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 00:00:02
Phil, welcome to Talking Technology with ATLIS,
Peter Frank 00:00:05
the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for
Peter Frank 00:00:08
technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens.
Peter Frank 00:00:12
We'll hear stories from technology directors and other
Peter Frank 00:00:15
special guests from the Independent School community,
Peter Frank 00:00:17
and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics.
Peter Frank 00:00:21
And now please welcome your host. Kristina Lewellen,
Christina Lewellen 00:00:25
Hello everyone, and welcome back to
Christina Lewellen 00:00:26
talking technology with Atlas. I'm Kristina Lewellen, the
Christina Lewellen 00:00:29
President and CEO of the Association of Technology
Christina Lewellen 00:00:32
Leaders in Independent Schools.
Bill Stites 00:00:34
And I am Bill Stites, the Director of
Bill Stites 00:00:36
Technology at Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, New
Bill Stites 00:00:39
Jersey. And
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:40
I'm Hiram Cuevas, Director of Information Systems
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:43
and Academic Technology at St Christopher school in Richmond,
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:45
Virginia.
Christina Lewellen 00:00:46
Hello, gentlemen. How are you today?
Christina Lewellen 00:00:48
Doing? Well, doing a little Cole, but it's all good. A
Christina Lewellen 00:00:51
little chilly at this time of year. We're excited at Atlas, I
Christina Lewellen 00:00:55
think that we're flowing into 2025 really excited about all
Christina Lewellen 00:00:59
the things that are coming up, and we came into the year with a
Christina Lewellen 00:01:03
lot of energy. I love the spring, like we're getting to
Christina Lewellen 00:01:06
where we're engaging with our community. We get to see
Christina Lewellen 00:01:08
everybody soon at our 10th anniversary, annual conference
Christina Lewellen 00:01:12
in Atlanta, coming up in April. We've got a new edition of our
Christina Lewellen 00:01:17
magazine dropping that's really exciting. We've been doing some
Christina Lewellen 00:01:20
partnership with other organizations in our space to
Christina Lewellen 00:01:23
just really talk about things like the certification program
Christina Lewellen 00:01:27
that we run and all sorts of fun stuff. So it's just a really
Christina Lewellen 00:01:30
energetic time of year for the Atlas team and the Atlas
Christina Lewellen 00:01:34
community, the Atlas board deep in the selection process and all
Christina Lewellen 00:01:38
of that with our nominations committee. So it definitely
Christina Lewellen 00:01:41
feels not just like the start of the early days of a new year,
Christina Lewellen 00:01:46
but also just the more energized and exciting part of our year
Christina Lewellen 00:01:49
too. So it's good to see you guys, and I got lots of cool
Christina Lewellen 00:01:52
stuff coming up. Are you guys excited about Atlanta?
Bill Stites 00:01:55
It's funny you mention it because I literally
Bill Stites 00:01:57
just did a tally. Very excited. I think we're actually coming
Bill Stites 00:02:00
with six people, including myself. Wow. What
Christina Lewellen 00:02:03
kind of titles, Bill like, who on your
Christina Lewellen 00:02:06
team are you bringing? We've got
Bill Stites 00:02:07
the three different campuses. We're spread out. So
Bill Stites 00:02:09
we're bringing each of our ed tech focused people at each of
Bill Stites 00:02:13
those campuses. So our primary and middle school person,
Bill Stites 00:02:16
myself, our Director of Academic Technology, who is also at our
Bill Stites 00:02:21
Upper School and does that role at our upper school. We're
Bill Stites 00:02:24
bringing Alek Duba, who's been on the podcast from a data
Bill Stites 00:02:27
perspective, to do the work with the CIRIS track and all of those
Bill Stites 00:02:31
things. And we have a new director of STEM
Christina Lewellen 00:02:35
and innovation, right? I know that's
Christina Lewellen 00:02:37
a big project in your world right now, yep. And we're
Christina Lewellen 00:02:40
bringing
Bill Stites 00:02:40
him along and then myself. So if my math is
Bill Stites 00:02:43
correct, which it often isn't, but if it is correct, we've got
Bill Stites 00:02:46
like, six people coming, and it's one of those things where
Bill Stites 00:02:49
it's like, you want it to come quickly, because everyone's
Bill Stites 00:02:53
getting jazz for it and excited for it. And now we're just,
Bill Stites 00:02:56
we're in this waiting game,
Christina Lewellen 00:02:57
I know. Well, you know what? Art
Christina Lewellen 00:02:59
teacher, math, that's okay, so we can accept that either way,
Christina Lewellen 00:03:02
it's close enough. Yep. So I was just
Unknown 00:03:04
going to ask Bill, are you guys going to drive down as
Unknown 00:03:06
a team? There will
Bill Stites 00:03:07
be no driving. We will be flying. Thankfully,
Bill Stites 00:03:11
Newark to Atlanta is a quick, cheap and easy flight, so no,
Bill Stites 00:03:15
there will be no driving this time you're
Christina Lewellen 00:03:17
proposing a road trip, Hiram, they can stop
Christina Lewellen 00:03:19
and pick you up in Richmond on the way down. Oh, wow, that's a
Christina Lewellen 00:03:23
fun bus.
Unknown 00:03:24
Absolutely pick me up in Richmond. Pick up Lewis to
Unknown 00:03:28
Ravenscraft. Now
Bill Stites 00:03:29
that I didn't think of that would be some quality
Bill Stites 00:03:32
time that I think we'd all enjoy an RV. There you go. I think
Bill Stites 00:03:36
we're just building this out an
Christina Lewellen 00:03:38
RV or a bus, and now I know that we will end
Christina Lewellen 00:03:41
up with new clip art to post on social media of Bill driving a
Christina Lewellen 00:03:44
bus full of people down to the annual conference. This is bad,
Christina Lewellen 00:03:49
bad planning here.
Bill Stites 00:03:50
I'm gonna need a bus just to move people around.
Bill Stites 00:03:53
I know that because Ubers would be really tough when we get down
Bill Stites 00:03:56
there. So we gotta figure all this out.
Christina Lewellen 00:03:58
Awesome. Well, you know, I think that
Christina Lewellen 00:03:59
what's really exciting, as always, is that we spend some
Christina Lewellen 00:04:02
time together, and we get to talk to a lot of different
Christina Lewellen 00:04:04
people on this podcast. And sometimes we go into these
Christina Lewellen 00:04:08
conversations really kind of understanding and knowing where
Christina Lewellen 00:04:11
we're going to go. In this particular case, I sort of love
Christina Lewellen 00:04:15
that our guest is like, what are we going to talk about? And
Christina Lewellen 00:04:17
we're like, you know what? We'll just decide as we go so very
Christina Lewellen 00:04:21
brave soul. Welcome to the podcast. Rachel stock CO, how
Christina Lewellen 00:04:24
are
Rachel Sopko 00:04:24
you today? I'm great, excited to be here with
Rachel Sopko 00:04:26
you guys today. Awesome.
Christina Lewellen 00:04:28
So Rachel, I'm actually going to let you
Christina Lewellen 00:04:30
take some time to introduce yourself, because I think that
Christina Lewellen 00:04:32
you cover a lot of ground. You're an adjunct professor in
Christina Lewellen 00:04:35
the School of Education for the University of New Hampshire.
Christina Lewellen 00:04:39
That's really cool and kind of crazy. I have college age
Christina Lewellen 00:04:42
students, as do the guys, so we have questions that we need you
Christina Lewellen 00:04:45
to answer, but you also are involved in independent schools
Christina Lewellen 00:04:48
as well. So tell us a little bit about your background. Yeah. So
Rachel Sopko 00:04:52
currently, I am the Academic Technology
Rachel Sopko 00:04:54
integrator at Kent School in Connecticut, but I started my
Rachel Sopko 00:04:57
career as an English teacher. I started off. In charter schools
Rachel Sopko 00:05:00
in Washington, DC, and did that for a little while, and then I
Rachel Sopko 00:05:04
moved to Connecticut and taught in Title One schools in
Rachel Sopko 00:05:08
Connecticut, also as an English teacher. But in both of those
Rachel Sopko 00:05:10
roles, I did a lot of work as a tech person where, you know,
Rachel Sopko 00:05:14
Hey, I saw you were using this at tech tool, like, can you show
Rachel Sopko 00:05:17
me how to do that? And, you know, kind of just kept getting
Rachel Sopko 00:05:20
asked to teach teachers how to use tech, and my kids would be
Rachel Sopko 00:05:23
like, hey, the teacher next door is not using Google classroom as
Rachel Sopko 00:05:26
well. Like, can you show them how you use Google Docs or how
Rachel Sopko 00:05:29
you do this? So I was kind of wearing two hats all the time of
Rachel Sopko 00:05:33
teaching tech to teachers and also teaching English. So that
Rachel Sopko 00:05:37
sort of led then to me working with the University of New
Rachel Sopko 00:05:41
Hampshire, they ran a program called I learned New Hampshire,
Rachel Sopko 00:05:44
which started during the pandemic, and they provided
Rachel Sopko 00:05:46
Canvas Cal Perez licenses to any k 12 school that wanted them.
