Tech Talk and Personal Asks: AI, Advice, and Desert Island Picks From Our Hosts

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. And

Bill Stites 00:00:35
I'm Bill Stites, the Director of Technology at

Bill Stites 00:00:37
Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, New Jersey,

Hiram Cuevas 00:00:40
and I'm Hiram Cuevas, Director of Information

Hiram Cuevas 00:00:42
Systems and Academic Technology at St Christopher school in

Hiram Cuevas 00:00:45
Richmond, Virginia.

Christina Lewellen 00:00:47
Hey guys, how's everything today going?

Christina Lewellen 00:00:49
Well? Yeah, that's all good. I am joining you from Austin,

Christina Lewellen 00:00:53
Texas, where I am currently attending South by Southwest

Christina Lewellen 00:00:56
edu. I think I've mentioned before that I try to attend at

Christina Lewellen 00:01:00
least one educational event per year, given that I'm not an

Christina Lewellen 00:01:04
educator, and it really helps me, I really try to focus in on

Christina Lewellen 00:01:08
the topics that are relevant to Atlas membership, and I learn a

Christina Lewellen 00:01:12
ton, and I meet cool people. We get great ideas for our

Christina Lewellen 00:01:15
conference. And so I'm wandering around among a bunch of

Christina Lewellen 00:01:19
educators, feeling a little out of my depth, if I'm honest, but

Christina Lewellen 00:01:22
I have been really enjoying it, and I'm only on day two, so I am

Christina Lewellen 00:01:26
hyped up and ready for this conversation today. This will

Unknown 00:01:30
be a fun one. I'm excited. Yeah,

Bill Stites 00:01:33
I wanted to go down there before I told you, right

Bill Stites 00:01:35
before we got on getting down to South by Southwest, the

Bill Stites 00:01:38
education track, I think, is something I've had on my bucket

Bill Stites 00:01:41
list for quite a while. I

Christina Lewellen 00:01:42
can't wait to tell you about it. I mean,

Christina Lewellen 00:01:44
I'm taking some notes, and I'll save materials for you that I'll

Christina Lewellen 00:01:47
share with you afterwards, because AI is just everywhere.

Christina Lewellen 00:01:51
It permeates every track, every session. But there's also just a

Christina Lewellen 00:01:56
lot of really cool topics that are more education specific,

Christina Lewellen 00:02:00
that maybe don't necessarily cross over into the technology

Christina Lewellen 00:02:02
realm. So if I had no technology affiliation, I would have a

Christina Lewellen 00:02:08
really difficult time figuring out where to go. But because of

Christina Lewellen 00:02:12
our connection with tech, I try to stay in that space. But

Christina Lewellen 00:02:16
there's just so much cool stuff down here. I just I love it.

Hiram Cuevas 00:02:19
Now, either of you attended CES, that's the

Hiram Cuevas 00:02:22
Consumer Electronic Show in Vegas, which is usually in

Hiram Cuevas 00:02:26
January. No So South by Southwest is one that I've

Hiram Cuevas 00:02:30
always wanted to go to, but I did manage to go to CES a few

Hiram Cuevas 00:02:34
years ago, and it's unreal, because it's all hardware and

Hiram Cuevas 00:02:38
different products that are either on the verge of going

Hiram Cuevas 00:02:42
live to the public or their prototypes. It's just fantastic.

Christina Lewellen 00:02:47
I can imagine you being on the show

Christina Lewellen 00:02:51
floor with no sunlight for days. Is that kind of how that show

Christina Lewellen 00:02:54
went?

Unknown 00:02:56
Absolutely. It was fabulous.

Bill Stites 00:02:58
It's in Vegas, so it could go in a lot of

Bill Stites 00:03:00
different directions. With Hiram there, I'm sure. Yeah, we stayed

Unknown 00:03:03
Planet Hollywood. There you go. I love it. Well,

Christina Lewellen 00:03:06
today, guys, we have no guest. Well, I guess

Christina Lewellen 00:03:09
we kind of have a guest because we are welcoming back to the

Christina Lewellen 00:03:12
podcast. Our producer, Peter Frank, Hello, Peter. How are

Christina Lewellen 00:03:15
you?

Peter Frank 00:03:16
Hey everybody. I'm well, good to be here. I mean,

Peter Frank 00:03:19
I'm here all the time, but you know, I'm actually talking this

Peter Frank 00:03:21
time. So

Christina Lewellen 00:03:24
once in a while, we take him off mute.

Christina Lewellen 00:03:27
Peter, we've asked to come join us today, because we have been

Christina Lewellen 00:03:31
promoting for a while, and ask us anything episode. And so I

Christina Lewellen 00:03:36
guess Peter, you've been the keeper of the questions. Have we

Christina Lewellen 00:03:39
received some good ones. Are people excited about this idea?

Peter Frank 00:03:43
Absolutely, yes. We have several questions here,

Peter Frank 00:03:46
from long time listeners, I assume that, yeah, some of them

Peter Frank 00:03:51
are techie. Some of them are less techie, but still

Peter Frank 00:03:56
interesting. They took the anything of the Ask Me Anything

Peter Frank 00:03:59
concept very seriously.

Christina Lewellen 00:04:02
I mean, I can expect nothing less of the

Christina Lewellen 00:04:05
Atlas community, our folks, if we say anything, they're like

Christina Lewellen 00:04:09
anything. All right, well, I'll turn it over to you. Then. Now

Christina Lewellen 00:04:12
you're in charge. All right. Let's start

Peter Frank 00:04:14
with something related to work and technology

Peter Frank 00:04:18
and why we're here. Dan McGee, who is Tila certified, by the

Peter Frank 00:04:22
way, Dan asks, What advice might you have for mid career

Peter Frank 00:04:25
technology leaders who still feel challenged in their career,

Peter Frank 00:04:28
but maybe looking for new challenges or ways to not become

Peter Frank 00:04:32
stagnant? That's one for anybody. I think what

Bill Stites 00:04:36
I have found is getting involved both, I'll say,

Bill Stites 00:04:39
inside, but also outside of your school, I think really helps,

Bill Stites 00:04:44
because speaking as someone who's got a very long tenure at

Bill Stites 00:04:47
a school, you get in certain routines. There's certain things

Bill Stites 00:04:50
that are consistent from year to year. There's certain things

Bill Stites 00:04:53
that change, but you've got almost blinders on as you're

Bill Stites 00:04:56
going through things, and it's it's only when I think you get

Bill Stites 00:04:59
out. Whether it's attending other conferences. I started

Bill Stites 00:05:03
going to NJ meetings, which is a New Jersey based educational

Bill Stites 00:05:08
cooperative thing here, and it was public schools and

Bill Stites 00:05:11
independent schools and the like, and starting there and

Bill Stites 00:05:13
attending those meetings and coming back with information,

Bill Stites 00:05:16
because again, you only see what you see when you're at your

Bill Stites 00:05:19
school. And that opened up the door to volunteering to helping

Bill Stites 00:05:23
to put together the conference again at the state level, then

Bill Stites 00:05:26
doing more with NJS, and then doing more with other people

Bill Stites 00:05:31
that you meet at these pieces, and then going from there.

Bill Stites 00:05:34
Because if you're not getting out of the building, you are

Bill Stites 00:05:38
going to become stagnant, because you don't know what else

Bill Stites 00:05:40
is out there and is possible. Hiram and I have gotten out

Bill Stites 00:05:44
there through educational collaborators and done some

Bill Stites 00:05:47
consulting work, if you can get in with that. That's some of the

Bill Stites 00:05:49
best PD, that I've done is the consulting work that I've done,

Bill Stites 00:05:53
but it also lets you hear from other people and experience

Bill Stites 00:05:57
different things that you don't get when you're just stuck in

Bill Stites 00:06:00
your your space.

