The Art of AI: Fostering Creativity and Agency with Dr. Kylie Peppler
Presented by:
Dr. Kylie Peppler of UC Irvine joins the podcast to discuss the deep connections between art, technology, and learning. She explores how playful learning—from toys to AI—can foster creativity and student agency. Dr. Peppler also offers educators a framework for embracing AI as a creative tool rather than something to fear.
- Connected Arts Learning: Peppler, K., Dahn, M., & Ito, M. (2023). The Connected Arts Learning Framework: An expanded view of the purposes and possibilities for arts 99learning. The Wallace Foundation.
- Recrafting Computer Science: Speer, S., Huang, J., Yankova, N., Rose, C., Peppler, K., Orta-Martinez, M. (2023) RoboLoom: An Open-Source Loom Kit for Interdisciplinary Engagement in Math, Engineering, and Textiles. The ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) 2023. San Francisco, CA.
- StoryAI: Han, A., Zhou, X., Cai, Z., Han, S., Ko, R., Corrigan, S., & Peppler, K. 2024. Teachers, Parents, and Students’ Perspectives on Integrating Generative AI into Elementary Literacy Education.
- STEAM: Peppler, K., & Thompson, N. (2024). Tools and materials as non-neutral actors in STEAM education. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 1-38
- E-textiles: Peppler, K. & Bender, S. (2013). Maker movement spreads innovation one project at a time. Phi Delta Kappan, 95(3), pp. 22-27.
- Scratch (scratch.mit.edu): Peppler, K. (2010). Media arts: Arts education for a digital age. Teachers College Record, 112(8), 2118–2153.
- Connected Learning Lab - UC Irvine, research institute bringing together researchers across social, cultural, and technical fields, currently focused on: Digital Wellbeing, Research-Practice Partnerships, Neurodiversity and Learning, and Growing Up with AI.
- Build Lab, program at St Christopher’s School combining the best of STEM/STEAM approaches with a broad, skills-based, project-centered focus
- ATLIS AI resources
- Christina’s husband Richard’s grandfather, Verne Lewellen, Green Bay Packer | Photo of Richard with cousins
Transcript
Narrator:
Dan, welcome to Talking technology with ATLIS,
Narrator:
the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for
Narrator:
technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens.
Narrator:
We'll hear stories from technology directors and other
Narrator:
special guests from the Independent School community,
Narrator:
and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics.
Narrator:
And now please welcome your host. Christina Lewellen,
Christina Lewellen:
Hello everyone, and welcome back to
Christina Lewellen:
talking technology with ATLIS. I'm Christina Lewellen. I'm the
Christina Lewellen:
president and CEO of the Association of technology
Christina Lewellen:
leaders in independent
Bill Stites:
schools. And I am Bill Stites, the Director of
Bill Stites:
Technology at Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, New
Bill Stites:
Jersey,
Hiram Cuevas:
and I'm Hiram Cuevas, the Director of
Hiram Cuevas:
Information Systems and Academic Technology at St Christopher
Hiram Cuevas:
school in Richmond, Virginia. Hello.
Christina Lewellen:
Good afternoon. Welcome back, guys.
Christina Lewellen:
How are you today? Doing well. Doing better today. Good. I'm so
Christina Lewellen:
glad we are recording on a Monday afternoon. I know many
Christina Lewellen:
people listen to this in the morning when we drop so if
Christina Lewellen:
you're listening in the morning, good morning, but it's a Monday,
Christina Lewellen:
and you guys certainly look a little more smiley than the last
Christina Lewellen:
time I saw you. Did you have a good weekend?
Bill Stites:
Yes, I had my youngest. Craig. Just turned 21
Bill Stites:
happy birthday, Craig. Happy birthday. Craig, and we brought
Bill Stites:
him home and celebrate it in appropriate Stites fashion. So
Bill Stites:
it went quite well, which meant whiskey. Well, maybe, maybe not.
Bill Stites:
You know, he is 21 so I can probably say definitively, yes,
Bill Stites:
there was some whiskey involved. There was some time at the Irish
Bill Stites:
Pub, and there were three days of celebrating, because no
Bill Stites:
birthday should be celebrated on just one day. It should be
Bill Stites:
celebrated across multiple days. The other thing that's got me
Bill Stites:
smiling is this is weekend two of the smoked meat Palooza that
Bill Stites:
has been going on at my house, I've been throwing down ribs and
Bill Stites:
pork butts and making all sorts of pulled pork and other things
Bill Stites:
where my oldest doesn't let it kind of leave any portion of the
Bill Stites:
house. I can't bring any to anyone, because he devours it
Bill Stites:
all within the course of a day or two. And that's a lot of pork
Bill Stites:
to be ingested by any one human. But he seems to be doing okay.
Hiram Cuevas:
That's hard to top.
Christina Lewellen:
I mean, that sounds really exciting. What do
Christina Lewellen:
you got, Hiram, we
Hiram Cuevas:
actually spent a pleasant weekend at Parents
Hiram Cuevas:
Weekend up at Virginia Tech, where you got to visit our
Hiram Cuevas:
daughter, who is in the architecture school up there.
Hiram Cuevas:
And while she is not an avid football fan, we did this, got
Hiram Cuevas:
had a chance to spend a good deal of time in her studio, to
Hiram Cuevas:
see a lot of the work that she's doing. And it's true to form,
Hiram Cuevas:
engineers and architects students are working all the
Hiram Cuevas:
time, regardless if there's a game going on. That studio was
Hiram Cuevas:
packed with students. We were thrilled to see her, and it was
Hiram Cuevas:
nice to get out of Richard for a few days.
Christina Lewellen:
That's awesome. Well, I also just want
Christina Lewellen:
to quickly mention kind of a highlight of my weekend. I don't
Christina Lewellen:
know if I've mentioned it on this podcast before, but did you
Christina Lewellen:
guys know that Richard's grandfather played for the Green
Christina Lewellen:
Bay Packers. Have I told you all that? Yes. Okay, so what was
Christina Lewellen:
kind of cool is that a couple of his cousins were rolling through
Christina Lewellen:
the area on the way back toward Green Bay, and so three of Vern
Christina Lewellen:
lewellen's grandchildren were together this weekend, my
Christina Lewellen:
husband and two of his cousins. There was a lot of talk about
Christina Lewellen:
Green Bay Packers and how the team is doing real hard loss
Christina Lewellen:
this weekend, tough weekend, tough weekend, to be a Green Bay
Christina Lewellen:
fan, but it was really exciting to get them together and to
Christina Lewellen:
think about that legacy. They have not seen each other. In
Christina Lewellen:
particular, Richard has not seen one of his cousins for about 50
Christina Lewellen:
years. And so they got together and had a blast like it was
Christina Lewellen:
nothing. My god, yeah, it was really cool. They look a lot
Christina Lewellen:
alike, too. I'm wondering if we should drop a pic on the show
Christina Lewellen:
notes, because
Hiram Cuevas:
definitely, especially if you got a picture
Hiram Cuevas:
of your grandfather in his uniform.
Christina Lewellen:
Ooh, that's a good idea, too. I'll have to
Christina Lewellen:
dig one out. Okay, cool guys. So hey, look, it is time for us to
Christina Lewellen:
dig into our episode today. I'm really excited we have another
Christina Lewellen:
really cool guest. This was a neat one you guys, because over
Christina Lewellen:
the summer, we did ATLIS AI workshop. And I know we talk a
Christina Lewellen:
lot about that, but this is kind of an interesting angle to think
Christina Lewellen:
about things from the technology vantage point, also some arts
Christina Lewellen:
vantage points, which I know is something bill, that you have a
Christina Lewellen:
background in. So today we welcome to the pod. Dr Kylie
Christina Lewellen:
pepler, she is a professor of informatics and education at the
Christina Lewellen:
University of California Irvine. Dr pepler, thank you for joining
Christina Lewellen:
us today. Thank you, Christina, it's so awesome to have you
Christina Lewellen:
here. You direct the creativity labs. You're the co director of
Christina Lewellen:
the connected learning lab. You research in the space of the
Christina Lewellen:
intersection of arts, as I mentioned, and new technology
Christina Lewellen:
learning ecosystems. You have this focus on creative aspects
Christina Lewellen:
of maker center practices, and so our members. Touch a lot of
Christina Lewellen:
that stuff. So can you start by just telling us a little bit
Christina Lewellen:
about what your area of focus and research is? I'm also
Christina Lewellen:
curious about what the connected learning lab is.
