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Conference Insights · Azadeh and Guy on AI

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, and welcome to Azadeh and Guy on AI.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm Guy Trainin.
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  I'm a professor at UNL,
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  University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
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  at the Innovative Technologies Program.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Azadeh Hassani.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm a fourth-year PhD student here at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
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  SPEAKER_01: and my major is Innovative Learning Technologies.
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  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to our...
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  episode and last time we had an interview this time we want to
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  talk we're catching
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  up on conferences and we've been to two conferences between the
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  two of us yeah i've
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  been to two as it has been to one yeah this is how it works and
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  so we wanted to
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  talk about what did we learn what did we hear what are we
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  thinking so why don't you
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  SPEAKER_00: start
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  SPEAKER_01: So the conference,
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  SPEAKER_01: the first conference that we attended together was site conference,
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  SPEAKER_01: which we both love.
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  It's a kind of a small community of people who are interested
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  in educational
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  SPEAKER_01: technology,
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  SPEAKER_01: in AI,
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  SPEAKER_01: in education.
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  I mean,
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  everybody is working on a different field,
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  but it's a good community.
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  SPEAKER_01: We went to beautiful Philadelphia.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I was working as a volunteer for the conference.
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  SPEAKER_00: At the reception desk on days four and five, I think, or five and six.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not very, not much happening.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
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  And I also was part of three presentations,
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  actually one poster and two presentations.
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  So one of my presentations was about pre-service teachers and
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  how they integrate AI
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  SPEAKER_01: into a STEM education.
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  The other one was about benchmarking science texts that are
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  created by generative AI.
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  And the other one was a scoping review about the computational
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  thinking in elementary education.
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  SPEAKER_00: And for me, a site has always been because it's small.
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  SPEAKER_00: My favorite thing is the posters.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because you can take a lot in because there are a lot of people.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's usually drinks in the lobby, some kind or another.
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  I try to stay away from the drinks so I can actually remember
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  what happened in the
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  SPEAKER_00: poster session.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this time I found it as lively.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so that was a very good session.
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  I find that a lot of the action is happening actually outside
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  the sessions.
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  SPEAKER_01: Mm hmm.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I wrote about this in my sub stack,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I think we need to find a way to bring the outside inside.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: And to make sure we're not standing in front of very few people,
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  SPEAKER_00: which might be the right people,
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  but actually finding a way to combine more people together and
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  thinking about how
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  SPEAKER_00: we can have a useful discussion about the things we're interested in now.
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  SPEAKER_00: Conferences are always a lag.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
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  SPEAKER_00: We had a very good couple of keynotes.
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  SPEAKER_00: Those were good to kind of set the tone and see where we are.
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  SPEAKER_00: But outside of that, really great conversation outside.
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  There was a conversation that I've had about what do we do with
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  our AI in rural spaces?
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  SPEAKER_00: And we know that in rural spaces, there's a lot more suspicion about AI
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  SPEAKER_00: What is AI?
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  SPEAKER_00: Is it going to help us or hurt us?
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  SPEAKER_00: Rural communities have a tradition of using technologies.
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  I mean,
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  they're using drones,
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  they're using satellites,
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  all of these things.
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  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time,
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  there's this feeling of others are dictating to us what we can
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  and can't do,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is always a little bit of a mismatch.
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  SPEAKER_00: And now with building of a
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  SPEAKER_00: and the need for water and all of that,
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  there's a stronger suspicion that it might compete with
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  agriculture in some ways,
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  which obviously rural communities are very suspicious of
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  because it's hard enough
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  SPEAKER_00: as it is.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so that's something to think about.
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  SPEAKER_00: So that was one conversation.
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  SPEAKER_00: We had a great conversation about qualitative analysis using AI.
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  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's a really interesting conversation that we need to continue.
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  But I hope to,
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  we actually need this,
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  a big part of that conversation was with Jeremy Regal.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was going to say he will be one of our next guests.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we will have him on.
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  SPEAKER_00: He has his own podcast, so we need to first talk to him.
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  And we're either going to do it as a crossover or we're just
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  going to invite him
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  SPEAKER_00: and maybe he'll invite us.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
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  SPEAKER_01: We'll see.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are definitely on our way on getting famous.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so the site conference was great.
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  SPEAKER_00: Philadelphia was great.
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  I went to the American Educational Research Association meeting
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  in Los Angeles,
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  SPEAKER_00: and there were over 250 AI-related presentations at the conference.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a big conference.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's over 20,000 people.
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  SPEAKER_00: Over a thousand presentations.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't know the exact number.
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  SPEAKER_00: Don't catch me at it.
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  It might be even more,
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  but a lot of presentations,
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  but AI was definitely felt.
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  SPEAKER_00: Unlike some other conferences,
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  SPEAKER_00: for example,
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  SPEAKER_00: AACTE I went to and AI was almost absent,
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  SPEAKER_00: which was strange.
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  seriously yeah and it's like how can we be in any space when
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  we're discussing the
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  SPEAKER_00: future of education or even the present of education without a lot of ai
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  discussions so at acte actually the center stage had a number
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  of ai things i
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  obviously came to talk about ai so we had a few things but the
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  fact that it was not
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  SPEAKER_01: everywhere was a little bit worrying yeah yeah yeah i understand but but
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  SPEAKER_00: It is clear that we have a lot of other things we're worried about.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so I guess other people can talk about other stuff.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not about that.