Hiram Cuevas 00:06:02
One, I agree completely with everything Bill

Hiram Cuevas 00:06:04
said, but this is a position where you have the opportunity

Hiram Cuevas 00:06:08
to regularly reinvent yourself, because so much of what we do

Hiram Cuevas 00:06:15
changes on a regular basis. I mean, five years ago, who was

Hiram Cuevas 00:06:18
even engaging in conversations about AI who is actually

Hiram Cuevas 00:06:22
engaging in serious conversations about data,

Hiram Cuevas 00:06:26
information and institutional research. Now we're having some

Hiram Cuevas 00:06:30
really thoughtful conversations, and it's the kind of challenge

Hiram Cuevas 00:06:34
that you have to take on personally to grow. And

Hiram Cuevas 00:06:37
hopefully, if you have that growth mindset, it's very

Hiram Cuevas 00:06:40
natural. Otherwise, you do run the risk of becoming stagnant in

Hiram Cuevas 00:06:45
your environment, because it is pretty routine. And every year

Hiram Cuevas 00:06:49
the academic calendar is start of school, Christmas break, re

Hiram Cuevas 00:06:54
enrollment season, etc, and it kind of rinse and repeat. And so

Hiram Cuevas 00:06:58
I would say, make sure you get out like Bill mentioned, but

Hiram Cuevas 00:07:02
reinvent yourself with a new skill set, and that T list is

Hiram Cuevas 00:07:05
definitely a way to go.

Christina Lewellen 00:07:07
I'll just add that it's hard sometimes

Christina Lewellen 00:07:09
when you're at that midpoint in your career to see where to go

Christina Lewellen 00:07:13
next. Either you have too many options or you feel fairly

Christina Lewellen 00:07:16
limited by your options, but the trajectory is sometimes messy,

Christina Lewellen 00:07:21
like it doesn't always go in a straight line from A to B, and I

Christina Lewellen 00:07:24
think that most folks look back on their careers and say, Well,

Christina Lewellen 00:07:29
it all kind of made sense how I got here, but it sure didn't

Christina Lewellen 00:07:32
feel like that in the moment. So wherever you are in the moment,

Christina Lewellen 00:07:36
just know that this growth mindset definitely will take you

Christina Lewellen 00:07:38
to that next place, and there are different ways to get there.

Christina Lewellen 00:07:41
Just because Bill got there, or I got there or Hiram got there

Christina Lewellen 00:07:44
in a certain way doesn't mean that that's what's going to work

Christina Lewellen 00:07:46
for the person coming up behind us. So I think that there's a

Christina Lewellen 00:07:49
lot of ways and a lot of paths to walk to get to where you want

Christina Lewellen 00:07:52
to

Peter Frank 00:07:53
be. Indeed, that's great advice. We got serious

Peter Frank 00:07:55
real fast. That's good, because some of these questions are

Peter Frank 00:07:59
nonsense, but that's okay. That's gonna be fun. Speaking of

Peter Frank 00:08:02
silly, Hiram, we've got a question here for you, the

Peter Frank 00:08:06
person asking wish to remain anonymous, okay, oh, that's not

Peter Frank 00:08:10
good, but I'll tell you, when we get together in Atlanta at the

Peter Frank 00:08:13
conference, you can pull me aside. We'll have a beverage,

Peter Frank 00:08:16
and I'll tell you, okay, so Hiram, you are running a 5k

Peter Frank 00:08:23
which three people would you like to run the 5k with dead or

Peter Frank 00:08:29
alive, real or fictional? This

Hiram Cuevas 00:08:32
actually a pretty easy question. One would be

Hiram Cuevas 00:08:34
Louis Zamperini from the movie unforgiven. He was an Olympic

Hiram Cuevas 00:08:39
medalist in the 5k Billy Mills running brave, because when I

Hiram Cuevas 00:08:44
used to wear a flat top in college, a lot of people thought

Hiram Cuevas 00:08:48
I looked like Billy Mills. So that'd be pretty cool to run,

Hiram Cuevas 00:08:51
run with him, and then Sebastian co would be my third. Sebastian

Hiram Cuevas 00:08:56
CO was the British 1500 meter Olympic champion at 815 100

Hiram Cuevas 00:09:01
meters.

Christina Lewellen 00:09:02
So you're stacking your team like you got

Christina Lewellen 00:09:04
competitive. You didn't pick like people that you love. You

Christina Lewellen 00:09:07
didn't pick me. And Bill, no,

Unknown 00:09:09
I'm not gonna win. Trust me, I'm not gonna win this

Unknown 00:09:11
one.

Hiram Cuevas 00:09:13
This is Who would I want to run a 5k with, and

Hiram Cuevas 00:09:16
this is going to be a very pedestrian jog,

Unknown 00:09:19
or Yog, all right,

Unknown 00:09:21
all right, here's the problem. I'm

Hiram Cuevas 00:09:23
also 60 pounds heavier than I used to be in

Hiram Cuevas 00:09:25
college, so I was a buck 25 back in the day. All

Peter Frank 00:09:30
those people are too. You'd be fine. All right,

Peter Frank 00:09:33
let's talk about burnout. This is a question from shonder

Peter Frank 00:09:37
shondur Simon, how do you deal with burnout? How do you avoid

Peter Frank 00:09:40
it, recognize it, recover from it. All aspects

Christina Lewellen 00:09:44
we talk a lot about burnout and mental

Christina Lewellen 00:09:46
health, more than we ever have, and I think that there's some

Christina Lewellen 00:09:48
benefit in that, because at least we're talking about it and

Christina Lewellen 00:09:51
being vulnerable about it, and bringing our full picture to

Christina Lewellen 00:09:55
whether it's the workplace or our volunteer roles, but it's.

Christina Lewellen 00:10:00
Are because things have gotten more layered and complicated.

Christina Lewellen 00:10:02
Things are moving faster than they ever have. The best piece

Christina Lewellen 00:10:06
of advice I got not too long ago from my executive coach is to

Christina Lewellen 00:10:11
vacation in the small moments, meaning I can't always turn

Christina Lewellen 00:10:16
everything off and go on a two week vacation. Last year, I

Christina Lewellen 00:10:19
famously tried to go up to my parents lake house, and it was

Christina Lewellen 00:10:24
failcation 2024 that lasted for about three days, and then I was

Christina Lewellen 00:10:28
working. And I don't take pride in that, by the way, I say it

Christina Lewellen 00:10:31
out loud, because it's kind of embarrassing that I couldn't

Christina Lewellen 00:10:33
even manage to stay unplugged for a couple of weeks. So

Christina Lewellen 00:10:37
instead, this year, I'm giving myself some grace, and part of

Christina Lewellen 00:10:40
how I'm mitigating burnout is to find vacation in small moments.

Christina Lewellen 00:10:47
I will just say, without getting too overly sentimental, that

Christina Lewellen 00:10:51
works for me, because mentally, I believe a marriage is built in

Christina Lewellen 00:10:56
the small moments, not in the grand gestures. My husband and I

Christina Lewellen 00:11:00
tend to like overlook things like our anniversary or

Christina Lewellen 00:11:03
birthdays. We don't do big showy things, but we really try to

Christina Lewellen 00:11:07
work on our relationship and our connection in these very, very

Christina Lewellen 00:11:11
small moments that we have amidst a really busy life. So to

Christina Lewellen 00:11:15
me, the idea of vacationing in small moments. So I also think

Christina Lewellen 00:11:18
fighting the burnout in small moments might be the way we all

Christina Lewellen 00:11:21
have to do it. Like, who has time to, like, stop in the

Christina Lewellen 00:11:24
middle of a busy day and do some of these techniques, meditate or

Christina Lewellen 00:11:29
go to a yoga class every five minutes, like, whatever those

Christina Lewellen 00:11:31
traditional measures are, get a massage or go on vacation. I

Christina Lewellen 00:11:35
mean, even getting ready for vacation can be really

Christina Lewellen 00:11:37
stressful. Coming back from vacation can be really

Christina Lewellen 00:11:40
stressful. So I think just finding smaller definitions of

Christina Lewellen 00:11:44
peace or comfort or things that refill your cup, I

Bill Stites 00:11:48
mean, I think to that end when you can find the

Bill Stites 00:11:51
time to truly unplug. Because I think that's the hardest thing

Bill Stites 00:11:55
being in this type of position in a school to do, because the

Bill Stites 00:12:00
only time where I know that I get that time, and Hiram

Bill Stites 00:12:04
mentioned it earlier, is during our winter breaks, because

Bill Stites 00:12:08
that's the only time where the school is actually shut down.

