Beyond Digital Natives: Essential Tech Skills for Students
Join us as we debunk the myth of 'digital natives' and explore the crucial tech skills students need to succeed. Discover why explicit instruction in digital literacy is essential, even for those who seem comfortable with technology. We'll discuss the importance of integrating technology into pedagogy and how educators can empower students to navigate the digital world effectively.
- Kent School, coed boarding school in Kent, CT
- TPACK AI Framework
- ATLIS AI Content and Resources
- AI Literacy and the Evolving Role of Educators, episode of Talking Technology with ATLIS
- The Importance of Vendor Vetting in Schools: Ensuring Privacy, Security, and Compliance (including “Evaluating AI Technologies”), article by Mark Orchison, founder of 9ine
- ATLIS Leadership Institute
- The Lorax, book by Dr. Suess
Transcript
Peter Frank:
Phil, welcome to Talking Technology with ATLIS,
Peter Frank:
the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for
Peter Frank:
technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens.
Peter Frank:
We'll hear stories from technology directors and other
Peter Frank:
special guests from the Independent School community,
Peter Frank:
and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics.
Peter Frank:
And now please welcome your host. Kristina Lewellen,
Christina Lewellen:
Hello everyone, and welcome back to
Christina Lewellen:
talking technology with Atlas. I'm Kristina Lewellen, the
Christina Lewellen:
President and CEO of the Association of Technology
Christina Lewellen:
Leaders in Independent Schools.
Bill Stites:
And I am Bill Stites, the Director of
Bill Stites:
Technology at Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, New
Bill Stites:
Jersey. And
Hiram Cuevas:
I'm Hiram Cuevas, Director of Information Systems
Hiram Cuevas:
and Academic Technology at St Christopher school in Richmond,
Hiram Cuevas:
Virginia.
Christina Lewellen:
Hello, gentlemen. How are you today?
Christina Lewellen:
Doing? Well, doing a little Cole, but it's all good. A
Christina Lewellen:
little chilly at this time of year. We're excited at Atlas, I
Christina Lewellen:
think that we're flowing into 2025 really excited about all
Christina Lewellen:
the things that are coming up, and we came into the year with a
Christina Lewellen:
lot of energy. I love the spring, like we're getting to
Christina Lewellen:
where we're engaging with our community. We get to see
Christina Lewellen:
everybody soon at our 10th anniversary, annual conference
Christina Lewellen:
in Atlanta, coming up in April. We've got a new edition of our
Christina Lewellen:
magazine dropping that's really exciting. We've been doing some
Christina Lewellen:
partnership with other organizations in our space to
Christina Lewellen:
just really talk about things like the certification program
Christina Lewellen:
that we run and all sorts of fun stuff. So it's just a really
Christina Lewellen:
energetic time of year for the Atlas team and the Atlas
Christina Lewellen:
community, the Atlas board deep in the selection process and all
Christina Lewellen:
of that with our nominations committee. So it definitely
Christina Lewellen:
feels not just like the start of the early days of a new year,
Christina Lewellen:
but also just the more energized and exciting part of our year
Christina Lewellen:
too. So it's good to see you guys, and I got lots of cool
Christina Lewellen:
stuff coming up. Are you guys excited about Atlanta?
Bill Stites:
It's funny you mention it because I literally
Bill Stites:
just did a tally. Very excited. I think we're actually coming
Bill Stites:
with six people, including myself. Wow. What
Christina Lewellen:
kind of titles, Bill like, who on your
Christina Lewellen:
team are you bringing? We've got
Bill Stites:
the three different campuses. We're spread out. So
Bill Stites:
we're bringing each of our ed tech focused people at each of
Bill Stites:
those campuses. So our primary and middle school person,
Bill Stites:
myself, our Director of Academic Technology, who is also at our
Bill Stites:
Upper School and does that role at our upper school. We're
Bill Stites:
bringing Alek Duba, who's been on the podcast from a data
Bill Stites:
perspective, to do the work with the CIRIS track and all of those
Bill Stites:
things. And we have a new director of STEM
Christina Lewellen:
and innovation, right? I know that's
Christina Lewellen:
a big project in your world right now, yep. And we're
Christina Lewellen:
bringing
Bill Stites:
him along and then myself. So if my math is
Bill Stites:
correct, which it often isn't, but if it is correct, we've got
Bill Stites:
like, six people coming, and it's one of those things where
Bill Stites:
it's like, you want it to come quickly, because everyone's
Bill Stites:
getting jazz for it and excited for it. And now we're just,
Bill Stites:
we're in this waiting game,
Christina Lewellen:
I know. Well, you know what? Art
Christina Lewellen:
teacher, math, that's okay, so we can accept that either way,
Christina Lewellen:
it's close enough. Yep. So I was just
Unknown:
going to ask Bill, are you guys going to drive down as
Unknown:
a team? There will
Bill Stites:
be no driving. We will be flying. Thankfully,
Bill Stites:
Newark to Atlanta is a quick, cheap and easy flight, so no,
Bill Stites:
there will be no driving this time you're
Christina Lewellen:
proposing a road trip, Hiram, they can stop
Christina Lewellen:
and pick you up in Richmond on the way down. Oh, wow, that's a
Christina Lewellen:
fun bus.
Unknown:
Absolutely pick me up in Richmond. Pick up Lewis to
Unknown:
Ravenscraft. Now
Bill Stites:
that I didn't think of that would be some quality
Bill Stites:
time that I think we'd all enjoy an RV. There you go. I think
Bill Stites:
we're just building this out an
Christina Lewellen:
RV or a bus, and now I know that we will end
Christina Lewellen:
up with new clip art to post on social media of Bill driving a
Christina Lewellen:
bus full of people down to the annual conference. This is bad,
Christina Lewellen:
bad planning here.
Bill Stites:
I'm gonna need a bus just to move people around.
Bill Stites:
I know that because Ubers would be really tough when we get down
Bill Stites:
there. So we gotta figure all this out.
Christina Lewellen:
Awesome. Well, you know, I think that
Christina Lewellen:
what's really exciting, as always, is that we spend some
Christina Lewellen:
time together, and we get to talk to a lot of different
Christina Lewellen:
people on this podcast. And sometimes we go into these
Christina Lewellen:
conversations really kind of understanding and knowing where
Christina Lewellen:
we're going to go. In this particular case, I sort of love
Christina Lewellen:
that our guest is like, what are we going to talk about? And
Christina Lewellen:
we're like, you know what? We'll just decide as we go so very
Christina Lewellen:
brave soul. Welcome to the podcast. Rachel stock CO, how
Christina Lewellen:
are
Rachel Sopko:
you today? I'm great, excited to be here with
Rachel Sopko:
you guys today. Awesome.
Christina Lewellen:
So Rachel, I'm actually going to let you
Christina Lewellen:
take some time to introduce yourself, because I think that
Christina Lewellen:
you cover a lot of ground. You're an adjunct professor in
Christina Lewellen:
the School of Education for the University of New Hampshire.
Christina Lewellen:
That's really cool and kind of crazy. I have college age
Christina Lewellen:
students, as do the guys, so we have questions that we need you
Christina Lewellen:
to answer, but you also are involved in independent schools
Christina Lewellen:
as well. So tell us a little bit about your background. Yeah. So
Rachel Sopko:
currently, I am the Academic Technology
Rachel Sopko:
integrator at Kent School in Connecticut, but I started my
Rachel Sopko:
career as an English teacher. I started off. In charter schools
Rachel Sopko:
in Washington, DC, and did that for a little while, and then I
Rachel Sopko:
moved to Connecticut and taught in Title One schools in
Rachel Sopko:
Connecticut, also as an English teacher. But in both of those
Rachel Sopko:
roles, I did a lot of work as a tech person where, you know,
Rachel Sopko:
Hey, I saw you were using this at tech tool, like, can you show
Rachel Sopko:
me how to do that? And, you know, kind of just kept getting
Rachel Sopko:
asked to teach teachers how to use tech, and my kids would be
Rachel Sopko:
like, hey, the teacher next door is not using Google classroom as
Rachel Sopko:
well. Like, can you show them how you use Google Docs or how
Rachel Sopko:
you do this? So I was kind of wearing two hats all the time of
Rachel Sopko:
teaching tech to teachers and also teaching English. So that
Rachel Sopko:
sort of led then to me working with the University of New
Rachel Sopko:
Hampshire, they ran a program called I learned New Hampshire,
Rachel Sopko:
which started during the pandemic, and they provided
Rachel Sopko:
Canvas Cal Perez licenses to any k 12 school that wanted them.