Rachel Sopko 00:05:51
And so with the partnership between UNH and the DOE, we
Rachel Sopko 00:05:54
supported schools all over the state teaching them how to use
Rachel Sopko 00:05:57
Canvas, and we really thought a lot about blended learning, and
Rachel Sopko 00:06:01
what did that look like during the pandemic and then post
Rachel Sopko 00:06:04
pandemic? What could we learn and what is effective ed tech
Rachel Sopko 00:06:07
use look like, and they're still going strong, helping teachers
Rachel Sopko 00:06:10
across the state. But I moved back to Connecticut to be with
Rachel Sopko 00:06:13
my family and landed at the Kent School where I'm now the
Rachel Sopko 00:06:16
Academic Technology integrator. And I continue to adjunct for
Rachel Sopko 00:06:19
the University of New Hampshire teaching research methods and ed
Rachel Sopko 00:06:22
tech courses to pre service and Master's level teachers. That's
Christina Lewellen 00:06:26
really cool. So there's so many paths we
Christina Lewellen 00:06:28
could walk at this moment, but one of the things that strikes
Christina Lewellen 00:06:31
me in what you just said is about the effort that you made
Christina Lewellen 00:06:35
during the pandemic. Do you think having had this background
Christina Lewellen 00:06:39
of being the techie teacher and being good at ed tech tools
Christina Lewellen 00:06:43
before the pandemic, and then now, how things are after the
Christina Lewellen 00:06:46
pandemic. Let's just go straight into that like, how does it feel
Christina Lewellen 00:06:50
to you with that perspective, what has changed, and what are
Christina Lewellen 00:06:54
your observations in that realm? Yeah, so I think
Rachel Sopko 00:06:57
it was kind of funny going into my career, I
Rachel Sopko 00:06:59
was always just really curious and excited to play with
Rachel Sopko 00:07:02
different ed tech tools. And I saw so much potential in how
Rachel Sopko 00:07:06
they could support my students. You know, I was forcing kids to
Rachel Sopko 00:07:08
make copies of Google Docs and share folders with me long
Rachel Sopko 00:07:11
before we had a learning management system or any of
Rachel Sopko 00:07:14
those kinds of things. And so throughout my career, seeing
Rachel Sopko 00:07:17
those things like grow and become real things was really
Rachel Sopko 00:07:19
exciting. And pre pandemic, I think there were a lot of people
Rachel Sopko 00:07:23
who were clinging to kind of very traditional methods, like,
Rachel Sopko 00:07:26
oh, I don't have to learn the tech. It was just for testing
Rachel Sopko 00:07:29
day. There were some kids who are like, my teacher only
Rachel Sopko 00:07:31
wheeled the Chromebook card in on the days we're taking
Rachel Sopko 00:07:33
benchmark assessments or we're doing a research paper, those
Rachel Sopko 00:07:36
are the only times we'll use them. And you know, I did a lot
Rachel Sopko 00:07:39
of work with teachers across the different districts that I've
Rachel Sopko 00:07:42
worked with in trying to train them on how Google Docs, how
Rachel Sopko 00:07:46
Google Drive, or Google classroom or other learning
Rachel Sopko 00:07:48
management systems. I use tools like Ed puzzle. I was showing
Rachel Sopko 00:07:52
teachers how these things could help them assess their students,
Rachel Sopko 00:07:54
to differentiate, personalize instruction, help them speed up
Rachel Sopko 00:07:59
some of their work. Because we all know grading takes forever,
Rachel Sopko 00:08:02
and we don't always get that feedback back to students as
Rachel Sopko 00:08:04
quickly as we would want to. And some teachers were excited to
Rachel Sopko 00:08:07
try that, and others were like, Yeah, that's for the younger
Rachel Sopko 00:08:10
teachers, or that's for the other people. Somebody else will
Rachel Sopko 00:08:13
do that. And then the pandemic hit and the world shut down.
Rachel Sopko 00:08:16
And, you know, we were in class on Monday, Tuesday, it was
Rachel Sopko 00:08:20
teachers only, and everyone's like, what are we going to do?
Rachel Sopko 00:08:22
And I was like, I'm gonna keep posting on my learning
Rachel Sopko 00:08:24
management system, and I'm gonna keep doing what I've been doing
Rachel Sopko 00:08:27
and just do it remotely. And a lot of teachers were like, Wait,
Rachel Sopko 00:08:32
can you show me how to do that? And I was like, I've been trying
Rachel Sopko 00:08:34
to show you to do this for five years, guys. So it was kind of
Rachel Sopko 00:08:37
an I told you so moment of see they are useful.
Christina Lewellen 00:08:41
I mean, it definitely accelerated for many
Christina Lewellen 00:08:44
educators. Oh yeah, the need to kind of walk this path. And now,
Christina Lewellen 00:08:48
do you think they're sort of there, or is there some similar
Christina Lewellen 00:08:50
resistance? I
Rachel Sopko 00:08:52
think that resistance still exists in
Rachel Sopko 00:08:55
different ways. I think there are some people who are like,
Rachel Sopko 00:08:57
Okay, we're back to normal. We're gonna just do those things
Rachel Sopko 00:09:00
and go back to the way we did it, or the kids they all learned
Rachel Sopko 00:09:03
online during the pandemic. So I think part of the struggle is
Rachel Sopko 00:09:07
that sometimes teachers think that absolves them of having to
Rachel Sopko 00:09:10
teach kids how to use some of these tools. They're just like,
Rachel Sopko 00:09:14
Okay, go write a paper, or go do research or use this new
Rachel Sopko 00:09:17
program. And I think that's where the idea of digital
Rachel Sopko 00:09:21
natives has sort of led people astray where they're like, well,
Rachel Sopko 00:09:25
the kids grew up with these tools, like, they know how to
Rachel Sopko 00:09:27
use the internet, they know how to use Word processors, of like,
Rachel Sopko 00:09:31
actually, they don't, you know, I still have kids who hit the
Rachel Sopko 00:09:34
space bar 100 times to center something or forget how to
Rachel Sopko 00:09:37
attach things to emails, or who Need we use Canvas as our
Rachel Sopko 00:09:41
Learning Management System kids who don't know how to attach an
Rachel Sopko 00:09:44
assignment or link their Google Drive so that they can upload
Rachel Sopko 00:09:47
and submit so even some of those basics, there are things kids
Rachel Sopko 00:09:51
are still missing because nobody has instructed them directly,
Rachel Sopko 00:09:56
and we've sort of seen that continue to spiral out, not
Rachel Sopko 00:09:59
just. With tools like word processors or learning
Rachel Sopko 00:10:01
management systems, but into the realms of things like social
Rachel Sopko 00:10:04
media or Internet safety and data privacy, so long kids, and
Rachel Sopko 00:10:10
even people who are adults now are left to their own devices,
Rachel Sopko 00:10:13
literally and figuratively, to figure these things out, because
Rachel Sopko 00:10:17
school said this isn't pedagogically relevant. This
Rachel Sopko 00:10:19
isn't what we do. Parents don't have the skills, so it's sort of
Rachel Sopko 00:10:23
this black hole of nobody taught anyone how to do it, and kids
Rachel Sopko 00:10:28
are going to be kids and make bad choices. And so I think it
Rachel Sopko 00:10:32
has to become a communal responsibility for us to teach
Rachel Sopko 00:10:35
those and I think the pandemic highlighted a lot of those gaps,
Rachel Sopko 00:10:39
and people were eager to get back to normal, but as tech
Rachel Sopko 00:10:43
continues to grow, the emergence of AI, we've seen how important
Rachel Sopko 00:10:47
it is for kids to have all of those skills, not just to keep
Rachel Sopko 00:10:50
themselves safe, but to effectively navigate the world
Rachel Sopko 00:10:53
in which they live. And so I think it's a really complicated
Rachel Sopko 00:10:56
issue that the pandemic really shed a lot of light on and
Rachel Sopko 00:11:00
continues to shed light on post us returning to schools, one
Bill Stites 00:11:04
of the things that you've touched on is something
Bill Stites 00:11:07
that we're struggling with as technology has become more
Bill Stites 00:11:10
ubiquitous, as it's become part of just daily life. There is
Bill Stites 00:11:13
this assumption you mentioned digital natives term been around
Bill Stites 00:11:17
for a while, but there is this assumption that everyone's got
Bill Stites 00:11:20
it, everyone knows how to use it. And I think that's a flawed
Bill Stites 00:11:23
assumption. People do not know how to use it the way in which
Bill Stites 00:11:26
we want them, where we need them to be able to do in the context
Bill Stites 00:11:30
of what we're asking them to do within schools. And I remember,
Bill Stites 00:11:34
I've been at this for quite a while, and our initial
Bill Stites 00:11:38
professional development was largely around the teaching of
Bill Stites 00:11:42
skills, the teaching of how these applications were used,
Bill Stites 00:11:46
and as we thought we reached a certain level of proficiency, we
Bill Stites 00:11:50
kind of switched over into more of like the teaching and
Bill Stites 00:11:53
learning and the Pete logical and all of that skills training
Bill Stites 00:11:56
kind of just went to the side, and we really weren't doing that
Bill Stites 00:12:01
as much, and what we're finding now is really the need to come
Bill Stites 00:12:05
back to that, that you need to have a healthy balance of the
Bill Stites 00:12:08
teaching and learning and the skills training and the number
Bill Stites 00:12:11
of tools complicate that you're in a very interesting situation,
Bill Stites 00:12:16
because you're in a school and you're living and breathing it,
Bill Stites 00:12:19
and you're working at the university level where you're
Bill Stites 00:12:22
actually teaching this. How are you talking at your school? How
Bill Stites 00:12:29
are you talking at these future ed tech people about striking
Bill Stites 00:12:33
that balance and finding a way to leverage both of those things
Bill Stites 00:12:39
within the context of what you're doing on a day to day
Bill Stites 00:12:41
basis, and what these people are going to have to plan to be able
Bill Stites 00:12:44
to do to support both sides of this coin? Yeah,
Rachel Sopko 00:12:48
I think that's a great question. I like the way
Rachel Sopko 00:12:50
that you put it around balance, because I think for a lot of
Rachel Sopko 00:12:54
people, they think of Ed Tech as like something else to learn,
Rachel Sopko 00:12:57
something separate from their content area or separate from
Rachel Sopko 00:13:01
their pedagogy and Atlas, has a really good graphic of the TPACK
Rachel Sopko 00:13:05
framework that they shared early on in the emergence of AI, which
Rachel Sopko 00:13:08
I think sums this up really well, because TPACK as an ed
Rachel Sopko 00:13:13
tech framework, I think is a really great tool, because it
Rachel Sopko 00:13:16
explains the intersections that you have to have technical