Bill Stites 00:12:12
When you have those opportunities to truly unplug

Bill Stites 00:12:15
because no one's working, that's really important to prioritize

Bill Stites 00:12:19
those so that's something I always do on an annual basis,

Bill Stites 00:12:24
because it allows me to really not open the laptop, not open

Bill Stites 00:12:28
email, because I know there's no one else that's really sending

Bill Stites 00:12:31
me anything during those times. But Kristina, to your point

Bill Stites 00:12:35
about finding those smaller moments, or those individual

Bill Stites 00:12:38
times where you can step away, and if you can do that, I'm

Bill Stites 00:12:42
literally just getting back from a long weekend up in Vermont,

Bill Stites 00:12:46
getting out and getting that time, and I think that's one of

Bill Stites 00:12:49
the things, because of my schedule here, I can actually

Bill Stites 00:12:53
afford to do that. But the one biggest thing, I would say with

Bill Stites 00:12:57
avoiding burnout is recognizing that it's something that we can

Bill Stites 00:13:02
now talk about a little bit more openly than we might have

Bill Stites 00:13:05
before, and then reaching out and asking for help, whether

Bill Stites 00:13:10
that's amongst the people at your school, or whether it's out

Bill Stites 00:13:14
to the community as a whole. I think where when I found myself

Bill Stites 00:13:18
in that burnout position is where I was frustrated with

Bill Stites 00:13:22
something I didn't have answers for. And I think once you've

Bill Stites 00:13:25
expanded out your circle, you can mitigate that burnout a lot

Bill Stites 00:13:30
easier, because you can share about that and get answers, and

Bill Stites 00:13:34
maybe not get answers, but just that, this is a problem that

Bill Stites 00:13:37
we're all dealing with, and we're still dealing with it. And

Bill Stites 00:13:39
if I'm feeling particularly weighed down by it, maybe I

Bill Stites 00:13:42
shouldn't, because it's something that everyone is

Bill Stites 00:13:46
trying to figure out as well, and it's not just me.

Hiram Cuevas 00:13:50
I've had to retrain myself, because I think

Hiram Cuevas 00:13:53
there are times where you feel in our roles, you just got to

Hiram Cuevas 00:13:57
keep pushing. There's always something to do. Your

Hiram Cuevas 00:14:00
notifications are going off, and you're seeing the detriment that

Hiram Cuevas 00:14:03
it's done to our youth, but it's been doing it to our generation

Hiram Cuevas 00:14:08
for quite some time now. Even pre smartphone, it's really easy

Hiram Cuevas 00:14:12
to get caught up on that treadmill and not have an escape

Hiram Cuevas 00:14:16
route. So it has to be very intentional to retrain yourself

Hiram Cuevas 00:14:20
to say, You know what? We're going to turn this off. We're

Hiram Cuevas 00:14:23
not going to worry about it. I'm going to spend some quality time

Hiram Cuevas 00:14:26
with family, friends, the outdoors, whatever it is that's

Hiram Cuevas 00:14:30
cathartic to you, such that you can come back to the workforce

Hiram Cuevas 00:14:36
rejuvenated. Because if you come back and you're exhausted,

Hiram Cuevas 00:14:39
nobody's really winning, and all you're doing is jumping one step

Hiram Cuevas 00:14:43
up and then falling back too, because your overall wellness is

Hiram Cuevas 00:14:49
in the hopper. I've had to be really cognizant of it, and it

Hiram Cuevas 00:14:53
reminded me, back when I was competing, we would do a lot of

Hiram Cuevas 00:14:55
visualization prior to races, and it's actually a. Very good

Hiram Cuevas 00:15:00
technique to use to kind of anticipate what you're going to

Hiram Cuevas 00:15:04
go through during a particular event, and you can easily

Hiram Cuevas 00:15:08
connect that to the workplace. So by the same token, it's all

Hiram Cuevas 00:15:12
right now I've got to visualize what it's like to relax and

Hiram Cuevas 00:15:16
Bill. I don't know if Brooke does this to you, but when I

Hiram Cuevas 00:15:19
have nothing to do. My wife looks at me. She goes, You don't

Hiram Cuevas 00:15:23
know how to relax anymore. And I'm like, I'm trying. I'm trying

Hiram Cuevas 00:15:27
really, really hard, especially the first few days of a

Hiram Cuevas 00:15:30
vacation. You're kind of like, I just don't know what to do. And

Hiram Cuevas 00:15:34
this happened in Arizona. We were sitting out by the pool.

Hiram Cuevas 00:15:37
She's like, it's okay to relax. It's okay to relax. I was like,

Hiram Cuevas 00:15:40
All right, I got this. It's all good.

Unknown 00:15:42
I don't

Bill Stites 00:15:42
have that problem. Surprise, surprise. Now it's

Bill Stites 00:15:46
like, there are times where, you know, it's just like, on the

Bill Stites 00:15:49
weekends in particular, Brooke will be grading papers. She'll

Bill Stites 00:15:51
be doing different things. I will have gone to the gym, run a

Bill Stites 00:15:54
couple hands, and then I'm taking a nap. Both my parents

Bill Stites 00:15:56
were teachers. My father would come home at the end of the day,

Bill Stites 00:15:58
almost every day, and go upstairs and take a nap at the

Bill Stites 00:16:01
end of the day. And I would always look at them. I'm like,

Bill Stites 00:16:04
What are you doing? Like, I mean, seriously, like, how tough

Bill Stites 00:16:06
can it be? Like, what are you doing? And I remember teaching

Bill Stites 00:16:10
the first year or two I had my teaching job, I would come home

Bill Stites 00:16:12
and I would pass out. I would take that nap. I remember

Bill Stites 00:16:16
talking to my father, and I'm like, I get it. So it's

Bill Stites 00:16:19
definitely one of those things, where, as Christina said, You

Bill Stites 00:16:22
got to find the time in the moments. Yeah,

Peter Frank 00:16:24
I'm with you there, Bill, I think, like Christina

Peter Frank 00:16:26
said, it's so personal. It is something that you need to

Peter Frank 00:16:29
figure out for yourself, but it helps to talk to others and hear

Peter Frank 00:16:32
how they do it. And maybe you find an idea that works for you,

Peter Frank 00:16:35
but it is such a personal thing put on with Bill, if I need a

Peter Frank 00:16:38
nap, I can take a nap. I app. We thank you Chandra for that

Peter Frank 00:16:44
question. That's a good question. We got heavy there.

Peter Frank 00:16:47
That's really good. Lot of substance. We'll ruin that for a

Peter Frank 00:16:50
second here, and we'll go off to another one of the sillier

Peter Frank 00:16:53
questions here in our Ask Me Anything episode. So this is for

Peter Frank 00:16:57
Bill, but others could chime in if you were living in the world

Peter Frank 00:17:01
of The Last of Us television adaptation for how many episodes

Peter Frank 00:17:06
would you actually survive? Well,

Bill Stites 00:17:09
I'm only going to be worth my medal if I say I

Bill Stites 00:17:11
think I can make it to the end. I think I could get to the fort

Bill Stites 00:17:14
at the end. I've got to believe that the research that I've done

Bill Stites 00:17:18
up into this point has led me to that. However, I think it's

Bill Stites 00:17:22
eight episodes. There's one in the sixth where I think I might

Bill Stites 00:17:26
not make it, which is where zombies are literally coming up

Bill Stites 00:17:30
from the underground and going out. And it's a total free for

Bill Stites 00:17:35
all. So if I was going to bite it in any one place, it would be

Bill Stites 00:17:39
there, probably due to somebody else causing my untimely demise.

Bill Stites 00:17:46
And I'd probably blame Hiram running past me, because he'd be

Bill Stites 00:17:49
running faster, and he would just simply push me into the

Bill Stites 00:17:53
pile and keep running straight ahead. I'd never do that. I'm

Bill Stites 00:17:58
slow man. You'd be pushing me out of my way, you old man, and

Bill Stites 00:18:02
you'd re push me, and I'd be in the pile, then I'd be gone.

Peter Frank 00:18:05
You'd be cursing hiram's name. I would be

Peter Frank 00:18:08
goodness. So the last of us, just to help our listeners out,

Peter Frank 00:18:11
that's a TV show based on a video game, right? Yep, and

Bill Stites 00:18:14
it's funny, because just to prove how committed we

Bill Stites 00:18:17
are in the state's household, my young son Craig, has a tattoo of

Bill Stites 00:18:23
part of The Last of Us on his shoulder. It's his only tattoo.

