
13:46
because, you know, they've got curriculum to
13:49
teach and content to cover and everything, and
13:51
they start to think, well, it's not my job. to
13:55
integrate technology, it's my job to teach. It's
13:57
my job to teach kids stuff and everything. And
13:59
I actually think that sometimes it gets a little
14:01
bit manipulative by people that say it's almost
14:04
like they're trying to in sort of a back door
14:07
indirect way, they're trying to force people
14:11
to use more of a certain technology, whether
14:14
it's helpful to teaching and learning or not.
14:18
This isn't any of us, I don't think, you know,
14:20
but like, I hear it in certain places where it's
14:23
almost like, You know, they really, really want
14:25
you to use more of this technology. And they
14:27
it's almost sort of manipulative to say, oh,
14:29
well, the kids are going to fall behind. Oh,
14:32
we've got to prepare them for the future. Oh,
14:34
yes, to some extent. But also this, you know,
14:38
with AI specifically, it's going to change a
14:41
ton just in the coming years, especially when
14:46
a lot of our, you know, like middle school and
14:48
elementary school kids, whenever they graduate
14:50
high school and graduate college, I mean, we're
14:52
going to be 10 years into the future. And we've
14:55
seen how much it's changed just since chat GPT
14:58
came out at the end of 2022. We've got like three
15:01
and a half years under our belt and it's already
15:03
adapted and changed so drastically. If we're
15:07
preparing them for today's AI technology, we
15:11
may not be preparing them for the reality that
15:13
they're going to face. And so to me, I'm almost
15:17
I think we've got to have some of those basic
15:20
AI literacies. We've got to have some of that
15:21
basic understanding, how to use it, how not to
15:25
use it. That's almost like more responsible use
15:28
stuff than it is practical tutorials on how to
15:32
use today's technology. And I even think maybe
15:36
we're even best suited trying to prepare students
15:40
for with some of those problem solving and critical
15:43
thinking skills, some of those analysis skills,
15:46
grit and perseverance and being able to stick
15:48
to it and adaptability and everything. Because
15:51
if this technology continues to change as, you
15:55
know, as as we go forward. If we prepare them
15:58
for today's technology, then we're preparing
16:00
them for one of the most rudimentary versions
16:03
of AI that they're going to see in their entire
16:05
lives. And so whenever they actually get out
16:08
into the real world, what's going to prepare
16:10
them? Well, we can't prepare them for future
16:12
technology that we can't even envision yet. But
16:15
what we can prepare them for is to be able to
16:17
solve problems and think critically and to adapt.
16:21
If we're talking to them about those kinds of
16:23
things now, then when they get out there and
16:27
you know, things have changed, they've got a
16:29
set of skills that's actually going to prepare
16:31
them for that. So I would honestly want to lean
16:35
a little bit more on that. And actually, you
16:37
know, throughout my book, AI literacy in any
16:39
class that a lot of it is really more towards
16:44
thinking skills, towards critiquing, towards
16:46
analysis, you know, and it's that kind of stuff
16:49
that I think is going to serve them better in
16:50
the future than let's learn how to talk to today's
16:54
chat bots. There's a little bit of that. I'm
16:56
sort of like, you know, I'm sort of minimizing
17:00
that a little bit. It's got some importance,
17:03
but I think in general, if we really truly want
17:06
to prepare students for the future, I think that
17:09
some of those thinking skills, problem solving,
17:12
analysis, critique, that kind of stuff, I think
17:14
that's going to serve them more. I don't know
17:15
if that totally answered your question, but that's
17:17
the direction that I saw going when you asked
17:20
it. And those are like essential skills in just
17:24
being human. You know that regardless of AI or
17:28
regardless of whatever teaching method a teacher
17:31
chose to assign to a different lesson based upon
17:35
what they were trying to accomplish. I think
17:38
back to this. dating myself here, but a long,
17:42
long time ago, when I was in my social studies
17:45
teaching methods class, kind of that one that
17:47
you take right before you student teach, right?
17:49
I remember being in that class and the instructor
17:54
saying, you know, you're going to have these
17:57
times in class that are going to be teachable
18:00
moments, that something is going to pop up, something's
18:05
going to happen, and you have to be willing to
18:09
pivot, even just for a couple of moments, minutes,
18:13
maybe five minutes, just to take advantage of
18:16
that moment that you just couldn't artificially
18:19
create. You got to take advantage of it in the
18:21
here and now. And so I was starting to put together
18:27
the topics for what we're talking about here
18:28
today. And this popped into my mind and it relates
18:31
back to your book. And I think you could see
18:33
maybe the direction that I'm going with this.
18:36
But by the way, did you know that AI sometimes
18:40
suggests really bad questions for interviews?
18:47
Yep. That sounds like a by the way lesson. It
18:50
does, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like what was what you
18:53
were talking about, you know, that you have those
18:55
those sort of teachable moments. And, you know,
18:58
that's that's something honestly, for me, that
19:01
was sort of my very first aha moment into AI
19:05
literacy, because I'd heard people talking about
19:08
AI literacy and how we need to prepare students
19:10
for the realities of AI and everything. But I
19:12
hadn't actually seen it in my own class until
19:15
I was teaching Spanish one because it was like,
19:19
two years ago. I was teaching Spanish one and
19:23
I was using an AI image generator. I can't remember
19:28
which one it was I was using at the time. That
19:31
was probably back in the days when I had a mid
19:34
journey subscription because you know Google's
19:37
Google Gemini's AI image generator and chat GPTs
19:41
were not very good at the time. And so I had
19:44
generated a bunch of these images that had lots
19:46
of our vocabulary words in my Spanish class to
19:49
be able for students to be able to describe them.
19:53
Because I always used to go out on Google images
19:55
and just go fishing for images, just hoping that
19:58
I would find something that was usable. And now
20:01
I can custom create images, which is amazing.
20:04
And that's not even getting into the whole copyright
20:06
of the images that you were maybe using. That's
20:08
true. Yes. Yes, that's right. Yeah. Teachers
20:11
have always had sort of a troubled relationship
20:14
with copyright over time, I think. But I started
20:18
putting those images up there on the screen.
20:20
And I remember one of them in particular came
20:22
up. It was a picture of a pig playing basketball
20:25
with the sheep. It's in my book. It's in the
20:27
introduction, you know, it's that exact same
20:29
picture. And I put it up there and the kids kind
20:31
of like chuckled about it. And I saw that moment.
20:33
It's just like what you're saying, Jeremy, it's
20:34
one of those teachable moments. And I stopped.
20:36
And I was like, let's have a little bit of fun
20:39
with this. And I said, Okay, you'll know this
20:41
was made by AI, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's obvious.