Rachel Sopko:
And so with the partnership between UNH and the DOE, we
Rachel Sopko:
supported schools all over the state teaching them how to use
Rachel Sopko:
Canvas, and we really thought a lot about blended learning, and
Rachel Sopko:
what did that look like during the pandemic and then post
Rachel Sopko:
pandemic? What could we learn and what is effective ed tech
Rachel Sopko:
use look like, and they're still going strong, helping teachers
Rachel Sopko:
across the state. But I moved back to Connecticut to be with
Rachel Sopko:
my family and landed at the Kent School where I'm now the
Rachel Sopko:
Academic Technology integrator. And I continue to adjunct for
Rachel Sopko:
the University of New Hampshire teaching research methods and ed
Rachel Sopko:
tech courses to pre service and Master's level teachers. That's
Christina Lewellen:
really cool. So there's so many paths we
Christina Lewellen:
could walk at this moment, but one of the things that strikes
Christina Lewellen:
me in what you just said is about the effort that you made
Christina Lewellen:
during the pandemic. Do you think having had this background
Christina Lewellen:
of being the techie teacher and being good at ed tech tools
Christina Lewellen:
before the pandemic, and then now, how things are after the
Christina Lewellen:
pandemic. Let's just go straight into that like, how does it feel
Christina Lewellen:
to you with that perspective, what has changed, and what are
Christina Lewellen:
your observations in that realm? Yeah, so I think
Rachel Sopko:
it was kind of funny going into my career, I
Rachel Sopko:
was always just really curious and excited to play with
Rachel Sopko:
different ed tech tools. And I saw so much potential in how
Rachel Sopko:
they could support my students. You know, I was forcing kids to
Rachel Sopko:
make copies of Google Docs and share folders with me long
Rachel Sopko:
before we had a learning management system or any of
Rachel Sopko:
those kinds of things. And so throughout my career, seeing
Rachel Sopko:
those things like grow and become real things was really
Rachel Sopko:
exciting. And pre pandemic, I think there were a lot of people
Rachel Sopko:
who were clinging to kind of very traditional methods, like,
Rachel Sopko:
oh, I don't have to learn the tech. It was just for testing
Rachel Sopko:
day. There were some kids who are like, my teacher only
Rachel Sopko:
wheeled the Chromebook card in on the days we're taking
Rachel Sopko:
benchmark assessments or we're doing a research paper, those
Rachel Sopko:
are the only times we'll use them. And you know, I did a lot
Rachel Sopko:
of work with teachers across the different districts that I've
Rachel Sopko:
worked with in trying to train them on how Google Docs, how
Rachel Sopko:
Google Drive, or Google classroom or other learning
Rachel Sopko:
management systems. I use tools like Ed puzzle. I was showing
Rachel Sopko:
teachers how these things could help them assess their students,
Rachel Sopko:
to differentiate, personalize instruction, help them speed up
Rachel Sopko:
some of their work. Because we all know grading takes forever,
Rachel Sopko:
and we don't always get that feedback back to students as
Rachel Sopko:
quickly as we would want to. And some teachers were excited to
Rachel Sopko:
try that, and others were like, Yeah, that's for the younger
Rachel Sopko:
teachers, or that's for the other people. Somebody else will
Rachel Sopko:
do that. And then the pandemic hit and the world shut down.
Rachel Sopko:
And, you know, we were in class on Monday, Tuesday, it was
Rachel Sopko:
teachers only, and everyone's like, what are we going to do?
Rachel Sopko:
And I was like, I'm gonna keep posting on my learning
Rachel Sopko:
management system, and I'm gonna keep doing what I've been doing
Rachel Sopko:
and just do it remotely. And a lot of teachers were like, Wait,
Rachel Sopko:
can you show me how to do that? And I was like, I've been trying
Rachel Sopko:
to show you to do this for five years, guys. So it was kind of
Rachel Sopko:
an I told you so moment of see they are useful.
Christina Lewellen:
I mean, it definitely accelerated for many
Christina Lewellen:
educators. Oh yeah, the need to kind of walk this path. And now,
Christina Lewellen:
do you think they're sort of there, or is there some similar
Christina Lewellen:
resistance? I
Rachel Sopko:
think that resistance still exists in
Rachel Sopko:
different ways. I think there are some people who are like,
Rachel Sopko:
Okay, we're back to normal. We're gonna just do those things
Rachel Sopko:
and go back to the way we did it, or the kids they all learned
Rachel Sopko:
online during the pandemic. So I think part of the struggle is
Rachel Sopko:
that sometimes teachers think that absolves them of having to
Rachel Sopko:
teach kids how to use some of these tools. They're just like,
Rachel Sopko:
Okay, go write a paper, or go do research or use this new
Rachel Sopko:
program. And I think that's where the idea of digital
Rachel Sopko:
natives has sort of led people astray where they're like, well,
Rachel Sopko:
the kids grew up with these tools, like, they know how to
Rachel Sopko:
use the internet, they know how to use Word processors, of like,
Rachel Sopko:
actually, they don't, you know, I still have kids who hit the
Rachel Sopko:
space bar 100 times to center something or forget how to
Rachel Sopko:
attach things to emails, or who Need we use Canvas as our
Rachel Sopko:
Learning Management System kids who don't know how to attach an
Rachel Sopko:
assignment or link their Google Drive so that they can upload
Rachel Sopko:
and submit so even some of those basics, there are things kids
Rachel Sopko:
are still missing because nobody has instructed them directly,
Rachel Sopko:
and we've sort of seen that continue to spiral out, not
Rachel Sopko:
just. With tools like word processors or learning
Rachel Sopko:
management systems, but into the realms of things like social
Rachel Sopko:
media or Internet safety and data privacy, so long kids, and
Rachel Sopko:
even people who are adults now are left to their own devices,
Rachel Sopko:
literally and figuratively, to figure these things out, because
Rachel Sopko:
school said this isn't pedagogically relevant. This
Rachel Sopko:
isn't what we do. Parents don't have the skills, so it's sort of
Rachel Sopko:
this black hole of nobody taught anyone how to do it, and kids
Rachel Sopko:
are going to be kids and make bad choices. And so I think it
Rachel Sopko:
has to become a communal responsibility for us to teach
Rachel Sopko:
those and I think the pandemic highlighted a lot of those gaps,
Rachel Sopko:
and people were eager to get back to normal, but as tech
Rachel Sopko:
continues to grow, the emergence of AI, we've seen how important
Rachel Sopko:
it is for kids to have all of those skills, not just to keep
Rachel Sopko:
themselves safe, but to effectively navigate the world
Rachel Sopko:
in which they live. And so I think it's a really complicated
Rachel Sopko:
issue that the pandemic really shed a lot of light on and
Rachel Sopko:
continues to shed light on post us returning to schools, one
Bill Stites:
of the things that you've touched on is something
Bill Stites:
that we're struggling with as technology has become more
Bill Stites:
ubiquitous, as it's become part of just daily life. There is
Bill Stites:
this assumption you mentioned digital natives term been around
Bill Stites:
for a while, but there is this assumption that everyone's got
Bill Stites:
it, everyone knows how to use it. And I think that's a flawed
Bill Stites:
assumption. People do not know how to use it the way in which
Bill Stites:
we want them, where we need them to be able to do in the context
Bill Stites:
of what we're asking them to do within schools. And I remember,
Bill Stites:
I've been at this for quite a while, and our initial
Bill Stites:
professional development was largely around the teaching of
Bill Stites:
skills, the teaching of how these applications were used,
Bill Stites:
and as we thought we reached a certain level of proficiency, we
Bill Stites:
kind of switched over into more of like the teaching and
Bill Stites:
learning and the Pete logical and all of that skills training
Bill Stites:
kind of just went to the side, and we really weren't doing that
Bill Stites:
as much, and what we're finding now is really the need to come
Bill Stites:
back to that, that you need to have a healthy balance of the
Bill Stites:
teaching and learning and the skills training and the number
Bill Stites:
of tools complicate that you're in a very interesting situation,
Bill Stites:
because you're in a school and you're living and breathing it,
Bill Stites:
and you're working at the university level where you're
Bill Stites:
actually teaching this. How are you talking at your school? How
Bill Stites:
are you talking at these future ed tech people about striking
Bill Stites:
that balance and finding a way to leverage both of those things
Bill Stites:
within the context of what you're doing on a day to day
Bill Stites:
basis, and what these people are going to have to plan to be able
Bill Stites:
to do to support both sides of this coin? Yeah,
Rachel Sopko:
I think that's a great question. I like the way
Rachel Sopko:
that you put it around balance, because I think for a lot of
Rachel Sopko:
people, they think of Ed Tech as like something else to learn,
Rachel Sopko:
something separate from their content area or separate from
Rachel Sopko:
their pedagogy and Atlas, has a really good graphic of the TPACK
Rachel Sopko:
framework that they shared early on in the emergence of AI, which
Rachel Sopko:
I think sums this up really well, because TPACK as an ed
Rachel Sopko:
tech framework, I think is a really great tool, because it
Rachel Sopko:
explains the intersections that you have to have technical