Bill Stites 00:18:28
It is his favorite show, and he's got a firefly tattooed on

Bill Stites 00:18:32
his shoulder because he was so enamored with all that.

Unknown 00:18:36
Well done, Craig, I haven't seen that yet. Yeah, it

Bill Stites 00:18:40
was hard to say no, because Dad's got two. Sean has

Bill Stites 00:18:43
one, and now Craig has one. So yeah. So Brooke is the clean

Bill Stites 00:18:48
canvas she is. She talks about it, but just can't bring herself

Bill Stites 00:18:52
to do it. She hates needles.

Peter Frank 00:18:54
A TV show you would like to live in, Hiram and

Peter Frank 00:18:56
Christina. Is there a TV show that you I would love to live in

Peter Frank 00:18:59
that show? Whether you survive or not, well you probably will.

Peter Frank 00:19:03
Suits Excellent.

Christina Lewellen 00:19:05
That was another path in my life. So I

Christina Lewellen 00:19:07
feel like I love suits, I love the puzzle, and I feel like the

Christina Lewellen 00:19:12
outfits and the heels are fabulous, and I feel like I

Christina Lewellen 00:19:14
could be a pretty killer lawyer.

Unknown 00:19:16
There you go. Hiram. Er, wow. Er, why? Er, I always

Unknown 00:19:23
wanted

Unknown 00:19:23
to be a doctor.

Bill Stites 00:19:24
You're both wrong. It's Lifestyles of the Rich and

Bill Stites 00:19:28
fast.

Peter Frank 00:19:31
Wow, because that's going to

Bill Stites 00:19:33
put me at a certain level. Now, you got to be at a

Bill Stites 00:19:34
certain level to be on that show, and that just puts you at

Bill Stites 00:19:37
that level.

Unknown 00:19:38
All right, let me take the clock back a little

Unknown 00:19:40
bit. Chips. Ooh, wow. Chips, yep. All right,

Bill Stites 00:19:47
the younger audience is not gonna know any

Bill Stites 00:19:49
of these things. No,

Peter Frank 00:19:51
there's so many links going in the show notes at

Peter Frank 00:19:53
this point.

Christina Lewellen 00:19:54
Do you think that young girls listen to this?

Christina Lewellen 00:19:56
I'm pretty sure everyone who listens knows what chips is.

Christina Lewellen 00:19:59
Guys. Sorry, you think?

Unknown 00:20:02
Yes, I don't know. How about Louis too low? You think

Unknown 00:20:05
Louis too low knows what chips is. I bet

Unknown 00:20:07
he does. Chips

Bill Stites 00:20:08
from the late 70s, early 80s. Chips, yes. Why would

Bill Stites 00:20:12
they know what this is?

Christina Lewellen 00:20:13
Because they were raised by a bunch of dudes.

Christina Lewellen 00:20:15
Louis too low, please drop a comment. I'm betting money right

Christina Lewellen 00:20:19
now. Do not let me down, sir, we're reaching out. We'll find

Christina Lewellen 00:20:22
out. Somebody text him right now.

Peter Frank 00:20:24
Louis probably knows.

Hiram Cuevas 00:20:26
I'll be Eric Estrada and Bill could be Larry

Hiram Cuevas 00:20:28
Wilcox.

Peter Frank 00:20:31
I'm gonna get AI on that right now, generating that

Peter Frank 00:20:33
video. Or Bill and

Unknown 00:20:35
I could be the firefighters in emergency.

Unknown 00:20:40
Wow. Kristina could be Dixie. Oh,

Bill Stites 00:20:43
my god, stop next question, please. Next question.

Peter Frank 00:20:48
I'll be Magnum PI great. There you go. Back to

Peter Frank 00:20:53
technology. This is talking technology with

Christina Lewellen 00:20:56
Atlas, not today. It's not Oh, my Lord.

Christina Lewellen 00:20:59
We're gonna

Peter Frank 00:21:00
bring it back for our listeners that are about to

Peter Frank 00:21:02
get off the treadmill or whatever they're doing. I'll ask

Peter Frank 00:21:04
this specific question. Then I'll introduce some of these

Peter Frank 00:21:07
other notes that our listener, Lizzie has provided for us. So

Peter Frank 00:21:11
the question is about supporting developmentally appropriate AI

Peter Frank 00:21:16
literacy skills for those student groups who are too young

Peter Frank 00:21:20
to actually use the AI. So for example, Lizzie is mentioning,

Peter Frank 00:21:24
it seems like there's a void of conversation around the K

Peter Frank 00:21:27
through eight setting, where, obviously these students may be

Peter Frank 00:21:29
too young for most user agreements to use the technology

Peter Frank 00:21:34
at all. But shouldn't we still be developing AI literacy in

Peter Frank 00:21:37
these age groups, even if they can't use it yet. So thoughts

Peter Frank 00:21:41
about that this, ask me anything episode might turn into a ideas

Peter Frank 00:21:44
for future episodes, because that might be something we could

Peter Frank 00:21:48
talk about for an entire hour

Hiram Cuevas 00:21:50
there. Well, there are plenty of applications in

Hiram Cuevas 00:21:53
which it's that walled garden for the younger groups. So there

Hiram Cuevas 00:21:58
is availability. And one that comes to mind is Flint AI. You

Hiram Cuevas 00:22:02
can actually create these safe havens, essentially for your

Hiram Cuevas 00:22:06
students, and the output can be based on grade level as well. So

Hiram Cuevas 00:22:11
you actually are catering the prompt to what you want your

Hiram Cuevas 00:22:15
outcome to be for a specific group of students, which also

Hiram Cuevas 00:22:19
then lends itself to differentiation as well. You can

Hiram Cuevas 00:22:22
actually see what kind of work your students are doing in terms

Hiram Cuevas 00:22:26
of developing their own tutorials. There are some tools

Hiram Cuevas 00:22:29
out there that enable you the capacity to use them in a safe

Hiram Cuevas 00:22:34
way and appropriate way. I

Bill Stites 00:22:36
would go to first wanting to define what we're

Bill Stites 00:22:39
talking about when we're talking about AI usage, because it's

Bill Stites 00:22:43
been around in various forms for quite a while. Are we talking

Bill Stites 00:22:47
about it in the 2024, 2025, school year iteration of the

Bill Stites 00:22:52
conversations around AI? Are we talking about it in the AI

Bill Stites 00:22:56
pieces that are built into some of the tools that we're using?

Bill Stites 00:22:59
So wanting to understand where that is. But to Hiram, was point

Bill Stites 00:23:03
about finding those walled gardens, finding those areas

Bill Stites 00:23:06
that I think are safe for use at those younger years. The other

Bill Stites 00:23:11
thing that you mentioned Hiram, that I would want to build on is

Bill Stites 00:23:16
you talked about what the prompt is, and a lot of the ways in

Bill Stites 00:23:20
which I talk about how you want to think about technology

Bill Stites 00:23:23
integration, for me, centers around the research cycle,

Bill Stites 00:23:27
because that can go across multiple areas, English, foreign

Bill Stites 00:23:30
language. It can go anywhere, you know, when you're talking

Bill Stites 00:23:33
about research, and when it comes to research, the prompt or

Bill Stites 00:23:36
the question, what is it that I'm asking? I think if you can

Bill Stites 00:23:41
think about developing those skills, I think that is part of

Bill Stites 00:23:47
what can lead into the later uses of AI. I forget who said

Bill Stites 00:23:53
it. It may have been on the podcast we were talking about

Bill Stites 00:23:56
it, or something I had heard elsewhere in this age, where you

Bill Stites 00:24:00
can get your answers out of AI, it's about how meaningful Your

Bill Stites 00:24:06
questions are, that you can pose that in a lot of ways

Bill Stites 00:24:11
demonstrate your understanding and your knowledge of a

Bill Stites 00:24:17
particular area, if you could Ask that deeper level of

Bill Stites 00:24:21
question. And I think if we can work with our youngest students,

Bill Stites 00:24:25
and our students of all ages but our youngest students, to

Bill Stites 00:24:28
develop that mindset, that research mindset, in that area,

Bill Stites 00:24:32
where and when appropriate, I think that's where I would

Bill Stites 00:24:35
focus. Because again, put my third grade school teacher at on

Bill Stites 00:24:38
we would be working in the analog before we move to the

Bill Stites 00:24:41
digital that, I think is the same corollary I'd make between,

Bill Stites 00:24:45
you know, jumping into a full AI based prompt engineering type

Bill Stites 00:24:49
thing. You need to know how to ask a good question first. And

Bill Stites 00:24:51
let's start there.