20:43
I know. And I said, help me find the AI weirdness
20:47
in this picture. And so they started looking
20:50
and there's a ton of stuff, you know, the words
20:51
on the animal's jerseys were weird and they weren't
20:55
normal numbers and the scoreboard was weird and
20:59
the lines on the floor were weird. And they just
21:01
pointed all of this stuff out. And so I said,
21:04
so you could tell that this was made by AI, right?
21:07
And that was one of the very first. And then
21:10
then I was like, you know, By the way, you do
21:13
know that if you make images with AI, a lot of
21:16
times you can find these little artifacts is
21:19
what they're called and it helps you to figure
21:21
out what's real and what's not. And that was
21:23
my very first by the way lesson. That was my
21:25
aha moment where I started to see AI literacy
21:29
connecting to my Spanish class. It was that I
21:31
had exposed students to something that was made
21:32
by AI and we did our work with it. we did our
21:37
Spanish work with it, but we also paused for
21:40
just a second. Just like you said, Jeremy, it's
21:41
one of those little teachable moments where you
21:43
just pause and you take that moment, you know,
21:45
take the bull by the horns for just a few moments.
21:48
And we talked about AI. And that was my my first
21:53
by the way lesson, which is something that I
21:55
talked about in the book, where you can have
21:57
one of those little quick, you know, like 10,
22:00
20, 30 seconds. observations that you make alongside
22:06
your students and that starts to teach them some
22:09
AI literacy. That's where it started to dawn
22:12
on me that maybe AI literacy isn't best taught
22:17
as a standalone class. Maybe it's best taught
22:20
by equipping teachers with some AI literacy fundamentals
22:24
and then just saying, hey, whenever you notice
22:26
this, then bring it up in class. sprinkling a
22:32
little bit of AI fairy dust, literacy components
22:36
to it. But, you know, what I think is the other
22:39
thing too here, and I know you touched on this
22:41
earlier, is, you know, teachers are constantly
22:43
pressured to cover the content to meet the standards.
22:49
And if you were to, like you said, take a whole
22:51
bunch of time out just to devote it a whole class
22:53
period or a whole week to nothing but AI literacy
22:56
training, you know, that's preventing the teacher
22:59
from doing the things that they feel like they
23:02
need to get done. So it makes it, you know, really
23:06
approachable, I guess, for a teacher to be able
23:08
to do that without derailing the rest of their
23:10
class. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's really
23:14
what I was trying to accomplish in the book because,
23:17
you know, here's sort of like the focus that
23:19
I came to when it came to AI literacy, because
23:22
you hear, you know, there's, you know, stuff
23:24
out of the government and you've got the tech
23:26
CEOs and you got all the people in the media
23:29
and, you know, all of our talking EdTech heads
23:31
on LinkedIn and all of our social media. Everybody's
23:34
got an opinion about AI literacy these days.
23:37
And I came to it and I started thinking, You
23:39
know, I've worked with all of these teachers
23:41
in teacher workshops and at conferences and stuff
23:44
over all these years, and I've gotten a pretty
23:46
good feel for what they really want. And I thought
23:49
they still need to teach. So how can we come
23:52
at this AI literacy idea? By empowering them
23:57
to teach and actually making it easier for them
23:59
to teach, but also helping their students to
24:02
learn some little AI literacy fundamentals along
24:05
the way. And that's where. I got into the idea
24:09
of let's have AI create some sort of... make
24:15
a hot take about something that we're learning
24:17
or ask it some questions about what we're learning
24:20
and then let's analyze how it handled it and
24:23
see what makes sense. One of the activities that
24:27
I talk about in the book that I do in almost
24:30
all of my AI trainings whenever I do workshops
24:32
with teachers has to do with the Be the Bot activity,
24:36
which is one of my very favorites and it's something
24:39
that really applies to just about any, you can
24:41
use it in just about any class. It's that idea
24:44
of telling your students, hey, I'm gonna ask
24:48
AI this question related to whatever it is that
24:52
we're learning. But first, I want you to try
24:54
to anticipate what you think it's gonna say.
24:57
And so that puts them in the perspective of figuring
24:59
out what AI is gonna say. And if you've learned
25:02
a little bit about how it responds, you're a
25:04
little bit better to, it's a little bit easier
25:07
to do that. Of course, if they don't know how
25:09
AI is gonna respond, they could just make their
25:11
own. make their own list or make their own responses
25:15
to it. Then you run the AI prompt, and then you
25:17
can do compare, contrast. And there's a lot of
25:19
things that students can learn by looking at
25:21
an AI response and analyzing it. And one of the
25:25
things that teachers sometimes push back on a
25:27
little bit is they say, yeah, but AI makes mistakes.
25:30
It makes inaccuracies. It might put something
25:32
up there that's wrong. Well, first of all, I'm
25:35
not suggesting that we should have students first
25:39
exposure to a new topic be AI generated. They
25:42
should still have, you know, vetted resources.
25:45
And so they're reading about it and learning
25:47
about it someplace where it makes sense. But
25:49
I would rather them see. AI mistakes in a controlled
25:54
setting like that. I want them to understand
25:57
and to know that it will be inaccurate sometimes
26:00
and it'll do things a little differently than
26:02
you might hope. So putting it up there like that
26:05
and then just having them, you know, go critique
26:08
it and... analyze it and say, you know, what
26:11
do you like about this? What's right about this?
26:13
Is there anything that's unfair about this? Is
26:15
there anything that's sort of biased or slanted
26:17
about this and everything? And whenever they
26:19
start to see that, A, it gives them concrete
26:22
examples that this actually does happen in AI
26:25
so that they're not just saying, oh, yeah, it's
26:27
going to be right all the time. Oh, AI is neutral.
26:30
Oh, AI could do a better job than me. Like, no,
26:32
no, that's that's not the case. So they get to
26:36
see all that stuff. But then secondly, it's developing
26:39
this muscle that they start to develop over time
26:42
where if AI is sort of like integrated into anything,
26:48
we need to analyze it. We need to critique it.
26:51
There, I'm at a school, there's bells, surprise,
26:54
surprise. But we need to critique it. And if
26:58
that's one of the habits that they build around
27:01
AI is that whenever I see it, I critique it.
27:05
There's a saying that I bring up in the book
27:07
over and over and over again, the ABC rule, always
27:09
be critiquing. In sales, they say the ABC rule
27:13
is always be closing. You always want to be closing
27:15
on the sale. With me, I'm going always be critiquing.
27:18
And whenever AI is brought up, you always critique.
