Cultivating Innovation and Futures Thinking in Education
In this episode, we explore the evolution of modern learning and the shift towards prioritizing innovation in education. We discuss strategies for integrating AI as a thought partner and examine the importance of developing critical inquiry skills from early childhood to prepare students for an uncertain future.
Resources
- Jared Colley on LinkedIn
- Mount Vernon Ventures, the Research, Development & Consulting division of The Mount Vernon School
- Imagine Then, Act Now: Futures Literacy for Learning Organizations, MV Ventures’ Spring 2024 Transformation R&D Report for education professionals and leaders
- A People-Centered Organization Living in an AI World, MV Ventures’ Summer 2023 Transformation R&D Report for education professionals and leaders
- “How might we build skills for life through eSports?”, article
- How Does Competitive eSports Shape Personal Growth and Real-World Skills?, podcast episode
- What are the trends, issues, and opportunities for implementing Al in schools?, podcast episode
- And What Do You Mean By Machine Learning?, article
- How Can Future’s Literacy Transform Organizational Success?, podcast episode
- Little Learners with Big Ideas: A Field Guide for Design Thinking
- AI, What's Your Position, Not Your Policy: A Scenarios-Based Approach to Strategic Foresight in the Age of Structural Uncertainty, article by Jared Colley on RootedEdu.com
- Creating Assessments with Complexity in the Age of AI, a guide to developing assessment complexity
- Using Future Studies To Cope with Top Challenges: School leaders need to envision multiple possible outcomes when facing risks and opportunities., article by Jared Colley, from NetAssests on NBOA.org
- Artificial Intelligence + Academic Integrity, a resource for teachers using a scenarios-based approach
- The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators, by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, Clayton M. Christensen
- The Innovator’s DNA: Five Skills to Develop Your Creativity, article adapted from the book, from BYU Marriott School of Business
- Designing Regenerative Cultures, by Daniel Christian Wahl
- Minds, Brains, and Programs, paper by philosopher John Searle
- Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira
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, and welcome back to talking
Christina Lewellen 00:00:27
technology with Atlas. I'm Kristina Lewellen, the President
Christina Lewellen 00:00:30
and CEO of the Association of Technology Leaders in
Christina Lewellen 00:00:33
Independent
Bill Stites 00:00:33
Schools. 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 here in
Hiram Cuevas 00:00:45
Richmond, Virginia.
Christina Lewellen 00:00:47
Hello, gentlemen. How are you today?
Christina Lewellen 00:00:49
Doing? Well, yes, likewise, I'm really excited. I know you guys
Christina Lewellen 00:00:53
get to be on a campus every day. I don't, but I do try to get to
Christina Lewellen 00:00:58
an independent school campus as often as I can. And this week, I
Christina Lewellen 00:01:03
went to a darling k8 school in Charlotte, North Carolina,
Christina Lewellen 00:01:08
Trinity Episcopal School. And the head of school there and
Christina Lewellen 00:01:12
their IT director had heard me speak at an SA is event in
Christina Lewellen 00:01:16
Charlotte. They brought me back. And so I was there with Kelsea
Christina Lewellen 00:01:19
Watson, and we went, and we were, of course, talking to the
Christina Lewellen 00:01:22
leadership team about, primarily about AI, but also student data
Christina Lewellen 00:01:26
privacy and all of the cyber things. But it never gets old
Christina Lewellen 00:01:30
for me walking down the hall and seeing all the artwork and all
Christina Lewellen 00:01:33
the little kindergarteners and through little uniforms, it was
Christina Lewellen 00:01:37
so cute. When would I get sick of that like, when does that go
Christina Lewellen 00:01:40
away? Do you guys still walk down the hallway and get like
Christina Lewellen 00:01:43
all the feels about the artwork on the wall,
Hiram Cuevas 00:01:45
particularly in the Lower School, I do,
Hiram Cuevas 00:01:47
especially when they're doing their self portraits, the full
Hiram Cuevas 00:01:51
body self portraits, those are hysterical. I
Bill Stites 00:01:54
do enjoy it. We're three different campuses. My
Bill Stites 00:01:56
office is located at our middle school campus. I enjoy getting
Bill Stites 00:02:00
back to the Lower School as well. It's always a very special
Bill Stites 00:02:03
place. There's something about middle school, though, because
Bill Stites 00:02:06
our middle school spans grades four through eight, and you
Bill Stites 00:02:11
have, like, full grown people in eighth grade and sub grades,
Bill Stites 00:02:15
because, you know, there's boys that are, like, 6162, they're
Bill Stites 00:02:17
bigger than I am. And then you've got all the little ones
Bill Stites 00:02:20
that you would have had at the middle school. And just the
Bill Stites 00:02:22
blending of all that in our space is particularly enjoyable
Bill Stites 00:02:25
to see, not only because of the size differential, but also just
Bill Stites 00:02:30
how well they take care of one another. I mean, given the range
Bill Stites 00:02:33
their age, I think it's a special place, and it never gets
Bill Stites 00:02:36
old.
Hiram Cuevas 00:02:36
And middle school, it's that place where you know,
Hiram Cuevas 00:02:38
you find out that God has a sense of humor.
Bill Stites 00:02:41
Indeed, because those six two kids don't know
Bill Stites 00:02:43
how to navigate a six two body. Yeah, yeah. Little awkward, and
Bill Stites 00:02:48
that's happening so quick. I mean, it could be like six
Bill Stites 00:02:50
inches over the summer,
Hiram Cuevas 00:02:51
they're on the cusp of their voice is changing
Hiram Cuevas 00:02:53
too. Uh, yep. When
Christina Lewellen 00:02:55
I was at Trinity Episcopal, the IT
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director there, Teresa. Shout out to her. She's incredible,
Christina Lewellen 00:03:01
and she's a big Atlas fan. And if you haven't met her yet, I'll
Christina Lewellen 00:03:04
introduce you guys at the conference. But she was telling
Christina Lewellen 00:03:07
me, yeah, you know, yesterday there was some stress and a
Christina Lewellen 00:03:09
couple things I was juggling, but it was also the 100th day of
Christina Lewellen 00:03:13
kindergarten, so she just wandered down into the
Christina Lewellen 00:03:15
kindergarten space and, like, there was little kids with
Christina Lewellen 00:03:18
rollers in their hairs, and the little walkers with the tennis
Christina Lewellen 00:03:21
balls, and she goes, and then I was better. And so I don't know,
Christina Lewellen 00:03:25
like, I need, like, an emotional support kindergarten so that on
Christina Lewellen 00:03:28
tough days I can just go hang out with the littles and, like,
Christina Lewellen 00:03:31
my heart is happy or something, does it all the time. Or maybe I
Christina Lewellen 00:03:35
need to find make friends with a local independent school, so
Christina Lewellen 00:03:38
that when I'm having a day, I can just show up on campus and
Christina Lewellen 00:03:41
get a little visitors, tag and go wander the hallway. But
Christina Lewellen 00:03:44
anyway, so I got my experience this week, which I don't get
Christina Lewellen 00:03:47
very often. So thank you for letting me gush about it. I
Christina Lewellen 00:03:50
don't think it's ever gonna get old. I've been here for almost
Christina Lewellen 00:03:52
six years, and I just love having the opportunity to walk
Christina Lewellen 00:03:56
around to campus. It makes my heart so so happy. And I'm not
Christina Lewellen 00:03:59
even a teacher, and I love it, so today, let's keep this
Christina Lewellen 00:04:04
conversation going about all the fun with the littles and beyond.
Christina Lewellen 00:04:08
But we do have Jared. Cole is with us, and Jared is the upper
Christina Lewellen 00:04:13
campus head of learning and innovation at the Mount Vernon
Christina Lewellen 00:04:15
school, a very innovative school that gets a lot of attention in
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our space. Jared you're upper campus head, so you probably
Christina Lewellen 00:04:23
don't get a lot of time with littles, but tell us your
Christina Lewellen 00:04:26
journey. Have you had any experience along the way with
Christina Lewellen 00:04:30
the lower school kids? And welcome to the podcast, by the
Christina Lewellen 00:04:33
way. Well, thank you
Jared Colley 00:04:34
for having me. I was thrilled to get this
Jared Colley 00:04:36
invitation. I'm very excited to share this space with you and
Jared Colley 00:04:40
get to have a great conversation. But to answer your
Jared Colley 00:04:43
question, well, one, I have a seven and nine year old daughter
Jared Colley 00:04:46
who go to the Lower School at our campus, so I find a lot of
Jared Colley 00:04:51
excuses to get over there. Are they
Christina Lewellen 00:04:53
embarrassed by you or not? Yet, they're too
Christina Lewellen 00:04:55
young to have dad show up. They're still at
Jared Colley 00:04:58
that sacred age where. They get excited when I'm
Jared Colley 00:05:01
over there, which is great. So I'm soaking it in. Sometimes
Jared Colley 00:05:04
I'll schedule a meeting with somebody over there, no purpose
Jared Colley 00:05:06
to it, but it's really just so I can get over there and maybe
Jared Colley 00:05:09
spot one of my kids love it, and have that moment. So I do get to
Jared Colley 00:05:13
spend some space in the Lower School. I would say that the
Jared Colley 00:05:16
Mount Vernon school, we believe that we're better together, and
Jared Colley 00:05:19
we're super intentional about collaborative engagement. So I
Jared Colley 00:05:24
do spend a lot of time in our lower school doing professional
Jared Colley 00:05:27
work as well, and I have a wonderful counterpart over there
Jared Colley 00:05:30
who shares a similar title, and we get to work a lot about
Jared Colley 00:05:35
innovation and academic alignment and continuity of
Jared Colley 00:05:39
experience and a building of capacity around certain
Jared Colley 00:05:43
competencies that we value at Mount Vernon, some of those
Jared Colley 00:05:46
competencies being ones that you would probably see anywhere, and
Jared Colley 00:05:49
some that I think really differentiate us, like our
Jared Colley 00:05:52
design thinking program that really runs through pre K all
Jared Colley 00:05:56
the way to 12th grade. So we have a lot of opportunity for
Jared Colley 00:06:01
the lower campus and the upper campus to come together and
Jared Colley 00:06:04
really align our vision so that there is this great continuity
Jared Colley 00:06:08
of experience, and we do approach it from a competency
Jared Colley 00:06:11
based perspective. And so it's important that we do that. I
Christina Lewellen 00:06:14
love this. I can't wait to get into the
Christina Lewellen 00:06:16
scaffolding that you're talking about, how you take it through
Christina Lewellen 00:06:18
the whole journey for your learners, but let's talk a
Christina Lewellen 00:06:21
little bit about you. How long have you been with the school?
