Episode 186: Navigating the AI-Driven Classroom

Episode 186_ Navigating the AI-Driven Classrom

[00:00:00] Fonz: Welcome to another great episode of My EdTech Life. I am so excited to be here with you all today on this wonderful Tuesday, thank you for making my EdTech life part of your day, and as always my friends, thank you so much for all the likes, shares, and follows. Thank you so much for the retweets and of course, just being part of our community. As you know, our mission is to, uh, connect educators and creators one show at a time, and I am excited about today's show because today our guest is William Grubby, who I.

[00:00:34] Pretty recently met actually, as in, I think it was this last week that I ended up meeting him. He just, um, you know, tweeted me out, tagged me on a post, got to talking with him, and now all of a sudden he is on the show because today we are talking about navigating the AI driven classroom. And as you can tell, I accidentally missed both classroom here, but we'll get that taken care of anyway.

[00:01:01] But William, how are you this evening? I'm

[00:01:04] William: great. Doing good.

[00:01:05] Fonz: Thanks for asking. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for being here. Big hello to Raquel. Thank you for joining us. Nasim, also, thank you so much for joining us here. Uh, this evening, uh, through LinkedIn and for all of our friends that are joining us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, please make sure that you type in your questions.

[00:01:24] Today's conversation is gonna be a great one. I am excited and looking forward to talking about, uh, to talking to William about, of course, ai. I and in the classroom since, uh, you know, since December, you know, with chat g p t being released and all of that, you know, so many people out there in the education space are harnessing the power of ai.

[00:01:47] But there are also many of us that kind of just wanna reconcile, obviously the positive. But then there's also that other side that not many people talk about. But I'm hoping that William today also will be sharing his expertise as he's doing some great things. Things with many school districts in his area.

[00:02:08] But before we get into the amazing work that William's doing, William, if you can just, uh, give us a brief introduction and what your context is in the AI and education space.

[00:02:20] William: Yeah, so my name's William Grubby. Um, so back about in January. I started reaching out to schools, wanting to more raise awareness that, uh, you know, these AI tools exist and how they're affecting how students learn and how they're gonna have to affect how teachers teach.

[00:02:33] So I actually started presenting, um, to staff at schools all across the Midwestern area, um, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa. Um, just kind of explaining to them, you know, um, how AI is impacting education. And then, uh, eventually you. I figured out, you know, more how to help them and, uh, constructed a training or a program that kind of helps 'em walk 'em through, you know, how to create more AI resistant content and eventually, you know, ethically integrating AI into the classroom and kind of helping them through, um, kind of a stepping stone.

[00:03:05] I'm a computer science master student at North Dakota State University, so kind of gap, um, bridging the gap between education and, uh,

[00:03:15] Fonz: Man, William, I absolutely love that. And so what I wanna do, thank you so much for that introduction, just for all our audience members that are joining us and are getting to know who you are, because I guarantee you that after today, many more people are gonna get to know not only who you are, but the work that you're doing.

[00:03:32] And I'm really excited about that too as well, because we definitely. Um, some voices like yours, but also some expertise and experience like yours that you get to see things from different lenses, from different grade levels, uh, different areas. So I'm really excited to pick your brain about that too as well.

[00:03:52] But before we get into that too, as you know, anybody that is a gay. Guest on my ed tech life is somebody that I see as doing some great things in the education space, such as you just described. And as we all know to, for myself, it's like you're almost like a superhero, kind of like person. And we all know that every superhero has.

[00:04:14] As an origin story. So I know that you mentioned you're a computer science master's student. Yes. But I wanna kind of go back a little bit as far back as you'd like to take us as far Yeah. Um, as your education journey, was computer science something that you knew you wanted to do from a very young age?

[00:04:31] And if so, how did that, uh, interest come? .

[00:04:37] William: Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up in a small town in the southwestern corner of Minnesota. I went to the same high school, graduated with about 50 kids. As a young kid, I always was interested in, uh, the computer science field. And, but then as I kind of growed up, I was a senior in high school and I actually first decided to go to college for nursing, which is not, um, in the computer science realm at all.

[00:04:57] But, uh, all it took was one semester of biology. And I, um, came to North Dakota State University for computer science. , it's always been what I was, um, really good at and really enjoy. And then eventually they have this master's program. It's an accelerated master's program called the four plus one program where, um, you can start taking master classes in your junior and senior year and to just, uh, get your Master's faster.

[00:05:23] So that's the program I'm in right now. And actually last summer I had an internship at the service co-op that helped service schools all across Minnesota and I worked in their cybersecurity department. So I really got to see, you know, where schools are at with at, with technology, um, where they need help and just like really understand, um, how teachers needed to be helped.