Kylie Peppler:
Ah, well, my area of research really brings
Kylie Peppler:
together my interest in the arts and new technologies together.
Kylie Peppler:
And so we we actually have a black box theater, that when you
Kylie Peppler:
walk in, you actually get to see a lot of our projects in action.
Kylie Peppler:
And so you'll see Jaccard looms that many of our undergraduates
Kylie Peppler:
have put together, and then they're printing textiles as
Kylie Peppler:
part of their undergraduate coursework and engineering and
Kylie Peppler:
computer science and learning about color theory of textiles
Kylie Peppler:
and so forth. In another quarter, you're going to see a
Kylie Peppler:
lot of the electronic textiles work that we do where you're
Kylie Peppler:
embedded wearable computers and where dancers can actually
Kylie Peppler:
control the composition of the music. Other collaborations that
Kylie Peppler:
we've had with industry partners, like Merlin mind,
Kylie Peppler:
where we've helped them to develop an AI assistive device
Kylie Peppler:
that's in classrooms and so forth. And so we really sort of
Kylie Peppler:
bring creativity, and I think a need in today's classrooms that
Kylie Peppler:
we try to solve to make learning more fun but also higher quality
Kylie Peppler:
throughout
Christina Lewellen:
that's really cool. So how did you walk
Christina Lewellen:
this path? We can definitely come back to the creativity labs
Christina Lewellen:
and the connected learning lab. I'm curious about like, where
Christina Lewellen:
did this come from in you?
Kylie Peppler:
Well, one of my earliest memories, I knew I
Kylie Peppler:
wanted to be a toy designer. I just loved the way, you know,
Kylie Peppler:
toys operated, you know. And, you know, I think the inner
Kylie Peppler:
educator in me was like, wait, you can learn a lot from these
Kylie Peppler:
toys, you know, you can learn a lot from all of these things
Kylie Peppler:
that are sitting in your toy cabinet. And so my friends would
Kylie Peppler:
always remember that I'd have this, like, Museum of Toys when
Kylie Peppler:
they came over. And a lot of that I was just really
Kylie Peppler:
interested in creating and making things that led me into
Kylie Peppler:
the arts, and particularly in sculpture. And so my undergrad
Kylie Peppler:
degree is in fine arts. And so how do I think about designing
Kylie Peppler:
the world around us? And how do we think about designing
Kylie Peppler:
educational experience? So a lot of my work was installation
Kylie Peppler:
based, at our performative as a way and, you know, an invitation
Kylie Peppler:
to play and to learn. And so when I was applying to graduate
Kylie Peppler:
school, I was kind of thinking about, how can I take that
Kylie Peppler:
passion around the arts? You know, unlike a lot of my peers,
Kylie Peppler:
I wasn't drawn to like producing art for museums, but really
Kylie Peppler:
these experiences. And so how can I think about an applied
Kylie Peppler:
version of that. And so I sort of brought my interest in
Kylie Peppler:
education and the learning together with the arts. And I
Kylie Peppler:
was at UCLA, studying with Dr James Catterall for folks that
Kylie Peppler:
are in the arts education landscape. And it just really
Kylie Peppler:
fell in love with the work that we were doing. But throughout
Kylie Peppler:
all of that, I kept trying to invent the tools, materials that
Kylie Peppler:
I would have loved to have had at my fingertips, you know. So
Kylie Peppler:
as an educator, you're always looking for that new thing that
Kylie Peppler:
would help you devise the thing you always wanted to create. And
Kylie Peppler:
so now I get to do exactly that.
Christina Lewellen:
That is really cool. What an interesting
Christina Lewellen:
kind of a unique approach to art and being involved in fine arts.
Christina Lewellen:
Okay, so now let's go back to the connected learning lab, tell
Christina Lewellen:
us a little bit about that. The connected learning lab
Kylie Peppler:
is a larger group of about 40 faculty here at the
Kylie Peppler:
University of California Irvine. We're called an organizational
Kylie Peppler:
Research Unit, and so it's like a research institute here on the
Kylie Peppler:
campus, and it's meant to sort of bring cross sector
Kylie Peppler:
collaborations amongst faculty, but also cross sector outside of
Kylie Peppler:
the university together as well. And so we have several strands
Kylie Peppler:
of work. The creativity Labs is one of those 40 labs within
Kylie Peppler:
that. And we start to work. How can we get schools working with
Kylie Peppler:
out of school sectors, with museums, with industry partners,
Kylie Peppler:
with future workforce, with artists, you know, all of those
Kylie Peppler:
things. There's a lot of barriers from the way we've set
Kylie Peppler:
things up traditionally to that type of collaboration. And so a
Kylie Peppler:
while back, the MacArthur Foundation did a $250 million
Kylie Peppler:
investment in this new area of digital media learning, and
Kylie Peppler:
connected learning was both the theory and the practice that
Kylie Peppler:
grew out of that portfolio over time, and many of us that have
Kylie Peppler:
been part of that connected learning research network, it's
Kylie Peppler:
an international network. Have actually relocated here to UCI,
Kylie Peppler:
to really be in residence and to work together towards a sort of
Kylie Peppler:
global mission of change.
Christina Lewellen:
That's really cool. I know Bill has a
Christina Lewellen:
background in art, and he is also a teacher and then later
Christina Lewellen:
became a technology director. And so I can imagine that
Christina Lewellen:
there's some connections there. But can you help draw a line for
Christina Lewellen:
me between work in stem the a of steam, I guess, as some schools
Christina Lewellen:
are approaching it. So in other words, what does art have to do
Christina Lewellen:
with technology?
Kylie Peppler:
It's always been really entwined with technology.
Kylie Peppler:
I think any true inventor is really an artist, in a sense. I
Kylie Peppler:
think about Leonardo da Vinnie. You think about all of these
Kylie Peppler:
folks that have been artists, but see things in a new light.
Kylie Peppler:
And so, you know, almost all of the new technology has presented
Kylie Peppler:
us with sort of an artful engagement of. Of how we
Kylie Peppler:
interact with the world, right? And so, you know, the pieces
Kylie Peppler:
that I think Captivate us the most. I mean, I remember the
Kylie Peppler:
iPhone came out and just being able to use touch on that
Kylie Peppler:
screen, you know, it was just so exciting, and this new way of
Kylie Peppler:
interacting. But I think almost all of our technologies are kind
Kylie Peppler:
of that way, right? They're sort of born of an artist envisioning
Kylie Peppler:
a new way, a new relationship between us and the screen. You
Kylie Peppler:
know, sometimes you see artists playing around instead of having
Kylie Peppler:
the cursor follow your viewpoint, maybe the whole
Kylie Peppler:
screen follows. So there's lots of different ways of rethinking
Kylie Peppler:
our everyday experiences in artful ways. I think, for us, as
Kylie Peppler:
we look at Steam, it's not just an extra. It's not just like the
Kylie Peppler:
cherry on top of why we engage in STEM work. It's actually what
Kylie Peppler:
pushes the deeper engagement in all of the technology, but
Kylie Peppler:
science and engineering and mathematics as well. And I can
Kylie Peppler:
give you a lot of examples of that.
Bill Stites:
I've always appreciated just the creativity
Bill Stites:
aspect of it, when you bring that into your work, having that
Bill Stites:
mindset, that artist mindset, that creative mindset, bringing
Bill Stites:
that into work in technology, I think, helps in the
Kylie Peppler:
arts, but also in sciences, we learn a lot about
Kylie Peppler:
the creative mindset, right? And so like in engineering classes,
Kylie Peppler:
we'll push for these divergent moments of creativity, right?