Rachel Sopko 00:13:20
knowledge of how to use these tools, which intersects with
Rachel Sopko 00:13:23
your content knowledge of whatever subjects you're
Rachel Sopko 00:13:25
teaching, and it also intersects with pedagogical knowledge, and
Rachel Sopko 00:13:30
you have to have a little bit of all of those things in order to
Rachel Sopko 00:13:33
be an effective teacher. So it's not just, Hey, I love teaching
Rachel Sopko 00:13:37
English, so I'm just gonna wax on about Shakespeare all day
Rachel Sopko 00:13:40
long to my kids, because I love it, and then I'll make them love
Rachel Sopko 00:13:43
it. But rather, how do I think about my content to teach skills
Rachel Sopko 00:13:49
that my kids will need in the world beyond their schooling
Rachel Sopko 00:13:53
experience, and how do I use that content as a vehicle to
Rachel Sopko 00:13:56
also teach them about effectively navigating things
Rachel Sopko 00:13:59
like tech and other things that they'll encounter in their
Rachel Sopko 00:14:03
lives, and then how do I do that in a way that actually resonates
Rachel Sopko 00:14:06
and sticks in their brains? Because I understand how kids
Rachel Sopko 00:14:10
learn, and I think that's a lot to ask of teachers to hold all
Rachel Sopko 00:14:14
three of those things in their head at once when they're trying
Rachel Sopko 00:14:16
to plan their lessons, but they have to think about all of those
Rachel Sopko 00:14:20
things and what they're trying to achieve. And I think that
Rachel Sopko 00:14:23
when we don't use good pedagogy and making our decisions about
Rachel Sopko 00:14:27
tech or anything we do in our classrooms, then we're doing a
Rachel Sopko 00:14:31
disservice to teaching all of the students in front of us. And
Rachel Sopko 00:14:35
so I think that it's really important that we don't just
Rachel Sopko 00:14:38
fall in love with like a tool, right? We've seen that happen
Rachel Sopko 00:14:41
several times, where people are like, I love Jamboard. And
Rachel Sopko 00:14:43
that's like, poop jam boards got it's like, everyone panics, you
Rachel Sopko 00:14:46
know, flip went away. First it was flip grid, and then it
Rachel Sopko 00:14:49
became flip and then it was now Microsoft owns it. And so
Rachel Sopko 00:14:52
everyone who's not at Microsoft school is like, panicking
Rachel Sopko 00:14:55
because they're like, What do I do instead? And it's not about
Rachel Sopko 00:14:57
the tool itself and following them with like that. Out, but
Rachel Sopko 00:15:00
teaching skills that are transferable. How do I go from
Rachel Sopko 00:15:04
word to Google Docs or whatever comes next? Like that's what we
Rachel Sopko 00:15:07
really want both teachers and students to know, is I have the
Rachel Sopko 00:15:11
foundational skills. It doesn't matter what name you put it on,
Rachel Sopko 00:15:14
but I can apply that and move it to different situations. And I
Rachel Sopko 00:15:17
think that's sometimes what's missing in that balance is we
Rachel Sopko 00:15:21
want to get through the tool effectively. We want kids to
Rachel Sopko 00:15:24
know our content, but how do they then take that into
Rachel Sopko 00:15:27
whatever their life is going to lead them to? So
Unknown 00:15:31
Rachel, have you had conversations with colleagues
Unknown 00:15:35
and in your work at the university level, discussing the
Unknown 00:15:38
challenges with learned behaviors by the faculty during
Unknown 00:15:43
COVID and post COVID, and trying to break bad habits of using
Unknown 00:15:48
tech in the COVID world, because I'm still struggling, in some
Unknown 00:15:52
instances, with different folks at other schools as well, where
Unknown 00:15:56
they develop these habits, thinking that there's this magic
Unknown 00:15:59
bullet associated with teaching online, that it's really a bad
Unknown 00:16:04
habit that they've created thinking that they can teach the
Unknown 00:16:06
exact same way online as they did in person. I love the fact
Unknown 00:16:12
that you're emphasizing good pedagogy, because so much of it
Unknown 00:16:16
is different in those two spaces, and I don't think many
Unknown 00:16:20
teachers understand that? Yeah,
Rachel Sopko 00:16:23
I think this might be sort of an unfavorable
Rachel Sopko 00:16:25
opinion on that. I think the pandemic highlighted a lot of
Rachel Sopko 00:16:28
bad teaching practices. It was, this is how I was taught. You
Rachel Sopko 00:16:32
know, someone stood at a podium and they lectured at me with,
Rachel Sopko 00:16:35
you know, no slides, and they were like, take notes and there
Rachel Sopko 00:16:38
will be a test, and that's it. And a lot of people are like,
Rachel Sopko 00:16:41
well, that's how I was taught. I turned out fine. I'm a great
Rachel Sopko 00:16:43
student. It built character and grit and all of that. And then
Rachel Sopko 00:16:47
they keep doing it. And then we went online during the pandemic,
Rachel Sopko 00:16:50
where a lot of universities have shifted to just fully online
Rachel Sopko 00:16:53
classes, or hybrid or high flex classes, for a host of reasons,
Rachel Sopko 00:16:58
but then they took those practices and they just put them
Rachel Sopko 00:17:00
online. And the same way, a kid probably didn't listen to your
Rachel Sopko 00:17:04
45 minute lecture when you they were sitting in front of you,
Rachel Sopko 00:17:07
they maybe looked attentive, then they weren't doing it
Rachel Sopko 00:17:10
online. And we had the data to prove that right. You know, part
Rachel Sopko 00:17:13
of when I was working with UNH, we used Kaltura as our video
Rachel Sopko 00:17:17
software, and we could see the analytics of how long were kids
Rachel Sopko 00:17:20
watching videos, and where were they dropping off, and what were
Rachel Sopko 00:17:23
those points? And it was really eye opening when I would sit
Rachel Sopko 00:17:26
with a professor and look at their classes, or look at their
Rachel Sopko 00:17:29
Canvas engagement, or look at their video engagement, and they
Rachel Sopko 00:17:32
would see that drop off 20 minutes in. And we know from the
Rachel Sopko 00:17:35
pedagogy that kids college kids, too, don't have a super long
Rachel Sopko 00:17:40
attention span. If you're going really more than 10 minutes
Rachel Sopko 00:17:43
without some sort of interaction point, be it in person or
Rachel Sopko 00:17:46
online, you've lost them because they don't know what to grab
Rachel Sopko 00:17:50
onto, what's important, what am I supposed to be getting out of
Rachel Sopko 00:17:53
this? We have to have that give and take of giving those
Rachel Sopko 00:17:57
formative checks along the way to make sure kids are engaged
Rachel Sopko 00:18:00
with what we're teaching. And so I think that when we moved
Rachel Sopko 00:18:03
online, some of it was bad habits that we actually had, pre
Rachel Sopko 00:18:07
COVID, that we really had to grapple with, and that made
Rachel Sopko 00:18:10
people really uncomfortable. I think they were like, Why aren't
Rachel Sopko 00:18:12
they listening to my lecture? You know, they always hang on my
Rachel Sopko 00:18:15
every word. And it's like, how do you know that? What data do
Rachel Sopko 00:18:19
you have to back up that they hung on your every word, other
Rachel Sopko 00:18:21
than your perception of what was happening in front of you. And
Rachel Sopko 00:18:24
so I think that's the power of that shift, was we were able to
Rachel Sopko 00:18:28
actually have data that made us understand better the different
Rachel Sopko 00:18:33
learners in front of us and about their engagement and what
Rachel Sopko 00:18:36
engagement really is and what it really looks like. And I think
Rachel Sopko 00:18:39
that was people thought they could just return to some of
Rachel Sopko 00:18:41
those post pandemic and, you know, I sort of joke even now my
Rachel Sopko 00:18:45
work at the Kent School, when I get teachers who are like, Oh
Rachel Sopko 00:18:48
yeah, I used Canvas in my college, or I use it as a
Rachel Sopko 00:18:50
student. And I'm like, actually, I gotta break you a lot of bad
Rachel Sopko 00:18:53
habits of using that learning management system, like I put
Rachel Sopko 00:18:56
them into a class as a student that is poorly designed. And I'm
Rachel Sopko 00:18:59
like, find your homework. And they're like, I don't know where
Rachel Sopko 00:19:01
it is. Like, what do you want me to do? And I'm like, great.
Rachel Sopko 00:19:04
Imagine you're a kid with eight classes a day, eight different
Rachel Sopko 00:19:06
teachers, eight different setups. What does that feel
Rachel Sopko 00:19:09
like? And that, for me, I think it's usually a turning point of
Rachel Sopko 00:19:12
when you have an adult learner experience something and they're
Rachel Sopko 00:19:16
like, Oh, I thought it was going really well, or I thought it was
Rachel Sopko 00:19:19
the right thing to do when they can actually feel what their
Rachel Sopko 00:19:22
kids or their students are feeling. That's when we can
Rachel Sopko 00:19:24
really have real change, because now we can have a conversation
Rachel Sopko 00:19:27
based in fact, not just vibes. Yeah,
Christina Lewellen 00:19:31
absolutely. I see a lot of head nodding and
Christina Lewellen 00:19:33
thumbs up from the guys. They are with you on that. Let me ask
Christina Lewellen 00:19:37
you about AI tools then. So I'm sure that this is a huge part of
Christina Lewellen 00:19:41
your world and things that you're checking out, and it
Christina Lewellen 00:19:43
obviously is something that kids are using. I've said before on
Christina Lewellen 00:19:47
the pod, but it's a great example. I have a daughter in
Christina Lewellen 00:19:50
school in college who is going to be a teacher, and they're not
Christina Lewellen 00:19:53
talking about AI ed tech tools at all, and so she's using them
Christina Lewellen 00:19:58
because I'm her mom. On, and I talked to her about them, but
Christina Lewellen 00:20:01
like, the school and the professors are not talking about
Christina Lewellen 00:20:05
them. So can you give me a little insight, both, what are
Christina Lewellen 00:20:08
you seeing at your independent school, but are you also now
Christina Lewellen 00:20:11
bringing this into your Adjunct Professor work? That's
Rachel Sopko 00:20:15
such a good question about, how do we
Rachel Sopko 00:20:17
integrate all of these tools? And we've seen that with kids
Rachel Sopko 00:20:20
who are like, everyone's using AI, or I think all my peers are
Rachel Sopko 00:20:23
using AI, and then the kids aren't using it effectively, or
Rachel Sopko 00:20:27
they're not being taught how to use it, or they actually have no
Rachel Sopko 00:20:29
idea what AI is. And so I think that for me, the first step in
Rachel Sopko 00:20:35
working either with my college age students or working here at
Rachel Sopko 00:20:39
Kent is to just help everyone understand what AI is, right?