27:21
And if students get that habit, if they start
27:23
to develop that habit over time, because we've
27:26
done a little bit of this stuff all throughout
27:29
their entire educational career, then that's
27:34
going to be a set of skills that's going to really
27:36
serve them going forward, I think. So Matt one
27:45
of the things you brought up was that always
27:46
be critiquing that so using that ABC acronym
27:51
the the thing about the with your example in
27:55
the book you had like the The two jerseys the
28:00
book had the pigs and the pig in the cheap in
28:02
the jerseys. Yes And there was many problems
28:06
there, right? Yes so that's a really good insight
28:10
into helping students understand how, you know,
28:14
how these systems cannot be trusted. And I think
28:18
that as far as like usage for these tools, with
28:23
that getting better, do you see anything where
28:26
that's going to become more and more of a struggle
28:29
for teachers and students where it's like, because
28:32
as you said, you know, like improvements are
28:35
constant with these, we have these companies
28:36
that are continuously working on upgrading these
28:39
programs and everything. So What do you think
28:41
is maybe, and maybe there's no answer to this,
28:45
but what do you think would be like the next
28:47
step or things we'll have to be aware of as those
28:50
progressively get better? Yeah, I'm glad you're
28:52
thinking about this because really the inaccuracies
28:55
and the biases and everything, it's kind of the
28:57
low hanging fruit, right? It's like, that's the
28:59
easy thing to be able to spot a lot of times
29:02
is if it hallucinated or if it made a mistake.
29:05
But then, like you said, David, the AI models
29:08
are getting better and better. Nowadays, whenever
29:10
I generate images and I ask students, where's
29:14
the AI weirdness, it's not as easy to do. As
29:19
our technology evolves and improves, hopefully
29:22
our AI literacy is starting to improve also.
29:28
To answer your question, I think one of the AI
29:33
literacy questions that we can constantly be
29:35
asking is not necessarily. Well, I think we always
29:39
want to be able to critique the AI output. But
29:42
if the AI output looks pretty good, then it becomes
29:44
the bigger question of how much do we use this?
29:47
When do we use this? The balance question, you
29:49
know, I think that's definitely one that we can
29:52
always have. In fact, I feel like schools are
29:56
sort of like the perfect proving ground for getting
30:00
this right before you get out into college and
30:03
the workforce and everything. The hard part is
30:06
that teachers hate it because it's the place
30:10
where students can misuse it most easily. But
30:14
I think it's a great place for us to be able
30:15
to have those conversations if we're willing
30:17
to have them. So I think... student classwork
30:21
and academic integrity and cheating and everything,
30:24
is a great way to talk about AI balance. Now,
30:28
if you talk about AI balance, will you still
30:30
have students misusing AI? Yes, it's still gonna
30:35
happen. But if we can at least talk about, you
30:38
know, how much is too much in this particular
30:42
case? Can AI help us? If we use it too much,
30:46
do we actually learn anything? And so having
30:49
that classwork conversation, that sort of like
30:54
responsible use conversation, there are a lot
30:56
of kids where if you have that conversation with
31:00
them, they start to see it in a little bit different
31:03
light. Because there's so many of them where
31:05
they'll go from class to class to class and the
31:07
teachers won't ever talk about it. And the only
31:09
time that they ever really talk about it is if
31:11
they're accusing a kid of misusing it. But if
31:13
we've never talked about what misuse looks like
31:16
and how we should live our lives and do our academic
31:19
work in a place, in a world where AI really does
31:22
exist. If we haven't had any of those conversations,
31:25
then... this might be the first conversation
31:28
that you actually have with them. It's like getting
31:30
it out into the open and everything. So I kind
31:34
of took this on a little bit of a rabbit trail,
31:35
David, but I think that's one of the directions
31:38
that we go whenever that low hanging fruit doesn't
31:41
exist anymore. And honestly, if AI is hallucinating
31:45
less, that's probably a good thing because it
31:47
means that it's going to be more useful technology
31:50
to actually do things. And so then we get to
31:52
those bigger discussions of How much do we use
31:55
it? And what's the purpose of school? And we
31:58
want to have those conversations with students.
32:00
But the other thing is, I think we need to have
32:03
those conversations with teachers too. How does
32:05
our practice evolve? Now that AI is available
32:10
and it's actually happening, do we continue to
32:13
do things the way that we've always done them?
32:16
I'll give you an example. I'm taking a college
32:18
class right now. So I'm a student taking a college
32:22
class to maintain my dual credit certification
32:24
to teach Spanish three still, and I'm taking
32:27
this class and so many of the activities that
32:30
they're having us do. It's just like read this
32:33
chapter and answer these questions. I'm like.
32:36
Can't we do better than this in the year 2026?
32:42
Like, can't we do better than this? And so here's
32:45
what I found. It's been so fascinating being
32:47
a student, being on the other end of this, is
32:51
that I want to learn. I'm taking this class.
32:54
It relates to the teaching of Spanish. And so
32:57
I want to learn some things and I want to improve
32:59
my practice. I also don't want to answer these
33:02
sort of like mind -numbing questions that don't
33:05
drive my learning forward. So here's what I've
33:08
done. I've been kind of like subversive in a
33:10
way where I'll use AI to answer the questions
33:15
that I have to turn in, but then I'll turn around
33:17
and I'll take the chapter and I'll throw it in
33:20
a notebook LM and I'll make a podcast. Or I'll
33:23
have it create an infographic that better explains
33:27
some of the dense academic concepts in the book
33:30
in a way that I can understand. I'll put it into
33:33
Gemini and I'll get better explanations of what
33:35
does this theory actually mean and how can I
33:37
actually apply it in my day -to -day teaching
33:39
in my class? It's almost like... I'm redesigning
33:44
the class the way that I want it. And as I've
33:47
done that as a student, it's been fascinating
33:49
to me as a teacher, as a trainer of teachers,
33:52
to look at that and go, what is the future of
33:56
learning? What is the future of teaching and
33:57
learning here? Can we give students more agency?
34:01
Can we give up a little bit more of the control
34:03
to let them go and do those things? And for the
34:06
people that want to seize the control and hold
34:08
on to the control and everything, I would just
34:10
ask them, do you think that students are using
34:13
AI to do your work anyway? And if that's the
34:16
case. We've kind of given up control anyway.
34:20
So like let's let's try something different So
34:22
anyway, I think there's lots of those conversations
34:25
about how do we do learning? How do we handle
34:28
our business? How do we balance and everything
34:30
that I hope will be the better next questions
34:32
whenever AI doesn't hallucinate as much or it
34:35
doesn't put six fingers on people's hands as
34:38
much anymore. And it's almost like as the technology
34:42
evolves, maybe our understanding and our literacy
34:45
continues to improve and we need better questions
34:47
as it goes. So David, I'm glad that you brought
34:49
that up because that's something I'm thinking
34:50
about a lot too. Yeah, and it made me think about
34:54
several different things. And I think I have
34:56
a couple questions for you. One of them is So
35:01
navigating frameworks, right? Like one of the
35:04
things that we see coming out a lot right now
35:06
is we have a lot of organizations that are trying
35:09
to work on AI frameworks for teachers to use,
35:14
which I think can lead to a lot of confusion
35:17
as to like not only which ones to adopt, but
35:22
also part of the problem because AI is still
35:25
so new is we don't know if they actually work.