Rachel Sopko:
knowledge of how to use these tools, which intersects with
Rachel Sopko:
your content knowledge of whatever subjects you're
Rachel Sopko:
teaching, and it also intersects with pedagogical knowledge, and
Rachel Sopko:
you have to have a little bit of all of those things in order to
Rachel Sopko:
be an effective teacher. So it's not just, Hey, I love teaching
Rachel Sopko:
English, so I'm just gonna wax on about Shakespeare all day
Rachel Sopko:
long to my kids, because I love it, and then I'll make them love
Rachel Sopko:
it. But rather, how do I think about my content to teach skills
Rachel Sopko:
that my kids will need in the world beyond their schooling
Rachel Sopko:
experience, and how do I use that content as a vehicle to
Rachel Sopko:
also teach them about effectively navigating things
Rachel Sopko:
like tech and other things that they'll encounter in their
Rachel Sopko:
lives, and then how do I do that in a way that actually resonates
Rachel Sopko:
and sticks in their brains? Because I understand how kids
Rachel Sopko:
learn, and I think that's a lot to ask of teachers to hold all
Rachel Sopko:
three of those things in their head at once when they're trying
Rachel Sopko:
to plan their lessons, but they have to think about all of those
Rachel Sopko:
things and what they're trying to achieve. And I think that
Rachel Sopko:
when we don't use good pedagogy and making our decisions about
Rachel Sopko:
tech or anything we do in our classrooms, then we're doing a
Rachel Sopko:
disservice to teaching all of the students in front of us. And
Rachel Sopko:
so I think that it's really important that we don't just
Rachel Sopko:
fall in love with like a tool, right? We've seen that happen
Rachel Sopko:
several times, where people are like, I love Jamboard. And
Rachel Sopko:
that's like, poop jam boards got it's like, everyone panics, you
Rachel Sopko:
know, flip went away. First it was flip grid, and then it
Rachel Sopko:
became flip and then it was now Microsoft owns it. And so
Rachel Sopko:
everyone who's not at Microsoft school is like, panicking
Rachel Sopko:
because they're like, What do I do instead? And it's not about
Rachel Sopko:
the tool itself and following them with like that. Out, but
Rachel Sopko:
teaching skills that are transferable. How do I go from
Rachel Sopko:
word to Google Docs or whatever comes next? Like that's what we
Rachel Sopko:
really want both teachers and students to know, is I have the
Rachel Sopko:
foundational skills. It doesn't matter what name you put it on,
Rachel Sopko:
but I can apply that and move it to different situations. And I
Rachel Sopko:
think that's sometimes what's missing in that balance is we
Rachel Sopko:
want to get through the tool effectively. We want kids to
Rachel Sopko:
know our content, but how do they then take that into
Rachel Sopko:
whatever their life is going to lead them to? So
Unknown:
Rachel, have you had conversations with colleagues
Unknown:
and in your work at the university level, discussing the
Unknown:
challenges with learned behaviors by the faculty during
Unknown:
COVID and post COVID, and trying to break bad habits of using
Unknown:
tech in the COVID world, because I'm still struggling, in some
Unknown:
instances, with different folks at other schools as well, where
Unknown:
they develop these habits, thinking that there's this magic
Unknown:
bullet associated with teaching online, that it's really a bad
Unknown:
habit that they've created thinking that they can teach the
Unknown:
exact same way online as they did in person. I love the fact
Unknown:
that you're emphasizing good pedagogy, because so much of it
Unknown:
is different in those two spaces, and I don't think many
Unknown:
teachers understand that? Yeah,
Rachel Sopko:
I think this might be sort of an unfavorable
Rachel Sopko:
opinion on that. I think the pandemic highlighted a lot of
Rachel Sopko:
bad teaching practices. It was, this is how I was taught. You
Rachel Sopko:
know, someone stood at a podium and they lectured at me with,
Rachel Sopko:
you know, no slides, and they were like, take notes and there
Rachel Sopko:
will be a test, and that's it. And a lot of people are like,
Rachel Sopko:
well, that's how I was taught. I turned out fine. I'm a great
Rachel Sopko:
student. It built character and grit and all of that. And then
Rachel Sopko:
they keep doing it. And then we went online during the pandemic,
Rachel Sopko:
where a lot of universities have shifted to just fully online
Rachel Sopko:
classes, or hybrid or high flex classes, for a host of reasons,
Rachel Sopko:
but then they took those practices and they just put them
Rachel Sopko:
online. And the same way, a kid probably didn't listen to your
Rachel Sopko:
45 minute lecture when you they were sitting in front of you,
Rachel Sopko:
they maybe looked attentive, then they weren't doing it
Rachel Sopko:
online. And we had the data to prove that right. You know, part
Rachel Sopko:
of when I was working with UNH, we used Kaltura as our video
Rachel Sopko:
software, and we could see the analytics of how long were kids
Rachel Sopko:
watching videos, and where were they dropping off, and what were
Rachel Sopko:
those points? And it was really eye opening when I would sit
Rachel Sopko:
with a professor and look at their classes, or look at their
Rachel Sopko:
Canvas engagement, or look at their video engagement, and they
Rachel Sopko:
would see that drop off 20 minutes in. And we know from the
Rachel Sopko:
pedagogy that kids college kids, too, don't have a super long
Rachel Sopko:
attention span. If you're going really more than 10 minutes
Rachel Sopko:
without some sort of interaction point, be it in person or
Rachel Sopko:
online, you've lost them because they don't know what to grab
Rachel Sopko:
onto, what's important, what am I supposed to be getting out of
Rachel Sopko:
this? We have to have that give and take of giving those
Rachel Sopko:
formative checks along the way to make sure kids are engaged
Rachel Sopko:
with what we're teaching. And so I think that when we moved
Rachel Sopko:
online, some of it was bad habits that we actually had, pre
Rachel Sopko:
COVID, that we really had to grapple with, and that made
Rachel Sopko:
people really uncomfortable. I think they were like, Why aren't
Rachel Sopko:
they listening to my lecture? You know, they always hang on my
Rachel Sopko:
every word. And it's like, how do you know that? What data do
Rachel Sopko:
you have to back up that they hung on your every word, other
Rachel Sopko:
than your perception of what was happening in front of you. And
Rachel Sopko:
so I think that's the power of that shift, was we were able to
Rachel Sopko:
actually have data that made us understand better the different
Rachel Sopko:
learners in front of us and about their engagement and what
Rachel Sopko:
engagement really is and what it really looks like. And I think
Rachel Sopko:
that was people thought they could just return to some of
Rachel Sopko:
those post pandemic and, you know, I sort of joke even now my
Rachel Sopko:
work at the Kent School, when I get teachers who are like, Oh
Rachel Sopko:
yeah, I used Canvas in my college, or I use it as a
Rachel Sopko:
student. And I'm like, actually, I gotta break you a lot of bad
Rachel Sopko:
habits of using that learning management system, like I put
Rachel Sopko:
them into a class as a student that is poorly designed. And I'm
Rachel Sopko:
like, find your homework. And they're like, I don't know where
Rachel Sopko:
it is. Like, what do you want me to do? And I'm like, great.
Rachel Sopko:
Imagine you're a kid with eight classes a day, eight different
Rachel Sopko:
teachers, eight different setups. What does that feel
Rachel Sopko:
like? And that, for me, I think it's usually a turning point of
Rachel Sopko:
when you have an adult learner experience something and they're
Rachel Sopko:
like, Oh, I thought it was going really well, or I thought it was
Rachel Sopko:
the right thing to do when they can actually feel what their
Rachel Sopko:
kids or their students are feeling. That's when we can
Rachel Sopko:
really have real change, because now we can have a conversation
Rachel Sopko:
based in fact, not just vibes. Yeah,
Christina Lewellen:
absolutely. I see a lot of head nodding and
Christina Lewellen:
thumbs up from the guys. They are with you on that. Let me ask
Christina Lewellen:
you about AI tools then. So I'm sure that this is a huge part of
Christina Lewellen:
your world and things that you're checking out, and it
Christina Lewellen:
obviously is something that kids are using. I've said before on
Christina Lewellen:
the pod, but it's a great example. I have a daughter in
Christina Lewellen:
school in college who is going to be a teacher, and they're not
Christina Lewellen:
talking about AI ed tech tools at all, and so she's using them
Christina Lewellen:
because I'm her mom. On, and I talked to her about them, but
Christina Lewellen:
like, the school and the professors are not talking about
Christina Lewellen:
them. So can you give me a little insight, both, what are
Christina Lewellen:
you seeing at your independent school, but are you also now
Christina Lewellen:
bringing this into your Adjunct Professor work? That's
Rachel Sopko:
such a good question about, how do we
Rachel Sopko:
integrate all of these tools? And we've seen that with kids
Rachel Sopko:
who are like, everyone's using AI, or I think all my peers are
Rachel Sopko:
using AI, and then the kids aren't using it effectively, or
Rachel Sopko:
they're not being taught how to use it, or they actually have no
Rachel Sopko:
idea what AI is. And so I think that for me, the first step in
Rachel Sopko:
working either with my college age students or working here at
Rachel Sopko:
Kent is to just help everyone understand what AI is, right?