Kylie Peppler:
Where you're just brainstorming as many possibilities, and, you
Kylie Peppler:
know, in design thinking or these other places, we want to
Kylie Peppler:
withhold judgment, but that's because we're encouraging wide
Kylie Peppler:
creative solutions, and so often, I mean, when you look at
Kylie Peppler:
our creative process, we jump in and we snag the first thing. And
Kylie Peppler:
you can notice this in your everyday you can notice this in
Kylie Peppler:
the classroom, but oftentimes we try to be expedient with our
Kylie Peppler:
time, so it seems like we're going to lead to a better
Kylie Peppler:
solution if we just get started right away. Started right away,
Kylie Peppler:
and kind of ignoring that impulse, letting ourselves kind
Kylie Peppler:
of brainstorm and go through that divergent process is really
Kylie Peppler:
important. And then I think the arts also teaches us to really
Kylie Peppler:
look at and evaluate those things, and not just come in
Kylie Peppler:
with our preconceptions, but really see how the worst idea
Kylie Peppler:
out there could actually be really good. And so this moment
Kylie Peppler:
of like critique or exploration, where you stay with this
Kylie Peppler:
divergence and you explore that this idea could be really good.
Kylie Peppler:
And that's one of the things I learned in my background in the
Kylie Peppler:
arts and in visual arts, we call this critique, right, you know?
Kylie Peppler:
And so this moments of crit at the end of the course is that
Kylie Peppler:
the projects I thought were completely unsuccessful, but the
Kylie Peppler:
more we unpack them and we talked about the possibility
Kylie Peppler:
space, the more I saw, Oh, actually, I just missed that. I
Kylie Peppler:
didn't see how this could become really amazing, because think
Kylie Peppler:
about the culture of that is really great, then we have to
Kylie Peppler:
converge. We've got to pick something and dive into it. We
Kylie Peppler:
can't stay with the million possibilities we need to
Kylie Peppler:
actually start to build so that convergent process can be
Kylie Peppler:
really, really important too.
Hiram Cuevas:
What's interesting here at St Christopher is we
Hiram Cuevas:
have a program that's not called steam or stem. It's actually
Hiram Cuevas:
called build, and it's boys using innovation to learn and
Hiram Cuevas:
design. It's essentially branded that way, because we are an old
Hiram Cuevas:
boy school. And what's been really nice about this
Hiram Cuevas:
particular course, which has a strand that goes across all
Hiram Cuevas:
three of our divisions, the lower middle and the Upper
Hiram Cuevas:
School. Its home is in the arts, and it's designed that way
Hiram Cuevas:
intentionally because we have found that that particular
Hiram Cuevas:
course and that strand allows our boys to experience a lack of
Hiram Cuevas:
fear of failure, because they are trying all these different
Hiram Cuevas:
ways as they go through the design thinking process in
Hiram Cuevas:
particular, and you may fail several times, but it's joyful
Hiram Cuevas:
to see that they're not so much worried about the grade at that
Hiram Cuevas:
point, Because that's not where the emphasis is, and that
Hiram Cuevas:
creative process is so invaluable in other areas that
Hiram Cuevas:
they don't see it until a little bit later, as they mature and
Hiram Cuevas:
they realize how important the arts are.
Kylie Peppler:
Yeah, I see that all the time, even in higher
Kylie Peppler:
education, you know, because we get the students that have just
Kylie Peppler:
been stressed out trying to get the right answer, you know, all
Kylie Peppler:
of the standardized tests and the other portion, and you know,
Kylie Peppler:
the pressures that the kids have right now to get into college
Kylie Peppler:
and all of these things right, the grades and the other
Kylie Peppler:
portions are just so important. But just learning how to fail
Kylie Peppler:
and how to recover, you know, to be that boomerang that kind of
Kylie Peppler:
comes back is so important because we we all will fail, you
Kylie Peppler:
know, and we want to fail quickly, actually, so we can
Kylie Peppler:
stand up and get to the right answer. But the amount of tears
Kylie Peppler:
I even see in my undergraduate courses is just really hard. But
Kylie Peppler:
part of that emotional development is just actually
Kylie Peppler:
it's okay, let's try it again, you know? And part of what we've
Kylie Peppler:
been doing in grading in my courses is just really doing
Kylie Peppler:
competency based education. And so if you get it right the first
Kylie Peppler:
time, great, but if it takes you 100 times, that's great. 100
Kylie Peppler:
times, that's great. And can both get an A right and so
Kylie Peppler:
really allotting those points in a way that pushes towards that
Kylie Peppler:
solution space and extra credit comes from thinking outside the
Kylie Peppler:
box and coming up with something that nobody else has ever come
Kylie Peppler:
up with.
Christina Lewellen:
So ever since you observed the Learn.
Christina Lewellen:
Playing that comes from toys, which is interesting, because
Christina Lewellen:
obviously that is very apparent when kids are little, but maybe
Christina Lewellen:
we get away from that as we get a little older.
Hiram Cuevas:
Who are you kidding? Who are you kidding on
Hiram Cuevas:
that? Oh, are you still
Christina Lewellen:
playing with toys? I love my toys. Okay, I
Christina Lewellen:
got a whole shelf. Okay.
Christina Lewellen:
Hiram is a big fan of you and your work, then here we go. So
Christina Lewellen:
you're blending arts computation and this idea of informal
Christina Lewellen:
learning in your research, and it obviously is an interest of
Christina Lewellen:
yours. But then can you help us understand how that shows up in
Christina Lewellen:
practice?
Kylie Peppler:
You mean how learning shows up in just
Kylie Peppler:
playful learning?
Christina Lewellen:
Yeah, I think so. I think it's one thing
Christina Lewellen:
to research it. But then where do we actually see that? And
Christina Lewellen:
where would you like to see more of that? Yeah, so we see it
Kylie Peppler:
all the time, and actually, early childhood
Kylie Peppler:
research is really great, you know? So when you look at kids
Kylie Peppler:
at play shoots the ladders, for example, have a lot better sense
Kylie Peppler:
of number sense and timeline development. Kids that play with
Kylie Peppler:
toy cars, for example, have a better sense of physics because
Kylie Peppler:
they're rolling down, and they have a sense that, you know, the
Kylie Peppler:
heavier weighted car is going to go further down the ramp, and
Kylie Peppler:
kind of all of the aerodynamics that are involved and so forth,
Kylie Peppler:
right? So almost all of our toys teach something, and that's
Kylie Peppler:
where I think, as a learning scientist, I think about
Kylie Peppler:
anything we do teaches us something. Everything we
Kylie Peppler:
interact teaches us something, but it may not be well aligned
Kylie Peppler:
with what we hope the kids will learn. And so there could be a
Kylie Peppler:
lot of distractions out there. There could be things that we
Kylie Peppler:
don't want to see happen. So I want to give you an example of
Kylie Peppler:
like, we were playing with squishy circuits, and we were in
Kylie Peppler:
an early childhood classroom. And so, you know, there were
Kylie Peppler:
some kids that were there, and they would come over to the
Kylie Peppler:
table and they would play with these squishy circuits. And for
Kylie Peppler:
folks that don't know squishy circuits, this is a circuitry,
Kylie Peppler:
you know, so it's basically like a nine volt battery, kind of
Kylie Peppler:
it's all enclosed, so the kids can't hurt themselves regular
Kylie Peppler:
Play Doh, because you can make your Play Doh, or you could find
Kylie Peppler:
it off the shelf, and then there's wires, but there's a
Kylie Peppler:
motor and other kinds of things as well. But you know, most of
Kylie Peppler:
you probably had an experience with a nine volt battery, and
Kylie Peppler:
like, a little like, and like a little light bulb that would
Kylie Peppler:
light up, and then you put your alligator clips in between. But
Kylie Peppler:
instead of having alligator clips, you actually use the salt
Kylie Peppler:
based dough to conduct electricity down to turn on the
Kylie Peppler:
light bulbs of this case, little LEDs. And then you can do all
Kylie Peppler:
sorts of really creative things with this. And you know, it was
Kylie Peppler:
really fun seeing this in early childhood class, because it's
Kylie Peppler:
the kids that come to the table first. So let me set up a system
Kylie Peppler:
kids that are like, Yes, I'll be there, right? And then, you
Kylie Peppler:
know, as we added more colors of dough and other things, we got
Kylie Peppler:
the arts kids that just wanted to squeeze the dough and to make
Kylie Peppler:
different things and play with different things. And then we
Kylie Peppler:
added little figurines, so like from Dora, or other types of
Kylie Peppler:
narratives. And then it was almost everybody came to the
Kylie Peppler:
table, and it was because we added narrative, and then the
Kylie Peppler:
motor became a helicopter for Dora and Boots to escape, right?