[00:05:45] Um, To really actually help them implement the ideas that we'll talk about today. Um, and just understand that teachers put on so many different hats during the day and, uh, have so many different things that they're doing, not only in school, but in their life. So it's really hard for them to actually, you know, learn all these new technologies that are coming out that these kids are, um, using every day.

[00:06:07] Fonz: Absolutely. You know, so that's very interesting. You know, going into nursing nursing, but then switching over to computer science. So I wanna ask, so computer science, was that something that you are, were already really good at? You know, even though you, the intention was nursing, but, but was computers, maybe gaming programming at a young age?

[00:06:26] Was that something that you were already.

[00:06:29] William: Yeah. So, um, in high school, um, I was always more of a math kid. Um, I really enjoyed math and then started to kind of get into the computer science side of things, playing around with some code in high school. I'm never really diving really deep into it like I did, um, post high school.

[00:06:45] But, uh, I kind of, and senior year for some reason I decided nursing was the path, but I quickly learned, you know, go back to the roots of math and computer. Excellent.

[00:06:56] Fonz: Well, we already have some questions that are coming in, uh, in the chat, so maybe this is, even though this will kind of take us out a little bit of the order, but again, just to get the conversation started, because again, this is all about AI and AI in the classroom, and of course navigating the classroom now with so many AI tools.

[00:07:15] So the question. we have here from the same it says. It says, I'm interested to know about prompt engineering for optimize U for or to optimize using AI tools, especially chat, G P T. And of course the, the term prompt engineering also is just very, very new that even in December people were already talking about prop engineers.

[00:07:36] So talk. seeing jobs created that didn't exist yet. Sir. William, do you have any, uh, kind of just, uh, anything to add as far as prompt engineering and maybe the experience that you've had in either reading about it, seeing this, you know, new job come about and maybe some of the talks that maybe you have within your circles.

[00:07:57] What are, what are your thoughts on prompt.

[00:08:00] William: Yeah, absolutely. So this is actually, um, a big conversation starter that one of the schools I'm working with, with this, uh, teacher, you know, asked me like, we should we be teaching students, um, how to create good prompts. And it's a very valid statement, um, just because, you know, the way you ask.

[00:08:16] An ai, the question is a big deal on what kind of response it gives back to you. But, um, the biggest thing is, you know, people are gonna learn by doing, um, they're gonna learn by, you know, having experience with chat, G B T, asking it all sorts of questions. And uh, you know, the better the answer is they get back, um, the more likely they are to an ask a question again like that.

[00:08:36] So it's really all about experience, you know, getting your hands on with. New AI and learning how to create good prompts and how to get good responses from these.

[00:08:46] Fonz: Um, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I know we had a little slight, little technical difficulty there, but No. You're absolutely right. One of the things that I have learned is the better you are with your input, the better you with your output will be.

[00:09:01] And so again, that's something that is a great resource and a great tool. And not only that, but a teaching experience for our teachers within our classrooms. As we know, you know, this is something. Than that. Um, I is definitely gonna be, I consider the future of work and as you know, even a lot of companies having these, uh, job postings now and so many people that are out there creating, you know, so many different prompts and they've got scripts, they've got, you know, notion, they've got notion pages, they, they've got all of these pages where you can go and get some resources to get you some amazing outputs.

[00:09:40] And so I completely agree, you know, as far as. Experience. Now going into, um, the school districts, like you mentioned, you're working with several school districts and several schools. I wanna ask you a little bit about, about what the first impression that you get from teachers is when you go in and talk to them about, you know, AI and Of course, yeah, the AI in the, in, in the classroom.

[00:10:07] What are their, yeah, what are their thoughts? What are their reaction? Yeah,

[00:10:11] William: absolutely. So first I really explained to them what artificial intelligence is, and then I really dive deep into chat G B T and what it can do. And you know, the initial response is, you know, some fear like, oh my, like this is crazy that the students have access to all this kind of stuff.

[00:10:27] But then I go into showing them how they can use it to their advantage and improve their curriculum and things like that. And then, you know, it's like, wow, I didn't realize, you know, I can use this. Benefit and use this as a tool to help me as a teacher. So it kind of starts off as fear and then, uh, the response comes more into like, wow, this is actually really cool and can be used as a tool to help me in my life.

[00:10:49] Fonz: Yeah, no, and you know what I see that at, on the teacher side, on the, the, that aspect. I can definitely see how a tool like this, if I was in the classroom and when I was in the classroom, if I would've had this tool, this could have definitely saved. so much time in not necessarily creating the lesson, but either enhancing the lesson or also being able to maybe create, um, just some additional lessons for maybe students that may need additional supports, you know, as you know, sometimes.

[00:11:21] Yeah. That is so time consuming. and for teachers, we know that time is precious and valuable. So a tool like, uh, chat, G p T and now with the new iteration of chat g p t for just the amazing things that it can do for, uh, a lesson is definitely great. The, the time for Prep for Teachers is something that is wonderful.