Rachel Sopko:
Like, what is this tool? They've seen all the sci fi movies and,
Rachel Sopko:
you know, the Terminator robots and those kinds of things. But
Rachel Sopko:
they don't actually understand, what is an LLM, what is a Chat
Rachel Sopko:
GPT? How does it work? Versus an image generator? You know, they
Rachel Sopko:
think it's a search engine, they think it's googling things like,
Rachel Sopko:
they don't understand the pre trained part of it, and that
Rachel Sopko:
creates a lot of confusion. So I think, for me, when I think
Rachel Sopko:
about this work, it's less about policy and more about figuring
Rachel Sopko:
out position, like, what do we actually believe about these
Rachel Sopko:
tools, about their place in the world, and what do we want to
Rachel Sopko:
equip our college age students, our students in the classroom at
Rachel Sopko:
high school level or below, to know and do and effectively
Rachel Sopko:
engage with and so once you have your position where you can say
Rachel Sopko:
you know what, we're recognizing that these tools exist. We
Rachel Sopko:
recognize that our students are going to grapple with them, and
Rachel Sopko:
we believe it's part of our duty, our mission at Kenneth to
Rachel Sopko:
prepare students to do good in the world beyond their time at
Rachel Sopko:
Kent School. Well, then that means that they have to be able
Rachel Sopko:
to effectively engage with these tools. Because whether they want
Rachel Sopko:
to or not, they're going to come across AI generated content.
Rachel Sopko:
They're going to have to figure out if that thing they're
Rachel Sopko:
looking at was, you know, real picture. Was it AI generated?
Rachel Sopko:
Was that sound that you hear, AI generated or not, those are
Rachel Sopko:
things that will happen to them. And if we don't have
Rachel Sopko:
conversations about ethical and safe and transparent use, then
Rachel Sopko:
we're not doing our job to prepare kids to exist in a world
Rachel Sopko:
where the fact of the matter is these tools are here, and they
Rachel Sopko:
will continue to be here. And rather than letting the AI tools
Rachel Sopko:
themselves, the companies drive that conversation, how do we
Rachel Sopko:
empower our learners to think about what these tools are
Rachel Sopko:
capable of and how to still be the human in the loop, so that
Rachel Sopko:
these tools are something they can use effectively in their
Rachel Sopko:
lives, but not allow themselves to be controlled by right?
Christina Lewellen:
Human in the loop. That's the Department of
Christina Lewellen:
Education, right? We have a podcast dropping where we
Christina Lewellen:
interviewed Kristina Ishmael. She and her team did a lot of
Christina Lewellen:
that work. I love that image. We use that all the time at Atlas.
Christina Lewellen:
Do you have a couple of tools or categories of tools, if you
Christina Lewellen:
don't want to name a specific tool that have captured your
Christina Lewellen:
attention lately,
Rachel Sopko:
when I think about getting teachers engaged with AI
Rachel Sopko:
for the very first time, right? When I'm trying to get that buy
Rachel Sopko:
in, right? Because everyone kind of feels like, Well, I'm a
Rachel Sopko:
science teacher, I'm a math teacher, I'm an art teacher,
Rachel Sopko:
it's not my job to teach about AI, right? That's like, Tech's
Rachel Sopko:
job, or that's a computer science teacher's job, right?
Rachel Sopko:
It's always someone else's job. And I think part of it is first
Rachel Sopko:
getting everyone to recognize it's actually everybody's job.
Rachel Sopko:
And these conversations can fit into your class in a lot of
Rachel Sopko:
different ways. And so what I found in our initial
Rachel Sopko:
conversations, you know, when everyone was just talking about
Rachel Sopko:
Chat GPT, my teacher sort of stared blankly at Chat GPT, and
Rachel Sopko:
they're like, but what do I do with this thing? Right? And they
Rachel Sopko:
weren't writing effective prompts or anything like that.
Rachel Sopko:
And you're like, Okay, let's back up. We need a tool that's
Rachel Sopko:
like training wheels for teachers, that helps them think
Rachel Sopko:
about what AI is and what it can do. And so this year we're
Rachel Sopko:
piloting magic school, we looked at a lot of different tools to
Rachel Sopko:
kind of decide where was the best fit for us, and magic tool
Rachel Sopko:
has been a game changer, I think, for us, in a lot of
Rachel Sopko:
different ways, because you open up that dashboard and in front
Rachel Sopko:
of you is, hey, you can create a UDL choice board. My teacher is
Rachel Sopko:
like, wait a what? I would have never thought of asking AI to do
Rachel Sopko:
that. Or they're like, I don't know what UDL is. Like, what's a
Rachel Sopko:
UDL choice board. And so now we've got that pedagogy coming
Rachel Sopko:
into play, and they have an idea so magic school by having all
Rachel Sopko:
those choices for them, saying, hey, write a professional email,
Rachel Sopko:
or come up with a spiral review for math, or here's a
Rachel Sopko:
presentation generator. That's gotten my teachers really
Rachel Sopko:
excited to play with these. And even something as silly as the
Rachel Sopko:
song generator, they're like, on dorm duty together, and they're
Rachel Sopko:
like, let's make a silly song about dorm duty. And then
Rachel Sopko:
they're like, oh, wait, I could do this in class with my
Rachel Sopko:
content. And so just getting their hands on the tools and
Rachel Sopko:
letting them play has gotten them to a point where they're
Rachel Sopko:
like, Oh, I do understand. It's possible. And that's when I
Rachel Sopko:
start to see my teachers come to me and they're like, Okay, I've
Rachel Sopko:
exhausted my magic school options because it's so
Rachel Sopko:
scaffolded. They're like, I want to go to Chat GPT now, or I want
Rachel Sopko:
to go to perplexity. I want to go to Claude, because I've maxed
Rachel Sopko:
out what I can do in magic school, and I have bigger,
Rachel Sopko:
better ideas. And so for me, that's been the most fun, is to
Rachel Sopko:
just let them play with some of these tools, like magic school,
Rachel Sopko:
even the conmigos, right, where it's scaffolded for them, and
Rachel Sopko:
then they have all these cool ideas, because they know what it
Rachel Sopko:
can do. And so that's my favorite part, is watching them
Rachel Sopko:
jump to the Canva magic generator, to straight up image
Rachel Sopko:
generators, or whatever the case may be, yeah,
Christina Lewellen:
and I think you're right, because there's
Christina Lewellen:
not a whole lot of teaching of the tool. It's not another thing
Christina Lewellen:
to learn, it's something to experience. Is what I have found
Christina Lewellen:
as I travel and as I talk to different schools about this is
Christina Lewellen:
like, it really doesn't take a lot of teaching. Let me just
Christina Lewellen:
open it up and show you, because you're a smart human and you
Christina Lewellen:
will be able to figure this out in fairly short order if you
Christina Lewellen:
just open the tool and just play with it. So I love the idea.
Christina Lewellen:
Like you said, it's kind of a sandbox. You don't really need
Christina Lewellen:
to teach a kid how to make a house in a sandbox. You put them
Christina Lewellen:
in the sandbox, and pretty soon they figure it out.
Bill Stites:
One question I have for you, something that's come
Bill Stites:
up recently. You talked a lot about the ethics and the ethics
Bill Stites:
of use, coming off of a lot of college age students coming home
Bill Stites:
and a lot of conversations. And on a previous episode, we had a
Bill Stites:
conversation about my wife's also a teacher as his hirams,
Bill Stites:
and about their feelings around the use of AI as a tool to help
Bill Stites:
them with their lesson planning, and thought it was cheating the
Bill Stites:
kids, we had to have a long conversation about how that's
Bill Stites:
not actually cheating, how you're focusing your time and
Bill Stites:
your efforts on the areas where you really need to focus, and
Bill Stites:
not so much on the things that you can have ai do for you.
Bill Stites:
That's a lot easier. So take that kind of frame, and I'm
Bill Stites:
talking to my college Ed senior, we started talking with him and
Bill Stites:
his friends and his girlfriend about the ways in which they're
Bill Stites:
using AI in college. And it was very interesting, because my
Bill Stites:
son, at first, was saying that he doesn't really trust it,
Bill Stites:
which I think going in with a level of skepticism or just
Bill Stites:
questioning around what you get from AI is not necessarily a bad
Bill Stites:
thing, because you want to understand all the biases, all
Bill Stites:
the different ways in which it's been developed. And you can use
Bill Stites:
it as a starting point, but then jump off from there that
Bill Stites:
skepticism exists around the areas where he is taking courses
Bill Stites:
for which they relate directly to his major when it comes to
Bill Stites:
the general ed requirements, the things that he just has to take
Bill Stites:
because the school tells him he has to take, he's using AI more
Bill Stites:
because he's like, I don't have time to focus my effort. I want
Bill Stites:
to spend more time over here and less time on this, so I'm more
Bill Stites:
likely to use AI over here in a way that, let's just say, might
Bill Stites:
have some ethical questions about how he's using that. His
Bill Stites:
mother and I were talking about how you really shouldn't do that
Bill Stites:
regardless. I mean, it shouldn't really matter. But Has this come
Bill Stites:
up with you at all in terms of looking at using AI as the
Bill Stites:
thought generator for those things that really have meaning
Bill Stites:
to you and that are going to help you develop maybe greater
Bill Stites:
questions, greater levels of insight, versus those types of
Bill Stites:
things that I just need to get this done, and I'm looking for
Bill Stites:
An easy out, and how you strike a balance there, if there even
Bill Stites:
is a balance, or how you address that, I'm having a really hard
Bill Stites:
time even synthesizing. I think, what is the actual question?