Hiram Cuevas 00:24:52
What's interesting there is our librarians

Hiram Cuevas 00:24:56
typically do a fantastic job peer here. Um. Helping students

Hiram Cuevas 00:25:02
develop those questions, because we're not asking our kids to go

Hiram Cuevas 00:25:05
to Google to do searches when it comes to research, we're asking

Hiram Cuevas 00:25:09
to use vetted tools, vetted database systems that are

Hiram Cuevas 00:25:12
present within our libraries. And they have been doing this

Hiram Cuevas 00:25:16
for years, and it's built a wonderful foundation, and it's

Hiram Cuevas 00:25:19
actually a natural extension to using AI in the classroom. It's

Hiram Cuevas 00:25:24
something that I have held our librarians in high esteem for

Hiram Cuevas 00:25:28
the work that they have been doing over the years, because

Hiram Cuevas 00:25:31
our kids talk about the validity of the information that they're

Hiram Cuevas 00:25:35
getting, the veracity of the information that they're

Hiram Cuevas 00:25:37
acquiring online, and that's because of the work that all of

Hiram Cuevas 00:25:41
our librarians have been doing over the years to improve their

Hiram Cuevas 00:25:44
research skills. So I think 100% you're nailing it right on the

Hiram Cuevas 00:25:48
head with timing, with your research cycles. Yeah, Bill,

Christina Lewellen 00:25:51
I'm pretty sure that was Richard gullata

Christina Lewellen 00:25:53
That was pointing out on the podcast the importance of asking

Christina Lewellen 00:25:56
questions. So I think that's where that came from. And I'll

Christina Lewellen 00:25:58
just say that what I've been seeing Lizzie as I've been

Christina Lewellen 00:26:01
traveling around, is that the scaffolding we're talking about

Christina Lewellen 00:26:04
is important that where we can't necessarily hook a third grader

Christina Lewellen 00:26:07
up with Chat GPT, that's not appropriate, but what we can

Christina Lewellen 00:26:11
hook a third grader up with is understanding how to be a

Christina Lewellen 00:26:13
discerning consumer of the information that they get from

Christina Lewellen 00:26:17
these various sources. You have to be a questioner, and you have

Christina Lewellen 00:26:19
to make sure that you know how these platforms are working. And

Christina Lewellen 00:26:24
so there is an opportunity for us down the path of digital

Christina Lewellen 00:26:27
citizenship that we can maybe ramp that up a little bit to

Christina Lewellen 00:26:31
prepare kids, once they are eligible, to use more public

Christina Lewellen 00:26:36
facing AI bots and things like that, generative AI.

Unknown 00:26:39
I'll also

Peter Frank 00:26:40
mention, Lizzie included a link to an article

Peter Frank 00:26:43
that she liked from Ed week.org about four developmental stages

Peter Frank 00:26:48
for teaching AI, age appropriate use of AI. So we will include

Peter Frank 00:26:51
that in the show notes. All right, we have a question that

Peter Frank 00:26:55
is both relevant and fun, and it's for Christina. There's been

Peter Frank 00:27:00
plenty for the guys. We'll give Christina a question here. So as

Peter Frank 00:27:05
someone who joined an organization full of tech folks

Peter Frank 00:27:08
and educators who like their acronyms and jargon, it says

Peter Frank 00:27:14
like but it's love, isn't it? They love their acronyms and

Peter Frank 00:27:17
jargon. Of all these acronyms and jargon, Kristina, which do

Peter Frank 00:27:21
you find the most nonsensical or notable, or which acronyms and

Peter Frank 00:27:26
jargon to really stand out to you? Gosh, that's

Christina Lewellen 00:27:29
a really good question. I can't even name

Christina Lewellen 00:27:32
them, but I think it's educator stuff that still baffles me,

Peter Frank 00:27:35
like the framework, like T pack. Yes, T pack, that's

Peter Frank 00:27:39
fun. It's fun to say T pack.

Christina Lewellen 00:27:41
There's certain like pedagogical

Christina Lewellen 00:27:43
approaches to how to deliver something that still baffles me,

Christina Lewellen 00:27:47
because I definitely have not done a deep dive in that space,

Christina Lewellen 00:27:50
but for the most part, the tech stuff I kind of can keep up

Christina Lewellen 00:27:53
with. I thought I was going to be lost in the API conversation

Christina Lewellen 00:27:57
or the one roster conversation, but I can generally find a way

Christina Lewellen 00:28:00
to connect that to, like, normal, you know, I love a good

Christina Lewellen 00:28:04
metaphor. I love a good analogy. So generally speaking, I can

Christina Lewellen 00:28:07
keep up, but I think that the teaching stuff still kind of

Christina Lewellen 00:28:10
baffles me a little bit. Samer, yeah. Samer, I mean, what is

Christina Lewellen 00:28:16
SAMR like now that I've said that word out loud, I'm sure

Christina Lewellen 00:28:18
that my phone is going to deliver me some Sam or

Christina Lewellen 00:28:21
materials, but, like, I still don't even know what that

Bill Stites 00:28:26
is, a good RACI chart. You know Christine is

Bill Stites 00:28:28
like, I'm just shaking my head. I have no idea what these people

Bill Stites 00:28:31
are talking about.

Peter Frank 00:28:32
What are acronyms that we've lost over the years?

Peter Frank 00:28:35
Like, are there acronyms that, man, no one. We don't use that

Peter Frank 00:28:37
anymore because the technology's gotten none

Bill Stites 00:28:39
that I can use on the podcast I know right,

Christina Lewellen 00:28:46
probably something to do with like wires

Christina Lewellen 00:28:48
or switches or servers on prem type stuff. There's got to be

Christina Lewellen 00:28:52
something in there that we don't use quite as often, maybe, well,

Hiram Cuevas 00:28:55
they're terms that we don't use very often, like

Hiram Cuevas 00:28:58
floppy floppy disk.

Christina Lewellen 00:29:01
Don't say that ever again on this. No. But

Christina Lewellen 00:29:03
you know what

Bill Stites 00:29:04
the funny thing is, is some people, I remember

Bill Stites 00:29:07
seeing this or hitting this somewhere, is that in some of

Bill Stites 00:29:10
the Microsoft products that the two of you, Kristina and Peter,

Bill Stites 00:29:13
love so much, the save icon is still a disc, right? And like,

Bill Stites 00:29:17
people like, what is that? Why is what is that?

Christina Lewellen 00:29:21
They don't know what that is. Kids don't

Christina Lewellen 00:29:22
know what that is. They

Unknown 00:29:24
know what means save, but they don't know why.

Hiram Cuevas 00:29:26
Now, Kristina, do you know the origin of the

Hiram Cuevas 00:29:29
phrase my computer crashed? No. So the old computers had these

Hiram Cuevas 00:29:34
massive platters for hard drives, and when that armature

Hiram Cuevas 00:29:37
fell, it made this horrendous sound. Hence the crash. Oh

Christina Lewellen 00:29:42
my gosh. If that were to happen to me while

Christina Lewellen 00:29:45
I was working on a computer, I would probably be traumatized,

Christina Lewellen 00:29:48
like I would be just waiting for that noise. Do you still hear it

Christina Lewellen 00:29:51
in the back of your head? Hiram,

Hiram Cuevas 00:29:54
well, I've never had a platter that large that

Hiram Cuevas 00:29:57
even predates me my first computer. Was a Commodore 64

Hiram Cuevas 00:30:01
which had a five and a quarter inch drive.

Bill Stites 00:30:04
And people are asked, What does that mean in

Bill Stites 00:30:06
terms of like the Commodore, right? Well, no, the five and a

Bill Stites 00:30:09
half the size of the discs, that's how you talked about

Bill Stites 00:30:12
them, right?