Christina Lewellen 00:06:23
What was your journey like to get here? I
Jared Colley 00:06:26
believe I'm in my fifth year at the Mount Vernon
Jared Colley 00:06:28
school. That's a really significant number, if you think
Jared Colley 00:06:31
about what was going on five years ago, I was at a school in
Jared Colley 00:06:34
Texas. Before that, a lovely School in Arlington, Texas
Jared Colley 00:06:38
called the Oak Ridge school. When I was at the Oak Ridge
Jared Colley 00:06:40
school, I was the English department chair, and I also, in
Jared Colley 00:06:45
my later time there, served as our director of professional
Jared Colley 00:06:48
development and also as our kind of, our Chair of our curriculum
Jared Colley 00:06:52
coordination team that worked a lot on alignment at that school.
Jared Colley 00:06:57
And that's the Oak Ridge school where I was before and around
Jared Colley 00:07:01
2020, I had been watching the Mount Vernon school for a long
Jared Colley 00:07:04
time they were school I was paying attention to due to a lot
Jared Colley 00:07:07
of the work that they were doing that I was attracted to. And I
Jared Colley 00:07:10
think one of the things I was really attracted to is that I
Jared Colley 00:07:13
was given a lot of freedom, where I was before to do certain
Jared Colley 00:07:16
things, but I wanted to be at a place that had the capacity to
Jared Colley 00:07:20
do it at scale, and so mastery based or competency based
Jared Colley 00:07:24
learning would be a good example of that. But there are other
Jared Colley 00:07:26
examples I could share too. And so it was around right before
Jared Colley 00:07:31
the pandemic hit that a job opportunity became available at
Jared Colley 00:07:35
the Mount Vernon school for head of learning and innovation, and
Jared Colley 00:07:38
I very aggressively tried to get my foot in the door and talk to
Jared Colley 00:07:42
the people here, and sure enough, I flew over. Did the
Jared Colley 00:07:47
whole, as we all know, the one to two day intensive interview
Jared Colley 00:07:51
that we Independent Schools love to do, came back home, and I
Jared Colley 00:07:55
think about a week later, we all were sheltering in place for the
Jared Colley 00:07:58
pandemic.
Christina Lewellen 00:07:59
That's pretty intense. It was
Jared Colley 00:08:02
talk about a VUCA moment of volatility,
Jared Colley 00:08:04
uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, and I got the job
Jared Colley 00:08:09
offer, so I'm sitting there with my wife, and I'm like, Hey, how
Jared Colley 00:08:13
do you feel about moving across the country in the middle of a
Jared Colley 00:08:16
pandemic, when we're not even supposed to leave our house? And
Jared Colley 00:08:20
we had that conversation, and to be just completely like Frank
Jared Colley 00:08:24
and vulnerable, she says, Yes, but she looks at me, she goes,
Jared Colley 00:08:27
don't screw this up.
Christina Lewellen 00:08:30
You know what? Always a little levity
Christina Lewellen 00:08:31
from the wife. That's right, but it's kind of weird. I mean, let
Christina Lewellen 00:08:36
me just call something out here. You're an English teacher,
Christina Lewellen 00:08:40
English chair, not necessarily the first department I would
Christina Lewellen 00:08:44
think of when it comes to innovation in teaching. That's
Christina Lewellen 00:08:48
kind of a leap. So you definitely clawed your way into
Christina Lewellen 00:08:51
that, yeah, or did you have some background in demonstrating that
Christina Lewellen 00:08:55
you had this interest in innovation?
Jared Colley 00:08:58
Well, I would love to toot my horn and say, Oh, I
Jared Colley 00:09:01
was an English teacher who was integrating technology and very
Jared Colley 00:09:04
creative ways and kind of ahead of the curve on, you know, we
Jared Colley 00:09:09
were all talking about that Samer model, and I was
Jared Colley 00:09:11
redefining the classroom of what an English classroom could look
Jared Colley 00:09:14
like. But I could sit here and say that and tell a story that
Jared Colley 00:09:16
way. But I also would love to give a shout out to somebody who
Jared Colley 00:09:19
I do think sits on your board, who, at that time was our
Jared Colley 00:09:22
director of technology and modern learning at the Oak Ridge
Jared Colley 00:09:24
school. And that's Jason Kern.
Christina Lewellen 00:09:26
Oh, yeah, I love Kern. Nice. So I hope he
Christina Lewellen 00:09:30
listens to this episode. You can know that I will make him Jason,
Jared Colley 00:09:35
at that time, was leading us in terms of the
Jared Colley 00:09:38
adoption of technology in classrooms. He was leading us in
Jared Colley 00:09:41
terms of thinking about like, what does as we were calling at
Jared Colley 00:09:44
the time, what does modern learning look like at this
Jared Colley 00:09:47
moment, and as department chair of the English department, and
Jared Colley 00:09:52
also as a curious lifelong learner, and also what I like to
Jared Colley 00:09:56
call a mischievous collaborator, I was connected. With people,
Jared Colley 00:10:00
and we were having a lot of conversations about, what could
Jared Colley 00:10:03
we do differently in English classrooms that technology now
Jared Colley 00:10:07
makes possible, that before, maybe it just wasn't accessible,
Jared Colley 00:10:10
or we couldn't think of ways to do it. And I could give several
Jared Colley 00:10:13
examples, but one that I would share is we were very early on
Jared Colley 00:10:17
in my English classroom of using blogs and using digital
Jared Colley 00:10:22
platforms in a way that we could connect with other English
Jared Colley 00:10:26
classrooms, whether they were down the street or across the
Jared Colley 00:10:29
country or across the world. And early on, I started what I call
Jared Colley 00:10:35
the time a literary Colloquium. And what it was is I was trying
Jared Colley 00:10:38
to model for English kids like, what do English scholars do?
Jared Colley 00:10:41
What would that even look like? And one thing that people who
Jared Colley 00:10:45
have a advanced degree in humanities do is they often go
Jared Colley 00:10:48
to conferences and present papers, and there's usually
Jared Colley 00:10:52
probably a discussant, someone who's gotten your paper ahead of
Jared Colley 00:10:55
time, they've read it, they've thought of some critical
Jared Colley 00:10:58
questions, and then after you present your paper, there is
Jared Colley 00:11:02
this great discourse with a diversity of people in the room
Jared Colley 00:11:05
from all different institutions, all exchanging ideas and
Jared Colley 00:11:10
furthering each other's scholarship. And so I was really
Jared Colley 00:11:13
thinking about this in a traditional way, and I was like,
Jared Colley 00:11:16
Oh, I'm gonna go find all the email addresses of all the
Jared Colley 00:11:19
English department chairs I can and the surrounding area, and
Jared Colley 00:11:23
I'm just gonna email and be like, hey, what if we all read
Jared Colley 00:11:25
the same book, like, at the same time, and had kids all write
Jared Colley 00:11:29
papers and submit them, and then we, like, run a conference
Jared Colley 00:11:35
that's student driven. And I sent out this email to maybe
Jared Colley 00:11:40
2030 English department chairs, and I totally probably violated
Jared Colley 00:11:44
norms of just going to websites and getting these emails and not
Jared Colley 00:11:48
asking permission to send this out. I send it out, and it's
Jared Colley 00:11:52
crickets, and then a couple people responded, and one person
Jared Colley 00:11:58
that responded that I really encourage people to look up who
Jared Colley 00:12:01
is, I believe, still doing work as an English teacher in a
Jared Colley 00:12:04
department chair at Green Hill School, which is in North
Jared Colley 00:12:07
Dallas. And his name is Joelle Garza. He also started the book
Jared Colley 00:12:11
chat hashtag on Twitter, when that space used to be a space
Jared Colley 00:12:16
where we had more good faith inspired exchange in terms of
Jared Colley 00:12:21
discourse, and he started a group of English teachers who
Jared Colley 00:12:24
were coming together to have conversations about, how do we
Jared Colley 00:12:27
diversify literature and get more representation in classes?
Jared Colley 00:12:30
And so I share that because he was thinking innovatively too.