Bill Stites:
There more just with, like, the shock around the conversation,
Bill Stites:
and how do we even talk about this? Because I can see the
Bill Stites:
reason for it, but I don't necessarily agree with it, but I
Bill Stites:
don't necessarily have a huge degree of fault with it, either.
Bill Stites:
So I mean, how are you handling stuff like this? If it even
Bill Stites:
comes up,
Rachel Sopko:
it comes up a lot. It's something I grapple with in
Rachel Sopko:
my own work. You know, what's ethical to use it for? What's
Rachel Sopko:
not ethical to use it for? But I think for me, it's been about
Rachel Sopko:
taking a step back to really think about the question of what
Rachel Sopko:
is worth spending my time on, and where is this enhancing my
Rachel Sopko:
work, and how do I check my own bias around AI and what we've
Rachel Sopko:
been like conditioned to believe about hard work and effort and
Rachel Sopko:
what's okay to do and not okay to do. You know, I think back to
Rachel Sopko:
when, you know, Wikipedia was new, and everyone's like, you
Rachel Sopko:
can't use Wikipedia for everything. And you know, now,
Rachel Sopko:
when we teach students study skills, like we're teaching
Rachel Sopko:
them, actually, you should go there, like, you know, do
Rachel Sopko:
reverse searching where you're like, where did they get their
Rachel Sopko:
sources from? But it took us a long time to get there, for
Rachel Sopko:
people to see Wikipedia, not just like anybody can edit it,
Rachel Sopko:
but it's a source that was worth. File. And the same with I
Rachel Sopko:
was an English teacher. So, you know, everyone freaked out.
Rachel Sopko:
English notes and Spark Notes were available online. You know,
Rachel Sopko:
kids will read anymore, and now we're like, actually, go ahead,
Rachel Sopko:
like, read that, and then let's go to the original text, and
Rachel Sopko:
let's do our close read. Like, let's really try to understand
Rachel Sopko:
this. Those kinds of things really shook our foundations as
Rachel Sopko:
teachers, as they popped up, but then as we got used to them, as
Rachel Sopko:
we thought about them, as we reframed our understanding of
Rachel Sopko:
what we were doing, we integrated them into our
Rachel Sopko:
practice, or even encouraged kids to use them. And so I try
Rachel Sopko:
to think about that with AI too, about what am I worried about,
Rachel Sopko:
or what am I biased against that I'm not inviting AI to the table
Rachel Sopko:
to have the conversation, and where is it actually the easy
Rachel Sopko:
out or cheating? And I think that's a question I don't always
Rachel Sopko:
have a good answer to. But for me, what it comes back to in the
Rachel Sopko:
classroom is, what is my learning outcome. So one of the
Rachel Sopko:
teachers that was one of our kind of early adopters of AI.
Rachel Sopko:
And we really started these conversations. It was our music
Rachel Sopko:
technology teacher, and he did this really cool project where
Rachel Sopko:
he's like, listen, part of the work my kids have to do in this
Rachel Sopko:
class is they have to effectively put music over a
Rachel Sopko:
text, over something spoken. And he's like, all the stories that
Rachel Sopko:
are out there, my kids have preconceived notions about
Rachel Sopko:
they've heard this story with music attached to it. They heard
Rachel Sopko:
it told to them so they think they know the tone and the vibe.
Rachel Sopko:
And so what he did was he went to Chat GPT. He had to create a
Rachel Sopko:
children's story for him, and then he went to a different AI
Rachel Sopko:
tool that generates music, and he had it generate the music. So
Rachel Sopko:
it was a totally new score that kids hadn't heard before, a
Rachel Sopko:
story they had never read. And then he handed both of those to
Rachel Sopko:
the kids and said, Put this music over this story in the
Rachel Sopko:
appropriate places, or modify the music to have the right
Rachel Sopko:
tone. And where should the crescendos be? Where should the
Rachel Sopko:
decrescendos be? How do you do that? And because it was
Rachel Sopko:
something entirely new, he was able to really see what the kids
Rachel Sopko:
knew he could actually get a sense of what their learning was
Rachel Sopko:
on how to use the tool, how to make effective decisions,
Rachel Sopko:
something he could not have done quickly or easily without an AI
Rachel Sopko:
tool. Because he's not an author. He doesn't have time to
Rachel Sopko:
go write a children's story or compose a bunch of new music for
Rachel Sopko:
one of his classes. On top of everything else he does, he was
Rachel Sopko:
a little nervous to, like, share the story. At first, he's like,
Rachel Sopko:
everybody think I'm cheating because I used an AI tool, or
Rachel Sopko:
was that unethical? And you know, when we had that
Rachel Sopko:
conversation, I was like, No, your learning outcome was not to
Rachel Sopko:
have these kids write their own children's stories or have them
Rachel Sopko:
compose their own music. It was to effectively use the music
Rachel Sopko:
technology and apply it in this situation, and so by using AI,
Rachel Sopko:
he was actually able to better assess student learning, but he
Rachel Sopko:
couldn't do that unless he had a really clear understanding of
Rachel Sopko:
what his learning outcomes are, and that then let him engage
Rachel Sopko:
students in much higher order thinking and higher order
Rachel Sopko:
learning, which was so much more effective and engaging for the
Rachel Sopko:
kids than It would have been had he not done that. And so when
Rachel Sopko:
I'm talking to teachers or thinking about my own AI use,
Rachel Sopko:
that's what I always come back to, is, what am I trying to
Rachel Sopko:
assess here? What is my learning outcome? The same way, again, as
Rachel Sopko:
an English teacher, I'm like, I'm really mad at you if you did
Rachel Sopko:
not spell check your essay before you sent it to me. Or I'm
Rachel Sopko:
mad if you didn't use the grammar check. But if it was a
Rachel Sopko:
spelling test, or if it was a grammar test, then, no, it's not
Rachel Sopko:
okay to use those tools. And I think what people are really
Rachel Sopko:
craving is this black and white. It's okay to use in this, this,
Rachel Sopko:
this and this way, but it's not okay ever, and this that the
Rachel Sopko:
other way, and that, I think, is the dangerous part of the
Rachel Sopko:
conversation, is there is no black and white. It depends on
Rachel Sopko:
what we're trying to do. And you know, I've seen that in
Rachel Sopko:
different pockets of things around my school, some of my
Rachel Sopko:
best adopters of AI tools have actually been my admissions
Rachel Sopko:
department, and they're like, listen, it takes me forever to
Rachel Sopko:
really synthesize my interview notes, or it really takes me
Rachel Sopko:
forever to put these things together. And so with some AI,
Rachel Sopko:
they've been able to create like rubrics that align with our core
Rachel Sopko:
competencies to think about, okay, these are the things that
Rachel Sopko:
we really value. How do I ask questions that align with those?