35:30
Right. So can I just like real quickly get your
35:34
opinion on the framework? Like all the things
35:39
are going on with frameworks that are being released.
35:42
Yeah. I have, I'm so glad you brought this up.
35:46
This annoys me to no end. All of these frameworks,
35:49
everybody's got a framework. I actually created
35:51
a framework early on and then I just haven't
35:53
used it for a while. Holly Clark and I adapted
35:58
something. I can't even remember. It was the
36:00
ACE framework, ACE. Everybody's got an acronym.
36:03
You know, it's just like everything else in education.
36:06
One of the things I don't like, okay, so David,
36:08
you mentioned that a lot of them, we don't know
36:10
whether they're actually helpful or they actually
36:12
do anything. Two, they're kind of one size fits
36:15
all. And so if you're gonna use a framework,
36:18
why adopt somebody else's framework when you
36:20
can adapt it a little bit better for what you
36:23
need? Yeah, and it's just, yeah, the frameworks,
36:30
it's like... It just over, I think my big issue
36:35
with them is that they oversimplify things. They
36:38
try to take everything into a neat, like four
36:41
step, four quadrants, four pieces, four, a process
36:46
or whatever. And teaching and life and learning
36:50
and just like all of this stuff doesn't usually
36:53
fit into a nice, neat framework like that. Honestly,
36:58
I think if somebody wanted to do something great,
37:01
we go very granular down to very specific things
37:06
like come into my classroom and watch me teaching
37:11
students how to learn verb tenses and if we want
37:13
to make a framework let's do a granular framework
37:17
around particular things that teachers do instead
37:20
of a big picture broad strokes general purpose
37:24
framework that's too broad for anybody to be
37:28
able to use. That's probably a good place for
37:30
me to stop, because I could go on and on and
37:32
on about this. So as you, as we look at those,
37:37
like, so some of the things that have come out,
37:38
I think are well intentioned, like looking at
37:42
AI literacy specifically, right, and how, how
37:45
maybe you should approach, like grade bands.
37:49
So you have like K through two. And obviously,
37:52
with those kids, you might just there might be
37:55
an AI literacy opportunity where you just talk
37:57
about what AI is. It's not like you're having
38:00
them use chat GPT today, right? And then it ramps
38:05
up over the course of the different grade spans.
38:08
But what I'm wondering is, what do you see as
38:12
far as real -time actual classroom uses of AI
38:19
in terms of, we still have to teach the content.
38:22
That's a huge piece. But then there's the talk
38:24
of, well, we have to teach AI literacy skills,
38:26
too. Where do you see the best way to join those
38:32
two things together and have opportunities? Is
38:34
it just finding rare opportunities here and there
38:38
to talk about these things, or is it really intentional?
38:41
Here's my curriculum map, and here I'm going
38:43
to lay out all these AI literacy opportunities
38:46
within each of my units. What do you think is
38:48
the most realistic approach, I guess? Yeah, I
38:51
think you can do both, you know, have sort of
38:53
the serendipitous things that just happen. And
38:55
I think that you can that you can plan for it,
38:57
too. But, you know, one of the one of the things
39:00
that I've seen that I really like the most is
39:03
you just and I don't think and I think you brought
39:08
this up. It's not just like asking students to
39:11
do all of their work with chat GPT. I don't think
39:13
that that I don't think that's. Quite where we
39:16
are at least right now Especially with a general
39:20
-purpose AI like chat GPT. That isn't even if
39:23
you've got learning mode and everything you know,
39:27
I I think a really great place to start is is
39:32
Teacher -led AI. I'm a big fan of that. A lot
39:35
of my favorite examples are teacher -led and
39:38
I know in general we want student -centered classes.
39:41
We don't want the teacher to be the sage on the
39:44
stage and everything. But when the teacher uses
39:48
it, then it's through the teacher's trusted adult
39:51
lens to make sure that whatever the AI is creating
39:55
is appropriate for the students. But then the
39:58
students don't need to necessarily be hands -on
40:01
with it right away. So I'm a big fan of You know,
40:04
let's have AI generate something. Let's put it
40:06
up on the screen and let's discuss it. Let's
40:09
have AI take the role of one of the characters
40:13
in the novel that we're reading and then let's
40:15
analyze what the character actually say that.
40:18
And so whenever we do that, students are getting
40:20
to see AI outputs. It's done through the safe,
40:25
you know, sort of like the safe space, the safe
40:27
environment of a classroom with a trusted teacher.
40:31
And then the teacher can do the can help them
40:35
to analyze and critique and to identify. The
40:39
teacher can also help them to remember the role
40:42
that AI plays in all of this. And there's a lot
40:44
of that stuff where we can talk about the place
40:47
and the usefulness of AI, the overreach of AI
40:52
sometimes. I think whenever we do that, and you
40:55
can do that all the way down. Of course, it looks
40:59
different. You mentioned grade bands earlier.
41:00
I think it looks different in different scenarios.
41:04
So, you know, high school, middle school, even
41:06
later elementary school, you can do some of the
41:09
things that I discussed. But even in my book,
41:11
there's a whole like appendix at the end of the
41:14
book where I talk about how teachers of primary
41:18
grades can even set the scene for some of this
41:20
stuff by just a couple of little small shifts.
41:23
And I know sometimes people that this is an easy
41:26
way to get people riled up on social media is
41:29
to start talking about AI and the littles. And
41:31
everybody will come after you and they'll be
41:33
like, we don't want kids using AI when they're
41:35
little. We don't want them coding AI and talking
41:38
to chat bots. And that's dangerous. And I'm going,
41:40
that's not even what I'm talking about. I think
41:42
with especially with some of the primary grades
41:45
kids, if you can start to set the scene or start
41:48
to set the foundation of What's the appropriate
41:53
relationship and role of technology with humans?