Jared Colley 00:12:34
And he sends me this email about my conference idea, and he's
Jared Colley 00:12:37
like, I think it's a great idea. I think we should do this. But
Jared Colley 00:12:40
he's like, but why should we wait for a conference? And I'm
Jared Colley 00:12:43
like, email back, like, Well, what do you mean? He's like, we
Jared Colley 00:12:46
got blogs. We could record podcasts. There's so many ways
Jared Colley 00:12:49
that we could start exchanging ideas with our classrooms. And
Jared Colley 00:12:53
so this is years ago, but we set up a blog, and we decided it was
Jared Colley 00:12:58
the 100 year anniversary of the publication of James Joyce's
Jared Colley 00:13:01
short stories Dubliners, and that was a strategic choice.
Jared Colley 00:13:05
One, okay, anniversary, great moment for a bunch of schools to
Jared Colley 00:13:09
read that book. Two, it's short stories. So this is easy to
Jared Colley 00:13:12
shoehorn into your curriculum. Why don't you join us? And
Jared Colley 00:13:15
before we knew it, we had this critical mass of teachers who
Jared Colley 00:13:19
were all very interested in this idea that we were all going to
Jared Colley 00:13:22
read the same book and our students were going to interact
Jared Colley 00:13:24
on a blog together. And at first, again, there's a lot of
Jared Colley 00:13:28
stages of evolution. So we were like, managing the blog. We're
Jared Colley 00:13:31
like, all right, what do you want to put up there? I'll go
Jared Colley 00:13:33
put it up there for you and post it. And so maybe one of my kids
Jared Colley 00:13:36
had something that they wrote, All right, I'll go get that up
Jared Colley 00:13:39
there for you. Another kid, maybe they recorded a podcast or
Jared Colley 00:13:42
an exchange at that time. I think we're just calling them mp
Jared Colley 00:13:45
three files, and they want to post that on the blog for the
Jared Colley 00:13:48
other schools to react to, and we're using the comment
Jared Colley 00:13:50
mechanism on the blog for doing that. But at some point we were
Jared Colley 00:13:54
like, Why are we gatekeeping as teachers? Why aren't they the
Jared Colley 00:13:58
editors of this blog? Why aren't they the ones who are creating
Jared Colley 00:14:02
the content directly? Why aren't they making those decisions? And
Jared Colley 00:14:06
so before we knew it, we had probably about 12 different
Jared Colley 00:14:10
schools, and this is happening in iterations through a few
Jared Colley 00:14:13
years and selecting different texts each year. But it started
Jared Colley 00:14:17
with just three schools, Hockaday school, the Green Hill
Jared Colley 00:14:20
School and the Oak Ridge school, we came together and had a
Jared Colley 00:14:22
conference too. And I think we all would tell the story that
Jared Colley 00:14:26
what we learned there, there was an interesting dialectic between
Jared Colley 00:14:29
the traditional and the digital, reinforcing and supporting and
Jared Colley 00:14:33
strengthening each other. And so I guess what I mean by that is
Jared Colley 00:14:35
we knew there was gonna be this conference, so there was skin in
Jared Colley 00:14:38
the game. And these kids were engaging on this blog in a way
Jared Colley 00:14:42
that they like. Knew that there was high stakes, but healthy
Jared Colley 00:14:45
high stakes, not like I'm going to fail you if you don't do
Jared Colley 00:14:48
this, right? No, we're going to get together in person, and
Jared Colley 00:14:50
you're going to stare at these people face to face and have a
Jared Colley 00:14:53
conference experience. So there's a lot of reasons to make
Jared Colley 00:14:56
these digital exchanges go well, but also the. Conference now had
Jared Colley 00:15:00
this much greater meaning to it when we came together, as you
Jared Colley 00:15:05
all know, because you have physical conferences too, and
Jared Colley 00:15:08
you know the value add of not just interacting asynchronously,
Jared Colley 00:15:12
interacting digitally, like we are right now, but also
Jared Colley 00:15:15
committing to the idea that we're all going to be in the
Jared Colley 00:15:17
same physical space at this time, and we're going to see
Jared Colley 00:15:20
each other, and we're going to have exchanges, and we are going
Jared Colley 00:15:23
to inspire each other, and we're all going to come back with new
Jared Colley 00:15:26
ideas. And so over the years, we began to build that and build
Jared Colley 00:15:29
that and build that. And it went from picking books like James
Jared Colley 00:15:33
Joyce's Dubliners, and then one year, it was Frankenstein, 200
Jared Colley 00:15:36
years later, and that was a fun year that we read Frankenstein,
Jared Colley 00:15:40
because we started doing more than just having kids submit
Jared Colley 00:15:43
papers. We had kids who were thinking about maker space
Jared Colley 00:15:46
artifacts, having an exhibit space for that. We brought in
Jared Colley 00:15:50
fine arts, and kids were making films and making paintings and
Jared Colley 00:15:56
posters. And so we started to have these exchanges that became
Jared Colley 00:16:00
more than just, say, literary analysis, and then it evolved
Jared Colley 00:16:04
even more where we're like, why are we reading dead authors,
Jared Colley 00:16:08
when we could do this with people who are living right now,
Jared Colley 00:16:13
and we can invite them to come to these events and be keynote
Jared Colley 00:16:17
speakers, interact with our students. And there was this
Jared Colley 00:16:20
evolution that happened, and that really brought me into the
Jared Colley 00:16:22
technology world, that for me to go back to an acronym that I
Jared Colley 00:16:26
think we all know, but, and probably most people who listen
Jared Colley 00:16:29
to this podcast know the same or acronym of, are we using
Jared Colley 00:16:32
technology to substitute like, Okay, write notes with a laptop
Jared Colley 00:16:35
now instead of a pencil? Are we augmenting, okay, instead of
Jared Colley 00:16:39
giving a book report by getting up and just talking, you've got
Jared Colley 00:16:42
a slide deck. Are we modifying all the way to I feel like we
Jared Colley 00:16:48
found a way to redefine what English classrooms look like,
Jared Colley 00:16:52
and that was made possible by new accessible technologies that
Jared Colley 00:16:56
earlier either we didn't know about or they just weren't
Jared Colley 00:16:59
around yet or accessible yet. And so that was my entry point
Jared Colley 00:17:03
from going from a quote, unquote, traditional English
Jared Colley 00:17:07
teacher to somebody who saw the intersection of Yes, classical
Jared Colley 00:17:13
education is important, but technology can really redefine
Jared Colley 00:17:16
it in ways that we can do it differently. And that brought me
Jared Colley 00:17:20
into the Atlas community. I started presenting at Atlas very
Jared Colley 00:17:23
early on, more as an English teacher and coming to Atlas and
Jared Colley 00:17:27
being like, here's how I'm using technology. I got really
Jared Colley 00:17:30
immersed in the gamification culture when that started to
Jared Colley 00:17:34
become a thing, and I started redesigning my classrooms around
Jared Colley 00:17:38
the idea of, like, what brings kids back to video games over
Jared Colley 00:17:42
and over again, even when they fail over and over and over.
Jared Colley 00:17:45
There is something about the structure of a video game, a
Jared Colley 00:17:48
design of a video game, and what could we learn about that in
Jared Colley 00:17:51
curricular design? And so I got really involved with that too.
Jared Colley 00:17:55
And of course, technology helped Augment, modify and redefine how
Jared Colley 00:17:59
we might do that. And again, I was presenting at Atlas about
Jared Colley 00:18:03
topics like that as well, and sooner or later, that led me to
Jared Colley 00:18:07
leading professional development my own school, being a
Jared Colley 00:18:10
curriculum coordinator over alignment of our entire
Jared Colley 00:18:13
curricular scope and vision. That really gave me the skill
Jared Colley 00:18:17
sets to then come to the Mount Vernon school and be in the role
Jared Colley 00:18:20
I am now as head of learning and innovation.
Bill Stites 00:18:23
So Jared, I have a question for you. You mentioned
Bill Stites 00:18:26
two different things. One, as you talked about when you were
Bill Stites 00:18:28
there, you talked about this being modern learning, and now
Bill Stites 00:18:30
you're into innovation in terms of how you were describing these
Bill Stites 00:18:34
different pieces. And you mentioned how you define these
Bill Stites 00:18:37
different things. And I want to ask you how you would
Bill Stites 00:18:41
differentiate what you were doing when you were calling it
Bill Stites 00:18:43
modern learning and what it's now called now you're referring
Bill Stites 00:18:46
to as innovation. It's what your titles got on it. How do you
Bill Stites 00:18:49
because I think everyone does it slightly differently. We're
Bill Stites 00:18:52
going through it right now at MKA. How do you define
Bill Stites 00:18:55
innovation, and how does that differ from what you were doing
Bill Stites 00:18:58
before that you were calling modern learning? What's in a
Bill Stites 00:19:01
name.
Jared Colley 00:19:02
First of all, I think that the word modern is
Jared Colley 00:19:06
somewhat a loaded word that we need to interrogate and unpack.