[00:11:44] Full. Uh, my question to you is, and again, this is for me coming on from the other side, like I said, I, I'm always kind of in the middle. I'm one of those educators that's in the middle that I definitely see the positive side of it, but then I also kind of see Yeah. Uh, you know, speak, uh, a little bit on the other side that a lot of people may not talk too much about, which is that data privacy side, you know, what's going on with the data, you know, obviously the age restrictions.

[00:12:10] Um, so for, uh, for the work that. Doing is it, are you seeing mainly the teachers or the ones that are the consumers or the the users of chat, G p T, or are you actually seeing some teachers that are allow allowing students to use this within the classroom?

[00:12:28] William: Yes. So mainly what I'm doing is just directly with the teacher, how they can use it to, you know, tweak questions, um, to be more AI resistant and, uh, have more critical thinking in them.

[00:12:38] Um, how to tweak lesson plans to be more AI resistant. And so kids are actually learning more in school than they are on take home assignments cuz, you know, um, kids always, you know, learn from doing. and uh, when they go home and now have these AI tools like chat b t to do it for them, um, you know, the learning while doing aspect is kind of going out the window.

[00:12:58] So it's more going into, you know, making curriculum that's more AI resistant. So, uh, kids are still having that, uh, learning experience through critical

[00:13:07] Fonz: thinking, you know, and that's something that's very interesting. Interesting that you say, because I think that. A lot of teachers, the very beginning was like, great, like there goes her job, you know, what am I gonna do now?

[00:13:21] And you know, oftentimes with innovation and, and new things. There's always that onset fear at the very beginning, you know, the unknown, and then you just kind of learn how to navigate and thanks to somebody like yourself that is able to go out there and just kind of put teachers at ease. But then at the same time, showing them the magic that can happen and can occur is definitely something that is well, well needed, and I'm sure that it's well received because of that time aspect and just being able to change the lesson.

[00:13:54] like you said, still building those critical thinking skills because, I mean, one thing that I have seen is even with chat G p t, really it's it, it's a fancy Google search. In the sense that, you know, if a student and and I, and I think for a lot of teachers, they know their students, they know their writing styles.

[00:14:13] They know what kind of output you normally get. And so for a student, like you said, that may wanna go home and just say, Hey, I'm just gonna go ahead and put the prompt in chat, G p T, usually the answer is gonna be like, , the top three hits in Google kind of put together, you know, as that's what's gonna happen.

[00:14:33] And, and there isn't much of, you know, their voice in it. It, there isn't still a lot of thinking because you're just asking them to produce. But I love your spin on it, what you're doing in helping. Them create assignments that are more AI resistant, where the students will still have to use their critical thinking skills.

[00:14:57] You know, collaboration skills. They're gonna have to communicate, they're gonna have to curate, they're gonna have to cite, and most importantly, that citation portion of it is being able to find, you know, Sources that are reliable, not just depend on what the output is and just say, okay, I'm gonna turn in my paper.

[00:15:18] Because again, you know what, what is it that the teacher's actually measuring? Are they measuring just how to either just cite site sources, uh, or they're billing some kind of stamina? So I think that maybe this also is gonna push teachers to go in different directions and enhance the lessons, kind of like you're helping them do.

[00:15:36] So, uh, kind of maybe walk us through a little bit about, I know you've talked to us a little bit about what you already do, but maybe as far as how you begin the presentation, you know, how do you introduce the teachers to the chat, G P T, and of course, um, enhancing their assign.

[00:15:55] William: Yeah, absolutely. So the program is like a four day almost training program, day one being, you know, how is it affecting education, you know, introdu introducing them to it, um, showing them how it's being used by students, you know, touching on how they can use it for themselves, and then really going to, okay, what is it threatening?

[00:16:12] What's the underlying concept that it's threatening, which is, , um, you know, the, the thinking before the pen hits the paper. It's not necessarily the act of writing that means anything. It's all about the thinking before the pen hits the paper. Um, and then I ask them for ideas for themselves, um, what they think that could help them as far as integrating AI into the classroom or creating more AI resistant curriculum.

[00:16:35] And then, uh, that just gets the ball rolling. And then as far as going into day two, that's all about. Um, structuring questions that are more AI resistant and structuring assignments that are more AI resistant. And then, uh, day three goes more into structuring, you know, how in-class activities are more AI resistant and how to get kids to, you know, build that critical thinking skill.

[00:16:57] Skill that can withstand technology's advancements. Um, in school rather than what it used to be doing, um, on homework assignments. And then day four is, you know, how can they use it for, um, productivity, um, in their teacher's life and in their everyday life. Um, just making, you know, if they have less time focusing on.