41:57
So a couple of examples I always seem to come
41:59
back with is if you do an AI generated image,
42:04
maybe it's an image of you just did a book and
42:07
you just read or did a read aloud and it had
42:09
lots of illustrations in it and stuff and you
42:10
go, well, what might happen next? Now that this
42:14
story's over, what might happen next? And you
42:16
do an AI -generated image of what that next step
42:21
might look like, and you put it up on a screen
42:22
where the kids can see it, and you say, hey,
42:24
the computer made this for me. Just that simple
42:28
statement right there, the computer made this
42:30
for me, starts to open up this reality, even
42:32
to littles, that humans make things, computers
42:35
make things, there's a difference. And when you
42:38
start to set the scene for some of those, you
42:41
know, basic fundamentals, then as they start
42:44
to get a little bit older and they get into some
42:45
of those older levels and you start to see some
42:48
AI outputs and you're able to conceive of what
42:50
do we mean by AI, they're better prepared for
42:54
that if you start to talk about what the computer
42:56
does and what the computer should do and shouldn't
42:59
do. I mean, if you wanted to force an AI literacy
43:02
lesson with littles, if somebody gives a nice
43:05
compliment. You could say, oh, yeah, that's a
43:08
really nice compliment. I bet that made them
43:10
feel really nice. But it was something that you
43:13
came up with yourself, that you said yourself,
43:15
right? What if we had a computer make up a compliment?
43:20
Would that feel as good as if your friend gave
43:22
you a compliment? I mean, just like little things
43:24
like that where you start to see where the humans
43:27
come in and where the AI comes in and everything.
43:30
I think those are some of those differentiating
43:32
factors where we can start to lay the foundation.
43:35
early and then we continually start to build
43:37
on. And I think that's sort of how, you know,
43:40
hopefully I would rather see that kind of stuff
43:43
in place than let's throw kids onto chat bots
43:46
and have them do a whole bunch of activities.
43:49
I would rather talk about the factors at play
43:53
when you use AI instead of use more AI. I think
43:57
that's a better way. That's, that's really sort
43:59
of the definition of AI literacy to me. I really
44:02
like that example that you just gave about the
44:05
compliment because it reminds me of a couple
44:08
of different things. One, I think it really centers
44:12
the whole conversation about AI on the human
44:15
side of things and how humans feel. about whether
44:20
AI is involved or not involved. So you're building
44:23
that empathy, I think, with the kids, even at
44:26
the littlest levels, you just gave a great example
44:29
of that. But also it comes from teachers actually
44:32
knowing their students, which is if you really
44:37
want to reach a student, no matter what you're
44:38
going to teach them, you first have to build
44:40
that relationship, that rapport with them before
44:43
you can really get into anything else. And I
44:47
think it also kind of reminds me of, well, David
44:50
and I were at the COSIN conference a couple of
44:52
weeks ago. And one of the keynote speakers that
44:56
they had, Michael Jabber, had this quote here,
44:59
and I want to get your take on it here, because
45:01
I think it leads us to, you know, some other
45:04
areas here that we talk about, you know, taking
45:07
shortcuts in your learning. But he said, Think
45:10
before you ask AI, or AI's thoughts will become
45:14
yours. And I think it does relate a little bit
45:18
to your Be The Bot activity too. It does. Yeah,
45:21
no, you're exactly right. The thing that whenever
45:24
I do workshops about any of this stuff, that's
45:28
one of the keys is human thinking before AI,
45:30
which I think is super important, especially
45:32
on the educational level. I'll play the keynote
45:36
speaker game with you for a second. Because I
45:39
went to the FETC conference a couple of years
45:42
ago when Guy Kawasaki was the keynote speaker.
45:45
Guy Kawasaki of the old Apple Macintosh days
45:48
and everything. And he comes up with this keynote
45:53
speech where it's like 12 things that I want
45:55
teachers to know about AI or something. It's
45:57
a whole bunch of little tidbits and everything.
46:00
And one of the things he said in those was, he
46:04
said, you know, if I need to write a letter or
46:06
something, I just let AI write a draft of it
46:09
for me. And then I'll look at it and I'll see
46:10
what I want to make, what adjustments I want
46:13
to make. And then I'll send it off. And I was
46:15
like, man, you just lost the whole room. You're
46:17
in a room full of a whole bunch of teachers who
46:20
want kids to think instead of let AI do the thinking
46:23
for them. And that was an example of just like
46:27
what you said, this speaker says that, you know,
46:31
do the human thinking first, or otherwise the
46:33
AI thoughts become your thoughts. You want that
46:36
precious, sacred human thinking to happen first.
46:39
And that's exactly why I developed the Be the
46:41
Bot activity the way that I did. And it works
46:45
with anything. And really, all it is, is it's
46:49
just good, solid, face -to -face human teaching
46:53
and learning. but it adds an extra little layer
46:56
of AI afterwards that it's something that you
46:58
can compare and contrast that you can critique
47:01
afterwards. So yeah, and I think that's huge.
47:04
And it also goes back to the bigger picture idea
47:07
that I think is really important going forward
47:10
into the future, which is to develop those important
47:15
thinking skills, those sort of like timeless
47:17
human thinking skills that teachers have been
47:19
teaching. for decades, for centuries, you know,
47:23
you go all the way back to the, you know, philosophers,
47:25
you go back and you read Plato, and it's like,
47:28
you've got the Socratic method. And you know,
47:30
like all of that stuff is all rooted in solid
47:33
human thinking. And that's really what's going
47:36
to serve us, I think, going forward. And so yeah,
47:38
that's, it plays into the importance of the human
47:42
in learning. AI can assist, AI can augment. But
47:47
you got to do that thinking first or otherwise,
47:49
just like you said, just like that speaker said,
47:51
or otherwise the AI thoughts become your thoughts.
47:53
And there's only one, I'm going to say, I've
47:56
never said this before, so I might be off on
47:58
this, but it feels right in the moment. There's
48:01
only one entity that can do the thinking at a
48:06
time. It's either going to be the human or it's
48:08
going to be the AI. And whoever does it first,
48:11
whoever does the thinking first, is the thinking
48:13
that gets kept. I don't know, I like where you're
48:17
going with that and it fits very nicely into
48:20
what I believe about teaching and learning in
48:23
the place of AI also. Right. And I think teachers
48:26
can latch onto that too and use, they can model
48:29
how they're using AI. And if they talk about
48:32
how they're putting their own ideas in first,
48:36
you know, and then having AI come in and polish
48:39
up some of the work that they did, or maybe encourage
48:42
them to consider different angles that they weren't
48:44
considering before, you know, that it's still
48:48
then is going to be that learning that's going
48:50
to be owned by that human, that individual. And
48:53
I think being open and honest and transparent
48:55
about that with their students, right? Is going
48:57
to allow students to see, okay, my teacher is
49:01
using this to help them benefit their own instruction.
49:05
Can I use it in a way that will benefit my learning
49:09
without it becoming a shortcut? Yeah, what you
49:12
just said there I think is really important.