Kylie Peppler:
So all of these ways of playing, as we added Dora, they were
Kylie Peppler:
learning about how to construct a narrative and how to tell a
Kylie Peppler:
story, right? As the arts kids were playing with the dough,
Kylie Peppler:
they were learning about color theory and what that meant to
Kylie Peppler:
interchange right. As the kids were playing with circuits, they
Kylie Peppler:
started understanding the big ideas of circuits that actually
Kylie Peppler:
evade college students and adults alike, you know. So if I
Kylie Peppler:
asked you what the big ideas of circuitry were, almost everybody
Kylie Peppler:
would draw a blank, right, unless you're an electrical
Kylie Peppler:
engineer by trade. But these kids, in three to five years
Kylie Peppler:
old, were able to nail it and really give the college students
Kylie Peppler:
a run for their money.
Christina Lewellen:
That's really neat.
Christina Lewellen:
As we're moving into this era. You know, the guys jokingly say
Christina Lewellen:
to me, sometimes, Christina, if we've got to talk about AI one
Christina Lewellen:
more time, because they just live it. They're swimming in
Christina Lewellen:
this pool all day, every day at their schools, as are many of
Christina Lewellen:
our technology leaders. So that you understand Kylie, I think
Christina Lewellen:
part of where our technology leaders are struggling is that
Christina Lewellen:
they're not just coming to the table being asked to define AI
Christina Lewellen:
from a safety and technological standpoint, but a lot of times,
Christina Lewellen:
whether they have the experience and background or not, our tech
Christina Lewellen:
directors are also being asked to guide some pedagogy decisions
Christina Lewellen:
and some academic integrity decisions and things like that.
Christina Lewellen:
And so from your vantage point in the work that you do, can you
Christina Lewellen:
tell me about what you're observing when it comes to this
Christina Lewellen:
advanced acceleration of AI in the classroom and for teachers,
Christina Lewellen:
but in particular for the classroom,
Kylie Peppler:
yeah, it's tricky, and I think we're all in
Kylie Peppler:
this together in terms of that landscape is quickly changing.
Kylie Peppler:
So there's not a stagnancy where we can say AI is plateaued. And
Kylie Peppler:
this is what you can expect. You know, take creative music
Kylie Peppler:
writing software. You know, I'm married to composer, and
Kylie Peppler:
probably a month ago, we would have said, AI is not very good
Kylie Peppler:
at composing music, you know. Can kind of pick out different
Kylie Peppler:
melodies and put things together and so forth. And then a new
Kylie Peppler:
platform was released, and it was really frighteningly good
Kylie Peppler:
songs with, like, really terrible prompt programming can,
Kylie Peppler:
like, you know, we just put in just the worst prompt and see
Kylie Peppler:
what kind of music could actually come out of. Something
Kylie Peppler:
about, you know, a dog on the beach and Afro beats, you know,
Kylie Peppler:
for example, and it was a completely coherent song that
Kylie Peppler:
has even a catchy refrain. So this is going to be a challenge
Kylie Peppler:
for all of us, right? So my philosophy is really, instead of
Kylie Peppler:
hiding from it, right? Is really trying to embrace it as an
Kylie Peppler:
educator and trying to make it part of the creative process, so
Kylie Peppler:
exploring those tools. So for the first time this year, I do a
Kylie Peppler:
ubiquitous computing course, and so the students create about 40
Kylie Peppler:
different IoT devices, and they have to design their own
Kylie Peppler:
Internet of Things device at the end. But this year, we actually
Kylie Peppler:
worked with AI to produce different things, or to imagine
Kylie Peppler:
or envision different projects, the same with some of the other
Kylie Peppler:
courses on Digital Media and Learning with kids, right? And
Kylie Peppler:
so just using it as an opportunity to explore the
Kylie Peppler:
platform. What can you create with this music software? What
Kylie Peppler:
can you create with the other platforms? And again, ATLIS, you
Kylie Peppler:
guys have been doing a great job of just encouraging that. And so
Kylie Peppler:
I encourage all of your educators to say yes to this,
Kylie Peppler:
because it can be really scary, but this is like a really safe
Kylie Peppler:
community to just try one of the challenges out, right that come
Kylie Peppler:
across your inbox, and even if you hate it. You know, my son is
Kylie Peppler:
a writer, and he's in theater, he just is rejecting AI, but to
Kylie Peppler:
kind of know what it does and when you have a deep knowledge
Kylie Peppler:
of your craft, right? And this is where, as educators, you're
Kylie Peppler:
teaching students a very deep knowledge of the craft. It
Kylie Peppler:
becomes another tool that they're going to be able to use
Kylie Peppler:
and to refine. But my son, being a good writer, he can tell when
Kylie Peppler:
a text is created with AI, right? Like, he could just tell
Kylie Peppler:
that that's not the voice. Like, even if I create something in AI
Kylie Peppler:
and I send it to him like a template for something or
Kylie Peppler:
something else, he'll like you created that AI, and he's always
Kylie Peppler:
right. He can just see right through it. So as you're working
Kylie Peppler:
with students, know that you're preparing them to enter into
Kylie Peppler:
this world and to make those decisions. But I think it's
Kylie Peppler:
important to stay present to the extent that you know what it's
Kylie Peppler:
capable of and you're able to shepherd the kids through this
Kylie Peppler:
because it is yet another large stressor for them in that high
Kylie Peppler:
school experience, especially
Bill Stites:
hearing you talk about this, jumping in, giving
Bill Stites:
the shot, playing with it, just experimenting with it. We're in
Bill Stites:
a position where we're fortunate enough to be able to do that.
Bill Stites:
There's not a lot of risk. I'm not standing in front of a
Bill Stites:
classroom of students on a day to day basis doing this. And I
Bill Stites:
think about those teachers. My wife is a teacher. Hiram's wife
Bill Stites:
is a teacher. My wife teaches Spanish, and she is a very good
Bill Stites:
Spanish teacher, and she knows her content, and she spent years
Bill Stites:
studying that content to be confident enough to go in there.
Bill Stites:
How do you talk to educators about finding the time, finding
Bill Stites:
the wellness, finding the courage to take on AI? Because,
Bill Stites:
you know, I think about the things I'm trying to be mindful
Bill Stites:
of, and trying to figure out here in terms of, like, what are
Bill Stites:
our guidelines for use? What are we allowing? What are we not
Bill Stites:
allowing? Because teachers are looking for some guardrails
Bill Stites:
because they don't have that confidence to go into it in an
Bill Stites:
open ended sense. So how do you talk to those that you're
Bill Stites:
working with, those educators that you get a chance to speak
Bill Stites:
to? How are you talking about this with them and just opening
Bill Stites:
themselves up to it? And
Kylie Peppler:
it's not just AI, right? It's almost any new
Kylie Peppler:
technology we've seen the same. You know, it was not too long
Kylie Peppler:
ago we were talking about coding for all, or we're talking about
Kylie Peppler:
engineering practices. I think anything that we haven't
Kylie Peppler:
experienced as a learner can be really, really difficult. So one
Kylie Peppler:
of the things that I like to do, I try to target teachers that
Kylie Peppler:
during like professional development, just to create a
Kylie Peppler:
safe space and so forth, so that we're exploring. Sometimes I
Kylie Peppler:
don't even have enough time to explore something, so I assign
Kylie Peppler:
it as an assignment to my students, and then we sit and
Kylie Peppler:
debrief it and what happened. So for example, like, why not have
Kylie Peppler:
the students work on, like, an AI policy, right? Like they can
Kylie Peppler:
look at policies that exist, policies that they'd like to see
Kylie Peppler:
what should happen. There could be students exploring AI for
Kylie Peppler:
music and composition, or AI for writing stories or for creating
Kylie Peppler:
comic strips or things like that. And so part of the safety
Kylie Peppler:
is setting it up. Like, I just make it really clear what I know
Kylie Peppler:
and what I don't know. As an educator, like, I don't know
Kylie Peppler:
anything about this. I haven't even tried these platforms,
Kylie Peppler:
guys, but I think it's really important we do this and why,
Kylie Peppler:
and just sending them out there and then kind of coming back
Kylie Peppler:
with this result. Or, if you're in charge of the technology
Kylie Peppler:
training at the school, you know, kind of setting that up,
Kylie Peppler:
but with all adults, you know, if you're really worried about
Kylie Peppler:
what the kids might come up with on some of these platforms, you
Kylie Peppler:
know, sitting in the room and just kind of having the grace
Kylie Peppler:
that we're just going to treat ourselves like a child, right,
Kylie Peppler:
that we're just going to see and sometimes, if you make it the
Kylie Peppler:
worst thing right, like, who can come up with the worst plot, or
Kylie Peppler:
who can come up with the worst possible, you know, rather than
Kylie Peppler:
always the best, right, we always kind of have this
Kylie Peppler:
pressure to come up with something good. Small groups can
Kylie Peppler:
also be helpful. So I think there's a lot of ways to take.