Unknown 00:30:13
Yeah, and it truly was floppy. It bent, right? I've

Unknown 00:30:17
been around

Peter Frank 00:30:17
those platters. My father worked at General

Peter Frank 00:30:19
Electric, and he was in Computer Services, and I remember as a

Peter Frank 00:30:22
kid walking through kid walking through those rooms, and I could

Peter Frank 00:30:24
imagine one crashing. That's my favorite thing I've ever learned

Peter Frank 00:30:27
on this podcast. I think ever that's why we say computers

Peter Frank 00:30:30
crash. I had no idea, Bill, did you know that? I did not. Well

Peter Frank 00:30:34
done. Hiram. Point to Hiram.

Christina Lewellen 00:30:36
Hiram wins. He wins the show. Very well

Christina Lewellen 00:30:39
done, sir. You won the 5k and now you've won the show. It's

Christina Lewellen 00:30:42
all fine.

Hiram Cuevas 00:30:43
Now, Bill, have you ever notched the other side

Hiram Cuevas 00:30:45
of a floppy disk? Oh,

Bill Stites 00:30:47
yeah. Oh, 100% I was gonna say that when you were

Bill Stites 00:30:49
mentioning that, I can remember notching them out. Yeah?

Bill Stites 00:30:52
Remember putting tape on them so you could go back over it.

Unknown 00:30:55
I've done that too. So you went

Hiram Cuevas 00:30:57
from 360k to 720k and you're like, Oh, this is

Hiram Cuevas 00:31:01
awesome.

Unknown 00:31:04
Oh yeah, yep. All right,

Peter Frank 00:31:06
so we'll bring it back to Atlas here. This is for

Peter Frank 00:31:08
all three of you. What is your favorite Atlas, annual

Peter Frank 00:31:12
conference tradition, steak. We're celebrating our 10th

Peter Frank 00:31:17
anniversary this year of the annual conference. What's your

Peter Frank 00:31:21
favorite annual tradition that you can speak freely about on

Peter Frank 00:31:25
this public listening podcast, steak with Bill.

Christina Lewellen 00:31:31
Nice. Do you guys always go for steaks? Why

Christina Lewellen 00:31:33
was I never invited for steaks? Who's paying for these steaks?

Christina Lewellen 00:31:38
They are gluten free. Oh, I'm aware. I'm very aware. I get a

Christina Lewellen 00:31:44
little sentimental about the pillar awards because I really

Christina Lewellen 00:31:49
just think it's very special that our members are being

Christina Lewellen 00:31:52
recognized for a lifetime of work and contributions. I love

Christina Lewellen 00:31:57
that we're expanding that this year to include the Atlas Aspire

Christina Lewellen 00:32:00
award so that we can recognize even more people in our space

Christina Lewellen 00:32:04
who are doing great work. I also find it really fun to just

Christina Lewellen 00:32:08
wander around during the receptions. I think that when I

Christina Lewellen 00:32:12
attend other industry events, the networking receptions are

Christina Lewellen 00:32:16
always a little meh, and people leave no I mean, at Atlas, do

Christina Lewellen 00:32:20
you know that Kelsea last year had to put closing time on a

Christina Lewellen 00:32:24
speaker and walk through the vendor Hall to basically say,

Christina Lewellen 00:32:28
could you guys go get dinner somewhere? Could you all leave?

Christina Lewellen 00:32:31
No one leaves. And that also, it's kind of silly, and it's not

Christina Lewellen 00:32:35
really a tradition, but it really touches me that we create

Christina Lewellen 00:32:38
the kind of community that no one is rushing out the door.

Christina Lewellen 00:32:42
It's not like they show up and do a loop and then leave. That's

Christina Lewellen 00:32:46
pretty satisfying. I

Bill Stites 00:32:47
would agree 100% this even honestly, predates

Bill Stites 00:32:51
Atlas, and I'll just say Inman, because wherever Alex Inman ends

Bill Stites 00:32:57
up, you're definitely in for a good time, and probably a show.

Bill Stites 00:33:03
If you've never seen in men do the worm you haven't been to a

Bill Stites 00:33:07
Atlas event. But for me, one of the things that I always try to

Bill Stites 00:33:11
do is find time outside of the sessions to sit down. You know,

Bill Stites 00:33:16
I will be up and out late downstairs, in like the lobbies,

Bill Stites 00:33:20
where you can sit down and talk to people all hours of the

Bill Stites 00:33:23
evening, you know, and have those pieces. And Kristina, I

Bill Stites 00:33:26
think it speaks to what you said, is that when we're

Bill Stites 00:33:29
together, we're together, you don't see people going out. I

Bill Stites 00:33:33
mean, people are going out, don't get me wrong, but I mean,

Bill Stites 00:33:35
like going out on their own and separating from the group, if

Bill Stites 00:33:38
you're going out, you're going out in a pack, if it's a small

Bill Stites 00:33:42
pack, or if it's a large pack, you're always cramming people

Bill Stites 00:33:46
into a car that might be too small and going out for food, or

Bill Stites 00:33:50
getting together at the end of the night, or going out to one

Bill Stites 00:33:53
of the vendor receptions or the Atlas reception, and really

Bill Stites 00:33:56
having those times. If

Christina Lewellen 00:33:58
I could just say one quick thing about that,

Christina Lewellen 00:34:00
one of the things that I want to just make known, if you're

Christina Lewellen 00:34:02
fairly new to the Atlas community or this is not your

Christina Lewellen 00:34:05
experience, like, if you haven't really found your crowd, one of

Christina Lewellen 00:34:08
the things that my staff will often do if you let us know why

Christina Lewellen 00:34:12
you're there, like, Why did you come to Atlas? Why did you pay

Christina Lewellen 00:34:15
the money and take off a school and deal with the full inbox? If

Christina Lewellen 00:34:18
you come tell my team why you are there. We will connect you

Christina Lewellen 00:34:23
with people who can help you, and we will introduce you to

Christina Lewellen 00:34:26
people, especially Kelsea Watson man. She is crazy like this. If

Christina Lewellen 00:34:30
she knows what your vibe is, she will introduce you to 10 more

Christina Lewellen 00:34:34
people just like you. And so if you tend to be a little

Christina Lewellen 00:34:36
introverted, or if a bigger conference like this kind of

Christina Lewellen 00:34:39
gets a little intimidating, at least. Just come find one of my

Christina Lewellen 00:34:43
teammates, and we'll connect you with people. So if you don't

Christina Lewellen 00:34:47
have your get a steak crowd, we will help you find your go get a

Christina Lewellen 00:34:50
steak crowd.

Hiram Cuevas 00:34:52
Kristina, were you present when we used to have the

Hiram Cuevas 00:34:55
different dinners, and they were like 10 different restaurants

Hiram Cuevas 00:34:58
that a bunch of us

Christina Lewellen 00:34:59
would all go? Do, yeah, dine arounds.

Hiram Cuevas 00:35:02
That was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed that back

Hiram Cuevas 00:35:04
when we were doing that, met some really neat people that are

Hiram Cuevas 00:35:07
doing that. Hey,

Christina Lewellen 00:35:08
maybe we'll have to think about bringing

Christina Lewellen 00:35:10
back the diner rounds. That's a little easier to do in some of

Christina Lewellen 00:35:13
the smaller, walkable cities, and we have quite a few of those

Christina Lewellen 00:35:16
on tap. So if you guys want dine arounds back, we can definitely

Christina Lewellen 00:35:19
look into that. We can do that again.

Peter Frank 00:35:21
Nice. All kinds of stuff happened on this podcast

Peter Frank 00:35:24
episode here. This is great. We're getting stuff done. All

Peter Frank 00:35:28
right.

Bill Stites 00:35:30
You can't say that without laughing. You cannot say

Bill Stites 00:35:33
that without laughing.

Peter Frank 00:35:34
Fine. We're getting something done.

Hiram Cuevas 00:35:37
The zombie VR was great last year. Oh,

Peter Frank 00:35:42
my god, is that going to become a tradition,

Peter Frank 00:35:44
though?

Bill Stites 00:35:45
Well, there better be one in Atlanta. That's all I

Bill Stites 00:35:47
know. I don't know there's

Peter Frank 00:35:49
live band karaoke in Atlanta. I can tell you that

Peter Frank 00:35:52
I've done that. That could be a fun tradition for everybody.