49:14
There's that transparency and whenever teachers
49:17
are transparent about how they're using it, students
49:19
get to learn something about how a trusted adult
49:22
is actually using this technology. The other
49:26
side of this too that I think is hard that we've
49:29
got to be very explicit with kids about is that
49:33
AI use doesn't have to be fair and equal between
49:36
the teacher and the student. Actually, I want
49:39
to come back to that in a second because there's
49:41
a place where I think that it should. But we
49:44
have to remember that the end goal here is for
49:47
students to learn. And so there are places where
49:51
if students use it, it's going to shortcut their
49:54
learning and they're not going to develop. And
49:56
it's hard for kids to understand that sometimes
49:58
because they see the teacher in the room and
50:01
the students in the room and they feel like everybody's
50:03
here to work. But it's not really the case. The
50:07
case is for us to create the environment for
50:10
the students to flourish, for them to learn.
50:12
Like if you're watching the video, I just made
50:14
my flowers, you know, my flowers growing out
50:16
of the with my hands. You know, like that's that's
50:18
the goal. The goal is, you know, with the if
50:21
you're trying to plant flowers, the goal is to
50:23
create the input. And Sir Ken Robinson used this
50:27
metaphor before that, you know, the goal is not
50:29
to paste petals. onto a stem, that's not our
50:33
job as humans, it's to create the conditions
50:35
so that they will flourish. And if the teacher
50:40
uses AI to help create those conditions, then
50:42
the conditions are met. But the students see
50:45
it a lot of times as I'm doing the work, you're
50:48
doing the work, we've got to do a fair amount,
50:50
it's like putting us all on the same level. We're
50:52
not on the same level. The idea is that students
50:56
come in not knowing how to do something, and
50:59
by the end of the class, they know how to do
51:01
something. And if all we're trying to do is create
51:04
a quality, it's like if students don't, if they
51:07
don't think about it, if they don't know any
51:09
better, they start to see it as, you know, that
51:11
doesn't seem fair. Well, fairness isn't the goal.
51:14
Learning is the goal. Now, I mentioned earlier
51:17
that I want to come back to that a little bit
51:19
because, you know, there are certain places where
51:22
I think that if we're not careful about that,
51:27
the imbalance, the, you know, somebody's using
51:31
it more than others. Oh, that's not fair. Like
51:33
that, that can start to hurt relationships. It
51:35
makes me think of, you know, like feedback on
51:38
student writing is that if a student takes all
51:41
this time and they do their, you know, the pour
51:43
their heart and soul out into the, onto the paper
51:45
and they do their very best work. And then the
51:48
teacher uses AI to provide feedback and to grade
51:51
it. And they don't even look at it. there's this
51:54
feeling of everybody pulling their weight, of
51:57
doing their best, of showing up as a human. So
52:01
there is sort of a balance where everybody shows
52:05
up and has to participate. The teacher that doesn't
52:09
read students' work and provide meaningful feedback
52:13
and actually try to do their part, they're not
52:16
using their... highly qualified expertise in
52:22
the subject matter and the teaching and everything.
52:24
If they're not using that in the teacher, then
52:26
the student feels, you know, sort of shortcutted.
52:29
It's just like when the students shortcut their
52:31
learning, you know. So there's sort of a balance
52:35
there, I think. But yeah, anyway, when it comes
52:38
to that whole concept of what are we using it
52:43
for and how much is too much and everything,
52:44
it applies to the students and the teachers,
52:47
but just in different ways sometimes, I think.
52:49
Yeah, I can completely understand where you're
52:52
coming from with that I want to get to one more
52:55
part of the book and it was it You know, or it's
52:57
actually kind of throughout the book. That was
52:59
probably my favorite part Were the the prompt
53:03
and ponder? segments that you had at the end
53:06
of each chapter and if you haven't Well, if you've
53:10
picked up Matt's book and you just read through
53:13
and you're like, oh, I can just envision what
53:14
that would be like, don't. I mean, actually take
53:17
that, take the picture of the page, put it into
53:20
your favorite LLM and actually go through what
53:25
it has you do because I think what really, really
53:28
helped me fully grasp. each chapter was to be
53:33
able to reflect on it and to have that chat bot
53:36
really kind of help guide me through my own understanding
53:41
and really what it did is it helped build capacity
53:44
of my own understanding of AI literacy as well
53:47
and you know you talked a little bit too about
53:49
how it's not just important for students to pick
53:52
up on AI literacy but teachers as well so I don't
53:55
know if that was intentionally part of your thing
53:57
was to subtly give teachers those lessons in
54:00
AI literacy, but they really work. Yeah, it was
54:05
one of those things where at first I was like,
54:08
oh, that might be a cool idea. And then the more
54:09
that I thought about it and the more that I tried
54:11
it, the more things that I liked about it. So
54:13
at first, it was just like a fleeting thought.
54:16
But I sort of did the same thing as you. And
54:18
like little by little, the more that I did it,
54:20
the more that I liked it. So the prompt and ponder
54:23
is a part at the end of each chapter where you
54:26
can take a picture. of a prompt, it's like a
54:29
pre -written prompt. You can take a picture of
54:31
it and then throw it into chat GPT or Google
54:32
Gemini or Claude or whatever you're using. And
54:35
I think the words that I tell you to use is let's
54:38
do this. And so then it looks at the picture,
54:42
it looks at the prompt, and then it leads you
54:44
through. sort of like a guided reflection of
54:48
that previous chapter and helps you generate
54:51
ideas specific to your position, specific to
54:54
whatever you're teaching, specific to whatever
54:56
your role is in education and everything. And
54:58
I sort of thought, and that concept came out
55:01
of workshops that I've been doing where I thought,
55:05
since AI is so adaptive, I don't have to come
55:10
up with all of the ideas anymore. It used to
55:13
be, I would do a, tech workshop on engage student
55:16
engagement with tech. And I'd say, and if you
55:18
teach this, you could do it this way. And if
55:20
you teach this, you could do it this way. And
55:21
you could teach this what you could do it this
55:23
way. And I've had people come up during the breaks
55:24
and be like, I don't teach any of those things.
55:27
What if I teach music? What if I teach fourth
55:29
grade? What if I teach social studies? And I'm
55:31
like, I don't teach social studies. I don't teach
55:34
music, but let's try to like brainstorm some
55:36
things. And now you don't have to do that anymore
55:38
because you can do that work with AI. And like
55:41
you said, Jeremy, it's it's building their AI
55:45
literacy. It goes back to that rule that Ethan
55:50
Malik suggests in his book, Co -Intelligence.
55:52
He says, if you wanna know what AI is capable
55:55
of and how to use it, give it 10 solid hours.