[00:17:19] Making presentations, which I saw Candace today released some, I saw it on your Twitter funds, where they released the presentations where you can ask it to make certain presentation at loads like that, which is going to make the teacher's lives way more efficient. And then they can more focus on, you know, optimizing the lesson plan to set their kids up for future success in this more AI-driven.

[00:17:42] Fonz: You know, and that, that's something that's great. You know, like I said, uh, how fast this is moving. I mean, it is moving so fast that a lot of us can't even keep up and you know, more so as far as teachers within the classroom that still have to do their curriculum, but on top of this, this added layer of tech that's coming in and just like you mentioned, the.

[00:18:05] at least from Canva, where it's now you have your magic designer, and it's very similar to the Microsoft designer too, where you just type in. Yeah. Okay. What is it that I need? I need slides for this now. What I like about it is, number one, you're not starting from scratch. Now, for a teacher to already have something on those slides,

[00:18:25] This is something that is great, but at the same time, we need to make sure that, hey, let's go ahead and look through this, make sure that it aligns with our lessons and so on. But yes, again, now. It's you are not starting from scratch and now the editing part of it that aligns with your, with your state standards and all of that, definitely becomes so much easier.

[00:18:45] But not only that, like you mentioned, you can take a deeper dive now because you're not stressing out on where to start. You don't have to even worry about format. Adding your slides anymore, everything is already done for you, and now you just really sprinkle on that greatness into your slides. And then also even yes, for students as well, I, I believe that the creative or creativity component also as well, can be easily heightened, where oftentimes it was just, Very transactional.

[00:19:18] Like, here's your assignment. Okay, I turn it in, here's your grade. And that's it. But now it's like, all right guys, let's, let's take a look at this assignment. But this is what I would love for you to create. And again, I think that that's something that can definitely enhance the learning in the classrooms.

[00:19:37] Absolutely. All right, so my next question to you is also as well, let me see, I, we've got Mel. Hey, here we go. We've got Mel joining us and let me see. Thanks for inviting a student. It's cool. Okay, , so this is Mel. Mel is joining us from Colombia. So thank you so much, Mel, for joining us. I really appreciate you.

[00:19:58] He, uh, all your support as well. So, William, let's, uh, you know, again, going back to. Piece on reconciling. My next question to you is, you know, how does your program, you know, when you talk to teachers, address some of those ethical concerns as far as AI and data privacy? Um, you know, maybe tell us a little bit about that and your thought thoughts on it too,

[00:20:24] William: as.

[00:20:25] Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, with all these discussions with educators, um, that is one of the main questions that come up is those ethical concerns, you know, with the students. But, uh, it just, you know, we have a Perth plethora discussion on the topic, which, you know, makes 'em aware of, you know, what's going on.

[00:20:43] And I make sure that they're aware that AI systems need large amounts of data for them to even function efficiently. So making sure, you know, they understand, you know, this is fetching a lot of data. And then, , you know, just really making sure that they understand that it is happening and then, you know, having open communication with, with them and stakeholders, um, just to, you know, define common goals and priorities in AI and education.

[00:21:10] And then hopefully, eventually develop ethical guidelines and best practices, um, in the. .

[00:21:17] Fonz: Yeah. And you know, and that's something that's very important and I'm glad that you do, uh, share that with teachers because I know oftentimes, you know, at least from my. Experience. We, there's so many of us, we are so like little pockets of, uh, early adopters and innovators, and we wanna be the first to try things out and kind of use it.

[00:21:37] But sometimes we don't read the fine print and we don't read like, Hey, you know, as far as the age requirements, we, we may not read like, hey, it's, you can use it 13. , years of age, however, you still need that parental consent. So those are just some of the things that I like to kind of look at and just consider, uh, before using the tool.

[00:21:57] And sometimes, you know, oftentimes I feel that that kind of falls by the wayside just because we wanna be the first to use it and we wanna introduce this and we don't. take those things into account, but it's good to kind of have those conversations. And you know, I put out, uh, a little poll about three days ago, and it was viewed by many people, but not a lot of people answered the poll.

[00:22:21] But my question was, is those to all my friends or educators that I know? I said, uh, my question was, is for those of you that are using Chad g p t in the classroom, Do you, are you just using it with your students without parental consent? Yes or no? And 63% said yes, they're using it without parental consent.

[00:22:42] Yeah. And the other 14% said like, no, they're not using it. And uh, but I was surprised that not too many people answered it. I don't know if they were just scared or, or something, but, but, . Yeah, it, it's, it's, it's a good question. Like not a lot of people are having those conversations, you know, because everybody's either, you know, wanting to just be the first to do something and say, Hey, look at me, look at what I can do, and then we'll worry about the consequences later.

[00:23:09] So I like what you're doing as far as your approach to really, you know, again, , and you're definitely showing the the advantages of this technology that I am all for. But then you're also talking about. , but those, uh, you know, the data privacy, uh, you know, ethical, uh, considerations and so on, so that way teachers make those educated decisions.