Rachel Sopko:
How do I differentiate those questions for various levels of
Rachel Sopko:
students? Right? An incoming ninth grader is really different
Rachel Sopko:
than a PG. They need a different kind of question. And it takes a
Rachel Sopko:
really long time for someone to be able to come up with all of
Rachel Sopko:
those. And that's not the part of our work we want to do. We
Rachel Sopko:
want to be with the people, with the kids, or with the people
Rachel Sopko:
we're interviewing. And so that, to me, is that cost benefit
Rachel Sopko:
analysis of what's going to get me to build those relationships
Rachel Sopko:
with whoever it is, whether it's incoming families, the students
Rachel Sopko:
in front of me, the pre service teachers I'm working with. How
Rachel Sopko:
can we decide when the AI is helping us and furthering our
Rachel Sopko:
understanding or getting us to a point where we can get some of
Rachel Sopko:
the minutia off our plate so we can do the higher order things
Rachel Sopko:
or the more important things? And that's a personal sort of
Rachel Sopko:
choice for people to. Think about is, what am I okay
Rachel Sopko:
offloading to the AI, and what am I not? And what does it do
Rachel Sopko:
well, and what is it not? And so those are the questions I try to
Rachel Sopko:
have people grapple with as they think about these tools. So I
Rachel Sopko:
don't think it's ever gonna be this is always okay. It's okay
Rachel Sopko:
to use in my Gen Ed courses, you know, like you said, Bill or
Rachel Sopko:
it's not okay in my content level classes. But again, with
Rachel Sopko:
my pre service teachers, when I say, hey, plan a lesson with AI
Rachel Sopko:
and see what it does. Well, they're really bad at lesson
Rachel Sopko:
planning right now because they're brand new teachers, like
Rachel Sopko:
they're baby teachers, and they don't have all the pedagogy, but
Rachel Sopko:
now they have something in front of them. They have to think
Rachel Sopko:
about the questions. They have to think about, Hey, what is a
Rachel Sopko:
way I can get my kids to be metacognitive? What are
Rachel Sopko:
different summatives or formatives? But then they have
Rachel Sopko:
to apply the pedagogy to be like, actually, know, I wanted a
Rachel Sopko:
project based unit, and that's not project based, you know,
Rachel Sopko:
here's the theory that's going to let me modify or edit that
Rachel Sopko:
lesson, and that engagement of a pre service teacher is really
Rachel Sopko:
different than, you know, a teacher who's been around the
Rachel Sopko:
block a time or two, who's going to have different questions for
Rachel Sopko:
the AI and get something different out of its output. And
Rachel Sopko:
so I think it's always going to be about, what do I need from
Rachel Sopko:
it, and how can I apply those and push my thinking
Unknown:
So, Rachel, let's continue down this disrupted
Unknown:
train route. I'm curious what your opinion is on using AI for
Unknown:
grading, for writing comments, for writing college
Unknown:
recommendations, because what Independent Schools pride
Unknown:
themselves on is knowing the child. The relationship is so
Unknown:
vastly important. And I've heard conversations where some schools
Unknown:
refuse to use AI because we want a genuine comment coming from
Unknown:
our faculty. And the same with college recommendations, if
Unknown:
you're looking at what the outcome is. In my mind, I have a
Unknown:
preconceived notion of what that outcome could be and should be
Unknown:
when using AI in these different areas. I'm curious about what
Unknown:
your opinion is on that, because that's a slippery slope for a
Unknown:
lot of schools. Yeah,
Rachel Sopko:
this is one I My thinking has evolved a lot
Rachel Sopko:
around over the last year or so, and part of my thinking around
Rachel Sopko:
this actually started last year's Atlas conference. Our
Rachel Sopko:
friends from nine, you know, hosted a really great pre
Rachel Sopko:
conference session on student data privacy, and they talked a
Rachel Sopko:
lot about AI in that session and how we make decisions around
Rachel Sopko:
when, how and if to use AI tools. And one of the things
Rachel Sopko:
that really stuck with me was for them again, it wasn't this,
Rachel Sopko:
it's right in these instances and wrong in these instances,
Rachel Sopko:
but it's this cost benefit analysis of When have you lost
Rachel Sopko:
the human touch and what risks or what data is worth putting in
Rachel Sopko:
to get an output that maybe is better than we would have
Rachel Sopko:
gotten, and so That, for me, really started a change in my
Rachel Sopko:
thinking around some of the ways we use AI and how it can be used
Rachel Sopko:
for things like grading and comment writing, which I sort of
Rachel Sopko:
separate into two buckets for me, because as a teacher, I'd
Rachel Sopko:
had like 140 kids on my caseload. At some points, that
Rachel Sopko:
was a lot of it, because I taught all English too. So they
Rachel Sopko:
were all due at the same time. I couldn't stagger them, and it
Rachel Sopko:
was exhausting to read through all of them and give them
Rachel Sopko:
meaningful feedback. But for me, I had to, I had to read through
Rachel Sopko:
them, because otherwise I didn't know what student A was
Rachel Sopko:
struggling with or what Student B was excelling with. If I had
Rachel Sopko:
offloaded that to an AI, I I could not then have made
Rachel Sopko:
decisions about my teaching to support where my students were
Rachel Sopko:
struggling or not struggling, or give students extensions who had
Rachel Sopko:
already mastered those parts of learning, but for things like
Rachel Sopko:
comment writing. You know, I was at the Oasis conference. One of
Rachel Sopko:
the sessions was on using AI for comment writing and the amount
Rachel Sopko:
of work that these teachers had put into using AI for comment
Rachel Sopko:
writing was mind blowing, because what they did in this
Rachel Sopko:
experimental version of AI for comment writing was they had to
Rachel Sopko:
keep copious notes over the course of the term on their
Rachel Sopko:
kids. So they had, like a running Google doc where they
Rachel Sopko:
would be like, okay, you know, Hiram did this today in class,
Rachel Sopko:
and he was really great at this, but, you know, he kept talking
Rachel Sopko:
out of turn, or whatever, you know, Hiram had done that day.
Rachel Sopko:
And then they would do it about Bill, and then they would do
Rachel Sopko:
about Kristina. But then they would also realize, hey, maybe
Rachel Sopko:
there's a kid I haven't written a comment about in a couple of
Rachel Sopko:
weeks, right? So maybe I should go and pay extra close attention
Rachel Sopko:
to that kid this week, because I want to make sure I have data on
Rachel Sopko:
them and their performance, and what they found at the end of
Rachel Sopko:
that the school did a blind reading of people's comments,
Rachel Sopko:
they didn't know which ones were generated with AI, which ones
Rachel Sopko:
had been written by a person. And in the end, overall, the
Rachel Sopko:
teachers rated that round of comments as the best written
Rachel Sopko:
comments that they had ever gotten, and they could not
Rachel Sopko:
correctly guess which ones were AI generated and which ones were
Rachel Sopko:
person generated. But what they found through that was, as we've
Rachel Sopko:
all experienced, is writing comments for kids. When you get
Rachel Sopko:
to like the 15th kid of the night, you can only say he's a
Rachel Sopko:
good kid so many ways. And so you kind of fall into these
Rachel Sopko:
templates, right. Here's your comment. Kid, your middle kid,
Rachel Sopko:
your low kid. But what they found then was, then, you know,
Rachel Sopko:
I'd say to Christina, Hey, what did Mr. Sykes say about you? And
Rachel Sopko:
then we realized we had the same comment. It's like, Wait a
Rachel Sopko:
minute. He didn't really put that effort in. So it actually
Rachel Sopko:
undermined our relationship. But what this school had found when
Rachel Sopko:
they were using comments with AI was they were way more unique
Rachel Sopko:
and actually way more tailored to how the students were
Rachel Sopko:
actually doing, and those comments were less bias. You
Rachel Sopko:
know, it wasn't just this kid is kind of being a paid at the end
Rachel Sopko:
of the term. So now my comment is really angry about him, and I
Rachel Sopko:
forgot all the good stuff he did. They were much more robust,
Rachel Sopko:
and actually did a better job of painting a picture of what that
Rachel Sopko:
kid was doing well and what they weren't. And so I tell it anecdo
Rachel Sopko:
to kind of say so much more work and data keeping actually went
Rachel Sopko:
into the AI generated comments by the teachers, so there was
Rachel Sopko:
actually more human input and more thought and more data about
Rachel Sopko:
student performance and where they needed to go than there was
Rachel Sopko:
when the comments were solely written by a teacher who's
Rachel Sopko:
exhausted at the end of the term trying to finish all their
Rachel Sopko:
grading and say all the things. And so for me, in that instance,
Rachel Sopko:
that actually was a reflective practice that we want teachers
Rachel Sopko:
to have, right? We want them to do those things and keep notes
Rachel Sopko:
on their students and personalize and individualize.
Rachel Sopko:
To go back to your point. Hiram at independent school, we pride
Rachel Sopko:
ourselves on that personalization, and if AI is
Rachel Sopko:
going to increase our ability to do that, to really connect with
Rachel Sopko:
and know our students and to tailor their education to what
Rachel Sopko:
they need to be successful and do, well, then that, for me, is
Rachel Sopko:
a huge win. This
Bill Stites:
is one of the things that I think we're seeing
Bill Stites:
a lot of the SIS and LMS tools starting to do. We've had
Bill Stites:
conversation with vendors in this space, where you talk
Bill Stites:
about, where are you keeping track of your scope and
Bill Stites:
sequence? Where are you keeping track of your assessments, your
Bill Stites:
rubrics? What's your grade book look like? Where are you putting
Bill Stites:
all of those notes in? And AI is assisting with all of those
Bill Stites:
pieces along the way. And then when you get to that report
Bill Stites:
writing piece, it truly is delivering a much more robust,
Bill Stites:
less time consuming, unique comment around the student. And
Bill Stites:
this is that hurdle to get over, that same hurdle I was
Bill Stites:
mentioning with that Hiram and I were having when we were having
Bill Stites:
conversations with our wives about the use of AI. You're
Bill Stites:
doing all of this work the final output of that comment is a
Bill Stites:
direct result of all of the work that you've done, tracking
Bill Stites:
information, putting in your own input, your own observations,
Bill Stites:
your own grading, into all of those things that's generating
Bill Stites:
this at the end. And you still have the ability to tweak and
Bill Stites:
change that, but it's definitely lessening that lift when you get
Bill Stites:
to that point in the year where you're having to do this for
Bill Stites:
hundreds of students depending on your teaching load,
Rachel Sopko:
absolutely, I think lessening that lift is so
Rachel Sopko:
important. We know teachers are overburdened and burnt out, and
Rachel Sopko:
if we can help them connect with their students and do their jobs
Rachel Sopko:
better and really push them to be more innovative, right, not
Rachel Sopko:
to lead on that same lesson that they've done 100,000 times. But
Rachel Sopko:
you know, what does my kid actually need in this moment?