Kylie Peppler:
Take that pressure. I think the solution depends on your group.
Kylie Peppler:
You know, if you've got a very social group, the collaboration
Kylie Peppler:
can be really good. I've done like aI script writing in small
Kylie Peppler:
groups, you know, just adults. And these were just adults from
Kylie Peppler:
the community that had no idea what AI was and were really
Kylie Peppler:
scared. They barely use Google search, you know. But they were
Kylie Peppler:
interested. They wanted to know what this thing was about. And
Kylie Peppler:
then, kind of, the safety of having a group of three or four
Kylie Peppler:
or five people working together towards an end could be really
Kylie Peppler:
useful. You know, the folks that are just limited on time finding
Kylie Peppler:
a block where you're going to have them anyway to explore,
Kylie Peppler:
it'll depend. There's never one size solution for all. But I
Kylie Peppler:
think, think about what's the chief barrier and what would be
Kylie Peppler:
the chief motivator, and going after those two things,
Hiram Cuevas:
I'm so glad you brought up creating the worst
Hiram Cuevas:
possible whatever it happens to be. It reminds me of an activity
Hiram Cuevas:
we did called the lousy PowerPoint and talk about
Hiram Cuevas:
behavior modification. After watching 10 lousy PowerPoint
Hiram Cuevas:
presentations, our boys knew exactly what to avoid, with all
Hiram Cuevas:
sorts of things bouncing around all over the place, contrasting
Hiram Cuevas:
colors and whatnot that were inappropriate, etc. But in terms
Hiram Cuevas:
of many of these creative approaches and Creative
Hiram Cuevas:
Technologies, can you talk a little bit more about how this
Hiram Cuevas:
has the capacity to foster youth, Agency for our students,
Kylie Peppler:
Agency for me, always comes when somebody has
Kylie Peppler:
an opportunity to create something, you know, back in the
Kylie Peppler:
early days, I was on the early design and study of the scratch
Kylie Peppler:
platform, before it was a thing. This is, you know, back in the
Kylie Peppler:
early 2000s and so that was my part of my dissertation work.
Kylie Peppler:
And so I knew we had something with Scratch when they said it
Kylie Peppler:
was like the kids were describing it like paper, and
Kylie Peppler:
they could make whatever they wanted, right, you know? And it
Kylie Peppler:
definitely exceeded all of our expectations. But it was
Kylie Peppler:
exciting in that scratch work, my postdoctoral work was
Kylie Peppler:
actually the first time we brought it into the classroom. I
Kylie Peppler:
brought it into a classroom. We were noticing the scratch was
Kylie Peppler:
working really well, particularly with kids that were
Kylie Peppler:
below grade level in their reading and so forth. And some
Kylie Peppler:
of the teachers I was working with, they had a large number of
Kylie Peppler:
kids that were labeled as special needs. And so it seems
Kylie Peppler:
almost antithetical to sort of bring in one of the first
Kylie Peppler:
computer science applications and have kids that are
Kylie Peppler:
struggling in reading and writing. But what we had them do
Kylie Peppler:
was create projects with their name, for example. So they just
Kylie Peppler:
imported a, you know, for those folks that don't know, scratch
Kylie Peppler:
it just the characters of their name. And then they had to make
Kylie Peppler:
each one of those characters do something different. So it would
Kylie Peppler:
be k, y, l, I, E, and my k might turn 90 degrees when the space
Kylie Peppler:
key is pressed and change color by 10 and and kind of go through
Kylie Peppler:
a rainbow, and, you know, each one of the letters would do
Kylie Peppler:
something new, and the kids, they all had a great time with
Kylie Peppler:
it. But the thing that really struck me is when we got to the
Kylie Peppler:
parent teacher meetings, we sat down, and it was in a math class
Kylie Peppler:
and a creative writing course, and the parents just went into
Kylie Peppler:
tears because it was the first time that they had seen
Kylie Peppler:
something that actually reflected the child that they
Kylie Peppler:
knew at home, right? And it just, you know, the kids are in
Kylie Peppler:
second grade, so we're still not out of that early childhood
Kylie Peppler:
experience. It just struck me that so often we worry about
Kylie Peppler:
getting it right, that we forget about the agency of the kids,
Kylie Peppler:
about expressing who they are, about that deeper knowing that a
Kylie Peppler:
parent has of a child, and creating those creative
Kylie Peppler:
opportunities to showcase that. And so for me, my epistemology
Kylie Peppler:
about learning is really deeply rooted in constructionist
Kylie Peppler:
theory. And so for listeners that know about Seymour Papert
Kylie Peppler:
and sort of the MIT Media Lab tradition, everything is just
Kylie Peppler:
about creating and making something. And you think about
Kylie Peppler:
the things that really mean a lot to us, you know, the things
Kylie Peppler:
you hold on to that you keep in your child's portfolio, a lot of
Kylie Peppler:
times it's the art, it's the pot that they made, and the things
Kylie Peppler:
that you end up disposing of are the Math Worksheets or the other
Kylie Peppler:
kinds of pieces, right? And so as your stem technology
Kylie Peppler:
coordinators, the maker spaces, these are things that will hold
Kylie Peppler:
deep value in families, right? Because they represent that
Kylie Peppler:
agency, that directionality, that only that child could
Kylie Peppler:
actually take and act on the world. And I think they could
Kylie Peppler:
see it too. If what I make really reflects me and what I
Kylie Peppler:
like and what I know about the world, I'm more attached to this
Kylie Peppler:
piece even just the IKEA challenge. If I made it, I
Kylie Peppler:
didn't even design the Ikea furniture, but I put it
Kylie Peppler:
together, I feel it has more value. And so in creativity
Kylie Peppler:
research, we talk about kind of small c creativity versus large
Kylie Peppler:
C creativity, right? So small c meaning it's kind of new to me
Kylie Peppler:
and maybe new to our family, and maybe something I haven't done
Kylie Peppler:
before, but the big C creativity kind of being like maybe the
Kylie Peppler:
world hasn't seen before. But the small See, creativity is not
Kylie Peppler:
to be ignored, right? It's the thing that gives you that
Kylie Peppler:
agency, that makes you feel like you could change the world, that
Kylie Peppler:
you end up with the portfolio that reflects you.
Bill Stites:
So to that end, AI is impacting so many different
Bill Stites:
areas, and it's impacting the arts in a lot of different ways.
Bill Stites:
And I would think about, you know, talking to people. About
Bill Stites:
art, and they're like, I can't draw. I'm not a good artist, or
Bill Stites:
I can't do this. And what you said struck me, because if you
Bill Stites:
can make something, if you can make something, you make it
Bill Stites:
through AI and a prompt. How does that make you feel as an
Bill Stites:
artist at that point? Are you an artist at that point and asking
Bill Stites:
those types of questions? So what do you think the arts? How
Bill Stites:
does that look moving forward in the age of AI at this point?
Bill Stites:
Right?