Jared Colley 00:19:11
If you have not heard about the book hospicing modernity, I
Jared Colley 00:19:15
highly recommend it. I will credit Will Richardson for
Jared Colley 00:19:19
recommending that book to me on a zoom call one day, and
Jared Colley 00:19:23
modernity carries a lot of baggage. So first, I just want
Jared Colley 00:19:26
to say that modernity is a concept that carries baggage,
Jared Colley 00:19:30
such as growth is always linear. Modernity carries some baggage
Jared Colley 00:19:34
around colonial mindsets that are somewhat Eurocentric. And
Jared Colley 00:19:39
modernity, also to me, is like a fixation on the newness of the
Jared Colley 00:19:44
technology or the products, things like that. And thereby, I
Jared Colley 00:19:48
wonder if it's getting us to focus on the real value add of
Jared Colley 00:19:52
what we do to move education forward. And so as I think about
Jared Colley 00:19:56
innovation, innovation, too can become a word. With a lot of
Jared Colley 00:20:00
trappings. I think innovation can become a word that could
Jared Colley 00:20:05
stagnate us instead of move us forward. So I think it's also
Jared Colley 00:20:08
really important to really ask the question, what are you
Jared Colley 00:20:11
innovating for? Are you innovating for people to have a
Jared Colley 00:20:16
meaningful, positive identity, development, restorative
Jared Colley 00:20:20
experience? Are you innovating for efficiency? Are you
Jared Colley 00:20:24
innovating for marketing reasons, to have a really flashy
Jared Colley 00:20:29
value proposition that once we poke through it a little bit,
Jared Colley 00:20:33
it's a little bit surfacey, and so I also caution that we
Jared Colley 00:20:39
interrogate the word innovation a little bit, and what we mean
Jared Colley 00:20:42
by that. And so I don't know if I can define innovation without
Jared Colley 00:20:46
first defining and making explicit the values that one is
Jared Colley 00:20:50
anchored in that they are thereby innovating for. So
Bill Stites 00:20:54
how are you doing that? At Mount Vernon, what is
Bill Stites 00:20:56
the definition of innovation at Mount Vernon, I had a very
Bill Stites 00:21:00
similar conversation with Steve Valentine, who I work with here
Bill Stites 00:21:03
at MKA, about what the idea of entrepreneurship means at MKA,
Bill Stites 00:21:08
because it's something that we talk about, right, and
Bill Stites 00:21:10
understanding what that word means to us as it relates to
Bill Stites 00:21:14
STEM, STEM, plus ethics, all of those things. So that's the
Bill Stites 00:21:19
context and the reason, to some degree from my question. So what
Bill Stites 00:21:22
does innovation mean for you and for Mount Vernon, yeah,
Jared Colley 00:21:27
and entrepreneurship is another
Jared Colley 00:21:28
word, but ooh, you could get me talking about that for a minute.
Jared Colley 00:21:31
And again, if we don't interrogate that word, I
Jared Colley 00:21:34
challenge us not to get all Latin, but like homo economicus,
Jared Colley 00:21:38
this idea that our purpose is to go out and make money, and our
Jared Colley 00:21:41
purpose is to train people for the job force, and to think like
Jared Colley 00:21:45
that, I think if that's what we mean by entrepreneurship, we're
Jared Colley 00:21:48
missing a huge opportunity. I think that entrepreneurship has
Jared Colley 00:21:52
a much wider application, or opportunity for application,
Jared Colley 00:21:56
where it's really about like, how do you live well and how are
Jared Colley 00:21:59
you going to get there. What is a life well lived? And what
Jared Colley 00:22:03
skills do you need? What competencies do you need, what
Jared Colley 00:22:07
experiences do you need, what mentorship do you need to find a
Jared Colley 00:22:11
path, a path that is ethical, well intentioned, and thereby, I
Jared Colley 00:22:17
want to define entrepreneurial skills as being able to have the
Jared Colley 00:22:21
resourcefulness to bring that together, but to have it be
Jared Colley 00:22:25
layered on top of values that you know what your values are,
Jared Colley 00:22:29
and you know what a life well lived might look like. And so
Jared Colley 00:22:32
for me to be an entrepreneur is what is living well for me, and
Jared Colley 00:22:36
how do I make that a reality? So I know you're asking for a
Jared Colley 00:22:40
definition of innovation. But I first just had to unpack that
Jared Colley 00:22:44
you're talking to an English teacher, if you haven't noticed.
Jared Colley 00:22:47
And so I like to unpack words. So is Steve. I would say this
Jared Colley 00:22:52
about innovation. I think at Mount Vernon, we would first and
Jared Colley 00:22:55
foremost point you to the book innovators, DNA. I'll tell a
Jared Colley 00:22:59
story we have a class in our middle school called Impact
Jared Colley 00:23:04
Design Lab. And think of this as a class for middle schoolers to
Jared Colley 00:23:08
really start building their design thinking muscle. And I
Jared Colley 00:23:12
think already told you there's a continuity going all the way
Jared Colley 00:23:14
back to pre K in terms of giving kids opportunities to build
Jared Colley 00:23:18
skills around design thinking. But the impact Design Lab, which
Jared Colley 00:23:22
happens in eighth grade, is really a leveling up moment. And
Jared Colley 00:23:25
the designers of that class were really wrestling with the fact
Jared Colley 00:23:30
that they were, like, having a hard time communicating to kids
Jared Colley 00:23:33
what they meant when they say, Okay, now let's go innovate. And
Jared Colley 00:23:36
here they were wrestling with, like, how do we define it? And I
Jared Colley 00:23:41
pointed them back to that book, and I don't take credit for
Jared Colley 00:23:44
that. The Mount Vernon school identified that book as well
Jared Colley 00:23:48
before my time here as a guide for us in terms of thinking
Jared Colley 00:23:52
about what do we mean by innovation? And so innovation is
Jared Colley 00:23:56
a very abstract, constructivist concept that I think we all
Jared Colley 00:24:00
would have to come to an agreed upon definition before we could
Jared Colley 00:24:03
move forward with any kind of sense of innovation. So let me
Jared Colley 00:24:06
just say it this way. What if, instead of defining innovation,
Jared Colley 00:24:09
we just started to talk about behaviors that lead to
Jared Colley 00:24:13
innovative outcomes? And so one of the things that I really
Jared Colley 00:24:17
appreciate about the book innovators DNA is it really does
Jared Colley 00:24:20
that for you. So instead of like starting with innovation, it
Jared Colley 00:24:23
starts with five activities that it tells you to build your
Jared Colley 00:24:27
muscle around. Observing is one of them, networking is one of
Jared Colley 00:24:33
them, associating is one of them, experimenting is one of
Jared Colley 00:24:39
them. And Dang, I am missing the other one right now, and that is
Jared Colley 00:24:42
okay, but people can go look up the book if you were engaging in
Jared Colley 00:24:47
those five behaviors. Now, I'm not sure we really have to worry
Jared Colley 00:24:51
about how we're defining innovation as much as we have
Jared Colley 00:24:54
developed behavioral skills that we're getting better at and
Jared Colley 00:24:59
better at. Are leading to innovative outcomes. So if I
Jared Colley 00:25:03
dodged your question, I'm sorry, but that's one way I would try
Jared Colley 00:25:07
to answer that question.
Hiram Cuevas 00:25:09
So Jared, what's been fascinating about this
Hiram Cuevas 00:25:11
conversation is we've taken the superficial, I think, when we're
Hiram Cuevas 00:25:14
talking about some of this lingo, and really, I feel like
Hiram Cuevas 00:25:16
we've been engaging in literary analysis in our conversation
Hiram Cuevas 00:25:20
with you, and I really appreciate that when we were
Hiram Cuevas 00:25:23
talking about the evolution of your community to engage in
Hiram Cuevas 00:25:27
modern learning, there's a certain buy in that has to
Hiram Cuevas 00:25:30
happen. And I think many of our conversations end up starting at
Hiram Cuevas 00:25:34
that superficial level. And how do you get it into that in depth
Hiram Cuevas 00:25:39
thought process about what is important to this preconceived
Hiram Cuevas 00:25:45
notion in your mind of what modern learning looks like,
Hiram Cuevas 00:25:48
knowing full well that it's a loaded term, and then executing
Hiram Cuevas 00:25:52
that, such that you're looking at these new skills that these
Hiram Cuevas 00:25:56
students are now going to acquire versus some of the
Hiram Cuevas 00:25:59
skills that are going to be perhaps left behind or not
Hiram Cuevas 00:26:02
utilized as much
Jared Colley 00:26:05
so I think as a good pedagogue, because I also
Jared Colley 00:26:08
do a lot of coaching and around teaching and learning in my
Jared Colley 00:26:11
role, and we are big on the whole backwards design approach,
Jared Colley 00:26:16
in terms of how we think about building a unit, building a
Jared Colley 00:26:20
Performance Task, or whatever it might be that we're engaging
Jared Colley 00:26:23
students in. Let's apply that same principle here. And what an
Jared Colley 00:26:27
interesting time to apply that principle, because we live, and
Jared Colley 00:26:32
I think I've mentioned to you probably before the recording,
Jared Colley 00:26:35
that one of the areas I am really engaged in right now is
Jared Colley 00:26:38
futures thinking. And futures is intentionally used in the
Jared Colley 00:26:41
plural, because none of us can predict the future. None of us
Jared Colley 00:26:45
can forecast with great certainty that this is what is
Jared Colley 00:26:49
going to happen next. And so the end in mind is a really, really
Jared Colley 00:26:54
perplexing, baffling thing right now, because our students are
Jared Colley 00:26:59
entering a world where more and more it becomes difficult to
Jared Colley 00:27:03
predict in forecast. And so how are we building the skills and
Jared Colley 00:27:06
capacities for a world where there are alternative futures
Jared Colley 00:27:11
that are all equally plausible, that could happen? And so I
Jared Colley 00:27:15
think one way that we might think about modern learning is
Jared Colley 00:27:17
that we've never faced that challenge more poignantly, more
Jared Colley 00:27:22
concretely, and maybe I'm historically biased to my moment
Jared Colley 00:27:25
of lived experience in this moment in history. But let's
Jared Colley 00:27:28
just go over what's happened in the last few years. How many of
Jared Colley 00:27:31
us were talking about a pandemic before COVID hit? Not a lot of
Jared Colley 00:27:36
us. How many of us were talking about racial reckoning before
Jared Colley 00:27:41
the George Floyd moment. There are a lot of people who were
Jared Colley 00:27:44
doing that work, but not a lot of people were how many of us
Jared Colley 00:27:48
were going to be able to predict how polarized our political
Jared Colley 00:27:52
landscape has gotten in recent years, and we, of course, just
Jared Colley 00:27:56
gone through it again, a very difficult time for all of us,
Jared Colley 00:27:59
socially, emotionally speaking, and also in terms of not being
Jared Colley 00:28:02
able to predict what's going to happen next. And how many of us
Jared Colley 00:28:06
now maybe the Atlas community be like, well, a lot of us, how
Jared Colley 00:28:09
many of us were able to predict that large language models were
Jared Colley 00:28:13
going to so quickly and so ubiquitously show up at schools
Jared Colley 00:28:17
and be able to do so well what they're doing? And so we have
Jared Colley 00:28:22
lived through so many interesting alternative futures
Jared Colley 00:28:27
that were all plausible and maybe probable and definitely
Jared Colley 00:28:31
possible, but none of us could have forecasted or predicted
Jared Colley 00:28:34
they were going to happen the exact way they did. And so as I
Jared Colley 00:28:38
think about the end in mind, the end in mind is so much more
Jared Colley 00:28:41
nebulous right now compared to previous periods of the
Jared Colley 00:28:45
educational landscape. I think that we are often still
Jared Colley 00:28:49
operating on models that track kids in a way that whether
Jared Colley 00:28:54
they're doing it explicitly or implicitly, probably implicitly,
Jared Colley 00:28:57
a lot of times by way of how schools are structured, by way
Jared Colley 00:29:00
how curriculum is structured by how instructional practices are
Jared Colley 00:29:04
structured. We are still messaging a certain end in mind
Jared Colley 00:29:09
that really isn't that accurate or honest about what we're
Jared Colley 00:29:13
facing. And so the end in mind is one of alternative futures.