[00:23:33] But again, at the same time, I think that like yourself, once you give them all that data and information, teachers can definitely use this and really maximize it, maximize the use. Classroom. So you know, are, do you find that once you get into maybe that, that little bit of, of talk with the teachers, some teachers kind of, you know, become a little reluctant?

[00:23:57] Or do you feel that they just exercise more caution, but are still feeling comfortable using the AI in the classrooms?

[00:24:05] William: Yeah, it's definitely, you know, the way the conversation goes, but usually it's. You know, it's more comfortable by the end of it, um, making sure that they know that. You know, although that these do require the ai, um, AI does require a lot of data that, uh, you know, most of it's aligned in a good way.

[00:24:27] But just making sure they understand that, uh, we do have to be aware that, uh, these ethical issues exist within AI and have the conversations even with students in the right format, even. .

[00:24:39] Fonz: Excellent. Yeah. And then of course talking with students, I think that's the most important thing that you mentioned there too.

[00:24:45] Also as well, you know, the good digital citizenship, you know, good practice. You know how to use these tools because again, we know that. They're here. We know that it's only gonna get better, obviously, the technology, and we know that there's gonna be a myriad of tools that are popping up as, I mean, they're popping up daily and everybody wants to use them.

[00:25:08] So it's definitely important that you know, T as educators. , we have that talk with our students, you know, proper digital citizenship. I think that will help out significantly. And then also, uh, like you mentioned, you know, even with something like chat, G p t, don't be putting in your personal information on there, you know, or things of that sort.

[00:25:28] You know, use it for what it is, a research tool. Something that's gonna facilitate, you know, maybe just a writer's block or just to give you an idea or generate something like that. That's generic. I mean, We, we do that with Google, but definitely chat. G P T does it way better and a lot faster. Yes. And more efficient, that's for sure.

[00:25:49] So, yeah. So William, so going back just a little bit, you know, because I, I know we jumped into this and the, the work that you're doing, but I don't think I really asked where the idea to do this Yeah. Came from, or what sparked it. So tell me a little bit about.

[00:26:08] William: Absolutely. So it kind of just was the combination of my past, you know, being a master student in computer science, interning at a service co-op, knowing, um, how teachers, you know, might not be super aware of this tool.

[00:26:20] And I wanted to raise awareness and, uh, also, um, . My dad is on the school board at my in, at my hometown. I'm in southwestern Minnesota, and I asked him like, you know, do teachers need more awareness on this? And he is like, yeah, if you can find a way to actually get in front of them, you know, so they're actually like, uh, know what's going on and tell 'em what's going on, coming from a student perspective, and be able to articulate the knowledge in a way that, you know, they can understand and understand that you know, this is here and it's here to stay.

[00:26:51] and it can be a huge tool for them. And it's going to be a huge tool for students, you know, as they grow up, as they enter the workforce. You know, you think of the 15 year old that is gonna be 25, entering the workforce, what he has as an AI tool, um, when he's 25, is gonna be exponentially better than what we have now.

[00:27:10] So just really understanding that it's here to stay and it's only gonna keep getting better and better. And understanding that it's a tool that is going to be continued to be used in everyday. So really just the whole idea came from raising awareness for teachers. And then the presentation idea came from my father.

[00:27:27] And then the training idea, I actually had a poll in the presentation that asked the teachers, how can we actually help you implement these ideas? And pretty much 90% of the answers was AI training are more time to spend with ai, someone to help me understand how to use it. Um, so that's where I kind of articulated the training from.

[00:27:47] And then, I took the ideas from the presentation, you know, the creating AI resistant questions, um, integrating AI into the classroom in an ethical way, or ma or using AI to help make AI resistant curriculum in their classroom. And, uh, turning that into a kind of a four day training to really help them walk 'em through how they can actually implement these ideas into their.

[00:28:11] Fonz: Nice. That's excellent. Well, that's great that you had that opportunity and obviously the vision to be able to do this at, at such an early stage and of course helping so many educators. So now my question to you is, because I know you are still a current, you're a current master student in computer science, so, um, I'm also curious because, you know, when I started my semester for my doctoral studies, uh, in January, Chad, g p t had come out, you know, December.

[00:28:42] So I was like, okay, so what are the profs gonna say? What are their thoughts? And really, at least in my program, well my prof was kind of really cool and just said, look, I know that this is out there. . But you know, if you submit something and I have a question on it, maybe I'll contact you and so on and we can talk about it.

[00:29:01] And if something needs to be rewritten, it totally can. We know that many colleges were like, we're gonna ban this. We're gonna like fail everybody who's using this or cheating and so on. I wanna ask, you know, from your lens of being a current master's student, At your university, what stance did your university, uh, take on the, on the matter, and has it tightened, tightened up more?