Rachel Sopko 00:20:44
Like, what is this tool? They've seen all the sci fi movies and,
Rachel Sopko 00:20:48
you know, the Terminator robots and those kinds of things. But
Rachel Sopko 00:20:51
they don't actually understand, what is an LLM, what is a Chat
Rachel Sopko 00:20:55
GPT? How does it work? Versus an image generator? You know, they
Rachel Sopko 00:20:59
think it's a search engine, they think it's googling things like,
Rachel Sopko 00:21:02
they don't understand the pre trained part of it, and that
Rachel Sopko 00:21:05
creates a lot of confusion. So I think, for me, when I think
Rachel Sopko 00:21:09
about this work, it's less about policy and more about figuring
Rachel Sopko 00:21:14
out position, like, what do we actually believe about these
Rachel Sopko 00:21:17
tools, about their place in the world, and what do we want to
Rachel Sopko 00:21:20
equip our college age students, our students in the classroom at
Rachel Sopko 00:21:24
high school level or below, to know and do and effectively
Rachel Sopko 00:21:29
engage with and so once you have your position where you can say
Rachel Sopko 00:21:32
you know what, we're recognizing that these tools exist. We
Rachel Sopko 00:21:35
recognize that our students are going to grapple with them, and
Rachel Sopko 00:21:38
we believe it's part of our duty, our mission at Kenneth to
Rachel Sopko 00:21:41
prepare students to do good in the world beyond their time at
Rachel Sopko 00:21:43
Kent School. Well, then that means that they have to be able
Rachel Sopko 00:21:46
to effectively engage with these tools. Because whether they want
Rachel Sopko 00:21:50
to or not, they're going to come across AI generated content.
Rachel Sopko 00:21:53
They're going to have to figure out if that thing they're
Rachel Sopko 00:21:56
looking at was, you know, real picture. Was it AI generated?
Rachel Sopko 00:21:59
Was that sound that you hear, AI generated or not, those are
Rachel Sopko 00:22:03
things that will happen to them. And if we don't have
Rachel Sopko 00:22:07
conversations about ethical and safe and transparent use, then
Rachel Sopko 00:22:12
we're not doing our job to prepare kids to exist in a world
Rachel Sopko 00:22:16
where the fact of the matter is these tools are here, and they
Rachel Sopko 00:22:18
will continue to be here. And rather than letting the AI tools
Rachel Sopko 00:22:24
themselves, the companies drive that conversation, how do we
Rachel Sopko 00:22:27
empower our learners to think about what these tools are
Rachel Sopko 00:22:32
capable of and how to still be the human in the loop, so that
Rachel Sopko 00:22:36
these tools are something they can use effectively in their
Rachel Sopko 00:22:40
lives, but not allow themselves to be controlled by right?
Christina Lewellen 00:22:45
Human in the loop. That's the Department of
Christina Lewellen 00:22:46
Education, right? We have a podcast dropping where we
Christina Lewellen 00:22:50
interviewed Kristina Ishmael. She and her team did a lot of
Christina Lewellen 00:22:53
that work. I love that image. We use that all the time at Atlas.
Christina Lewellen 00:22:57
Do you have a couple of tools or categories of tools, if you
Christina Lewellen 00:23:01
don't want to name a specific tool that have captured your
Christina Lewellen 00:23:05
attention lately,
Rachel Sopko 00:23:07
when I think about getting teachers engaged with AI
Rachel Sopko 00:23:10
for the very first time, right? When I'm trying to get that buy
Rachel Sopko 00:23:13
in, right? Because everyone kind of feels like, Well, I'm a
Rachel Sopko 00:23:16
science teacher, I'm a math teacher, I'm an art teacher,
Rachel Sopko 00:23:18
it's not my job to teach about AI, right? That's like, Tech's
Rachel Sopko 00:23:20
job, or that's a computer science teacher's job, right?
Rachel Sopko 00:23:22
It's always someone else's job. And I think part of it is first
Rachel Sopko 00:23:26
getting everyone to recognize it's actually everybody's job.
Rachel Sopko 00:23:29
And these conversations can fit into your class in a lot of
Rachel Sopko 00:23:33
different ways. And so what I found in our initial
Rachel Sopko 00:23:35
conversations, you know, when everyone was just talking about
Rachel Sopko 00:23:38
Chat GPT, my teacher sort of stared blankly at Chat GPT, and
Rachel Sopko 00:23:41
they're like, but what do I do with this thing? Right? And they
Rachel Sopko 00:23:43
weren't writing effective prompts or anything like that.
Rachel Sopko 00:23:46
And you're like, Okay, let's back up. We need a tool that's
Rachel Sopko 00:23:49
like training wheels for teachers, that helps them think
Rachel Sopko 00:23:53
about what AI is and what it can do. And so this year we're
Rachel Sopko 00:23:57
piloting magic school, we looked at a lot of different tools to
Rachel Sopko 00:24:00
kind of decide where was the best fit for us, and magic tool
Rachel Sopko 00:24:04
has been a game changer, I think, for us, in a lot of
Rachel Sopko 00:24:07
different ways, because you open up that dashboard and in front
Rachel Sopko 00:24:10
of you is, hey, you can create a UDL choice board. My teacher is
Rachel Sopko 00:24:13
like, wait a what? I would have never thought of asking AI to do
Rachel Sopko 00:24:16
that. Or they're like, I don't know what UDL is. Like, what's a
Rachel Sopko 00:24:19
UDL choice board. And so now we've got that pedagogy coming
Rachel Sopko 00:24:23
into play, and they have an idea so magic school by having all
Rachel Sopko 00:24:28
those choices for them, saying, hey, write a professional email,
Rachel Sopko 00:24:32
or come up with a spiral review for math, or here's a
Rachel Sopko 00:24:35
presentation generator. That's gotten my teachers really
Rachel Sopko 00:24:39
excited to play with these. And even something as silly as the
Rachel Sopko 00:24:43
song generator, they're like, on dorm duty together, and they're
Rachel Sopko 00:24:46
like, let's make a silly song about dorm duty. And then
Rachel Sopko 00:24:49
they're like, oh, wait, I could do this in class with my
Rachel Sopko 00:24:51
content. And so just getting their hands on the tools and
Rachel Sopko 00:24:55
letting them play has gotten them to a point where they're
Rachel Sopko 00:24:58
like, Oh, I do understand. It's possible. And that's when I
Rachel Sopko 00:25:02
start to see my teachers come to me and they're like, Okay, I've
Rachel Sopko 00:25:04
exhausted my magic school options because it's so
Rachel Sopko 00:25:07
scaffolded. They're like, I want to go to Chat GPT now, or I want
Rachel Sopko 00:25:10
to go to perplexity. I want to go to Claude, because I've maxed
Rachel Sopko 00:25:14
out what I can do in magic school, and I have bigger,
Rachel Sopko 00:25:16
better ideas. And so for me, that's been the most fun, is to
Rachel Sopko 00:25:20
just let them play with some of these tools, like magic school,
Rachel Sopko 00:25:25
even the conmigos, right, where it's scaffolded for them, and
Rachel Sopko 00:25:29
then they have all these cool ideas, because they know what it
Rachel Sopko 00:25:32
can do. And so that's my favorite part, is watching them
Rachel Sopko 00:25:34
jump to the Canva magic generator, to straight up image
Rachel Sopko 00:25:38
generators, or whatever the case may be, yeah,
Christina Lewellen 00:25:41
and I think you're right, because there's
Christina Lewellen 00:25:43
not a whole lot of teaching of the tool. It's not another thing
Christina Lewellen 00:25:46
to learn, it's something to experience. Is what I have found
Christina Lewellen 00:25:50
as I travel and as I talk to different schools about this is
Christina Lewellen 00:25:53
like, it really doesn't take a lot of teaching. Let me just
Christina Lewellen 00:25:55
open it up and show you, because you're a smart human and you
Christina Lewellen 00:25:59
will be able to figure this out in fairly short order if you
Christina Lewellen 00:26:02
just open the tool and just play with it. So I love the idea.
Christina Lewellen 00:26:06
Like you said, it's kind of a sandbox. You don't really need
Christina Lewellen 00:26:08
to teach a kid how to make a house in a sandbox. You put them
Christina Lewellen 00:26:11
in the sandbox, and pretty soon they figure it out.
Bill Stites 00:26:14
One question I have for you, something that's come
Bill Stites 00:26:16
up recently. You talked a lot about the ethics and the ethics
Bill Stites 00:26:20
of use, coming off of a lot of college age students coming home
Bill Stites 00:26:25
and a lot of conversations. And on a previous episode, we had a
Bill Stites 00:26:29
conversation about my wife's also a teacher as his hirams,
Bill Stites 00:26:32
and about their feelings around the use of AI as a tool to help
Bill Stites 00:26:37
them with their lesson planning, and thought it was cheating the
Bill Stites 00:26:40
kids, we had to have a long conversation about how that's
Bill Stites 00:26:44
not actually cheating, how you're focusing your time and
Bill Stites 00:26:47
your efforts on the areas where you really need to focus, and
Bill Stites 00:26:51
not so much on the things that you can have ai do for you.
Bill Stites 00:26:54
That's a lot easier. So take that kind of frame, and I'm
Bill Stites 00:26:58
talking to my college Ed senior, we started talking with him and
Bill Stites 00:27:02
his friends and his girlfriend about the ways in which they're
Bill Stites 00:27:05
using AI in college. And it was very interesting, because my
Bill Stites 00:27:11
son, at first, was saying that he doesn't really trust it,
Bill Stites 00:27:14
which I think going in with a level of skepticism or just
Bill Stites 00:27:18
questioning around what you get from AI is not necessarily a bad
Bill Stites 00:27:23
thing, because you want to understand all the biases, all
Bill Stites 00:27:25
the different ways in which it's been developed. And you can use
Bill Stites 00:27:28
it as a starting point, but then jump off from there that
Bill Stites 00:27:32
skepticism exists around the areas where he is taking courses
Bill Stites 00:27:38
for which they relate directly to his major when it comes to
Bill Stites 00:27:43
the general ed requirements, the things that he just has to take
Bill Stites 00:27:48
because the school tells him he has to take, he's using AI more
Bill Stites 00:27:52
because he's like, I don't have time to focus my effort. I want
Bill Stites 00:27:55
to spend more time over here and less time on this, so I'm more
Bill Stites 00:28:00
likely to use AI over here in a way that, let's just say, might
Bill Stites 00:28:06
have some ethical questions about how he's using that. His
Bill Stites 00:28:12
mother and I were talking about how you really shouldn't do that
Bill Stites 00:28:16
regardless. I mean, it shouldn't really matter. But Has this come
Bill Stites 00:28:21
up with you at all in terms of looking at using AI as the
Bill Stites 00:28:26
thought generator for those things that really have meaning
Bill Stites 00:28:29
to you and that are going to help you develop maybe greater
Bill Stites 00:28:32
questions, greater levels of insight, versus those types of
Bill Stites 00:28:36
things that I just need to get this done, and I'm looking for
Bill Stites 00:28:39
An easy out, and how you strike a balance there, if there even
Bill Stites 00:28:43
is a balance, or how you address that, I'm having a really hard
Bill Stites 00:28:47
time even synthesizing. I think, what is the actual question?