Rachel Sopko:
And I think about one of my teachers I'm working with right
Rachel Sopko:
now, he came down to my office one day and he was like, I have
Rachel Sopko:
a pitch for you. And I was like, okay, like, what do you want to
Rachel Sopko:
try? This sounds great. And he's like, I play Dungeons and
Rachel Sopko:
Dragons. And I'm like, Okay, go on waiting for, like, how is
Rachel Sopko:
this going to connect to AI? And he's like, you know, I've been
Rachel Sopko:
doing this thing for years where I put in all these notes that I
Rachel Sopko:
take about, you know, what our Dungeons and Dragons adventure
Rachel Sopko:
that day was. And, you know, thinking about, what have we
Rachel Sopko:
missed, or What haven't we done, What haven't we explored? He's
Rachel Sopko:
like, What if I took that approach and I did that was
Rachel Sopko:
curriculum. And I was like, Okay, I'm intrigued. Tell me
Rachel Sopko:
more. And so he's like, what I would like to try? I want to put
Rachel Sopko:
in my curriculum as I go, right? You know, here he's a math
Rachel Sopko:
teacher. He's like, so, but we did a lecture based lesson this
Rachel Sopko:
week on, you know, fractions or whatever he was teaching, and
Rachel Sopko:
then the next week we did project based or group work. And
Rachel Sopko:
he's like, I want to keep all these notes, and I want to put
Rachel Sopko:
in, like the tests that I'm giving, and then see, did I
Rachel Sopko:
actually assess what I was teaching, or did I actually mix
Rachel Sopko:
up my instruction, or where were my kids performing better? And
Rachel Sopko:
so for him, similar to the comment rating, he is now doing
Rachel Sopko:
exactly what we asked teachers to do, right to be reflective
Rachel Sopko:
practitioners on their work, but he's doing it on this much
Rachel Sopko:
larger scope than he as a single individual, could have done
Rachel Sopko:
himself. And what he's now able to see is, oh, hey, my test was
Rachel Sopko:
covering 50% of this one topic, but I only spent one day
Rachel Sopko:
teaching that topic. That's not a fair assessment of my kids. So
Rachel Sopko:
I either need to change the test, or I need to change what
Rachel Sopko:
I'm teaching. And so it's made him go back and think about
Rachel Sopko:
that. And then other teachers heard about it. They're like,
Rachel Sopko:
Wait, do my test. Do my test. And then they say, wow, like,
Rachel Sopko:
I'm not testing on what I thought it was, or I'm only
Rachel Sopko:
doing lower order thinking skills. And I think that's where
Rachel Sopko:
these tools are super powerful. Powerful and really push us
Rachel Sopko:
forward. You know, again, as a teacher, I'd spend all summer.
Rachel Sopko:
I'm going to do my curriculum, I'm going to find new things to
Rachel Sopko:
do, I'm going to find a new text or a new supplemental to support
Rachel Sopko:
that book. But I'm exhausted, right? And I have a life outside
Rachel Sopko:
of there, and so these tools are going to help us reach our kids
Rachel Sopko:
and grow their understanding and their learning and grow our
Rachel Sopko:
practices. Then That, to me, is a huge win,
Christina Lewellen:
absolutely. So Rachel, before we run out of
Christina Lewellen:
time with you, I want to spend a couple of minutes transitioning
Christina Lewellen:
to the ALI program. The Atlas Leadership Institute is a
Christina Lewellen:
program that we're really proud of, a year long cohort, and you
Christina Lewellen:
have found yourself a part of that cohort. Tell us a little
Christina Lewellen:
bit about your experience. Are you guys talking about these
Christina Lewellen:
things in your projects and in your leadership challenges.
Rachel Sopko:
Yeah, Ali has been awesome. It's really pushed my
Rachel Sopko:
thinking, you know, somebody who came from public schools and
Rachel Sopko:
then, you know, working at the collegiate level. It's really
Rachel Sopko:
helped me open my eyes to a bunch of really independent
Rachel Sopko:
school specific needs and challenges, which has been
Rachel Sopko:
awesome. It's connected me with a whole network of different ed
Rachel Sopko:
tech leaders across the country to see what are they doing. And
Rachel Sopko:
so when we're grappling with questions around AI, or we're
Rachel Sopko:
trying to think about, you know, what cyber security tool are you
Rachel Sopko:
using, or how are you handling this situation? It's been
Rachel Sopko:
awesome to have a group of people to lean on. You know,
Rachel Sopko:
where my pedagogical background is really strong. My ed tech
Rachel Sopko:
background is really strong. But some of the more nitty gritty,
Rachel Sopko:
you know, systems management or hardware, things art, I'm able
Rachel Sopko:
to then reach out and think about those things with other
Rachel Sopko:
partners who can grow my skills and in our different challenges.
Rachel Sopko:
It's been really great. Just think about what's going on at
Rachel Sopko:
my school. You know, how can I be a better tech leader? How do
Rachel Sopko:
I grow my leadership skills, and how do I forge alliances as
Rachel Sopko:
somebody who works in the tech department? Sometimes it can be
Rachel Sopko:
hard to get into academic spaces. They're like, Oh, you
Rachel Sopko:
know, the curriculum doesn't involve tech. And I'm like, I
Rachel Sopko:
can't help you choose ed tech tools or help you use Canvas
Rachel Sopko:
effectively in your classrooms if I'm not at the table and so
Rachel Sopko:
helping think about how to frame those conversations. Those
Rachel Sopko:
strategic leaders at my school. How do I support them in my
Rachel Sopko:
work? How do we work together? How does data flow? You know?
Rachel Sopko:
How do we do things like change management and project
Rachel Sopko:
management? How do we learn from each other as independent school
Rachel Sopko:
leaders? All of those have been amazing parts of Ali, and we
Rachel Sopko:
actually have a session later today that we're going to keep
Rachel Sopko:
talking about these things when we'll see each other at the
Rachel Sopko:
conference to keep those conversations going. And it's
Rachel Sopko:
been really great, even to meet past graduates who have been
Rachel Sopko:
like this led me to my job now, or to this project that I'm
Rachel Sopko:
working on, or this idea. It's just such a great network, and
Rachel Sopko:
I'm so honored and excited to be a part of it and to continue to
Rachel Sopko:
grow my skills and learn from this amazing community that
Rachel Sopko:
ATLIS has put together. Yeah,
Christina Lewellen:
that's the thing we love the most about
Christina Lewellen:
Ali, is that now that we've been around for 10 years, I think
Christina Lewellen:
Ashley calls it the mega cohort, and then, like the mega cohort
Christina Lewellen:
is all of the past Ali graduates, and that network is a
Christina Lewellen:
powerful engine of moving and shaking here in the Independent
Christina Lewellen:
School technologist realm. So we're really proud of it. It's
Christina Lewellen:
so cool to have you be a part of it. Have you guys gotten to the
Christina Lewellen:
point in the year where you're looking at your ending project?
Christina Lewellen:
Yet? Not
Rachel Sopko:
yet. I have a feeling that's we're gonna
Rachel Sopko:
actually maybe talk about later today, as we, you know, kick off
Rachel Sopko:
this part of the year, in this next phase leading up into the
Rachel Sopko:
conference. But already people are talking about, this is what
Rachel Sopko:
I want to do. Or even at the past atlases that I've been to,
Rachel Sopko:
you know, people would be like, this was my Atlas project, or
Rachel Sopko:
this was inspired by my Atlas project, or sessions I've
Rachel Sopko:
attended that you guys have hosted have been like, you know,
Rachel Sopko:
grown out of someone's or if somebody we were talking about
Rachel Sopko:
AI, they're like, Oh, hey. Like, this person did this in their
Rachel Sopko:
Ali project last year. Like, let me share it with you. And so I
Rachel Sopko:
know there's a ton of possibilities, and our cohorts
Rachel Sopko:
already thinking about what we've seen these cool projects,
Rachel Sopko:
like, what's mine gonna be? So everybody's excited to really
Rachel Sopko:
start thinking about what those will be and how they can
Rachel Sopko:
contribute to such a wonderful network and amazing body of
Rachel Sopko:
resources. Can
Christina Lewellen:
I put a plug in? And you have to keep it a
Christina Lewellen:
secret, right? Don't tell Ashley that I fed this into the cohort.