Kylie Peppler:
Well, this could be a complicated question, and
Kylie Peppler:
the artists are going to help us answer this. Next could be a one
Kylie Peppler:
size fits all, because some artists are going to take very
Kylie Peppler:
low hanging fruit and create something really beautiful out
Kylie Peppler:
of it. It's going to be probably the worst AI are the most basic
Kylie Peppler:
AI, and they're going to find some way to subvert that and
Kylie Peppler:
make it meaningful and create an expressive use of it. And then,
Kylie Peppler:
I think, right now, somebody just told me about Spotify is
Kylie Peppler:
about 40% AI produce music already. We'll have to double
Kylie Peppler:
check that fact, but it's an absurd amount, right? So is that
Kylie Peppler:
art, or is it not? I think in general, we've always found, you
Kylie Peppler:
know, this is like thinking about every movement in art,
Kylie Peppler:
whether you're talking about Impressionists giving up on
Kylie Peppler:
drawing with any type of realism, or thinking about the
Kylie Peppler:
abstract expressionists that have simplified the world into
Kylie Peppler:
shapes and volumes and so forth. So with all of those movements,
Kylie Peppler:
we've always kind of said, Is this art, or is it not? So it is
Kylie Peppler:
going to be art. It is going to have an artistic portion, but
Kylie Peppler:
not everything produced with AI is art. So how we answer that,
Kylie Peppler:
and how we look at the world is going to be important, and how
Kylie Peppler:
the kids talk about it as well. I think the one thing that can't
Kylie Peppler:
be done and you're going to start, I think seeing a renewed
Kylie Peppler:
emphasis on this is the performance, right? So you can
Kylie Peppler:
produce a song with AI, and then you could sing that song on
Kylie Peppler:
stage, right? But there's something to the actual
Kylie Peppler:
performance, and I think that's what's going to draw us back to
Kylie Peppler:
the theater, what's going to draw us back to these live
Kylie Peppler:
installations and to seeing kids produce something, right?
Kylie Peppler:
Because there's going to be, I think, a renewed emphasis on the
Kylie Peppler:
performance, on the in person portion, that I think we've been
Kylie Peppler:
lacking, I think probably since the times of the pandemic, and
Kylie Peppler:
probably before that, you know, everything's been very
Kylie Peppler:
touchscreen. So when I give people textures and feels like
Kylie Peppler:
with puppetry work and other things that, you know, there's
Kylie Peppler:
just a renewed joy that comes from that that I think will be
Kylie Peppler:
great for the Arts. I think it's going to put another emphasis on
Kylie Peppler:
conversation, on discourse in the classroom, on debates and so
Kylie Peppler:
forth, so that live portion, so that you can discern what
Kylie Peppler:
happens. In many ways, it's going to take us back to sort of
Kylie Peppler:
the Greco Roman roots of our educational system that so much
Kylie Peppler:
used to be in that moment. And how do we start to renew that?
Kylie Peppler:
Because things done outside the classroom, whether that's
Kylie Peppler:
writing or whether that's creating a piece of music, will
Kylie Peppler:
be increasingly likely to be informed by AI. It's
Christina Lewellen:
really interesting. I feel like you're
Christina Lewellen:
truly in this intersectionality of your interests, because you
Christina Lewellen:
have this background with fine arts and artistic endeavors. You
Christina Lewellen:
have an interest in computer science and technology, and here
Christina Lewellen:
we sit in this world where all these things are coming
Christina Lewellen:
together. When you popped into ATLIS AI workshop over the
Christina Lewellen:
summer, what were some of the high level points that you
Christina Lewellen:
wanted to get across to our community, or, I guess, state it
Christina Lewellen:
another way, like, what do tech directors and leaders in K 12
Christina Lewellen:
education need to be thinking about right now?
Kylie Peppler:
Yeah, I think in that talk, we really focused in
Kylie Peppler:
on creative opportunities within technology and just different
Kylie Peppler:
ways to sort of leverage AI for creative outcomes. It was really
Kylie Peppler:
about thinking about AI as a solution space. I mean, there is
Kylie Peppler:
a real tension between AI and creativity and how we're going
Kylie Peppler:
to navigate that space. And so we really focused on, well, what
Kylie Peppler:
is creativity, the definition of it, but then how can we start to
Kylie Peppler:
embody that? And just creative exercises or ways that we can
Kylie Peppler:
kind of bring that into our educational practice in the
Kylie Peppler:
schools. So that whole lecture sort of focused in on that. The
Kylie Peppler:
main thing, I think, is, are you making and do you feel that
Kylie Peppler:
agency? So if you made something and you're like, I have no
Kylie Peppler:
attachment to it. If I could throw it away tomorrow, that's
Kylie Peppler:
probably not a creative piece of work. If it's something like,
Kylie Peppler:
you're like, No, I can't help but listen to it and like, I
Kylie Peppler:
want to add that to my portfolio. And maybe there's
Kylie Peppler:
even a little bit of a guilty pleasure about how easy it was,
Kylie Peppler:
right? Art isn't necessarily hard, right? Creativity isn't
Kylie Peppler:
necessarily hard, but there might be an elegance to the
Kylie Peppler:
solution, right? That could be interesting. Humans are really
Kylie Peppler:
adaptable, so the more we get exposed to these kinds of
Kylie Peppler:
things, the more you're going to see the patterns. You're like,
Kylie Peppler:
Oh, that was aI produced, or this other thing. Just think
Kylie Peppler:
about like the old like computer graphics, they probably felt new
Kylie Peppler:
and fresh. And now we know we associate those with, like, the
Kylie Peppler:
early entry of the computer and the 1980s I think part of the
Kylie Peppler:
thing is overwhelming is a it's moving so quickly, but we're in
Kylie Peppler:
the moment. That's right. So yeah, Christina, I do feel like
Kylie Peppler:
a kid in the candy shop, like, that's really fun seeing so many
Kylie Peppler:
of these intersections at the same time. We do have to be eyes
Kylie Peppler:
wide open about many of these things. I mean, there are a lot
Kylie Peppler:
of dangers. Folks saw the recent news story around deception and
Kylie Peppler:
AI. So it is trying to, you know, the current llms are
Kylie Peppler:
trying to please us, but it does seem to also be able to subvert
Kylie Peppler:
that, and trying to deceive us in many ways, or trying to
Kylie Peppler:
undermine that, and so I think that's much earlier than we
Kylie Peppler:
would have ever imagined AI being capable of deception, for
Kylie Peppler:
example, as the researchers would say. So I think part of
Kylie Peppler:
being an artist is not celebrating everything right? Is
Kylie Peppler:
really kind of starting to emphasize what are some of these
Kylie Peppler:
limitations really seeing that subversive side of AI on our
Kylie Peppler:
culture, of our classroom, of our educational practice, and
Kylie Peppler:
then as educators, I think we have to be really flexible. We
Kylie Peppler:
used to design for these learning objectives, and now we
Kylie Peppler:
need to design for these. Sorry to pick on the math educators
Kylie Peppler:
that love the math curriculum with the advent of the
Kylie Peppler:
calculator, there are people that have conceived of math. All
Kylie Peppler:
of math being taught with a calculator. So tools that are
Kylie Peppler:
available, right? So now, as we start to think about what does
Kylie Peppler:
the world look like with AI? So here in higher ed, you're going
Kylie Peppler:
to see lots of rethinking, you know, Carnegie Mellon leading
Kylie Peppler:
technology innovation school, they're doing a whole revamp of
Kylie Peppler:
the entire higher ed curriculum now because of AI, and that
Kylie Peppler:
they're just going to rethink it, and we just have another
Kylie Peppler:
million dollar investment to rethink all of our teaching
Kylie Peppler:
practices across campus, especially for any of the large
Kylie Peppler:
scale classrooms with AI. So it means we can work differently,
Kylie Peppler:
like I have hope too, that it's not going to be as hard to do
Kylie Peppler:
some of the work. You know, there's some things that have
Kylie Peppler:
just been hard as an educator that I don't think contributed
Kylie Peppler:
to learning, right? Sometimes it's the grading and not being
Kylie Peppler:
able to catch things in real time, the latency around that,
Kylie Peppler:
you know, that formative feedback we know is so much
Kylie Peppler:
better for learning. But if I've got a grade 20 page essays that
Kylie Peppler:
I know are good for kids to write, but I can't get that
Kylie Peppler:
formative feedback back, you know? So can we start to think
Kylie Peppler:
about our assessment practices? Can we rethink even the
Kylie Peppler:
assignments, you know? So I know a lot of folks here at the
Kylie Peppler:
University don't want to change their multiple choice tests, but
Kylie Peppler:
it's really not a good idea in the age of AI, right? Or they're
Kylie Peppler:
flipping the classroom. So instead of writing outside of
Kylie Peppler:
class, you're writing inside of class, or you're writing in
Kylie Peppler:
small groups, or, you know, so really kind of thinking about,
Kylie Peppler:
what's the truism, what's the real thing that you want people
Kylie Peppler:
to learn, and how do you redesign your curriculum that
Kylie Peppler:
way? And I think, I think there'd be a lot of joy in that
Kylie Peppler:
practice. It can be scary, but thinking about the things that
Kylie Peppler:
will persist and the things that really ground us and our
Kylie Peppler:
humanity as well.