55:59
Work with it, do your just like normal tasks,
56:01
ask it about things for 10 hours. And the more
56:04
that you... interact with it, the more that you'll
56:06
see what it's capable of and how it works and
56:08
everything, you'll learn a lot just by doing
56:10
things with it for 10 hours. And so that's all
56:12
I'm trying to do is trying to set them up for
56:15
success by having these guided conversations
56:19
with AI about things and trying to build towards
56:21
that 10 hours. So that's sort of like a side,
56:24
a side thing, but I really wanted to be able
56:26
to, it sort of changed the way that I look at
56:28
books, the way that I look at courses and the
56:30
workshops that I do and just training in general,
56:33
is that if I can create a prompt that teachers
56:38
can use that will help them personalize it to
56:40
their own situation, I don't have to brainstorm
56:42
all of that stuff anymore. The LLM can, the AI
56:45
can help me do that. So yeah, I'm glad that you
56:47
brought that up. And really anybody that's listening
56:50
to this, if you're the one that creates a prompt,
56:55
for your students in the classroom, or if you
56:58
serve teachers in some capacity or something,
57:00
if you kind of create a prompt for them, you
57:02
set them up for success and you give them an
57:05
opportunity to personalize things a little bit
57:08
themselves. So that's that really was one of
57:10
the big aha moments that I've had in the last
57:12
couple of years with all of the training work
57:15
that I do across a variety of mediums. Yeah,
57:18
and I like that concept a lot because I think
57:21
that as they, you know, as teachers, are going
57:25
to be reading the book and checking out that
57:29
prompt and ponder activity, the nice thing about
57:36
that is that that should be something that they
57:38
could translate as an idea to working with students
57:41
to help them to practice that same thing and
57:45
really reflect on what they've used it for and
57:49
how they've built a prompt or different things
57:51
like that. I really appreciate that aspect of
57:55
of it too. So I don't know if you have anything
57:57
to add there too, but just the the translation
57:59
over to students I think is really interesting.
58:01
Yeah, and you know. I think you can. That's one
58:04
of the nice things about so many of these K12
58:08
AI platforms that have student facing chat bots
58:12
is that you can set the guardrails and you can
58:13
set the instructions and everything. And so what
58:16
I did in the book was the adult version where
58:19
I've got the prompt and you because you know
58:22
you're 18 plus and you are subject to the terms
58:25
of use of the of the app. You can just go plug
58:28
that into the AI app of your choice. But with
58:32
students, you can plug those same types of instructions
58:36
into one of the student chat bots like your brisk
58:40
boost, your magic schools, magic student, school
58:43
AI spaces. You plug it into one of those and
58:46
they can have those conversations. And so again,
58:48
you're just setting them up for success. But
58:50
if all we're doing is just giving them the chat
58:54
bot and letting them. you know, just like interact
58:56
with it, we're missing out on the AI literacy
58:58
opportunity to afterwards go reflect on it and
59:02
say, how did the AI handle its business there?
59:04
Was there anything that it did that was weird?
59:07
Do you wish that it did something better if you
59:09
had? if we hear my instructions that I gave it,
59:12
how could I have done the instructions better
59:14
that would have given a better outcome? Those
59:16
are the little things that still keep us thinking
59:18
about the content of the day, but also teach
59:21
students and teachers really a little bit about
59:24
AI literacy. So it's like that idea of integrating
59:28
AI literacy. I know for a lot of us that have
59:30
been talking about digital citizenship and, you
59:33
know, Oh, like digital literacy in general and
59:37
everything. We've been talking about how it should
59:38
be integrated into the day -to -day classroom
59:41
and it's a lot of times it's a losing battle,
59:43
unfortunately, but I'm hopeful, you know, maybe
59:45
I'll be the optimist that hopes that maybe it'll
59:47
catch on with AI literacy here and maybe it'll,
59:51
you know, maybe we'll be able to get through
59:53
to some students and help prepare them for this
59:55
sort of AI saturated future that they're gonna
59:57
face. Great. I love the optimistic tone here.
1:00:02
So now let's, you know, our time is winding down
1:00:05
here. And one of the things that David and I
1:00:07
have been doing here a little more recently here.
1:00:10
So I know we didn't do this episode one, I know,
1:00:13
but. We've developed some lightning round questions
1:00:16
that we throw in at the end just to get to know
1:00:18
the guest a little bit more personally here.
1:00:21
So feel free to respond. Take it whatever direction
1:00:23
you want. If it's a one word answer, that's great.
1:00:26
If you want to expound, you know that that's
1:00:28
entirely up to you here. So we've got a few of
1:00:32
those and I'm going to give it to David to kick
1:00:34
us off with the first one. Yeah, this is an easy
1:00:37
one. What did you want to be when you grew up?
1:00:41
That's it. I wanted to be a, when I graduated
1:00:44
high school, I studied journalism. So I wanted
1:00:46
to be a newspaper editor or a newspaper reporter.
1:00:50
Before that, I wanted to be, there was a time
1:00:52
where I wanted to be a computer programmer. But
1:00:55
when I was little bitty, I would see the guys
1:00:58
show up on the garbage trucks. And I thought
1:01:01
it was so cool that they just they like hung
1:01:03
on the side of the garbage truck. And so my very
1:01:07
first thing that I wanted to be, I think, was
1:01:09
a was a trash collector. So it's evolved a lot
1:01:12
over the years. So then what was the first job
1:01:16
you ever had? Let's see. I mean, aside from like
1:01:21
cutting the grass for my dad, I worked at Burger
1:01:25
King. I worked fast food. I learned a lot of
1:01:27
good, I learned a lot of important life lessons
1:01:30
about working fast food. And probably the most
1:01:33
important one was I don't want to do this my
1:01:35
whole life. So I need to go get an education.
1:01:38
Well, we're not quite to fully AI generated movies
1:01:43
yet. But what's your current guilty pleasure
1:01:45
TV show or movie? Oh, gosh. There's I mean, there's
1:01:52
there's so many my wife and I we're the worst
1:01:55
when it comes to TV We watch a lot of TV as we're
1:01:58
winding down at night and we always go back to
1:02:00
the same stuff that we've watched we'll like
1:02:02
rewatch things, you know, so You know, we've
1:02:05
watched every episode of house like two or three
1:02:07
times We've seen bones. There's person of interest
1:02:11
which was really good. That one was actually
1:02:13
about AI So it was fascinating to watch that
1:02:16
that recently We just got done rewatching every
1:02:19
episode of Seinfeld So it's like a lot of the
1:02:22
things that we know are good. So it's like, we
1:02:25
just feel like there's a lot of trash on TV anymore
1:02:27
that we don't like. So we don't wanna be disappointed.
1:02:30
We just go back to the things that we know that
1:02:32
we like. What's the best meal you've ever had?