Christina Lewellen:
Dr Ashley Cross is our administrator of this program.
Christina Lewellen:
So what I would love to see somebody looking into is the
Christina Lewellen:
idea of AI as a wellness enabler for a very stressed out and
Christina Lewellen:
overburden teaching population. I don't think we always think
Christina Lewellen:
about it that way. You know, we had a conversation now about
Christina Lewellen:
cheating, not cheating, but it's interesting. I've started
Christina Lewellen:
talking to some heads of school and to a lesser extent, some
Christina Lewellen:
trustees at independent schools, about their obligation to
Christina Lewellen:
embrace AI from a wellness perspective, and how that can
Christina Lewellen:
really help teachers, you know, maybe take control of this
Christina Lewellen:
profession that has really gotten quite overgrown in terms
Christina Lewellen:
of what we ask them to do. So that's my evil little plug, if
Christina Lewellen:
anybody wants to look into AI tools as the unlocker of health
Christina Lewellen:
and wellness for. Our faculty, that's what I'd love to see. I
Rachel Sopko:
love the connection between like AI as
Rachel Sopko:
wellness, because I think too often we don't frame enough how
Rachel Sopko:
Ed Tech and all of these different tools can be part of
Rachel Sopko:
that wellness that we're talking about. We use Canvas. I've been
Rachel Sopko:
working with Canvas for a long time now, and at their
Rachel Sopko:
conference a couple of years ago, they did a whole thing on
Rachel Sopko:
VR, and it was really fascinating to listen to them
Rachel Sopko:
talk about VR, not just as something to use in the
Rachel Sopko:
classroom, but as a wellness tool. And they were talking
Rachel Sopko:
about how when you're in a VR environment, your brain reacts
Rachel Sopko:
to that setting the same way it would as if you were really
Rachel Sopko:
there. And so they showed us like, you know, people walking
Rachel Sopko:
on like balance beams across skyscrapers, and how they were
Rachel Sopko:
just as afraid as if they were literally doing it. And so for
Rachel Sopko:
me, as somebody in like a New England School, we're very
Rachel Sopko:
rural. We're in the middle of nowhere. It's like, hey,
Rachel Sopko:
actually, those things can really help with all of our kids
Rachel Sopko:
who experience that, like they don't understand the dark and
Rachel Sopko:
cold of a New England winter. And that things like VR not only
Rachel Sopko:
have, you know, pedagogical purposes of like, let's
Rachel Sopko:
transport kids to x place that we're studying, but it actually
Rachel Sopko:
can help with wellness. We were talking earlier about formative
Rachel Sopko:
assessment, like these things will grade a little bit faster
Rachel Sopko:
give us the data we need. Use AI as something to, you know,
Rachel Sopko:
lessen that burden, or help us feel less of that burnout, like
Rachel Sopko:
there's so much potential once we're willing to put in the work
Rachel Sopko:
and to learn them and to think outside the box with what these
Rachel Sopko:
tools could be used for. You know, just cycling one more time
Rachel Sopko:
back to Bill's comment around ethics too. I think years ago,
Rachel Sopko:
Ashley did a session at Atlas about when AI was brand new. It
Rachel Sopko:
was like, you know, what do we do about this thing. And she
Rachel Sopko:
read us the book The creepy crayon, which is about like a
Rachel Sopko:
bunny with a crayon that writes for him, and eventually he's
Rachel Sopko:
like, wait, I want to write in color on my my own. And that
Rachel Sopko:
really inspired me to think about how children's books can
Rachel Sopko:
help people understand some of these complicated concepts. And
Rachel Sopko:
the one that's been sticking with me a lot lately is the
Rachel Sopko:
Lorax, and thinking about how AI has a goal, right? It's going to
Rachel Sopko:
do whatever it's one goal is to the detriment of all other
Rachel Sopko:
goals. The same way that feeling the Lorax, the one slur is like,
Rachel Sopko:
I'm going to create my need. And it doesn't matter that I cut
Rachel Sopko:
down all the trees, driven away, all the animals, there's smog
Rachel Sopko:
everywhere. But how do we stay as the humans in a loop to think
Rachel Sopko:
about? You know that wellness component, what is worth the
Rachel Sopko:
advancement of that goal, what's not worth the advancement of
Rachel Sopko:
that goal? And so, how do we take those stories and think
Rachel Sopko:
about, you know, when we give as teachers, all of ourselves to
Rachel Sopko:
our kids, to our profession, how do we not do that? How do we not
Rachel Sopko:
cut everything else out of our lives and not see the AI as
Rachel Sopko:
something that will only further that one goal, but instead
Rachel Sopko:
actually help us preserve and save the things that matter to
Rachel Sopko:
us before it's too late and they're all gone and you know,
Rachel Sopko:
it's just you and your sad little building waiting for
Rachel Sopko:
somebody to plant your seed. I
Christina Lewellen:
love that. I love that analogy. So as we wrap
Christina Lewellen:
up with you, I have a couple of more rapid fire questions. Just
Christina Lewellen:
because we're getting to know you on this podcast, our
Christina Lewellen:
listeners are getting to know you, Bill and Hiram will
Christina Lewellen:
probably ask something obnoxious about zombies, but my question
Christina Lewellen:
is, so you're up there in the cold, and how do you fight the
Christina Lewellen:
sad I grew up in a wintry area, and so I also know that vibe of
Christina Lewellen:
like you get to this time of year, you're like, Oh my God,
Christina Lewellen:
will I ever feel warm again? Do you have a coffee beverage of
Christina Lewellen:
choice? Or how do you stay warm and cozy through these long
Christina Lewellen:
winter months? Anything
Rachel Sopko:
with coffee in it is my coffee beverage of choice.
Rachel Sopko:
I love a cappuccino. I love a good latte. And during the
Rachel Sopko:
Christmas season, only in the month of December, I am a
Rachel Sopko:
peppermint mocha fan, but the rest of the time I am a coffee
Rachel Sopko:
flavored coffee person. I love
Christina Lewellen:
that I can get into the holiday peppermint
Christina Lewellen:
mocha vibe. My husband calls that the Pepe Moke. I love that.
Christina Lewellen:
Do you want a Pepe Moke? Like, not. If you say it like that,
Bill Stites:
I'm gonna throw my wife under the bus because we
Bill Stites:
bought an espresso. So, like, now we're fancy with our coffee
Bill Stites:
at home, but one of her colleagues, they're all
Bill Stites:
teachers, gave her a, let's just say, a spiked version of
Bill Stites:
peppermint, which he decided to use. So if you really need a
Bill Stites:
thing to kind of get you over something a grown up Pepe. MKA,
Bill Stites:
exactly. My wife would highly, highly recommend that version of
Bill Stites:
it. Rumpelments, yes. Now this was a peppermint alcohol of some
Bill Stites:
sort. I'm not sure what exactly it was, but she enjoyed it
Bill Stites:
immensely. I
Rachel Sopko:
would say, when I'm not working, I'm a hockey
Rachel Sopko:
mom, and I manage a seven year hockey team. Oh, so I'm very
Rachel Sopko:
familiar with, like, a coffee you had chocolate plus some sort
Rachel Sopko:
of flavoring, because it's early and it's cold and the days I
Rachel Sopko:
want with a bunch of seven year olds who play hockey. You are a
Rachel Sopko:
special breed
Christina Lewellen:
that is a special level of momming that
Christina Lewellen:
not all moms get to. Mom so well done there. Rachel, it has been
Christina Lewellen:
such a pleasure to have you on the podcast with us today. Thank
Christina Lewellen:
you so much. You bring such a vibrant and forward looking
Christina Lewellen:
approach to Ed Tech, which is why we ask. Test you on we like
Christina Lewellen:
to mix things up a bit and not be too techie all the time.
Christina Lewellen:
Thank you for coming and talking some pedagogy with us and kind
Christina Lewellen:
of living in the space of AI with us for a while too. It's
Christina Lewellen:
been really helpful. Thanks so much for having me. It's been
Christina Lewellen:
great to hang out with you guys today. Let me know if you end up
Christina Lewellen:
getting my project approved at a Li, okay, I will. I'm
Rachel Sopko:
already thinking about ideas for that for you, so
Rachel Sopko:
I love
Christina Lewellen:
it. I've got a minion sending her into the
Christina Lewellen:
ALI program undercover. Thank you guys. It's been great to see
Christina Lewellen:
you. Thanks so much.
Peter Frank:
This has been talking technology with Atlas,
Peter Frank:
produced by the Association of Technology Leaders in
Peter Frank:
Independent Schools. For more information about Atlas and
Peter Frank:
Atlas membership, please visit the atlas.org if you enjoyed
Peter Frank:
this discussion, please subscribe, leave a review and
Peter Frank:
share this podcast with your colleagues in the independent
Peter Frank:
school community. Thank you for listening. You.