Jared Colley 00:29:17
The End in Mind is one of great uncertainty. I like to call it
Jared Colley 00:29:21
critical uncertainties, which is kind of a cross section of
Jared Colley 00:29:25
something that's highly uncertain but also high impact.
Jared Colley 00:29:29
And artificial intelligence is a great example of one. We just
Jared Colley 00:29:32
went through, and we're still going through, artificial
Jared Colley 00:29:34
intelligence isn't really interesting critical
Jared Colley 00:29:37
uncertainty. It is very uncertain what's going to happen
Jared Colley 00:29:40
and how quickly it will and we all know it's going to have a
Jared Colley 00:29:43
huge impact. And so identifying critical uncertainties is
Jared Colley 00:29:48
something we can do. And so what are the skills and competencies
Jared Colley 00:29:53
that we need to be building in this next generation to handle
Jared Colley 00:29:59
with temper? Insights, with strategy to handle, with
Jared Colley 00:30:04
creativity and curiosity, a whole bunch of alternative
Jared Colley 00:30:08
futures. And so I am so sick of hearing about we don't know the
Jared Colley 00:30:13
jobs of the future. I think we have to go even deeper than
Jared Colley 00:30:15
that. We don't know the values and the greater context of the
Jared Colley 00:30:21
future. I mean, how do we talk about jobs if we're not talking
Jared Colley 00:30:26
about the ecological uncertainties of our entire
Jared Colley 00:30:28
planet? How do we talk about here's how you're going to
Jared Colley 00:30:32
create value in the economy when a lot of resources that make our
Jared Colley 00:30:37
economy valuable are under threat. And so before we even
Jared Colley 00:30:42
talk about jobs of the future, I think there's other things of
Jared Colley 00:30:44
the future that we have to talk about, but we can't talk about
Jared Colley 00:30:47
them with certainty. And we have to think about a different
Jared Colley 00:30:50
approach, and that is a different kind of backwards
Jared Colley 00:30:53
design approach, because a lot of times backwards design is be
Jared Colley 00:30:57
absolutely explicitly clear on the standard you're trying to
Jared Colley 00:31:01
get this kid to master. But as I think about modern learning, I
Jared Colley 00:31:05
think modern learning differentiates itself from
Jared Colley 00:31:08
previous forms of learning on those terms,
Christina Lewellen 00:31:12
it's really interesting. So with this
Christina Lewellen 00:31:14
uncertainty in mind, and looping back to this scaffolding that
Christina Lewellen 00:31:19
you provide at the Mount Vernon school, from even the pre case
Christina Lewellen 00:31:23
you mentioned, like, how do you then weave this into the entire
Christina Lewellen 00:31:27
life cycle of the students? As you think about some of these
Christina Lewellen 00:31:30
uncertain outcomes,
Jared Colley 00:31:32
we start with questions, and we build that
Jared Colley 00:31:35
mantra into our students, and we call that a mantra. We start
Jared Colley 00:31:39
with questions, not with answers. And I think that we
Jared Colley 00:31:43
build that mantra, we build that mindset in preschoolers, we
Jared Colley 00:31:47
build it in our lower schoolers, we build it in our middle
Jared Colley 00:31:49
schoolers, and by the time we get to our upper schoolers,
Jared Colley 00:31:52
hopefully the scaffolding is a little bit taken away, and they
Jared Colley 00:31:56
are driving the questions that we're starting with. There's a
Jared Colley 00:32:00
wonderful thinker named Christian wall. He writes a lot
Jared Colley 00:32:03
about the environment, and he's written a book called Designing
Jared Colley 00:32:08
regenerative cultures. And regenerative is a huge buzz word
Jared Colley 00:32:11
that I think we have to interrogate as well, because I'm
Jared Colley 00:32:14
not sure we all know what we mean when we say regenerative.
Jared Colley 00:32:17
But one thing I'll say about that book, that he said that I
Jared Colley 00:32:20
thought was so interesting, is that a lot of times we think of
Jared Colley 00:32:24
questions as the vehicles to an answer, whereas in reality, what
Jared Colley 00:32:31
he says is and he uses the three horizons framework, which I'm
Jared Colley 00:32:35
not sure our listeners will be familiar with, the three
Jared Colley 00:32:38
horizons framework, But if I were to use an example. First
Jared Colley 00:32:42
horizon like, how do we as a business get people to consume
Jared Colley 00:32:47
movies? Oh, we're gonna set up a brick and mortar blockbuster
Jared Colley 00:32:51
where they're gonna come and they're gonna rent movies,
Jared Colley 00:32:53
right? And so then second horizon might be Netflix being
Jared Colley 00:32:56
like, Oh, we're gonna mail DVDs to your house and there's no
Jared Colley 00:33:01
late fee. Mail it back when you're ready, and then you can
Jared Colley 00:33:04
get your next one. And I'm probably dating myself, because
Jared Colley 00:33:06
some people listening are being like, What are you talking
Jared Colley 00:33:08
about? That's not what Netflix does, but that's that second
Jared Colley 00:33:11
horizon, right? They were disrupting the blockbuster
Jared Colley 00:33:14
business model. But then there's a third horizon, which is now we
Jared Colley 00:33:18
have streaming services, and I don't even need you to mail me a
Jared Colley 00:33:22
DVD to my house, but I want to go back to what I was saying
Jared Colley 00:33:25
about Christian wall within this three horizon framework. It's
Jared Colley 00:33:29
not that streaming is the answer. Now we have new
Jared Colley 00:33:32
questions, because streaming is using a lot of energy, and
Jared Colley 00:33:37
there's a lot of carbon emissions going on, and we're
Jared Colley 00:33:40
generating a lot of heat through all this consumption of video
Jared Colley 00:33:44
online for our convenience. And so if anything, the new answer
Jared Colley 00:33:50
brought us to new questions. And so to go back to what I first
Jared Colley 00:33:54
said, it's not that questions are the vehicle to answers.
Jared Colley 00:33:59
Answers are the vehicle to new questions that we need to ask.
Jared Colley 00:34:04
And so we're never going to get to a final horizon. The third
Jared Colley 00:34:08
horizon just brings us to a whole new set of questions that
Jared Colley 00:34:11
we need to interrogate. And so if everybody on this planet were
Jared Colley 00:34:16
to stream at the same volume at the same time, I think we all
Jared Colley 00:34:20
know it's unsustainable. I think there's a reason that Google and
Jared Colley 00:34:25
a lot of other companies out there are buying nuclear
Jared Colley 00:34:28
reactors scanning signals here as a futures thinker, they know
Jared Colley 00:34:32
that when we go to scale with artificial intelligence and the
Jared Colley 00:34:36
demand of energy, the demand of carbon emission, that that is
Jared Colley 00:34:40
going to exact upon our planet. How are we going to do that? And
Jared Colley 00:34:44
so there are new questions to be asked. There are not answers
Jared Colley 00:34:48
that have now solved as much as they have brought us to a new
Jared Colley 00:34:52
horizon for new questions. So not only should we start with
Jared Colley 00:34:56
questions, we also end with questions, which begins in.