1:02:35
You know, was it something you made or was it
1:02:37
out at a restaurant somewhere? Oh gosh. I don't
1:02:41
know. I don't know how I can answer that. I'll
1:02:44
just say the best meal I've had recently, I got
1:02:48
to have, fresh pasta in Italy. My daughter and
1:02:53
I went on a school tour of Italy and Greece.
1:02:55
It was one of those EF tours. And so we were
1:02:58
in Italy for five days and Greece for three days.
1:03:00
And the food there was fantastic. But we had
1:03:02
no, actually, I'll do you one better. In Greece,
1:03:06
we had we had authentic Greek gyros at the foot
1:03:11
of the Acropolis. So that one was not necessarily
1:03:14
just the food, but it was the company and the
1:03:16
view, because we could actually see the Acropolis
1:03:19
from the, you know, from the restaurant where
1:03:22
we were eating. So maybe that one was the best.
1:03:25
Nice. What's something people would be surprised
1:03:28
to know about you? Oh, goodness, surprised to
1:03:34
know about me. I don't know. I mean, I, I like
1:03:42
I just, I like sports in general. I mentioned
1:03:45
earlier, I'm a runner. I play disc golf with
1:03:47
my son. I'm big into basketball. Yeah, I didn't
1:03:52
play basketball in high school, but my family
1:03:54
is, or my wife's family, they're like incredible
1:03:59
basketball players. We've got, you know, like
1:04:02
my, my father -in -law and his brother and like
1:04:06
a couple of their kids all scored a thousand
1:04:10
points in high school. So I learned how to be
1:04:13
good at basketball after I graduated high school
1:04:15
and college because if I was going to play pickup
1:04:18
ball with my family, I was way behind and I need
1:04:21
to get better at it. So there's something, I
1:04:23
guess. Maybe if you're going to be at ISTE, we
1:04:25
could get a round of disc golfing together. I
1:04:27
always I'm a big disc golf fan. So really? OK,
1:04:30
I've already got some plans. I'm probably going
1:04:32
to have discs with me. So let's let's side chat
1:04:35
on that in the coming months. I would love to
1:04:37
do that. Yeah, that'd be awesome. You might have
1:04:39
to show me how to play so I can take a look.
1:04:42
OK, Neil, it's a plan. What's your keynote walk
1:04:46
up song? Oh, I've actually had to do this. Yeah.
1:04:53
One that I really like just because of the emotion
1:04:58
that it evokes, there's the greatest show from
1:05:03
the soundtrack of The Greatest Showman. It's
1:05:05
like that main one, the one that goes da -da
1:05:08
-da -da -da, boom, boom, like that song. There's
1:05:11
like parts of that that I think are fantastic
1:05:13
for a walk -up. All right, last bit here, this
1:05:16
or that, these are quick fire, so you have to
1:05:19
pick one, first one. I'm terrible at this, by
1:05:21
the way, at answering short, so I'll try to be
1:05:23
short on these. Okay, early bird or night owl?
1:05:26
Early bird. Road trip or flight? Flight. Cook
1:05:31
at home or eat out? Yes. No, I mean, probably
1:05:37
eat out, if I'm being honest. Okay, text or call?
1:05:42
Call, always. Mountains or beach? Mountains.
1:05:48
Every time, Jeremy, every time. I'm losing that
1:05:50
one. I'm telling you, I'm beach. My son, my son
1:05:55
like loves the mountains and he's like, I get
1:05:57
sand everywhere. I just, I don't know what to
1:06:00
do with the beach. If I'm in the mountains, I
1:06:02
go hike. It's easy. I'm sort of the same way.
1:06:06
Here's the last one. Last one to leave the party
1:06:09
or first one out the door? First. one out the
1:06:12
door. Unfortunately, that's me. All right. Well,
1:06:16
perfect. Thank you again, Matt. It's been really
1:06:18
enjoyable to have you on as a guest for the second
1:06:21
time and to catch up with you and to have you
1:06:24
share all the insights about your book. We'll
1:06:26
make sure to plug the book in the description
1:06:28
in the show notes. Is there anything else that
1:06:31
you have coming up that you would like to give
1:06:32
a shout out to or to promote? You know, yeah,
1:06:36
actually, we just launched so So if you go to
1:06:41
ditchthattextbook .com, if you're not familiar,
1:06:43
you can see like all of the stuff that we've
1:06:44
got going on. And the email newsletter is the
1:06:46
big thing that we do, that we try to provide
1:06:49
lots of good free value for teachers. You can
1:06:52
join that at ditch .link slash join. But through
1:06:55
the newsletter, we just recently launched a new
1:06:59
community. And so it's like an online community
1:07:02
with discussion boards and live streams and stuff
1:07:04
like that. I've been doing email newsletters
1:07:06
for the longest time, and it feels like it's
1:07:08
just one way communication. And I wanted something
1:07:11
that would bring in everybody's voices. So this
1:07:15
is something we just started with in the last
1:07:16
few weeks or so. So if you join the newsletter,
1:07:19
ditch .link slash join, there's always links
1:07:21
to join the community. And it's been really fun
1:07:23
to see just in a short amount of time. Our community
1:07:27
is already over 1500 people. Not all of them
1:07:30
are actually like regularly participating, but
1:07:32
we've had that many join and we've had really
1:07:34
good discussions that I've gotten to jump in
1:07:36
on and everything that some people are just starting
1:07:39
on their own. I know. Since Twitter sort of died
1:07:42
as a way for educators to stay together, not
1:07:46
as many people are doing it. I think a lot of
1:07:49
folks are looking for places to go. And we just
1:07:52
wanted to create another one of those places
1:07:55
where people could go and meet other educators
1:07:57
and discuss the things that are on their mind,
1:07:58
share what's working and everything. And this
1:08:00
community has been really fun. So anyway, if
1:08:03
you're not familiar, you can join the newsletter
1:08:05
at ditch .link slash join, and then just in those
1:08:09
email newsletters there. links to join the community.
1:08:11
And we highlight some of the things that people
1:08:13
are talking about and everything. And that's
1:08:14
been really fun. Perfect. Well, we look forward
1:08:17
to catching up with you again here soon. Yes,
1:08:20
me too. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Matt. Thanks for
1:08:24
listening to Integrate This. Want to take your
1:08:27
learning further? Head over to our YouTube channel
1:08:29
for quick tutorials, deep dives, and more ed
1:08:33
tech tips you can use right away. Don't forget
1:08:36
to subscribe and catch new podcast episodes every
1:08:39
Thursday on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get
1:08:43
your podcasts. Until next time, keep exploring,
1:08:47
keep innovating and keep integrating this.