Bill Stites 00:28:50
There more just with, like, the shock around the conversation,
Bill Stites 00:28:54
and how do we even talk about this? Because I can see the
Bill Stites 00:28:57
reason for it, but I don't necessarily agree with it, but I
Bill Stites 00:29:01
don't necessarily have a huge degree of fault with it, either.
Bill Stites 00:29:04
So I mean, how are you handling stuff like this? If it even
Bill Stites 00:29:08
comes up,
Rachel Sopko 00:29:09
it comes up a lot. It's something I grapple with in
Rachel Sopko 00:29:12
my own work. You know, what's ethical to use it for? What's
Rachel Sopko 00:29:14
not ethical to use it for? But I think for me, it's been about
Rachel Sopko 00:29:19
taking a step back to really think about the question of what
Rachel Sopko 00:29:24
is worth spending my time on, and where is this enhancing my
Rachel Sopko 00:29:28
work, and how do I check my own bias around AI and what we've
Rachel Sopko 00:29:33
been like conditioned to believe about hard work and effort and
Rachel Sopko 00:29:37
what's okay to do and not okay to do. You know, I think back to
Rachel Sopko 00:29:41
when, you know, Wikipedia was new, and everyone's like, you
Rachel Sopko 00:29:43
can't use Wikipedia for everything. And you know, now,
Rachel Sopko 00:29:46
when we teach students study skills, like we're teaching
Rachel Sopko 00:29:48
them, actually, you should go there, like, you know, do
Rachel Sopko 00:29:50
reverse searching where you're like, where did they get their
Rachel Sopko 00:29:52
sources from? But it took us a long time to get there, for
Rachel Sopko 00:29:55
people to see Wikipedia, not just like anybody can edit it,
Rachel Sopko 00:29:58
but it's a source that was worth. File. And the same with I
Rachel Sopko 00:30:02
was an English teacher. So, you know, everyone freaked out.
Rachel Sopko 00:30:04
English notes and Spark Notes were available online. You know,
Rachel Sopko 00:30:07
kids will read anymore, and now we're like, actually, go ahead,
Rachel Sopko 00:30:09
like, read that, and then let's go to the original text, and
Rachel Sopko 00:30:13
let's do our close read. Like, let's really try to understand
Rachel Sopko 00:30:15
this. Those kinds of things really shook our foundations as
Rachel Sopko 00:30:20
teachers, as they popped up, but then as we got used to them, as
Rachel Sopko 00:30:23
we thought about them, as we reframed our understanding of
Rachel Sopko 00:30:26
what we were doing, we integrated them into our
Rachel Sopko 00:30:29
practice, or even encouraged kids to use them. And so I try
Rachel Sopko 00:30:33
to think about that with AI too, about what am I worried about,
Rachel Sopko 00:30:38
or what am I biased against that I'm not inviting AI to the table
Rachel Sopko 00:30:42
to have the conversation, and where is it actually the easy
Rachel Sopko 00:30:46
out or cheating? And I think that's a question I don't always
Rachel Sopko 00:30:49
have a good answer to. But for me, what it comes back to in the
Rachel Sopko 00:30:53
classroom is, what is my learning outcome. So one of the
Rachel Sopko 00:30:58
teachers that was one of our kind of early adopters of AI.
Rachel Sopko 00:31:01
And we really started these conversations. It was our music
Rachel Sopko 00:31:04
technology teacher, and he did this really cool project where
Rachel Sopko 00:31:08
he's like, listen, part of the work my kids have to do in this
Rachel Sopko 00:31:10
class is they have to effectively put music over a
Rachel Sopko 00:31:15
text, over something spoken. And he's like, all the stories that
Rachel Sopko 00:31:18
are out there, my kids have preconceived notions about
Rachel Sopko 00:31:21
they've heard this story with music attached to it. They heard
Rachel Sopko 00:31:25
it told to them so they think they know the tone and the vibe.
Rachel Sopko 00:31:28
And so what he did was he went to Chat GPT. He had to create a
Rachel Sopko 00:31:32
children's story for him, and then he went to a different AI
Rachel Sopko 00:31:35
tool that generates music, and he had it generate the music. So
Rachel Sopko 00:31:38
it was a totally new score that kids hadn't heard before, a
Rachel Sopko 00:31:41
story they had never read. And then he handed both of those to
Rachel Sopko 00:31:45
the kids and said, Put this music over this story in the
Rachel Sopko 00:31:48
appropriate places, or modify the music to have the right
Rachel Sopko 00:31:50
tone. And where should the crescendos be? Where should the
Rachel Sopko 00:31:53
decrescendos be? How do you do that? And because it was
Rachel Sopko 00:31:56
something entirely new, he was able to really see what the kids
Rachel Sopko 00:32:00
knew he could actually get a sense of what their learning was
Rachel Sopko 00:32:03
on how to use the tool, how to make effective decisions,
Rachel Sopko 00:32:06
something he could not have done quickly or easily without an AI
Rachel Sopko 00:32:09
tool. Because he's not an author. He doesn't have time to
Rachel Sopko 00:32:13
go write a children's story or compose a bunch of new music for
Rachel Sopko 00:32:16
one of his classes. On top of everything else he does, he was
Rachel Sopko 00:32:20
a little nervous to, like, share the story. At first, he's like,
Rachel Sopko 00:32:22
everybody think I'm cheating because I used an AI tool, or
Rachel Sopko 00:32:25
was that unethical? And you know, when we had that
Rachel Sopko 00:32:28
conversation, I was like, No, your learning outcome was not to
Rachel Sopko 00:32:32
have these kids write their own children's stories or have them
Rachel Sopko 00:32:34
compose their own music. It was to effectively use the music
Rachel Sopko 00:32:38
technology and apply it in this situation, and so by using AI,
Rachel Sopko 00:32:43
he was actually able to better assess student learning, but he
Rachel Sopko 00:32:46
couldn't do that unless he had a really clear understanding of
Rachel Sopko 00:32:49
what his learning outcomes are, and that then let him engage
Rachel Sopko 00:32:53
students in much higher order thinking and higher order
Rachel Sopko 00:32:56
learning, which was so much more effective and engaging for the
Rachel Sopko 00:33:00
kids than It would have been had he not done that. And so when
Rachel Sopko 00:33:03
I'm talking to teachers or thinking about my own AI use,
Rachel Sopko 00:33:05
that's what I always come back to, is, what am I trying to
Rachel Sopko 00:33:08
assess here? What is my learning outcome? The same way, again, as
Rachel Sopko 00:33:12
an English teacher, I'm like, I'm really mad at you if you did
Rachel Sopko 00:33:14
not spell check your essay before you sent it to me. Or I'm
Rachel Sopko 00:33:17
mad if you didn't use the grammar check. But if it was a
Rachel Sopko 00:33:19
spelling test, or if it was a grammar test, then, no, it's not
Rachel Sopko 00:33:22
okay to use those tools. And I think what people are really
Rachel Sopko 00:33:26
craving is this black and white. It's okay to use in this, this,
Rachel Sopko 00:33:29
this and this way, but it's not okay ever, and this that the
Rachel Sopko 00:33:32
other way, and that, I think, is the dangerous part of the
Rachel Sopko 00:33:35
conversation, is there is no black and white. It depends on
Rachel Sopko 00:33:39
what we're trying to do. And you know, I've seen that in
Rachel Sopko 00:33:43
different pockets of things around my school, some of my
Rachel Sopko 00:33:46
best adopters of AI tools have actually been my admissions
Rachel Sopko 00:33:48
department, and they're like, listen, it takes me forever to
Rachel Sopko 00:33:53
really synthesize my interview notes, or it really takes me
Rachel Sopko 00:33:57
forever to put these things together. And so with some AI,
Rachel Sopko 00:34:00
they've been able to create like rubrics that align with our core
Rachel Sopko 00:34:03
competencies to think about, okay, these are the things that
Rachel Sopko 00:34:06
we really value. How do I ask questions that align with those?