Jared Colley 00:35:00
Start. So going back to that was a really kind of roundabout way
Jared Colley 00:35:04
of answering one question you asked, but we start with
Jared Colley 00:35:07
preschoolers with start with questions, right? And we want to
Jared Colley 00:35:10
build that curiosity, and we want to build that lack of
Jared Colley 00:35:14
complacency, that answers have been answered, there's always
Jared Colley 00:35:18
new questions to be asked, and that is one way that we try to
Jared Colley 00:35:23
build something in our students, a mindset, a mental model, a way
Jared Colley 00:35:28
of comporting oneself to the world, that they continue to
Jared Colley 00:35:33
build a capacity in, that they continue to work that muscle in
Jared Colley 00:35:37
as they move all the way through till they get to grade 12. And
Jared Colley 00:35:41
there's a lot of other ways to answer that question of how we
Jared Colley 00:35:44
are building continuity around competencies that we think are
Jared Colley 00:35:47
important in a modern learning context or in a futures thinking
Jared Colley 00:35:50
context, but that's one example I would give.
Bill Stites 00:35:54
One of the things you said there when you were
Bill Stites 00:35:56
just really focusing on the questions. You know, one of the
Bill Stites 00:35:58
things that we ask people here a lot of questions about is their
Bill Stites 00:36:01
thoughts on AI. And one of the things that I think has come up
Bill Stites 00:36:05
about questions in general, at least in the conversations that
Bill Stites 00:36:08
I've been in, is that questions almost become the check for
Bill Stites 00:36:11
understanding. When you worry that AI can give you all the
Bill Stites 00:36:16
answers, it becomes less about the answer that you get or that
Bill Stites 00:36:20
you write down on the paper more about your ability either to ask
Bill Stites 00:36:24
the question or have a conversation and ask deeper
Bill Stites 00:36:27
questions that truly represent what you were able to learn from
Bill Stites 00:36:32
that. So one of the things that I'm seeing, and I'm kind of
Bill Stites 00:36:35
interested in tracking, is if the concern around AI is about
Bill Stites 00:36:39
it giving you the answers, then we need to focus more on exactly
Bill Stites 00:36:42
what you're saying, the ability to generate those questions in
Bill Stites 00:36:45
meaningful ways that point to what it is I've gathered from
Bill Stites 00:36:50
the work that I've done, Hiram posted in the chat, and you can
Bill Stites 00:36:53
jump in on this more if you want to. It's the idea of AI being
Bill Stites 00:36:56
that thought partner in a lot of the work that we're doing. But
Bill Stites 00:36:59
you've still gotta have those competencies and those
Bill Stites 00:37:02
understandings to be able to question things in the right
Bill Stites 00:37:06
way. Absolutely,
Jared Colley 00:37:07
I'm gonna respond to that. But I also just wanna
Jared Colley 00:37:09
say, and this is the educator coming out in me, is that we
Jared Colley 00:37:14
have to be careful. And I'm gonna use an educator framework,
Jared Colley 00:37:18
depth of knowledge framework, so those that are listening that
Jared Colley 00:37:22
might be more in the technology world and not as much in the
Jared Colley 00:37:24
curriculum world. Depth of Knowledge is just a framework to
Jared Colley 00:37:28
think about complexity of what you're asking kids to do, right?
Jared Colley 00:37:30
So Dok one is recalling facts, being able to know things. Dok
Jared Colley 00:37:37
two, next level might be application and explanation in
Jared Colley 00:37:41
the ability to do that. And we might say that Dok three is now
Jared Colley 00:37:44
okay. Now take that and start to think really strategically about
Jared Colley 00:37:49
what you're going to do with all that. And you know, dok four
Jared Colley 00:37:52
might be like, how are you transferring all this to totally
Jared Colley 00:37:56
new context that you couldn't even predict were going to
Jared Colley 00:37:58
happen? So Extended Thinking. And so I first just want to say,
Jared Colley 00:38:02
I think something we have to be cautious about is that Dok one
Jared Colley 00:38:06
is just as important as Dok two, dok three, dok four. And so AI
Jared Colley 00:38:13
is doing a great job as a thought partner of leap frogging
Jared Colley 00:38:16
kids to Dok three and four work as a thought partner how to
Jared Colley 00:38:19
think strategically, how to extend their thinking. But
Jared Colley 00:38:22
students need to know things. I think about that even. You know,
Jared Colley 00:38:27
I'm not getting political, but let's just say, for the sake of
Jared Colley 00:38:30
our democracy, kids need to know things, and they can't just rely
Jared Colley 00:38:36
on technology to give them answers. And so I had to have
Jared Colley 00:38:40
that soap box moment. And everybody on my campus will tell
Jared Colley 00:38:44
you, I'm the proselytizer of you got to integrate AI in your
Jared Colley 00:38:47
class, so I'm not the guy here that's saying, oh my gosh, AI is
Jared Colley 00:38:51
doing something dangerous. It's dialectical, isn't it? Both
Jared Colley 00:38:55
truths are true, right? There are things that we have to be
Jared Colley 00:38:57
worried about, and there are things that we got to be so
Jared Colley 00:38:59
excited about, where AI is this thought partner? But to your
Jared Colley 00:39:02
question about being a thought partner, I'll just share it an
Jared Colley 00:39:06
answer through story telling, which is, although I'm out of
Jared Colley 00:39:09
the classroom and Kristina, I love the beginning of our
Jared Colley 00:39:12
conversation, where you said you visited a school, and it just
Jared Colley 00:39:15
reminded you of the joy of being in a hallway and seeing student
Jared Colley 00:39:21
work. Let me share my own version of that. I'm teaching a
Jared Colley 00:39:24
course right now, even though I'm a full time administrator,
Jared Colley 00:39:27
I'm also a consultant for our NV ventures, R and D company, but I
Jared Colley 00:39:32
also teach a class, and the class I'm teaching right now is
Jared Colley 00:39:34
called philosophy in the age of artificial intelligence, and we
Jared Colley 00:39:38
are doing three things in that class, and our mission statement
Jared Colley 00:39:42
at Mount Vernon is we are a school of inquiry, innovation
Jared Colley 00:39:45
and impact. So every single week we are inquiring
Jared Colley 00:39:48
philosophically. What I really mean by that is we're reading
Jared Colley 00:39:51
academic papers by John Searle about, can a machine ever be
Jared Colley 00:39:55
conscious, or is consciousness in some way necessarily tied? To
Jared Colley 00:40:00
biological systems. So we're inquiring philosophically, but
Jared Colley 00:40:04
we are also innovating experimentally, and we are also
Jared Colley 00:40:08
examining technology's impact. And that latter way that we do
Jared Colley 00:40:12
that is we also read a fun sci fi story every week, and it's
Jared Colley 00:40:16
usually some sort of sci fi story that's showing the impact
Jared Colley 00:40:19
of technology in some speculative future, and it gets
Jared Colley 00:40:22
us talking about it, ethically, gets us talking about it,
Jared Colley 00:40:24
philosophically, speculatively. Where is this going? But I want
Jared Colley 00:40:29
to go back to the middle one. The other thing that we do in
Jared Colley 00:40:31
our class every week is we are innovating experimentally. And
Jared Colley 00:40:34
so the kids have a task board. It's like a tic tac toe board,
Jared Colley 00:40:38
and each of the boxes is like something that like go try this
Jared Colley 00:40:42
with AI, and I'm Trojan horsing them a little bit because the
Jared Colley 00:40:46
prompts are very much getting them to use AI as a thought
Jared Colley 00:40:49
partner, not as an answer giver, not as the problem solver, but
Jared Colley 00:40:55
as something that they have to engage with and start to get
Jared Colley 00:40:59
better at asking it the right questions, getting better at how
Jared Colley 00:41:04
to evaluate the answers it gives back, or the suggestions it
Jared Colley 00:41:09
might be prompting them to think about. And they go and they do
Jared Colley 00:41:12
something every week. I'll just give an example. One of the
Jared Colley 00:41:15
boxes says, like build a bot that is a study partner for
Jared Colley 00:41:19
something that you need to drill down on and study or build it
Jared Colley 00:41:23
for a friend and test it, get feedback and come back and tell
Jared Colley 00:41:26
us how it went. And that's not the end of the assignment. They
Jared Colley 00:41:30
also have a series of questions they have to answer, and it's
Jared Colley 00:41:32
based on one of the project zero thinking routines. And so what
Jared Colley 00:41:37
new ideas did it get you to consider? It also asks you, what
Jared Colley 00:41:41
could have been improved? Where did it not work well, and where
Jared Colley 00:41:45
did it fall flat? And so they also, as they go through this
Jared Colley 00:41:48
routine every week of experimenting with AI
Jared Colley 00:41:52
innovatively, they're really thinking about it evaluatively,
Jared Colley 00:41:56
which is the ok for by the way, they are thinking about it
Jared Colley 00:41:59
evaluatively, and where is it a good thought partner? Where is
Jared Colley 00:42:03
it a good task partner? Where does it not work well? And they
Jared Colley 00:42:07
reflect on that every week. We assign things through what we
Jared Colley 00:42:10
call a proverbial card. They use this card, and they go through
Jared Colley 00:42:13
that thinking routine. They show the evidence of a chat log, or
Jared Colley 00:42:17
whatever it is. They need to show evidence of of how they
Jared Colley 00:42:19
used it, but they're also doing that evaluative reflection, and
Jared Colley 00:42:23
so that gets them back to asking the right questions about AI,
Jared Colley 00:42:27
about the human role, about the human advantage, about the AI
Jared Colley 00:42:32
advantage, and how those two things come together to create
Jared Colley 00:42:36
what I call collective intelligence. And if we go back
Jared Colley 00:42:40
to SAMR, right? Are we just using AI to substitute? Maybe
Jared Colley 00:42:45
not that great. Are we using AI to augment something we do? Are
Jared Colley 00:42:49
we using it to modify something we do, or has it redefined
Jared Colley 00:42:53
something for us? Right? And so it's getting them to ask those
Jared Colley 00:42:57
questions without necessarily making it the same or model, but
Jared Colley 00:43:00
it's getting them to interrogate, like, Where does AI
Jared Colley 00:43:04
fit in? Well, because a competency that is important for
Jared Colley 00:43:07
our students to thrive in the age of intelligent machines is
Jared Colley 00:43:11
to be able to work well with machines, and that is something
Jared Colley 00:43:15
that these students need to practice. And I understand why
Jared Colley 00:43:19
some classes are struggling with figuring out how to give kids
Jared Colley 00:43:22
that opportunity. I have great empathy for a lot of teachers
Jared Colley 00:43:27
who are threatened by what AI is bringing into their classroom,
Jared Colley 00:43:31
and I think we have to approach this conversation with teachers
Jared Colley 00:43:34
with great understanding, with active listening and with a deep
Jared Colley 00:43:39
sense of empathy, because there are things, there are stories of
Jared Colley 00:43:45
an assignment that I have given for years, and I have these
Jared Colley 00:43:49
memories of these experiences and these relationships I built,
Jared Colley 00:43:54
and AI is disrupting that in the bad way, because now my kids
Jared Colley 00:43:59
aren't doing it the way we used To do it, and it's easy, I
Jared Colley 00:44:02
think, for us that are thinking creatively and we have time to
Jared Colley 00:44:05
think creatively about technology's application, it's
Jared Colley 00:44:08
easy for us to be like, Oh, get a growth mindset. But no,
Jared Colley 00:44:12
there's a lot of mourning, and I mean that M, o, u, r, N, I N, G,
Jared Colley 00:44:17
there is a lot of mourning and processing that I think a lot of
Jared Colley 00:44:22
great instructors are having to go through right now in terms of
Jared Colley 00:44:26
what AI might be doing to their classroom. And so I understand
Jared Colley 00:44:29
why some of the things I'm getting to do in my class may be
Jared Colley 00:44:32
a little bit more difficult in some other contexts. And I just
Jared Colley 00:44:36
want you to know on my task board, it does say, if you're
Jared Colley 00:44:39
going to use this AI experimentation another class, I
Jared Colley 00:44:42
have to have written permission from that teacher. I, in no way
Jared Colley 00:44:46
am going to be the person who encourages you to go use AI in
Jared Colley 00:44:49
another teacher's class without us, First all, being on some
Jared Colley 00:44:53
sort of shared understanding level of agreement.