Christina Lewellen 00:35:56
I'm not surprised that you know that

Christina Lewellen 00:35:58
Peter Frank is a karaoke guy.

Peter Frank 00:36:02
There's no way I'm singing. All right, we'll see.

Peter Frank 00:36:05
So this question comes from Tracey, as we are currently in a

Peter Frank 00:36:10
time where learning power, bi or Tableau is essential. Do you

Peter Frank 00:36:14
believe uploading data files into AI can produce accurate

Peter Frank 00:36:17
analytical results in moments for schools to make data driven

Peter Frank 00:36:21
decisions, compared to hours of building dashboards

Unknown 00:36:26
to Slippery slope. Yes,

Christina Lewellen 00:36:29
I'll say this quick in situations where

Christina Lewellen 00:36:31
my data is anonymized, I have tried to use generative AI to

Christina Lewellen 00:36:37
give me some analysis, and it's hit or miss. Honestly, I feel

Christina Lewellen 00:36:41
like it just depends on what you're doing, and I think it's

Christina Lewellen 00:36:44
better with words, with open ended qualitative stuff, but

Christina Lewellen 00:36:50
that's just me. I know it can do this stuff, and I've had some

Christina Lewellen 00:36:53
success, but sometimes when you put in hard quantitative data,

Christina Lewellen 00:36:58
it doesn't always necessarily jump you to the right

Christina Lewellen 00:37:01
conclusion. Sometimes it sort of hops around a little bit in a

Christina Lewellen 00:37:05
very annoying, AI kind of way. So maybe I'm wrong, but I'll

Christina Lewellen 00:37:09
just say that we're still in the adolescent phase of the power of

Christina Lewellen 00:37:12
these tools. I bet they'll get better, but I think that it's

Christina Lewellen 00:37:16
hit or miss. What do you guys think?

Bill Stites 00:37:18
I definitely think the anonymized piece of dumping

Bill Stites 00:37:21
data in is really important, or you need to know what the

Bill Stites 00:37:25
privacy standards are around the tool that you're using. Now I

Bill Stites 00:37:29
will say that Hudson Harper, when I was working on The CIRIS

Bill Stites 00:37:34
Guide with him, when we got together on that a couple years

Bill Stites 00:37:36
ago, I saw him doing some really interesting stuff, with prompts,

Bill Stites 00:37:42
with data, connecting on the back side of these things and

Bill Stites 00:37:46
developing out a lot of different measures, a lot of

Bill Stites 00:37:50
different tools for analyzing and visualizing the data, which

Bill Stites 00:37:53
I thought was interesting. Again, like with anything, you

Bill Stites 00:37:57
continually have to iterate on what you're asking it to get the

Bill Stites 00:38:01
most out of it. And I think when you talk about how you're using

Bill Stites 00:38:04
AI with students, one of those areas is using it as a thought

Bill Stites 00:38:08
partner or something to help you develop ideas around trends that

Bill Stites 00:38:14
you might have missed. That's where I might use it. I might

Bill Stites 00:38:18
still want to get in and really look at the data, the way in

Bill Stites 00:38:23
which I know the data, and do those final pieces with that but

Bill Stites 00:38:27
from that thought partnership role, I think it could be a

Bill Stites 00:38:31
helpful piece in the early stages of that work,

Unknown 00:38:35
I would say we

Hiram Cuevas 00:38:37
have yet To see some mainstream AI tools that

Hiram Cuevas 00:38:41
are doing dashboarding in the sense that I think we would like

Hiram Cuevas 00:38:44
to see dashboarding. I think they're probably coming, or they

Hiram Cuevas 00:38:47
may be developed already at the corporate level, and are being

Hiram Cuevas 00:38:50
used internal, because they have that walled garden. We do need

Hiram Cuevas 00:38:53
to be cognizant of that, being able to anonymize the

Hiram Cuevas 00:38:56
information that's in there. I'd love to pose this question to

Hiram Cuevas 00:38:59
Vinnie Rodney, because they've got their AI tool built for

Hiram Cuevas 00:39:03
Kincaid and to see if they're actually trying to develop that.

Hiram Cuevas 00:39:07
But I think if we're looking at a large language model, it's not

Hiram Cuevas 00:39:10
really designed for visualization, but it could

Hiram Cuevas 00:39:12
develop the code, perhaps for like a tableau, or for Looker

Hiram Cuevas 00:39:16
Studio. You can create the coding in there as well. My son

Hiram Cuevas 00:39:21
just sent me a couple days ago, and I'd be curious what you all

Hiram Cuevas 00:39:24
think the next few days. Napkin.ai, and essentially, it

Hiram Cuevas 00:39:29
takes your text and it converts it into all these types of

Hiram Cuevas 00:39:33
graphics that are visualizations.

Christina Lewellen 00:39:36
I use it all the time. I love it. You do use

Christina Lewellen 00:39:39
it,

Hiram Cuevas 00:39:39
okay? It's fabulous. I was stunned by what

Hiram Cuevas 00:39:44
it could do.

Christina Lewellen 00:39:45
The graphics are somewhat limited right now,

Christina Lewellen 00:39:47
like the output, it has a vibe almost like, you know, when

Christina Lewellen 00:39:51
you're using, like PowerPoint or something, and you insert, you

Christina Lewellen 00:39:54
know, there's only so many of them, and you know, they came

Christina Lewellen 00:39:57
from PowerPoint, like they all kind of look alike. So.

Christina Lewellen 00:40:00
Napkin.ai. Is similar right now. It only has a dozen or so

Christina Lewellen 00:40:05
graphic kind of approaches, but yeah, you highlight your text

Christina Lewellen 00:40:08
and you say, insert a graphic, and it creates a graphic based

Christina Lewellen 00:40:11
on what that text is. It is cool. It's one of my favorite

Christina Lewellen 00:40:15
tools to play with right now.

Hiram Cuevas 00:40:16
To get back to Tracey's question, does she

Hiram Cuevas 00:40:19
think we need to spend more time learning Tableau, and I do think

Hiram Cuevas 00:40:23
learning Tableau, or Looker studio, it's important to have

Hiram Cuevas 00:40:27
that foundation in order for you to develop a prompt that's

Hiram Cuevas 00:40:30
appropriate for the AI, to generate the type of dashboard

Hiram Cuevas 00:40:33
that you're looking for. It's what we were talking about

Hiram Cuevas 00:40:35
earlier in terms of prompt engineering and developing the

Hiram Cuevas 00:40:38
right questions. If you don't know the right questions, or if

Hiram Cuevas 00:40:41
you don't have a foundation in some of the statistics, I think

Hiram Cuevas 00:40:44
it's going to be really difficult to develop some of the

Hiram Cuevas 00:40:46
dashboarding that starts to get more complex with multiple

Hiram Cuevas 00:40:50
tables and multiple data sets. All

Peter Frank 00:40:53
right? We got to start bringing this home. We got

Peter Frank 00:40:55
a lot of questions here. We got to start going rapid fire here,

Peter Frank 00:40:58
a little bit, because there's some really good questions that

Peter Frank 00:41:01
we want to get to, and I know that all of our listeners are

Peter Frank 00:41:03
dying to know the answers to some of these questions. So

Peter Frank 00:41:06
first of all, Kristina, we'll let you pick between two.