[00:29:27] Has it kinda loosened up? What has been your experience?

[00:29:31] William: Yeah, absolutely. So surprisingly, there hasn't been a ton of discussion as far as in class in college, which at G B T. Um, but, uh, when chat G B T three was released, the answers it gave were super shallow. So I think that's kind of why, because when you get into more of the higher level, higher level courses, you know, chat b t three wasn't very good at, um, answering lots of those prompts accurately.

[00:29:57] Um, it gave you very confident answers, but sometimes they weren't always accurate. But it's this chat, b T four is coming out and I've been using it, but when it really gets released to the public in full, I think that's gonna completely change. and I really hope that they, uh, are able to take the stance that, you know, turn term completely terminating the arms race that's between education and anti cheating technology and may more making it more impossible to cheat by the way the curriculum is given and really, um, having those critical thinking questions.

[00:30:28] But, uh, it'll be interesting to see what happens in the future. But as far as right now, um, my professors have talked about it cuz they use it themselves. But, um, there's been. curriculum TWI tweaks or messages from like the university itself about Chay Batis so far.

[00:30:46] Fonz: There you go. And you know, I've seen, and on LinkedIn, uh, I think it's Ethan Molik that he, professor, he's been putting out some great stuff and he even included it.

[00:30:55] in his syllabus stating like, yeah, I want you to use this. However, you're gonna cite where it is that you used it and why you used it, so, oh yeah. Wow. You know, he saw it as a tool and said, you know, I know that you're probably gonna use it, but I want you to tell me why and how, and just give me a little.

[00:31:16] Explanation. And so I thought that that was great because again, it's gonna kind of force the student to, all right, if I'm gonna use it, let me see what am I using it for? Yeah. Uh, you know, give some explanation. But still the learning is taking place. I've heard other viewpoints too, as well is, and in my mind to, I.

[00:31:37] and maybe this is just because I've never been a big a fan of writing, and writing is just like, ugh. But I, I even questioned one of my profs cuz he had posted something and I said, do you think that this is going to be the end of the dissertation? Because to myself is what exactly is the dissertation?

[00:31:55] You know? I know there's. research that goes behind it, it's gonna measure, um, you know, I guess how well you do research and how well you do an experiment and those things, and you put it down. But to me, I'm like, . Well, can't I just show you how much knowledge I can sh, you know, share with you via a capstone project where I can show you either create a portfolio or create a learning artifact at the end, like a project or something.

[00:32:21] There'll still be some writing, but it's not gonna be, you know, 200 pages of dissertation or I'm going, yeah. Through coding data and coding, you know, interviews and things of that sort. So I know that there has been that school of thought of what is it that the professor's actually measuring? Are they measuring stamina?

[00:32:41] Like writing 20 pages? Yeah. And citing sources, or are they actually measuring learning? Cuz you may not need 20 pages to show that learning took place so, Now there's a lot of questions there up in the air, you know, within the higher ed space. And I would assume that that would even trickle down into the K-12 space as far as writing, cuz usually as K as higher ed does, you know, kind of K-12 adjusts to prepare them.

[00:33:10] For that. So what are some thoughts on that? Yeah,

[00:33:13] William: absolutely. Going back a little bit to Chati, most my, most of my classes are math classes. And since it's like text based, that's the reason why, you know, nothing has really been, uh, said anything about that. But, uh, you just wanna repeat the last line of your last question

[00:33:29] Fonz: for me.

[00:33:30] Oh, well, my question was, is just like, what are kind of your thoughts on as far as, uh, the writing component maybe in, in higher ed? You know, as far as Yeah, you. You know, dissertations or 20 page papers. Yeah. You know, because I can easily show you maybe in five pages, you know, what learning took place rather than the 20.

[00:33:51] So is it grading, stamina and citation? Yeah. Or is it actually looking at the learning? Yeah,

[00:33:56] William: and I've never been a writing person myself either. . So, uh, in my opinion, like, you know, the whole act of, you know, writing a six page report on a project that I'm doing. , like in one of my, a real world example is in one of my master's classes right now, it's an artificial intelligence class, is I'm doing this project, um, but then I have to write a 12 page paper on it.

[00:34:18] Um, I think that's just stamina because, you know, doing the project itself and just showing that I actually did it is where the real learning took place. But, uh, so in my opinion, um, I agree with you in the, in the statement that, uh, that's probably gonna slowly go away. , especially with these, with all the AI tools going on right now.

[00:34:40] But, uh, I'm very much in agreeance with you on that.

[00:34:42] Fonz: Yeah. And you know, and again, that's just me, my personal opinion, just because again, I'm not a fan of writing and, and also because maybe it's just that fear that I'm gonna be going into dissertation soon and I'm like, oh, there's gonna be a lot of writing.