Christina Lewellen 00:44:57
So Jared before we run. Out of Time, I do
Christina Lewellen 00:45:00
want to circle back to the ventures piece of things,
Christina Lewellen 00:45:03
because I think that that's a really interesting and creative
Christina Lewellen 00:45:08
aspect of your school that is a little unusual. There's
Christina Lewellen 00:45:12
incredible publications coming out of the space that I really
Christina Lewellen 00:45:15
enjoy, but Mount Vernon Ventures is your research development and
Christina Lewellen 00:45:21
consulting division of the school. Can you just take a
Christina Lewellen 00:45:25
minute and tell us a little bit about where that came from and
Christina Lewellen 00:45:27
how in the world, does that fit in the larger mission of the
Christina Lewellen 00:45:31
school?
Jared Colley 00:45:32
Yes, I'll start with where it came from, and
Jared Colley 00:45:35
that predates me, and so I want to start by apologizing to those
Jared Colley 00:45:39
who predate me if I don't tell the story to the utmost fidelity
Jared Colley 00:45:43
and accuracy, forgive me. But it started with the Mount Vernon
Jared Colley 00:45:49
Institute for Innovation, M, V, I, Fi is what it was called, and
Jared Colley 00:45:53
it was a group of people who were doing great, innovative
Jared Colley 00:45:55
work that was getting the attention of other schools. And
Jared Colley 00:45:58
people were asking questions, and people were wanting to know
Jared Colley 00:46:01
more. And a group of people on this campus, led by Bo Adams, I
Jared Colley 00:46:07
know a lot of listeners who are going to probably listen to this
Jared Colley 00:46:10
podcast will know exactly who Bo Adams is. He's had a great
Jared Colley 00:46:13
impact upon the educational community across this country.
Jared Colley 00:46:17
Bo was leading a team of MVI phi Mount Vernon Institute for
Jared Colley 00:46:22
Innovation, and I think it was just born out of we were doing
Jared Colley 00:46:26
interesting things with design thinking. We were doing
Jared Colley 00:46:29
interesting things with just curricular innovation. We were
Jared Colley 00:46:32
doing interesting things with project based learning. We were
Jared Colley 00:46:35
doing interesting things with what we might call expeditionary
Jared Colley 00:46:38
learning, where it doesn't have to happen in the four walls of
Jared Colley 00:46:41
our classrooms, getting kids out into place based learning
Jared Colley 00:46:44
scenarios. And I think a lot of schools were wondering like, how
Jared Colley 00:46:48
are you doing that at scale? And it became very, very obvious to
Jared Colley 00:46:52
us that there's a service that we could provide, but greater
Jared Colley 00:46:55
community of schools. And I think we've always had the
Jared Colley 00:46:58
philosophy that we're not just here to be a school that's
Jared Colley 00:47:01
changing in a way that we know is research based and also best
Jared Colley 00:47:06
for our students. But we want to also change the educational
Jared Colley 00:47:09
landscape beyond our school as well, and we want to have a role
Jared Colley 00:47:12
in that. I know that Atlas wants to have a role in that, that we
Jared Colley 00:47:16
are all probably have a shared vocation, passion and motivation
Jared Colley 00:47:21
to not keep these things to ourselves and not just be the
Jared Colley 00:47:24
innovative school and everybody else is still doing it a more
Jared Colley 00:47:27
traditional way. But how might we transform this so that we
Jared Colley 00:47:31
design a better world? And that is a phrase that we use here at
Jared Colley 00:47:35
Mount Vernon quite often. How might we design a better world?
Jared Colley 00:47:39
It started there, and then we rebranded as NV ventures in
Jared Colley 00:47:43
recent years. And I would say that NV Ventures is really doing
Jared Colley 00:47:48
two or three things, but two things that also sometimes leads
Jared Colley 00:47:52
to a third thing. The first is we're doing research and
Jared Colley 00:47:55
development. And thank you, Kristina, for saying that you've
Jared Colley 00:47:58
enjoyed reading some of our publications. I am the editor of
Jared Colley 00:48:02
our R and D reports that comes out, and so a lot of times that
Jared Colley 00:48:06
means I have the privilege of getting to read research that's
Jared Colley 00:48:10
going on, read other people's synthesis of research as editor,
Jared Colley 00:48:14
and other times I'm the primary writer of some of these reports.
Jared Colley 00:48:18
I wrote one of our reports on it's called Imagine, then, act
Jared Colley 00:48:22
now, futures literacy for learning organizations. A year
Jared Colley 00:48:26
or two ago, I wrote one called a people centered organization,
Jared Colley 00:48:28
living in an AI world. And so those are ones where I got to be
Jared Colley 00:48:32
a primary writer, but I also serve as an editor for other
Jared Colley 00:48:36
researchers and other writers that are a part of our team that
Jared Colley 00:48:38
are doing great work and synthesizing great work that's
Jared Colley 00:48:42
out there, and so that research and development aspect, I think
Jared Colley 00:48:45
one way I would also explain why we think it adds value is that
Jared Colley 00:48:50
most of us, our bandwidth is full, and most of us don't have
Jared Colley 00:48:54
time to go around and synthesize a lot of research and show up at
Jared Colley 00:48:58
meetings and be able to lead a team with confidence and say,
Jared Colley 00:49:02
here's how we need to be thinking about this. So I think
Jared Colley 00:49:05
AI is a great example writing that report about AI. What I
Jared Colley 00:49:08
hope it did is it gave school leaders a document to read with
Jared Colley 00:49:13
a playlist at the end of everything that got cited, so
Jared Colley 00:49:17
that they could have what they need to know to be able to go
Jared Colley 00:49:20
into a meeting and lead with intentionality, lead with
Jared Colley 00:49:23
purpose, but also lead from a informed perspective on
Jared Colley 00:49:27
something that needs to be talked about, but who has the
Jared Colley 00:49:29
bandwidth to do the research. And so that is one service that
Jared Colley 00:49:33
we at MV ventures are trying to provide for the greater
Jared Colley 00:49:36
educational community. I think the second thing that we also do
Jared Colley 00:49:39
is we work with clients, and so we work in a consulting capacity
Jared Colley 00:49:44
around a lot of different issues, whether that's brand
Jared Colley 00:49:46
development, whether that's working on strategy, strategic
Jared Colley 00:49:50
plan, we like to talk about strategic positioning and a
Jared Colley 00:49:52
futures thinking framework, whether that be going to scale
Jared Colley 00:49:54
on transforming your assessment practices, because you want to
Jared Colley 00:49:57
move to a competency based model. So there's a. Lot of
Jared Colley 00:50:00
things that we consult with schools on. And the third thing
Jared Colley 00:50:03
that that sometimes leads to is product development, developing
Jared Colley 00:50:06
our own tools that we often provide for other schools.
Jared Colley 00:50:10
Sometimes it's free, sometimes they cost something. But product
Jared Colley 00:50:13
development is not our primary purpose. It's a bonus outcome of
Jared Colley 00:50:17
that more important work that I think we're doing around
Jared Colley 00:50:20
research synthesis and consulting work to help
Jared Colley 00:50:23
transform schools that perhaps need a little bit of support in
Jared Colley 00:50:27
doing that. Do
Christina Lewellen 00:50:28
you have an example of a product that you've
Christina Lewellen 00:50:31
developed? I mean, like aI chat bots or, like, what kind of
Christina Lewellen 00:50:34
product as an example? I
Jared Colley 00:50:36
could give several, but I'll stick to one.