Hiram Cuevas:
So as a follow up, we started talking about toys
Hiram Cuevas:
very early on. I'm curious, what are you playing with right now
Hiram Cuevas:
that most folks don't even have an idea that it's even out there
Hiram Cuevas:
just yet. From a research perspective, what is exciting
Hiram Cuevas:
you and what's on the horizon that K 12 schools can look
Hiram Cuevas:
forward to in the next six months to a year.
Kylie Peppler:
Oh, goodness. Well, I get to work with a lot
Kylie Peppler:
of companies. You know, some of the most exciting things I'm not
Kylie Peppler:
going to be able to disclose, because they're under
Kylie Peppler:
development, but some of the technologies that are out there
Kylie Peppler:
are going to help you do your lesson planning and your
Kylie Peppler:
standards alignment, all of these kinds of things, which I
Kylie Peppler:
think is really exciting, and it's going to allow you to
Kylie Peppler:
individualize your curriculum at scale, and be able to say,
Kylie Peppler:
here's my core what I want the kids to learn. And with these
Kylie Peppler:
Lexile levels, with these three languages, that this child
Kylie Peppler:
knows, this interest, in this background, that this assignment
Kylie Peppler:
or this curriculum can be readily adapted. So this is kind
Kylie Peppler:
of cool, so that we can take interest and adapt it to the
Kylie Peppler:
child learning. And so technologies like that, I think
Kylie Peppler:
are really exciting. You know, I get really excited when I see,
Kylie Peppler:
like, kind of a new creative or expressive technology. So when
Kylie Peppler:
you go into the make your space, you know, you see a lot of these
Kylie Peppler:
things that are kind of emerging. And so Dale Doherty is
Kylie Peppler:
starting maker Ed 2.0 relaunching all of the maker
Kylie Peppler:
fairs for the folks that are in those maker spaces. So I would
Kylie Peppler:
encourage you to go, because all of those technologies are
Kylie Peppler:
changing really, really fast. So you get to see really cool
Kylie Peppler:
things, where you can paint circuits, or we can start to
Kylie Peppler:
look at, you know, even some of these tool kits are just so new.
Kylie Peppler:
So some of the educators at this forefront, you know, haptic
Kylie Peppler:
technologies, for example. So how can you feel? So you can
Kylie Peppler:
have AR and VR, but how do you feel? You know, like, if you put
Kylie Peppler:
your hand under a pretend body of water in a waterfall, does it
Kylie Peppler:
feel like water? And if I touch this air that's in front of me,
Kylie Peppler:
how I make it feel like clay, right? And so you've got all of
Kylie Peppler:
these researchers now that just were funded on a large NSF
Kylie Peppler:
center grant called hand. And so it's like, as you would imagine
Kylie Peppler:
hand, but it's a new haptic device creation, and they
Kylie Peppler:
actually have a new haptic toolkit that will be hitting the
Kylie Peppler:
market in a couple of years. You'd have to be able to teach
Kylie Peppler:
and learn about haptic technologies. And this is like,
Kylie Peppler:
think about all your technologies, visuals we've got.
Kylie Peppler:
Ways of doing AR, XR, VR, kinds of things. We've got sound,
Kylie Peppler:
we've got all these other things, but we don't have
Kylie Peppler:
texture and feel. And so you're going to see a lot of new ways
Kylie Peppler:
to do that. This is going to be a lot of investment, in part
Kylie Peppler:
because it overlaps with robotics and different ways of
Kylie Peppler:
medicine and all sorts of things that you're going to see there.
Kylie Peppler:
But I get really excited. I think we can pull back our
Kylie Peppler:
physical reality, and we're gonna be able to add another
Kylie Peppler:
sense to our experiences. You know, the holodeck will come to
Kylie Peppler:
fruition with that.
Hiram Cuevas:
Well played. Well played.
Kylie Peppler:
Yeah, so there's a lot, a lot of things that I
Kylie Peppler:
think are gonna be really fun. And it felt like we plateaued
Kylie Peppler:
for a few years, you know, like there was a lot of technologies.
Kylie Peppler:
It felt like we had just kind of spun out. But there's gonna be a
Kylie Peppler:
lot of new things that'll be really fun.
Christina Lewellen:
So before we wrap up and let you go, I would
Christina Lewellen:
love to ask the guys to share a little bit. How do your schools
Christina Lewellen:
think about arts through the lens of or including technology,
Christina Lewellen:
because then we could have Dr peppler Just give us some
Christina Lewellen:
feedback. Hiram, I know you've talked about how you guys have
Christina Lewellen:
switched away from like a steam acronym to build, and it kind of
Christina Lewellen:
captures the same thing, but I'm wondering if you guys could just
Christina Lewellen:
share a little bit about how your schools combine the arts
Christina Lewellen:
with technology, then we'll give Dr pepler a second to react to
Christina Lewellen:
that before we let her go.
Hiram Cuevas:
What's interesting for us is that our build program
Hiram Cuevas:
is also very active in stage craft with our theater group,
Hiram Cuevas:
and so they work in tandem, and oftentimes these projects will
Hiram Cuevas:
go directly into the bill class, whether it's creating costumes,
Hiram Cuevas:
helping create sets. And so you get the creative process from
Hiram Cuevas:
the producer and the director of the play, working with the
Hiram Cuevas:
students in tandem with the bill teacher, and they end up
Hiram Cuevas:
creating all the elements that are used, perhaps one of the
Hiram Cuevas:
best costume sets that I saw was the Finding Nemo set that we did
Hiram Cuevas:
a little over a year ago. And this particular program was done
Hiram Cuevas:
in the Lower School. So you've got all these little people
Hiram Cuevas:
dressed up in these costumes that were made by middle
Hiram Cuevas:
schoolers and high schoolers. So it was a fabulous way to
Hiram Cuevas:
incorporate the arts and essentially the vision of what
Hiram Cuevas:
the director has, but then you've got the artistic license
Hiram Cuevas:
that can also be taken by the students at the same time.
Bill Stites:
Similarly, I think about where we've seen a lot of
Bill Stites:
technology take off or ground its roots have been in the arts.
Bill Stites:
I think also where we saw like the major use of our 3d
Bill Stites:
printers, or our laser cutters, or some of those things. And as
Bill Stites:
Hiram was saying, it's in support of the work that's going
Bill Stites:
on in the arts. Our 3d printers were in our Upper School
Bill Stites:
sculpture lab before they were in any maker space area, in
Bill Stites:
terms of where they were being used most same thing with regard
Bill Stites:
to the laser cutter and stage craft pieces. I know that the
Bill Stites:
woman here, Diana Jean Greco, who works with our students at
Bill Stites:
our middle school level in theater and stage, she's one of
Bill Stites:
our strongest users of technology. So it's always, at
Bill Stites:
least for us here, been rooted in arts through no particular
Bill Stites:
push to do so. It's always been for what their needs were, in
Bill Stites:
the way in which they were able to creatively problem solve,
Bill Stites:
that they were able to see the value of what they were going to
Bill Stites:
be able to do with the technology to get them where
Bill Stites:
they needed to be.
Kylie Peppler:
I love both of those examples. Some of the
Kylie Peppler:
major principles of why steam really works, I think are
Kylie Peppler:
illustrated there. So Bill, let's start with theorems.