[00:34:55] Yeah. And I've actually asked, I was like, Hey, can, can I just do a capstone or something instead of having to write? But I know the writing will get done. I know the study will get done. Yeah. And I know everything is great, but it, it's just, again, like you mentioned with so many tools coming out, Yeah. You know, one has the question and say, Hey, is this something that is gonna continue or due to the, the tools that are available are different kind of learning artifacts going to be asked for, uh, asked from Stu, or excuse me, are going to be asked for, from students to show the learning because now, , I mean, you've got like runway ML that you can just create Now their, their new runway ml for, it's gonna be text to video.

[00:35:39] And so anything you type, you're gonna be able to create. Yeah. Like we just saw today, you know, Canva. Yeah. You know, the magic design. Now I just type in what my presentation's gonna be about. It's already gonna give me my slides. Yeah. Um, you know, things of that sort. So I, I'm sure. That, you know, within this next year, I think, well, we're gonna see a shift in, maybe even in that higher ed space because of the tools that are out there.

[00:36:03] And of course that trickles down to, uh, K-12. And, you know, one thing I did wanna add that I wanted to give a shout out to, uh, Lena Marie, uh, who was, uh, on the. the show. I think a lot of the fear too is that now the AI is front facing, um, as opposed to it used to be on the backend in the K-12 space where, you know, the AI students get on a platform, it'll kind of give 'em a learning path, kind of guide 'em through the path so they can become successful.

[00:36:36] but now that AI is front facing and that kind of caused some of this fear that thankfully, you know, somebody like yourself saw like, Hey, you know what? Let's let me help here. Let me help the space out. Let me help people feel comfortable with ai. So I'm definitely thankful for. You know, people like you, William, who are doing so many great things for our teachers and everybody that's out there also in the tutor space, you know, bringing, uh, you know, just some knowledge and some peace to teachers and being able to see how great this can be and how much better it will be in the future.

[00:37:13] So thank you so much. So William, as we get ready to wrap up and we wrap up with our last three questions, but before we do that, William, for all our. Members that are watching us live or that are gonna catch this show on the replay, can you tell us how, how it is that they might be able to get ahold of you in case they Yes.

[00:37:35] They would love to ask for some help in professional development. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:37:40] William: So if you are a school district that is looking for help, um, if you go on to groovy education.com that. , there's a scheduled meeting there. If you schedule a meeting, I'll walk you through, you know, our proc, my process of the training, and show you what we can offer and the program and how it will benefit your school and how we will a actually walk you, walk your teachers through it and help them ethically, um, do this for themselves and for their students.

[00:38:09] Um, if you're looking, um, just for an inquiry, you want to get a hold of me, you can go on my website, go to the contact. Me on the bottom of all the pages, there's a little form you can fill out, um, and you, you'll reach my email and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. You can also reach me on, on my Twitter as well.

[00:38:27] Um, shoot me a dm, um, and I'll be sure to respond to you.

[00:38:32] Fonz: Excellent. I've been sharing your website and I've been sharing your Twitter handle also. And of course all of that will be on the show notes. But William, thank you so much for sharing all this wonderful insight. But before we go, this is one of my favorite segments of the show here, where we end with the last three questions.

[00:38:52] So William saying, of course, you know, it's a little different because. You are an educator. You know, again, because you're out there educating, uh, teachers. Yeah. But that wasn't your traditional route. But my question to you is, you normally, I ask what is your current EDO kryptonite? But now what I wanna ask is, what is your current AI kryptonite?

[00:39:16] William: Yeah. So like what? what? Remember? What do you mean cite particularly

[00:39:22] Fonz: by kryptonite? Oh, cryp. Yeah, kryptonite. So Superman, what made him weak was kryptonite. So that was like, kind of like what, uh, ma made him like, I guess, uh, drain his power, you know, per se. Yes. So in the current state of ai, what is your AI kryptonite?

[00:39:40] What is it that you either. See or hear as far as a practice or something that just makes you like why, like, you know?

[00:39:49] William: Yes, it is definitely kind of the lack of critical thinking skills that students are facing right now. Um, since, because, you know, all education is not adapted to these times of ai. Um, kids are missing out on, you know, years, um, or not, not necessarily years, but they're missing out right now on that critical thinking skillset.

[00:40:09] So, you know, you see kids that are just merely asking AI and using it more of a crutch instead of a tool. Um, they're really missing out on that critical thinking aspect and it, you know, it might set them back as far as, you know, when they get to, um, the real work. Um, you th we have all this information at our hands and the things can do calculations so fast now.

[00:40:31] So students that is, the students that are able to actually use AI as tools and, you know, take all this information that we can get so fast and take all the calculations that we can do so fast. With online tools and actually apply them in meaningful ways, um, with that critical thinking skillset, they're gonna be so much farther ahead of a student that, uh, merely was using AI as a crutch and never really learned how to take, um, what AI gave it and use it in a meaningful way.