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  And I spent quite a bit of time with posters again,
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  just because of that capacity to take in a
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  SPEAKER_00: You know,
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  SPEAKER_00: at ARA,
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  SPEAKER_00: there was actually 40 of them presented at any given moment,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is overwhelming.
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  Even in an hour and a half,
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  taking 40 different research projects is a little bit much.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I stopped with quite a few.
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  SPEAKER_00: They had lightning talks, which I love.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know, here's five minutes.
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  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Most people were not prepared.
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  SPEAKER_00: So if you did a lightning talk and I was there with one exception.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: They were not prepared.
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  SPEAKER_00: The one exception were two high school students that presented.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's like when you're in our high school,
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  SPEAKER_00: we had a high school pair and we had a undergraduate pair.
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  And they always over prepare because they've never been to a
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  conference and they
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  SPEAKER_00: don't think they're going to wing it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, if you have 20 minutes, you can wing it.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know your stuff.
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  But if you have five minutes to do something compact,
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  you got to practice it.
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  And you got to think about what are my five slides and what is
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  my take here?
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  Because otherwise you talk too much about methods and in a
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  lightning talk,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's not to talk about the lit review.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not to talk about methods.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's talk about what did you find?
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  SPEAKER_00: What did, what does it mean?
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  SPEAKER_01: Kind of thing.
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  Whatever you think the heart of your presentation is,
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  because there's no time for anything else.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so those were very good.
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  And we are doing some work and we've shared some of that work
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  on the podcast.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're doing some work on creating science,
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  SPEAKER_00: science texts that are grade level appropriate with AI.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're working on that.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we were in a session with other people who are doing similar things.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that was very good.
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  SPEAKER_00: It gave us a sense that we're doing the right thing,
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  but also that we have an edge on how we're doing this because
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  it's a very specific
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  SPEAKER_00: topic.
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  SPEAKER_00: a kind of inquiry.
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  SPEAKER_00: So if any of you are interested in what we're doing,
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  SPEAKER_00: we have a paper and a poster out that you can take a look at.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're adding information all the time.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're doing a major publication probably in a few weeks.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_00: So from your perspective,
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  SPEAKER_00: when you think about the AI,
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  SPEAKER_00: what's the best thing about going to conferences?
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  SPEAKER_01: Oh, let me see.
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  SPEAKER_01: So for me,
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  SPEAKER_01: the best thing about being in conferences,
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  SPEAKER_01: apart from making connections,
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  SPEAKER_01: talking to people,
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  SPEAKER_01: which I mean,
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  the point that you made about site posters is very true because
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  I've talked with
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  SPEAKER_01: many PhD students in other majors and
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  Many of them say that they are not very happy with poster
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  presentations and they do
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  SPEAKER_01: not attract that much attention.
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  SPEAKER_01: But I've seen quite,
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
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  SPEAKER_01: something very different,
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  SPEAKER_01: at least in the conferences that I attended so far.
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  SPEAKER_01: So let me see.
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  One thing that I noticed after attending the site conference
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  was that many studies have
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  SPEAKER_01: around AI are in preliminary stages.
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  SPEAKER_01: Many of them are in pilot phases.
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  SPEAKER_01: People have not started doing actual, I mean, study.
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  SPEAKER_01: I attended one presentation.
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  SPEAKER_01: The topic was very interesting.
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  It was very,
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  I mean,
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  related to what we are doing right now in engineering
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  education.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we are doing, I think we talked about it before.
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  SPEAKER_01: We are doing surveys with faculty in engineering,
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  SPEAKER_01: in College of Engineering,
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  SPEAKER_01: and also with the students.
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  And the presenter in that session,
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  they were talking about the same thing.
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  I was very excited to hear about their findings and see what is
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  the alignment
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  SPEAKER_01: between what they found and the finding of our study.
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  And they just started talking about that they are planning to
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  do this study.
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  SPEAKER_01: They haven't even started yet.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I was very excited.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think I was even more excited than the presenter.
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  SPEAKER_01: I started sharing it.
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  SPEAKER_00: You're still planning.
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  SPEAKER_00: We got some data.
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  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you all about it.
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  SPEAKER_01: I know.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
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  And so I think that that's a way to think about conferences,
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  especially when you're part of a...
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  part of a group of scholars that are looking at a specific area
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  what you really can
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  get at a conference is the conversation about where are you
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  what are you doing
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  right now where are you in the process and in that way also
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  gauge are we on the
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  SPEAKER_00: right track are we where everybody else is are we ahead are we behind
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Azadeh is coughing and that is not very easy.
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  SPEAKER_00: So she's dealing with that while I'm trying to talk over it.
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  SPEAKER_00: So just so you know, this just happened.
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  SPEAKER_00: Anyway,
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  this was just a way for us to think about where we are in our
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  research process and
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  SPEAKER_00: how we can leverage the other projects that are happening.
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  SPEAKER_00: I actually blogged on Sabstack on both conferences.
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  I think it's important to do the processing after and for us to
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  imagine what these
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  SPEAKER_00: gatherings can become.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm still alive.
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  SPEAKER_00: barely it's good we're rolling with it okay so it was nice talking about
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  SPEAKER_00: conferences and we'll see you next time yep on azade and guy on ai see ya