Peter Frank 00:41:09
Someone here believes you sing in quartets or something. I

Peter Frank 00:41:13
don't know anything about that, but someone asks a liar. You can

Peter Frank 00:41:17
answer this question or both, but the first question is, who

Peter Frank 00:41:21
makes up your dream quartet? If you were to sing in a quartet

Peter Frank 00:41:24
with anybody who would fill out that quartet, and or if you were

Peter Frank 00:41:28
stranded on a desert island with one character from a musical,

Peter Frank 00:41:32
who would it be? Man,

Christina Lewellen 00:41:34
those are both really good. I do sing in a

Christina Lewellen 00:41:38
barber shop quartet with my 19 year old daughter i They are my

Christina Lewellen 00:41:42
dream quartet. I'm having so much fun with them. We sing with

Christina Lewellen 00:41:45
another mother daughter duo. We are called Legacy quartet, and

Christina Lewellen 00:41:50
we have some YouTube videos starting to leak out there, and

Christina Lewellen 00:41:54
we have a really great time. So I think that in a lot of ways,

Christina Lewellen 00:41:56
singing with my kid is really kind of a dream come true. She's

Christina Lewellen 00:41:59
a third generation barber shopper, because my dad did this

Christina Lewellen 00:42:01
too. As far as being stuck on a musical Island, I sort of feel

Christina Lewellen 00:42:05
like maybe one of the queens from six kind of thing. That's a

Christina Lewellen 00:42:09
great musical. And those women are they rock and roll. So I

Christina Lewellen 00:42:12
feel like that could be cool. I also think that it would be neat

Christina Lewellen 00:42:15
to be on an island with Lafayette from Hamilton, because

Christina Lewellen 00:42:18
that's a cool character. Too.

Unknown 00:42:20
Nice. All

Peter Frank 00:42:22
right, rapid fire. If you could office space, any

Peter Frank 00:42:26
piece of technology. So if you don't know the movie, office

Peter Frank 00:42:29
space, there is a very notable scene in the film where everyone

Peter Frank 00:42:33
is so upset with their copier that they take it out back and

Peter Frank 00:42:37
in slow motion, just beat it until it's unusable with a

Peter Frank 00:42:41
baseball bat. So if you could office space any piece of

Peter Frank 00:42:45
technology, what would it be? Bill

Bill Stites 00:42:49
switch? No one knows what it is, but it was the

Bill Stites 00:42:53
bane of my existence. For years. There was a saying out there,

Bill Stites 00:42:59
you can't go wrong if you buy you can go wrong if you buy it.

Unknown 00:43:04
It was horrible

Christina Lewellen 00:43:07
bill. We're gonna get sued.

Unknown 00:43:09
Wow, we'll bleep it out.

Bill Stites 00:43:11
No, horrible, I don't care come after me because

Bill Stites 00:43:15
they couldn't make it work.

Unknown 00:43:17
So they agree, yes,

Christina Lewellen 00:43:19
we're gonna have to bleep that out, man.

Bill Stites 00:43:22
Unbelievable, unbelievable. Didn't even have

Bill Stites 00:43:25
to think twice about that.

Unknown 00:43:26
Hire him anything. I've been pretty satisfied with

Unknown 00:43:29
most of my equipment.

Bill Stites 00:43:33
Then you're not a real tech hot stop. You're fine

Bill Stites 00:43:37
turn in your tech card because you've lost. I'm

Unknown 00:43:41
pretty pleased. I know how to make things work. Oh,

Unknown 00:43:44
stop,

Unknown 00:43:45
stop, stop. I

Peter Frank 00:43:47
was gonna say, right, but you've never been

Peter Frank 00:43:49
challenged by a piece of equipment. Hiram is what you're

Peter Frank 00:43:52
saying. I see okay, that's

Bill Stites 00:43:54
really funny. Oh, my God. Seriously. I mean,

Hiram Cuevas 00:43:58
you know who can't handle the blue screen of death.

Hiram Cuevas 00:44:01
Come on.

Christina Lewellen 00:44:02
I think that mine might be a PC, computer,

Christina Lewellen 00:44:06
Mac all the way baby like the minute I got rid of all that

Christina Lewellen 00:44:08
virus nonsense, I was so happy.

Bill Stites 00:44:12
Hiram drives around in a truck that has no heat. So

Bill Stites 00:44:15
it's not that he has no problems with it. He just refuses to fix

Bill Stites 00:44:19
the problems when he has them. So please don't everyone think

Bill Stites 00:44:23
that Hiram is like, you know, at this different level of like,

Bill Stites 00:44:26
tech stardom. No, no, no. He just ignores the problem. He

Bill Stites 00:44:29
bundles up, he wears, like, three pairs of wool socks when

Bill Stites 00:44:33
he gets in this truck. I drove in the truck once I came out

Bill Stites 00:44:36
chattering Bill,

Unknown 00:44:37
who fixed your Honda stop? I

Peter Frank 00:44:44
All right, we'll bring down the last question

Peter Frank 00:44:46
here for everybody. We'll give you a moment to think, but then

Peter Frank 00:44:49
you gotta rattle it off, excluding humans and your pets,

Peter Frank 00:44:54
what is your favorite mammal and why dolphin? But why do. They

Hiram Cuevas 00:45:00
are extremely intelligent, and when we swam

Hiram Cuevas 00:45:04
with the dolphins in Florida, it's just the most surreal

Hiram Cuevas 00:45:08
experience one can have with an organism that large in a body of

Hiram Cuevas 00:45:13
water. I'm

Bill Stites 00:45:14
not just saying that. To say it, I would agree

Bill Stites 00:45:16
with Hiram and mine was not from swimming with them. There was

Bill Stites 00:45:20
one time down the Jersey Shore, mid September weekend, beautiful

Bill Stites 00:45:24
weekend, I was surfing. I got up on a wave, and I looked in the

Bill Stites 00:45:29
wave as I was riding the wave, and there was a dolphin in the

Bill Stites 00:45:33
wave going with me as I was surfing the wave. So it wasn't

Bill Stites 00:45:38
like I just saw them out, kind of going around. This dolphin

Bill Stites 00:45:41
was in the wave with me as I was surfing, and I was screaming my

Bill Stites 00:45:45
head off because it was the coolest thing I think I'd ever

Bill Stites 00:45:49
experienced on a surfboard. It was fabulous. Top 10 memory.

Bill Stites 00:45:54
That's excellent. I love that. I

Christina Lewellen 00:45:56
feel like after that very sweet and

Christina Lewellen 00:45:58
sentimental answer from the gents, I'm gonna just have to

Christina Lewellen 00:46:01
buck this trend and go with the honey badger. And if you're not

Christina Lewellen 00:46:05
familiar with the honey badger, go look up the YouTube video,

Christina Lewellen 00:46:11
because most days, especially when I'm recording this podcast,

Christina Lewellen 00:46:15
I feel like the honey badger, or at least the person who narrates

Christina Lewellen 00:46:20
the honey badger video, I sometimes feel should be like a

Christina Lewellen 00:46:24
narrator of my life. So whoever does that, if you're looking for

Christina Lewellen 00:46:28
side gigs, I need you to come narrate my life. For me, I'm

Christina Lewellen 00:46:31
going Honey Badger all the way

Peter Frank 00:46:33
nice. That's really good. No one asked me when this

Peter Frank 00:46:36
asked me anything, but I'll offer a sloth, because when a

Peter Frank 00:46:39
sloth wants to take a nap. It just takes a nap, and that's

Peter Frank 00:46:42
what I'm like too. So with or with you, Peter. So with that,

Peter Frank 00:46:48
Kristina, I think we've exhausted our questions here.

Christina Lewellen 00:46:51
Thank you, Peter for being the host today.

Christina Lewellen 00:46:53
I really appreciate it. Now you, I think, understand if you need

Christina Lewellen 00:46:56
a nap right now, my friend, it's how I feel most days when we are

Christina Lewellen 00:47:00
trying to wrangle these cats, but as always, gentlemen, I

Christina Lewellen 00:47:03
laughed hard. I had a great time, and this was a lot of fun,

Christina Lewellen 00:47:06
so we'll have to do it again sometime soon.

Unknown 00:47:09
Yeah, absolutely. See you in Atlanta. Take it easy,

Unknown 00:47:12
Bill.

Christina Lewellen 00:47:12
Just don't get upset about

Bill Stites 00:47:14
okay, I'll calm down now. My blood pressure has

Bill Stites 00:47:17
dropped.

Christina Lewellen 00:47:18
Okay. Thank God see you soon.

Peter Frank 00:47:21
See ya and hears my voice. This has been talking

Peter Frank 00:47:25
technology with Atlas, produced by the Association of Technology

Peter Frank 00:47:28
Leaders in Independent Schools. For more information about Atlas

Peter Frank 00:47:32
and Atlas membership, please visit the atlas.org if you

Peter Frank 00:47:36
enjoyed this discussion, please subscribe, leave a review and

Peter Frank 00:47:40
share this podcast with your colleagues in the independent

Peter Frank 00:47:42
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