Jared Colley 00:50:38
A while back, we did a product that's called it's a design
Jared Colley 00:50:42
thinking Field Guide to borrow from Harvard's Project Zero.
Jared Colley 00:50:45
It's kind of like visible thinking routines that help a
Jared Colley 00:50:49
team do more intentional outcomes focused design thinking
Jared Colley 00:50:53
work. But I share that product as well, because now we have a
Jared Colley 00:50:56
design thinking Field Guide for littles, because at first like,
Jared Colley 00:51:00
oh, adults can do design thinking. But what we quickly
Jared Colley 00:51:03
started using this resource for, and a lot of other schools are
Jared Colley 00:51:05
using it for, is they're having students use this resource and
Jared Colley 00:51:08
use these tools in their classes. It helps scaffold them
Jared Colley 00:51:12
on giving better feedback and peer to peer feedback with
Jared Colley 00:51:15
certain thinking routines. It helps them and their design
Jared Colley 00:51:18
process and their iteration process and whatever project
Jared Colley 00:51:21
they working on. And so not only are adults using that field
Jared Colley 00:51:25
guide, so are students, but it became evidently clear we need
Jared Colley 00:51:29
one for littles. And so a recent product that we developed is our
Jared Colley 00:51:32
design thinking Field Guide for littles. And so the language and
Jared Colley 00:51:37
the complexity of the tools are developmentally appropriate for
Jared Colley 00:51:42
that age group. And again, it's also another example of us
Jared Colley 00:51:45
having a continuity of building capacity around a skill that we
Jared Colley 00:51:48
think is important at Mount Vernon, from the little ones all
Jared Colley 00:51:52
the way to the adults. And to borrow a quote from our former
Jared Colley 00:51:56
Director of Innovation diploma, Brad droke, age does not equal
Jared Colley 00:52:00
capacity. And littles can do great work. Middle schoolers can
Jared Colley 00:52:04
do amazing work. High schoolers can do amazing work, just like
Jared Colley 00:52:08
we adults. That's
Christina Lewellen 00:52:10
really cool. What a full circle kind of
Christina Lewellen 00:52:12
conversation we've been having here today. I love it. You put a
Christina Lewellen 00:52:16
lot more research and deep thinking around where we started
Christina Lewellen 00:52:20
this conversation, but it's been really, really insightful. You
Christina Lewellen 00:52:23
know, as we kind of wrap up here, I do have just a couple
Christina Lewellen 00:52:27
questions for you. What are you reading and thinking about right
Christina Lewellen 00:52:30
now, in your own world, what's interesting you or capturing
Christina Lewellen 00:52:32
your attention?
Jared Colley 00:52:34
I'm reading two things right now. One has to do
Jared Colley 00:52:37
with some research that we're doing, which is, I'm reading a
Jared Colley 00:52:40
lot about how do we put into place, from a systems thinking
Jared Colley 00:52:44
point of view, programs that lead to professional growth that
Jared Colley 00:52:48
is personalized, that is customizable, but is also
Jared Colley 00:52:52
mission aligned, and is also ensuring equity and growth for
Jared Colley 00:52:56
everyone, and providing pathways for growth that lead to greater
Jared Colley 00:53:00
opportunity. So we've developed, for instance, our own system of
Jared Colley 00:53:04
competencies for faculty and our system of competencies for
Jared Colley 00:53:08
administrative leaders. And what does a systemic approach to
Jared Colley 00:53:14
improvement for every individual in your organization? What does
Jared Colley 00:53:18
that look like? And how can you do that at scale? And how can
Jared Colley 00:53:21
you do that at scale again, in this context where what does it
Jared Colley 00:53:24
mean to improve? And we don't know what schools look like in
Jared Colley 00:53:26
10 years, and so that's one area that I'm doing a lot of reading,
Jared Colley 00:53:30
and another area that I'm doing a lot of research right now is,
Jared Colley 00:53:33
I think it's very important that we don't forget about the fact
Jared Colley 00:53:37
that we need to build ecological literacy and competencies, and
Jared Colley 00:53:42
to our students and to our staff and to our organizations. And so
Jared Colley 00:53:46
I'm also reading a lot of literature around like, what do
Jared Colley 00:53:50
we need to get skillful at to handle the wicked problems that
Jared Colley 00:53:55
extreme weather events, that climate change, that depletion
Jared Colley 00:54:00
of resources are going to be presenting, not just to us, but
Jared Colley 00:54:04
really to our next generation of learners. And it's not up to
Jared Colley 00:54:08
them to solve it. It's up for us to start thinking about that now
Jared Colley 00:54:12
and to start building the frameworks that provide a vision
Jared Colley 00:54:16
of what those competencies and skills look like. And so again,
Jared Colley 00:54:20
getting back to collective intelligence, there's the human
Jared Colley 00:54:24
and human centered design is really important. There's the
Jared Colley 00:54:27
technology, and the technology as a thought partner and an
Jared Colley 00:54:30
augmenter and a modifier is important. And there is nature.
Jared Colley 00:54:35
And we also need to be thinking about the more than human world
Jared Colley 00:54:38
and the more than human centered design perspectives that are
Jared Colley 00:54:42
really important right now. That's my long winded answer to
Jared Colley 00:54:46
say. I'm reading a lot of books about that stuff.
Christina Lewellen 00:54:49
I love it. And will we see you at the Atlas
Christina Lewellen 00:54:52
conference coming up in a couple of months?
Jared Colley 00:54:54
You're gonna be in my hometown. I will be here, and
Jared Colley 00:54:57
I think I'm doing a session with two great friends. This
Jared Colley 00:55:00
organization, Vinnie rotney And Matt school, that's a good one
Jared Colley 00:55:03
can't miss. Yes, please come visit with us, even if you don't
Jared Colley 00:55:07
come to our session. Let's talk. Let's talk in the hallways. But
Jared Colley 00:55:10
also just, I want to just say thank you. We've had a couple
Jared Colley 00:55:13
students that are have been invited to be on a panel this
Jared Colley 00:55:16
year at the Atlas conference here in Atlanta, and I am so
Jared Colley 00:55:19
excited that all of you are going to get to see and hear
Jared Colley 00:55:24
from our Mount Vernon students and how they're thinking about a
Jared Colley 00:55:28
lot of these things.
Christina Lewellen 00:55:29
I know I'm really excited. I'm glad you
Christina Lewellen 00:55:31
brought that up last year. Dr Paul Turnbull, from the Mid
Christina Lewellen 00:55:34
Pacific school out in Hawaii, pulled me aside on the final
Christina Lewellen 00:55:38
morning and said, you know, Kristina, this conference is
Christina Lewellen 00:55:41
just so cool. We've got to get students here, and we found a
Christina Lewellen 00:55:44
few different ways to honor and recognize and elevate our
Christina Lewellen 00:55:48
students voices. So I'm really looking forward to that. So
Christina Lewellen 00:55:51
thank you for being a facilitator in all of that.
Christina Lewellen 00:55:53
Yeah, well,
Bill Stites 00:55:54
thank you judge. The one thing I want to say is
Bill Stites 00:55:56
good luck with both Vinnie and Matt. You're gonna need to be on
Bill Stites 00:56:01
your A game to keep the two of them focused and going in the
Bill Stites 00:56:04
right direction. But the one thing I honestly want to do, I
Bill Stites 00:56:07
was joking in the chat, you know, I said to Kristina in the
Bill Stites 00:56:10
back end here that my head is about to explode after this
Bill Stites 00:56:13
conversation in all of the best ways, right? And I've been
Bill Stites 00:56:18
watching and I'm challenging Peter Frank, who is our
Bill Stites 00:56:21
producer, who's been filling in all of the show notes with every
Bill Stites 00:56:25
reference. I'm sitting here, I'm taking notes, I'm googling
Bill Stites 00:56:28
stuff. I'm like, what was that? What did he just say? So I want
Bill Stites 00:56:30
to thank you for what was truly a mind expanding conversation,
Bill Stites 00:56:36
as you said, a lot of deep thinking, a lot of really good
Bill Stites 00:56:39
stuff that I'm gonna have to go back to. I said, before you came
Bill Stites 00:56:42
on, you know, I was re listening to some of our recent episodes,
Bill Stites 00:56:45
and I'm gonna have to give this one another listen, because
Bill Stites 00:56:47
there's a lot of great stuff here, and I think everyone's
Bill Stites 00:56:49
gonna get a lot out of it. So thank you,
Unknown 00:56:51
100% Absolutely. Thank
Jared Colley 00:56:53
you, Bill, yeah,
Christina Lewellen 00:56:54
thank you for challenging us. This was
Christina Lewellen 00:56:56
wonderful. Jared, thank you for your time.
Peter Frank 00:57:00
This has been talking technology with Atlas,
Peter Frank 00:57:03
produced by the Association of Technology Leaders in
Peter Frank 00:57:05
Independent Schools. For more information about Atlas and
Peter Frank 00:57:09
Atlas membership, please visit the atlas.org if you enjoyed
Peter Frank 00:57:13
this discussion, please subscribe, leave a review and
Peter Frank 00:57:16
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Peter Frank 00:57:19
school community. Thank you for listening. You.