Kylie Peppler:
Because I think about, you know, we were talked a little bit
Kylie Peppler:
about that divergence at the start of this and coming up with
Kylie Peppler:
those multiple solutions. But in that divergence, it really
Kylie Peppler:
contrasts with what we normally do in STEM courses, particularly
Kylie Peppler:
in the US. So our math problems are designed to have one
Kylie Peppler:
solution, not 10, because that is challenging, but in Japan
Kylie Peppler:
actually, they a good math problem actually has 10 or 20
Kylie Peppler:
solutions, and then the teacher will put them in the on the
Kylie Peppler:
chalkboards in range of like, kind of a level one through a
Kylie Peppler:
level 20 solution. So that kids get exposed to all of them, and
Kylie Peppler:
you can see how these things would work, or you could answer
Kylie Peppler:
them in different ways. And so that diversity of that response
Kylie Peppler:
becomes really, really important, but we see it all the
Kylie Peppler:
time because, you know, just like that example we were
Kylie Peppler:
talking about earlier, with that nine volt battery and that light
Kylie Peppler:
bulb, there was no real way to get that wrong. It kind of tells
Kylie Peppler:
you the materials almost tell you the solution. But you've got
Kylie Peppler:
to clip this, you know, and you've seen a clip before, and
Kylie Peppler:
there's only one little place to actually clip that well, right?
Kylie Peppler:
And it's a little thing that kind of sticks out from the
Kylie Peppler:
battery and sticks out from the light bulb. And you make all for
Kylie Peppler:
those connections, and the light bulb turns on, right? Because
Kylie Peppler:
the teacher is not going to give you a dead battery. The light
Kylie Peppler:
bulb doesn't have any polarity, so you can't get it back
Kylie Peppler:
backwards, maybe on the off chain. As you connect it and you
Kylie Peppler:
attach it to the plastic part of the holder, but that's even
Kylie Peppler:
facing the table, so it'd be kind of hard to do, you know, so
Kylie Peppler:
most kids wouldn't do that. And so there's only one solution,
Kylie Peppler:
and there's not a lot of ways to remix them. Oftentimes, don't
Kylie Peppler:
even get more light bulbs. You don't get different colors of
Kylie Peppler:
light bulbs. You know, all of those wires have been insulated,
Kylie Peppler:
so now all of a sudden, when we go back to the squishy circle,
Kylie Peppler:
back to the squishy circuits example, or the textiles
Kylie Peppler:
example, we're going to give you wires that are uninsulated. So
Kylie Peppler:
now, if you have your wires at touch, you can short that
Kylie Peppler:
circuit. We're going to give you a lot of LEDs that are different
Kylie Peppler:
colors, and so that means you can think about mixing those
Kylie Peppler:
colors so warm and cool colors can't be lit from the same
Kylie Peppler:
portion now, because you have a lot of them, you can put them in
Kylie Peppler:
parallel or in series and so forth, and then the solutions
Kylie Peppler:
you can come up with are just much more creative, right? And
Kylie Peppler:
there's many more that solution space is just much bigger. And
Kylie Peppler:
so creativity and the arts and stem really go well together,
Kylie Peppler:
right? Because it pushes us to have lots of different
Kylie Peppler:
solutions. Different solutions and things that people wouldn't
Kylie Peppler:
even come up with. So for example, I've worked for a long
Kylie Peppler:
time with Dr Leah bukele, who's now at the University of New
Kylie Peppler:
Mexico, but was at the MIT Media Lab for a while, and she's one
Kylie Peppler:
of the first commercial designers of the E textile
Kylie Peppler:
product called Lily Patrick. Lily Patrick, she was an
Kylie Peppler:
engineer. She created this thing like myself. She wanted to
Kylie Peppler:
create the tools. She didn't have an engineering school, and
Kylie Peppler:
it was amazing. As we started working together, I gave this
Kylie Peppler:
assignment to create this puppet, this interactive puppet,
Kylie Peppler:
to all three of my students. And so one was the former president
Kylie Peppler:
of the robotics club. One was a PhD in physics, and then a
Kylie Peppler:
grandmother who just returned back to get her master's in
Kylie Peppler:
education, but had a lot of sewing experience. So I gave
Kylie Peppler:
them all the same task, and I told them, here's a lily pad,
Kylie Peppler:
here's these LEDs. And I, you know, I want these three LEDs to
Kylie Peppler:
tell me how much NES in the flower, and I want these three
Kylie Peppler:
LEDs to tell me how much to do things. And they didn't have to
Kylie Peppler:
program it. They just needed to figure out how all these six
Kylie Peppler:
were going to be each one. The two men came back to the table
Kylie Peppler:
and they said, Kylie, that was an impossible task. There's no
Kylie Peppler:
way to do it. There's no way. Okay, we're gonna have to think
Kylie Peppler:
about this. We're gonna have to solder these things together.
Kylie Peppler:
We're gonna have to do this. And the woman who had no experience
Kylie Peppler:
with technology at all, but had an idea of sewing. What she had
Kylie Peppler:
done was she'd insulated. She's like, Well, you told me they
Kylie Peppler:
can't touch. So what I did is I insulated them. I thought the
Kylie Peppler:
beads, you know, she basically put glass beads, because she
Kylie Peppler:
thought that would be insulating. Had enough material
Kylie Peppler:
science knowledge so that they wouldn't touch, and then she had
Kylie Peppler:
it all figured out, right? So the boys, they ripped up their
Kylie Peppler:
designs, threw them away, and we ended up going with her design
Kylie Peppler:
and design solution as a result. But Leah Buckley, the designer
Kylie Peppler:
of those materials, came back and said, I never thought about
Kylie Peppler:
taking the textiles designs off two dimensions and in the space,
Kylie Peppler:
and using these glass beads in this way. Right? So there's
Kylie Peppler:
always, when we bring in the arts, we bring in these kinds of
Kylie Peppler:
crafts, is it allows for solution space that's just much
Kylie Peppler:
wider than what we could as STEM professionals ever envision. The
Kylie Peppler:
solution space just gets there. And that's the big C and the
Kylie Peppler:
little c creativity all the time, Hiram, and in your
Kylie Peppler:
example, what really stood out to me is the opportunity to a
Kylie Peppler:
have real life end users so often in our design work or STEM
Kylie Peppler:
work, it's very hard to find an audience, right? So we make
Kylie Peppler:
these little things are precious, get a 3d print, but we
Kylie Peppler:
don't have an end user, you know? So sometimes people try to
Kylie Peppler:
do this by partnering with like senior citizens or creating
Kylie Peppler:
different kinds of things. You know, there's a lot of different
Kylie Peppler:
ways to solve this, but I love that, like, the end user is
Kylie Peppler:
actually the child who's gonna wear the costume, right? Like,
Kylie Peppler:
does it fit? Is it fun to wear? Is it scratchy? You know, all of
Kylie Peppler:
the things that the kids gonna care about. And then the
Kylie Peppler:
showcase, the performance. You know, in the visual arts, we
Kylie Peppler:
talked about critique before, but in the performing arts, you
Kylie Peppler:
get the thing that's on stage, and you get the audience, not
Kylie Peppler:
just the kids that are performing, but the parents, the
Kylie Peppler:
grandparents are coming in and somebody coming in to see the
Kylie Peppler:
costume design or the set design or the performances on the
Kylie Peppler:
stage. I think it's just really rich to kind of do that. And I
Kylie Peppler:
think that brings us back to those themes of performance and
Kylie Peppler:
how enduring that that's going to be, you know, so really kind
Kylie Peppler:
of centering ourselves around the truly human tasks of being
Kylie Peppler:
there and seeing things in person and live in real time.
Christina Lewellen:
Dr pepler, this has been really incredibly
Christina Lewellen:
interesting, and I love that you have brought the 3d glass beads
Christina Lewellen:
to our thinking today and our way of having conversations
Christina Lewellen:
around these issues. So thank you so much for giving us your
Christina Lewellen:
time and for joining us today on the pod. This was really
Christina Lewellen:
fantastic, and we really appreciate your perspective.
Kylie Peppler:
Thank you for having me. This has been great.
Narrator:
This has been talking technology with ATLIS, produced
Narrator:
by the Association of technology leaders in. Independent Schools.
Narrator:
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