Rachel Sopko 00:34:10
How do I differentiate those questions for various levels of
Rachel Sopko 00:34:13
students? Right? An incoming ninth grader is really different
Rachel Sopko 00:34:16
than a PG. They need a different kind of question. And it takes a
Rachel Sopko 00:34:20
really long time for someone to be able to come up with all of
Rachel Sopko 00:34:24
those. And that's not the part of our work we want to do. We
Rachel Sopko 00:34:26
want to be with the people, with the kids, or with the people
Rachel Sopko 00:34:29
we're interviewing. And so that, to me, is that cost benefit
Rachel Sopko 00:34:33
analysis of what's going to get me to build those relationships
Rachel Sopko 00:34:36
with whoever it is, whether it's incoming families, the students
Rachel Sopko 00:34:40
in front of me, the pre service teachers I'm working with. How
Rachel Sopko 00:34:44
can we decide when the AI is helping us and furthering our
Rachel Sopko 00:34:49
understanding or getting us to a point where we can get some of
Rachel Sopko 00:34:52
the minutia off our plate so we can do the higher order things
Rachel Sopko 00:34:56
or the more important things? And that's a personal sort of
Rachel Sopko 00:34:59
choice for people to. Think about is, what am I okay
Rachel Sopko 00:35:01
offloading to the AI, and what am I not? And what does it do
Rachel Sopko 00:35:04
well, and what is it not? And so those are the questions I try to
Rachel Sopko 00:35:06
have people grapple with as they think about these tools. So I
Rachel Sopko 00:35:09
don't think it's ever gonna be this is always okay. It's okay
Rachel Sopko 00:35:12
to use in my Gen Ed courses, you know, like you said, Bill or
Rachel Sopko 00:35:15
it's not okay in my content level classes. But again, with
Rachel Sopko 00:35:18
my pre service teachers, when I say, hey, plan a lesson with AI
Rachel Sopko 00:35:22
and see what it does. Well, they're really bad at lesson
Rachel Sopko 00:35:24
planning right now because they're brand new teachers, like
Rachel Sopko 00:35:26
they're baby teachers, and they don't have all the pedagogy, but
Rachel Sopko 00:35:29
now they have something in front of them. They have to think
Rachel Sopko 00:35:31
about the questions. They have to think about, Hey, what is a
Rachel Sopko 00:35:33
way I can get my kids to be metacognitive? What are
Rachel Sopko 00:35:36
different summatives or formatives? But then they have
Rachel Sopko 00:35:38
to apply the pedagogy to be like, actually, know, I wanted a
Rachel Sopko 00:35:41
project based unit, and that's not project based, you know,
Rachel Sopko 00:35:44
here's the theory that's going to let me modify or edit that
Rachel Sopko 00:35:47
lesson, and that engagement of a pre service teacher is really
Rachel Sopko 00:35:50
different than, you know, a teacher who's been around the
Rachel Sopko 00:35:52
block a time or two, who's going to have different questions for
Rachel Sopko 00:35:55
the AI and get something different out of its output. And
Rachel Sopko 00:35:57
so I think it's always going to be about, what do I need from
Rachel Sopko 00:36:01
it, and how can I apply those and push my thinking
Unknown 00:36:04
So, Rachel, let's continue down this disrupted
Unknown 00:36:07
train route. I'm curious what your opinion is on using AI for
Unknown 00:36:12
grading, for writing comments, for writing college
Unknown 00:36:15
recommendations, because what Independent Schools pride
Unknown 00:36:20
themselves on is knowing the child. The relationship is so
Unknown 00:36:25
vastly important. And I've heard conversations where some schools
Unknown 00:36:30
refuse to use AI because we want a genuine comment coming from
Unknown 00:36:35
our faculty. And the same with college recommendations, if
Unknown 00:36:39
you're looking at what the outcome is. In my mind, I have a
Unknown 00:36:43
preconceived notion of what that outcome could be and should be
Unknown 00:36:46
when using AI in these different areas. I'm curious about what
Unknown 00:36:50
your opinion is on that, because that's a slippery slope for a
Unknown 00:36:53
lot of schools. Yeah,
Rachel Sopko 00:36:55
this is one I My thinking has evolved a lot
Rachel Sopko 00:36:58
around over the last year or so, and part of my thinking around
Rachel Sopko 00:37:01
this actually started last year's Atlas conference. Our
Rachel Sopko 00:37:04
friends from nine, you know, hosted a really great pre
Rachel Sopko 00:37:07
conference session on student data privacy, and they talked a
Rachel Sopko 00:37:10
lot about AI in that session and how we make decisions around
Rachel Sopko 00:37:16
when, how and if to use AI tools. And one of the things
Rachel Sopko 00:37:19
that really stuck with me was for them again, it wasn't this,
Rachel Sopko 00:37:24
it's right in these instances and wrong in these instances,
Rachel Sopko 00:37:26
but it's this cost benefit analysis of When have you lost
Rachel Sopko 00:37:31
the human touch and what risks or what data is worth putting in
Rachel Sopko 00:37:36
to get an output that maybe is better than we would have
Rachel Sopko 00:37:39
gotten, and so That, for me, really started a change in my
Rachel Sopko 00:37:42
thinking around some of the ways we use AI and how it can be used
Rachel Sopko 00:37:47
for things like grading and comment writing, which I sort of
Rachel Sopko 00:37:50
separate into two buckets for me, because as a teacher, I'd
Rachel Sopko 00:37:54
had like 140 kids on my caseload. At some points, that
Rachel Sopko 00:37:58
was a lot of it, because I taught all English too. So they
Rachel Sopko 00:38:01
were all due at the same time. I couldn't stagger them, and it
Rachel Sopko 00:38:04
was exhausting to read through all of them and give them
Rachel Sopko 00:38:08
meaningful feedback. But for me, I had to, I had to read through
Rachel Sopko 00:38:12
them, because otherwise I didn't know what student A was
Rachel Sopko 00:38:15
struggling with or what Student B was excelling with. If I had
Rachel Sopko 00:38:18
offloaded that to an AI, I I could not then have made
Rachel Sopko 00:38:22
decisions about my teaching to support where my students were
Rachel Sopko 00:38:25
struggling or not struggling, or give students extensions who had
Rachel Sopko 00:38:28
already mastered those parts of learning, but for things like
Rachel Sopko 00:38:33
comment writing. You know, I was at the Oasis conference. One of
Rachel Sopko 00:38:36
the sessions was on using AI for comment writing and the amount
Rachel Sopko 00:38:41
of work that these teachers had put into using AI for comment
Rachel Sopko 00:38:44
writing was mind blowing, because what they did in this
Rachel Sopko 00:38:48
experimental version of AI for comment writing was they had to
Rachel Sopko 00:38:52
keep copious notes over the course of the term on their
Rachel Sopko 00:38:55
kids. So they had, like a running Google doc where they
Rachel Sopko 00:38:58
would be like, okay, you know, Hiram did this today in class,
Rachel Sopko 00:39:01
and he was really great at this, but, you know, he kept talking
Rachel Sopko 00:39:04
out of turn, or whatever, you know, Hiram had done that day.
Rachel Sopko 00:39:06
And then they would do it about Bill, and then they would do
Rachel Sopko 00:39:08
about Kristina. But then they would also realize, hey, maybe
Rachel Sopko 00:39:11
there's a kid I haven't written a comment about in a couple of
Rachel Sopko 00:39:13
weeks, right? So maybe I should go and pay extra close attention
Rachel Sopko 00:39:17
to that kid this week, because I want to make sure I have data on
Rachel Sopko 00:39:21
them and their performance, and what they found at the end of
Rachel Sopko 00:39:24
that the school did a blind reading of people's comments,
Rachel Sopko 00:39:28
they didn't know which ones were generated with AI, which ones
Rachel Sopko 00:39:30
had been written by a person. And in the end, overall, the
Rachel Sopko 00:39:34
teachers rated that round of comments as the best written
Rachel Sopko 00:39:37
comments that they had ever gotten, and they could not
Rachel Sopko 00:39:40
correctly guess which ones were AI generated and which ones were
Rachel Sopko 00:39:43
person generated. But what they found through that was, as we've
Rachel Sopko 00:39:47
all experienced, is writing comments for kids. When you get
Rachel Sopko 00:39:50
to like the 15th kid of the night, you can only say he's a
Rachel Sopko 00:39:54
good kid so many ways. And so you kind of fall into these
Rachel Sopko 00:39:58
templates, right. Here's your comment. Kid, your middle kid,
Rachel Sopko 00:40:00
your low kid. But what they found then was, then, you know,
Rachel Sopko 00:40:03
I'd say to Christina, Hey, what did Mr. Sykes say about you? And
Rachel Sopko 00:40:06
then we realized we had the same comment. It's like, Wait a
Rachel Sopko 00:40:08
minute. He didn't really put that effort in. So it actually
Rachel Sopko 00:40:11
undermined our relationship. But what this school had found when
Rachel Sopko 00:40:15
they were using comments with AI was they were way more unique
Rachel Sopko 00:40:19
and actually way more tailored to how the students were
Rachel Sopko 00:40:22
actually doing, and those comments were less bias. You
Rachel Sopko 00:40:26
know, it wasn't just this kid is kind of being a paid at the end
Rachel Sopko 00:40:28
of the term. So now my comment is really angry about him, and I
Rachel Sopko 00:40:31
forgot all the good stuff he did. They were much more robust,
Rachel Sopko 00:40:35
and actually did a better job of painting a picture of what that
Rachel Sopko 00:40:37
kid was doing well and what they weren't. And so I tell it anecdo
Rachel Sopko 00:40:42
to kind of say so much more work and data keeping actually went
Rachel Sopko 00:40:45
into the AI generated comments by the teachers, so there was
Rachel Sopko 00:40:49
actually more human input and more thought and more data about
Rachel Sopko 00:40:55
student performance and where they needed to go than there was
Rachel Sopko 00:40:57
when the comments were solely written by a teacher who's
Rachel Sopko 00:41:00
exhausted at the end of the term trying to finish all their
Rachel Sopko 00:41:02
grading and say all the things. And so for me, in that instance,
Rachel Sopko 00:41:07
that actually was a reflective practice that we want teachers
Rachel Sopko 00:41:10
to have, right? We want them to do those things and keep notes
Rachel Sopko 00:41:12
on their students and personalize and individualize.
Rachel Sopko 00:41:15
To go back to your point. Hiram at independent school, we pride
Rachel Sopko 00:41:18
ourselves on that personalization, and if AI is
Rachel Sopko 00:41:21
going to increase our ability to do that, to really connect with
Rachel Sopko 00:41:24
and know our students and to tailor their education to what
Rachel Sopko 00:41:27
they need to be successful and do, well, then that, for me, is
Rachel Sopko 00:41:31
a huge win. This
Bill Stites 00:41:33
is one of the things that I think we're seeing
Bill Stites 00:41:35
a lot of the SIS and LMS tools starting to do. We've had
Bill Stites 00:41:39
conversation with vendors in this space, where you talk
Bill Stites 00:41:42
about, where are you keeping track of your scope and
Bill Stites 00:41:46
sequence? Where are you keeping track of your assessments, your
Bill Stites 00:41:49
rubrics? What's your grade book look like? Where are you putting
Bill Stites 00:41:52
all of those notes in? And AI is assisting with all of those
Bill Stites 00:41:56
pieces along the way. And then when you get to that report
Bill Stites 00:42:00
writing piece, it truly is delivering a much more robust,
Bill Stites 00:42:05
less time consuming, unique comment around the student. And
Bill Stites 00:42:09
this is that hurdle to get over, that same hurdle I was
Bill Stites 00:42:13
mentioning with that Hiram and I were having when we were having
Bill Stites 00:42:15
conversations with our wives about the use of AI. You're
Bill Stites 00:42:19
doing all of this work the final output of that comment is a
Bill Stites 00:42:24
direct result of all of the work that you've done, tracking
Bill Stites 00:42:28
information, putting in your own input, your own observations,
Bill Stites 00:42:32
your own grading, into all of those things that's generating
Bill Stites 00:42:35
this at the end. And you still have the ability to tweak and
Bill Stites 00:42:38
change that, but it's definitely lessening that lift when you get
Bill Stites 00:42:43
to that point in the year where you're having to do this for
Bill Stites 00:42:46
hundreds of students depending on your teaching load,
Rachel Sopko 00:42:49
absolutely, I think lessening that lift is so
Rachel Sopko 00:42:51
important. We know teachers are overburdened and burnt out, and
Rachel Sopko 00:42:55
if we can help them connect with their students and do their jobs
Rachel Sopko 00:42:58
better and really push them to be more innovative, right, not
Rachel Sopko 00:43:02
to lead on that same lesson that they've done 100,000 times. But
Rachel Sopko 00:43:05
you know, what does my kid actually need in this moment?