[00:40:56] Fonz: All right. Great answer. Thank you so much. Very insightful. A lot of good stuff there, William. All right. Question number two, William is, if you could have a billboard with anything on it, what would it be and why?

[00:41:10] William: Hmm. I would say probably . Let's use AI as tools. .

[00:41:17] Fonz: All right. There you go. A and I love what you said that be, or the way that you said that, because AI is a tool.

[00:41:26] So Yes, I mean, again, and we know that for several of our tasks, you know, we have to pick the right tool for the right time. So again, always. Sometimes we always hear the phrase in education. It's like, don't just use the tech for tech's sake. You know, the tech, is it full to help you either enhance the learning, augment the learning, or substitute a portion of the learning, or, you know, redefine the learning.

[00:41:50] So again, I love what you said there because that's the way that I'm taking it, is like you can definitely use AI for all of those things. So, yeah, definitely. All right, William, the last question. Let's say that this was the Groovy AI podcast. Maybe, maybe that might be coming up in the future. I don't know.

[00:42:09] William, the Groovy AI podcast and I was your guest. Yes. What would be one question you'd like to ask me?

[00:42:16] William: Absolutely. So if I was the, uh, the host, um, and I was having you on, I'd probably ask you, um, , in what ways can we best teach these, um, you know, these teachers and these students about that, uh, you know, the data laws with AI and, um, all that ethical concerns as far as with data privacy and algorithmic bias.

[00:42:40] Fonz: Yeah, actually, you know, that's a great question cuz that's something that of course I've been sharing a lot of and doing a lot of my research on that for, and it started again with my doctoral study, my paper, and then it just kind of been diving in deeper. But really I think what you're doing is, is great, which is really just giving that information, being open and honest and saying, look here, we have a wonderful tool that can do so much good.

[00:43:08] For you as a teacher to be able to save you time, to enhance your learning, to do all of these things, um, you know, and again, provide those, um, AI resistant prompts and so on. However, you know, I do wanna share with you that there is this other side, you know, there's the side that you may not hear too much about.

[00:43:28] That can sound a little scary because it, it can be however. By, you know, talking to them about digital citizenship and then obviously talking to students about digital citizenship and their footprint and things of that sort in, in, in a way that, uh, I mean for a lot of our, our teachers and a lot of our students already do lessons within, um, the school year on that.

[00:43:52] It's just really reinforc. now with AI tools, just being very cautious, uh, learning. You know, obviously now we, we have to learn a little bit more about, uh, sources curating information. Also deep fakes because man, we've, I've seen some stuff on Mid Journey now on the, the new version of Mid Journey that just came out.

[00:44:15] Yeah, just you're, I'm like, is this real or is this not real? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, so it's really. Being open and having those conversations, not, not in an off-putting way where you're really gonna scare the teacher to not use the tools, but just really just to keep them informed. Because I, I, I'm a believer that there is more good.

[00:44:38] that is gonna come from the tools than it is, you know. Then there is a, the bad side of it in education, however, you know that we always have some bad characters that are always wanting to do some bad things with those, but that goes with anything in tech. So really just making sure that all your stakeholders are informed, everybody is kept up, you know, up to date on any changes, any concerns as far as age restrictions?

[00:45:07] and of course just being very cautious with the data that is shared, you know, with these prompts or in these programs. But again, just keeping it simple and just making sure that we reconcile those two worlds and again, to the benefit of the teacher and to the benefit of the student as well. So, . That would be my answer for that too.

[00:45:28] All right, William. Well, William, it has been an honor and a pleasure and I really, yes, really wanna thank you for reaching out to me on Twitter. Just tagging me on that post. It was great to have, uh, met up with you, you know, the last couple days and now it's like, hey, you're on the show and I'm thankful again for what you're doing, what you shared, and just keep doing what you're doing, man.

[00:45:49] I'm really excited about what is ahead. for you because of the great work that you're doing and how you keep, you know, up to date with all of the tech that is out there. Yeah. So maybe within six months or so, maybe I would love to have you back. Absolutely. Just to see absolutely. How things have changed.

[00:46:08] How have they grown? Yeah. Or just to see things from your perspective too as well. I'd definitely appreciate that for.

[00:46:15] William: Yeah. And I appreciate you so much for, um, having me on. You know, I was just somebody that taped you on a Twitter and then we hopped on a call and we discussed, um, all these issues together.

[00:46:25] And, uh, I really appreciate and thank you for, um, everything that, uh, you have shared with

[00:46:30] Fonz: me. Absolutely. And that's what we're here for. So for all our friends that joined us today, thank you, Mel. Thank you everybody. Those are the, uh, those of you that are gonna be catching this on the replay. Thank you as always for making my ad tech life what it is today.

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