Rachel Sopko 00:43:08
And I think about one of my teachers I'm working with right
Rachel Sopko 00:43:11
now, he came down to my office one day and he was like, I have
Rachel Sopko 00:43:14
a pitch for you. And I was like, okay, like, what do you want to
Rachel Sopko 00:43:17
try? This sounds great. And he's like, I play Dungeons and
Rachel Sopko 00:43:19
Dragons. And I'm like, Okay, go on waiting for, like, how is
Rachel Sopko 00:43:22
this going to connect to AI? And he's like, you know, I've been
Rachel Sopko 00:43:25
doing this thing for years where I put in all these notes that I
Rachel Sopko 00:43:28
take about, you know, what our Dungeons and Dragons adventure
Rachel Sopko 00:43:30
that day was. And, you know, thinking about, what have we
Rachel Sopko 00:43:33
missed, or What haven't we done, What haven't we explored? He's
Rachel Sopko 00:43:36
like, What if I took that approach and I did that was
Rachel Sopko 00:43:40
curriculum. And I was like, Okay, I'm intrigued. Tell me
Rachel Sopko 00:43:43
more. And so he's like, what I would like to try? I want to put
Rachel Sopko 00:43:46
in my curriculum as I go, right? You know, here he's a math
Rachel Sopko 00:43:50
teacher. He's like, so, but we did a lecture based lesson this
Rachel Sopko 00:43:53
week on, you know, fractions or whatever he was teaching, and
Rachel Sopko 00:43:56
then the next week we did project based or group work. And
Rachel Sopko 00:43:59
he's like, I want to keep all these notes, and I want to put
Rachel Sopko 00:44:02
in, like the tests that I'm giving, and then see, did I
Rachel Sopko 00:44:05
actually assess what I was teaching, or did I actually mix
Rachel Sopko 00:44:09
up my instruction, or where were my kids performing better? And
Rachel Sopko 00:44:13
so for him, similar to the comment rating, he is now doing
Rachel Sopko 00:44:17
exactly what we asked teachers to do, right to be reflective
Rachel Sopko 00:44:20
practitioners on their work, but he's doing it on this much
Rachel Sopko 00:44:24
larger scope than he as a single individual, could have done
Rachel Sopko 00:44:28
himself. And what he's now able to see is, oh, hey, my test was
Rachel Sopko 00:44:32
covering 50% of this one topic, but I only spent one day
Rachel Sopko 00:44:36
teaching that topic. That's not a fair assessment of my kids. So
Rachel Sopko 00:44:40
I either need to change the test, or I need to change what
Rachel Sopko 00:44:43
I'm teaching. And so it's made him go back and think about
Rachel Sopko 00:44:47
that. And then other teachers heard about it. They're like,
Rachel Sopko 00:44:48
Wait, do my test. Do my test. And then they say, wow, like,
Rachel Sopko 00:44:51
I'm not testing on what I thought it was, or I'm only
Rachel Sopko 00:44:54
doing lower order thinking skills. And I think that's where
Rachel Sopko 00:44:58
these tools are super powerful. Powerful and really push us
Rachel Sopko 00:45:01
forward. You know, again, as a teacher, I'd spend all summer.
Rachel Sopko 00:45:03
I'm going to do my curriculum, I'm going to find new things to
Rachel Sopko 00:45:06
do, I'm going to find a new text or a new supplemental to support
Rachel Sopko 00:45:10
that book. But I'm exhausted, right? And I have a life outside
Rachel Sopko 00:45:13
of there, and so these tools are going to help us reach our kids
Rachel Sopko 00:45:17
and grow their understanding and their learning and grow our
Rachel Sopko 00:45:19
practices. Then That, to me, is a huge win,
Christina Lewellen 00:45:23
absolutely. So Rachel, before we run out of
Christina Lewellen 00:45:25
time with you, I want to spend a couple of minutes transitioning
Christina Lewellen 00:45:28
to the ALI program. The Atlas Leadership Institute is a
Christina Lewellen 00:45:32
program that we're really proud of, a year long cohort, and you
Christina Lewellen 00:45:35
have found yourself a part of that cohort. Tell us a little
Christina Lewellen 00:45:38
bit about your experience. Are you guys talking about these
Christina Lewellen 00:45:40
things in your projects and in your leadership challenges.
Rachel Sopko 00:45:44
Yeah, Ali has been awesome. It's really pushed my
Rachel Sopko 00:45:48
thinking, you know, somebody who came from public schools and
Rachel Sopko 00:45:50
then, you know, working at the collegiate level. It's really
Rachel Sopko 00:45:53
helped me open my eyes to a bunch of really independent
Rachel Sopko 00:45:56
school specific needs and challenges, which has been
Rachel Sopko 00:45:59
awesome. It's connected me with a whole network of different ed
Rachel Sopko 00:46:04
tech leaders across the country to see what are they doing. And
Rachel Sopko 00:46:07
so when we're grappling with questions around AI, or we're
Rachel Sopko 00:46:10
trying to think about, you know, what cyber security tool are you
Rachel Sopko 00:46:12
using, or how are you handling this situation? It's been
Rachel Sopko 00:46:16
awesome to have a group of people to lean on. You know,
Rachel Sopko 00:46:19
where my pedagogical background is really strong. My ed tech
Rachel Sopko 00:46:21
background is really strong. But some of the more nitty gritty,
Rachel Sopko 00:46:24
you know, systems management or hardware, things art, I'm able
Rachel Sopko 00:46:29
to then reach out and think about those things with other
Rachel Sopko 00:46:32
partners who can grow my skills and in our different challenges.
Rachel Sopko 00:46:36
It's been really great. Just think about what's going on at
Rachel Sopko 00:46:39
my school. You know, how can I be a better tech leader? How do
Rachel Sopko 00:46:42
I grow my leadership skills, and how do I forge alliances as
Rachel Sopko 00:46:47
somebody who works in the tech department? Sometimes it can be
Rachel Sopko 00:46:50
hard to get into academic spaces. They're like, Oh, you
Rachel Sopko 00:46:52
know, the curriculum doesn't involve tech. And I'm like, I
Rachel Sopko 00:46:55
can't help you choose ed tech tools or help you use Canvas
Rachel Sopko 00:46:58
effectively in your classrooms if I'm not at the table and so
Rachel Sopko 00:47:03
helping think about how to frame those conversations. Those
Rachel Sopko 00:47:07
strategic leaders at my school. How do I support them in my
Rachel Sopko 00:47:10
work? How do we work together? How does data flow? You know?
Rachel Sopko 00:47:13
How do we do things like change management and project
Rachel Sopko 00:47:16
management? How do we learn from each other as independent school
Rachel Sopko 00:47:19
leaders? All of those have been amazing parts of Ali, and we
Rachel Sopko 00:47:23
actually have a session later today that we're going to keep
Rachel Sopko 00:47:26
talking about these things when we'll see each other at the
Rachel Sopko 00:47:28
conference to keep those conversations going. And it's
Rachel Sopko 00:47:31
been really great, even to meet past graduates who have been
Rachel Sopko 00:47:34
like this led me to my job now, or to this project that I'm
Rachel Sopko 00:47:38
working on, or this idea. It's just such a great network, and
Rachel Sopko 00:47:41
I'm so honored and excited to be a part of it and to continue to
Rachel Sopko 00:47:45
grow my skills and learn from this amazing community that
Rachel Sopko 00:47:48
ATLIS has put together. Yeah,
Christina Lewellen 00:47:49
that's the thing we love the most about
Christina Lewellen 00:47:51
Ali, is that now that we've been around for 10 years, I think
Christina Lewellen 00:47:55
Ashley calls it the mega cohort, and then, like the mega cohort
Christina Lewellen 00:47:59
is all of the past Ali graduates, and that network is a
Christina Lewellen 00:48:04
powerful engine of moving and shaking here in the Independent
Christina Lewellen 00:48:09
School technologist realm. So we're really proud of it. It's
Christina Lewellen 00:48:12
so cool to have you be a part of it. Have you guys gotten to the
Christina Lewellen 00:48:15
point in the year where you're looking at your ending project?
Christina Lewellen 00:48:19
Yet? Not
Rachel Sopko 00:48:20
yet. I have a feeling that's we're gonna
Rachel Sopko 00:48:21
actually maybe talk about later today, as we, you know, kick off
Rachel Sopko 00:48:24
this part of the year, in this next phase leading up into the
Rachel Sopko 00:48:26
conference. But already people are talking about, this is what
Rachel Sopko 00:48:29
I want to do. Or even at the past atlases that I've been to,
Rachel Sopko 00:48:32
you know, people would be like, this was my Atlas project, or
Rachel Sopko 00:48:35
this was inspired by my Atlas project, or sessions I've
Rachel Sopko 00:48:38
attended that you guys have hosted have been like, you know,
Rachel Sopko 00:48:40
grown out of someone's or if somebody we were talking about
Rachel Sopko 00:48:43
AI, they're like, Oh, hey. Like, this person did this in their
Rachel Sopko 00:48:46
Ali project last year. Like, let me share it with you. And so I
Rachel Sopko 00:48:49
know there's a ton of possibilities, and our cohorts
Rachel Sopko 00:48:52
already thinking about what we've seen these cool projects,
Rachel Sopko 00:48:54
like, what's mine gonna be? So everybody's excited to really
Rachel Sopko 00:48:56
start thinking about what those will be and how they can
Rachel Sopko 00:48:59
contribute to such a wonderful network and amazing body of
Rachel Sopko 00:49:03
resources. Can
Christina Lewellen 00:49:04
I put a plug in? And you have to keep it a
Christina Lewellen 00:49:06
secret, right? Don't tell Ashley that I fed this into the cohort.
Christina Lewellen 00:49:10
Dr Ashley Cross is our administrator of this program.
Christina Lewellen 00:49:14
So what I would love to see somebody looking into is the
Christina Lewellen 00:49:17
idea of AI as a wellness enabler for a very stressed out and
Christina Lewellen 00:49:23
overburden teaching population. I don't think we always think
Christina Lewellen 00:49:26
about it that way. You know, we had a conversation now about
Christina Lewellen 00:49:29
cheating, not cheating, but it's interesting. I've started
Christina Lewellen 00:49:31
talking to some heads of school and to a lesser extent, some
Christina Lewellen 00:49:36
trustees at independent schools, about their obligation to
Christina Lewellen 00:49:40
embrace AI from a wellness perspective, and how that can
Christina Lewellen 00:49:44
really help teachers, you know, maybe take control of this
Christina Lewellen 00:49:48
profession that has really gotten quite overgrown in terms
Christina Lewellen 00:49:51
of what we ask them to do. So that's my evil little plug, if
Christina Lewellen 00:49:55
anybody wants to look into AI tools as the unlocker of health
Christina Lewellen 00:49:59
and wellness for. Our faculty, that's what I'd love to see. I
Rachel Sopko 00:50:03
love the connection between like AI as
Rachel Sopko 00:50:05
wellness, because I think too often we don't frame enough how
Rachel Sopko 00:50:09
Ed Tech and all of these different tools can be part of
Rachel Sopko 00:50:13
that wellness that we're talking about. We use Canvas. I've been
Rachel Sopko 00:50:15
working with Canvas for a long time now, and at their
Rachel Sopko 00:50:18
conference a couple of years ago, they did a whole thing on
Rachel Sopko 00:50:21
VR, and it was really fascinating to listen to them
Rachel Sopko 00:50:25
talk about VR, not just as something to use in the
Rachel Sopko 00:50:27
classroom, but as a wellness tool. And they were talking
Rachel Sopko 00:50:30
about how when you're in a VR environment, your brain reacts
Rachel Sopko 00:50:34
to that setting the same way it would as if you were really
Rachel Sopko 00:50:37
there. And so they showed us like, you know, people walking
Rachel Sopko 00:50:40
on like balance beams across skyscrapers, and how they were
Rachel Sopko 00:50:43
just as afraid as if they were literally doing it. And so for
Rachel Sopko 00:50:47
me, as somebody in like a New England School, we're very
Rachel Sopko 00:50:50
rural. We're in the middle of nowhere. It's like, hey,
Rachel Sopko 00:50:52
actually, those things can really help with all of our kids
Rachel Sopko 00:50:55
who experience that, like they don't understand the dark and
Rachel Sopko 00:50:58
cold of a New England winter. And that things like VR not only
Rachel Sopko 00:51:03
have, you know, pedagogical purposes of like, let's
Rachel Sopko 00:51:05
transport kids to x place that we're studying, but it actually
Rachel Sopko 00:51:09
can help with wellness. We were talking earlier about formative
Rachel Sopko 00:51:11
assessment, like these things will grade a little bit faster
Rachel Sopko 00:51:14
give us the data we need. Use AI as something to, you know,
Rachel Sopko 00:51:17
lessen that burden, or help us feel less of that burnout, like
Rachel Sopko 00:51:21
there's so much potential once we're willing to put in the work
Rachel Sopko 00:51:24
and to learn them and to think outside the box with what these
Rachel Sopko 00:51:28
tools could be used for. You know, just cycling one more time
Rachel Sopko 00:51:32
back to Bill's comment around ethics too. I think years ago,
Rachel Sopko 00:51:35
Ashley did a session at Atlas about when AI was brand new. It
Rachel Sopko 00:51:39
was like, you know, what do we do about this thing. And she
Rachel Sopko 00:51:41
read us the book The creepy crayon, which is about like a
Rachel Sopko 00:51:44
bunny with a crayon that writes for him, and eventually he's
Rachel Sopko 00:51:46
like, wait, I want to write in color on my my own. And that
Rachel Sopko 00:51:49
really inspired me to think about how children's books can
Rachel Sopko 00:51:52
help people understand some of these complicated concepts. And
Rachel Sopko 00:51:55
the one that's been sticking with me a lot lately is the
Rachel Sopko 00:51:58
Lorax, and thinking about how AI has a goal, right? It's going to
Rachel Sopko 00:52:03
do whatever it's one goal is to the detriment of all other
Rachel Sopko 00:52:06
goals. The same way that feeling the Lorax, the one slur is like,
Rachel Sopko 00:52:09
I'm going to create my need. And it doesn't matter that I cut
Rachel Sopko 00:52:12
down all the trees, driven away, all the animals, there's smog
Rachel Sopko 00:52:15
everywhere. But how do we stay as the humans in a loop to think
Rachel Sopko 00:52:20
about? You know that wellness component, what is worth the
Rachel Sopko 00:52:22
advancement of that goal, what's not worth the advancement of
Rachel Sopko 00:52:25
that goal? And so, how do we take those stories and think
Rachel Sopko 00:52:28
about, you know, when we give as teachers, all of ourselves to
Rachel Sopko 00:52:31
our kids, to our profession, how do we not do that? How do we not
Rachel Sopko 00:52:34
cut everything else out of our lives and not see the AI as
Rachel Sopko 00:52:38
something that will only further that one goal, but instead
Rachel Sopko 00:52:41
actually help us preserve and save the things that matter to
Rachel Sopko 00:52:44
us before it's too late and they're all gone and you know,
Rachel Sopko 00:52:47
it's just you and your sad little building waiting for
Rachel Sopko 00:52:49
somebody to plant your seed. I
Christina Lewellen 00:52:52
love that. I love that analogy. So as we wrap
Christina Lewellen 00:52:55
up with you, I have a couple of more rapid fire questions. Just
Christina Lewellen 00:52:58
because we're getting to know you on this podcast, our
Christina Lewellen 00:53:00
listeners are getting to know you, Bill and Hiram will
Christina Lewellen 00:53:03
probably ask something obnoxious about zombies, but my question
Christina Lewellen 00:53:06
is, so you're up there in the cold, and how do you fight the
Christina Lewellen 00:53:09
sad I grew up in a wintry area, and so I also know that vibe of
Christina Lewellen 00:53:14
like you get to this time of year, you're like, Oh my God,
Christina Lewellen 00:53:16
will I ever feel warm again? Do you have a coffee beverage of
Christina Lewellen 00:53:19
choice? Or how do you stay warm and cozy through these long
Christina Lewellen 00:53:22
winter months? Anything
Rachel Sopko 00:53:24
with coffee in it is my coffee beverage of choice.
Rachel Sopko 00:53:26
I love a cappuccino. I love a good latte. And during the
Rachel Sopko 00:53:28
Christmas season, only in the month of December, I am a
Rachel Sopko 00:53:31
peppermint mocha fan, but the rest of the time I am a coffee
Rachel Sopko 00:53:34
flavored coffee person. I love
Christina Lewellen 00:53:37
that I can get into the holiday peppermint
Christina Lewellen 00:53:39
mocha vibe. My husband calls that the Pepe Moke. I love that.
Christina Lewellen 00:53:43
Do you want a Pepe Moke? Like, not. If you say it like that,
Bill Stites 00:53:48
I'm gonna throw my wife under the bus because we
Bill Stites 00:53:50
bought an espresso. So, like, now we're fancy with our coffee
Bill Stites 00:53:53
at home, but one of her colleagues, they're all
Bill Stites 00:53:56
teachers, gave her a, let's just say, a spiked version of
Bill Stites 00:54:01
peppermint, which he decided to use. So if you really need a
Bill Stites 00:54:07
thing to kind of get you over something a grown up Pepe. MKA,
Bill Stites 00:54:12
exactly. My wife would highly, highly recommend that version of
Bill Stites 00:54:16
it. Rumpelments, yes. Now this was a peppermint alcohol of some
Bill Stites 00:54:23
sort. I'm not sure what exactly it was, but she enjoyed it
Bill Stites 00:54:25
immensely. I
Rachel Sopko 00:54:26
would say, when I'm not working, I'm a hockey
Rachel Sopko 00:54:28
mom, and I manage a seven year hockey team. Oh, so I'm very
Rachel Sopko 00:54:32
familiar with, like, a coffee you had chocolate plus some sort
Rachel Sopko 00:54:36
of flavoring, because it's early and it's cold and the days I
Rachel Sopko 00:54:40
want with a bunch of seven year olds who play hockey. You are a
Rachel Sopko 00:54:43
special breed
Christina Lewellen 00:54:44
that is a special level of momming that
Christina Lewellen 00:54:46
not all moms get to. Mom so well done there. Rachel, it has been
Christina Lewellen 00:54:52
such a pleasure to have you on the podcast with us today. Thank
Christina Lewellen 00:54:55
you so much. You bring such a vibrant and forward looking
Christina Lewellen 00:54:58
approach to Ed Tech, which is why we ask. Test you on we like
Christina Lewellen 00:55:00
to mix things up a bit and not be too techie all the time.
Christina Lewellen 00:55:03
Thank you for coming and talking some pedagogy with us and kind
Christina Lewellen 00:55:06
of living in the space of AI with us for a while too. It's
Christina Lewellen 00:55:09
been really helpful. Thanks so much for having me. It's been
Christina Lewellen 00:55:12
great to hang out with you guys today. Let me know if you end up
Christina Lewellen 00:55:14
getting my project approved at a Li, okay, I will. I'm
Rachel Sopko 00:55:17
already thinking about ideas for that for you, so
Rachel Sopko 00:55:20
I love
Christina Lewellen 00:55:21
it. I've got a minion sending her into the
Christina Lewellen 00:55:23
ALI program undercover. Thank you guys. It's been great to see
Christina Lewellen 00:55:26
you. Thanks so much.
Peter Frank 00:55:29
This has been talking technology with Atlas,
Peter Frank 00:55:31
produced by the Association of Technology Leaders in
Peter Frank 00:55:34
Independent Schools. For more information about Atlas and
Peter Frank 00:55:37
Atlas membership, please visit the atlas.org if you enjoyed
Peter Frank 00:55:42
this discussion, please subscribe, leave a review and
Peter Frank 00:55:45
share this podcast with your colleagues in the independent
Peter Frank 00:55:47
school community. Thank you for listening. You.