Episode 275: Michelle L.

Episode 275: Balancing AI Innovation and Student Privacy with Michelle L.

[00:00:00] Fonz: Hello everybody. And welcome to another great episode of my ed tech life. Thank you so much for joining us on this wonderful day and wherever it is you're joining us from around the world. We thank you so much for all of your support. We appreciate all the likes, the shares, the follows. Thank you so much for engaging with our content and please make sure that you follow us on all social media.

If you haven't done so yet at my ed tech life, and also make sure that you subscribe. To our YouTube channel, because we love to bring you some amazing content, amazing guests, and amazing conversations that can help continue to grow us here in our education space. And today I am really excited to welcome Michelle Levesley, who is joining us from across the pond.

So thank you, Michelle, for joining us today. And we're going to be talking all things AI and AI. AI in education and just a lot of things that for us are top of mind. So Michelle, how are you doing on this wonderful afternoon in or overseas in the UK?

[00:01:04] Michelle: I'm good. Thank you. It's great to be on. It's great to speak to you.

It's a bit cold here, but it's good.

[00:01:09] Fonz: Oh my goodness. I would love to take a little bit of that cold weather and bring it over here to South Texas, where I live, because we are already starting to get into our summer humidity and so on. So I will take a little bit of your cold any day. We can swap.

[00:01:26] Michelle: I'm happy.

[00:01:28] Fonz: Well, thank you so much, Michelle, for joining us. I know it is, um, you know, we're a six hour difference, but I really appreciate you being part of this show and being part of our education journey here at My EdTech Life. As I see this, this is professional development one on one for me, but also all our guests who will be listening to this show.

So before we get started on our topic, Michelle, can you give us a little brief description and what your context within the education space is?

[00:01:57] Michelle: Okay, so, um, at base, I'm an educator. I train, I qualified as a teacher, uh, over 20 years ago, so, um, quite a long time. Um, and then I currently now work in education, um, part time, and I also have my own consultancy where I advise schools, um, on their EdTech acquisitions, but I also advise teachers for free on how to make those choices the right way.

So, quite a varied career, uh, and lots of different things that I do, but I love it.

[00:02:26] Fonz: Excellent. Well, that's wonderful. And it's always great for me here to have amazing guests that obviously have different perspectives, different experiences, and not only just here in the U. S., but now that we get to hear how things may be overseas as well, this can help us also learn from one another.

See what is happening and see what we can do better, what we can improve on. What are some of the positives? What are some of those things that may not be so positive to look out for? Because as we know, everybody has different experiences, but let's dive right into our topic. And of course, we're going to be talking about.

All things AI and education. And just a little bit of context too, I have been following you on LinkedIn and you know, we pretty much are part of that same circle where we're commenting on each other, just sharing, you know, and sharing resources. And obviously, , we're those cautious advocates.

 I would say, I mean, like I always tell people I am not against AI, you know, I use it, you know, as an adult, but I am just very cautious when we do put it into the hands of our students, especially when they may not be ready. And when, you know, the applications may not be. Up to par, because we have already seen a couple of things that are popping up.

And so those are just the things that we just want to caution educators on. We want to caution ed tech, uh, you know, creators and developers on. So I'm just excited here to hear a little bit about your perspective. So let's take it back to maybe that November of what was it? 2022, 2023. I can't even remember now it's time eludes me, but as soon as you saw, you know, Chad, GBT coming out.

You know, what were your initial reactions and now what is your reaction now that we've seen this, um, you know, continue to grow into various ed tech platforms. So give us a little bit of, of your background with that experience.

[00:04:21] Michelle: Um, also interesting perspective. The, the first thing I thought when I heard about it was, Oh, this sounds a lot like, this is another Google translate.

So my graduating cohort in 1999 already, as a languages major, we already had a number of, um, students, um, who were sanctioned because they'd used, uh, Google Translate to put their essay, their final dissertations through, which, uh, people, that's part of the reason they're going on about Chat GPT now being banned in schools and all the rest of it.

And I just thought, well, we've had this before. I've kind of been here. But also I just thought, Oh, this is the hype. We've just got so much hype on this now. And I was actually working quite a much more in the corporate sector at the time. Um, I've, I've interestingly worked with several organizations, which say they use disruptive AI for different things.

And it's always ended up needing a human often with a stick, um, to come and do things. So I can give you an example of that later on, but I'm not lying. So exaggerating. So, and I love technology by the way. I'm not, um, I don't even mind. I don't even think Luddite is a bad term to use for people. I think it's perfectly fine if you just like paper and pen as well.

Um, but yes, I remember thinking, oh, um, this probably isn't great because I work a lot on the cyber security side as well. Um, and then I was very concerned about education and the corporate world. being very much taken away, swept away with this hype, instead of using the discernment that perhaps we should expect from these sort of things.

So, but I think there are reasons for that, but I could, I could go on forever. But yeah, quite a lot of hype.

[00:06:03] Fonz: Yeah, and actually, you're absolutely right. You know, I think it was a lot of hype and it still is a lot of hype now. I'm not saying again that it isn't going to be good. I mean, for me and anything that might help education and help improve things is definitely something that I am all for.

But I think again, in the in its in its Infancy as, as we know, many people say, Oh, well, we've been doing this for a very long time. And I understand that, you know, a lot of the education platforms use algorithms, you know, for personalized learning pathways and so on. So that went on in the background for many years, but now it was just because it became forward facing.

And, you know, there is some familiarity with it. Obviously, you know, any of us who have these little mini computers, you know, in our hands on a day to day basis, you know, some of the, the smart technologies that we have in our homes, things of that sort, you know, we are very familiar with those, but we don't make those connections.

But as soon as this thing came forward facing, which is, you know, the artificial intelligence, uh, then, you know, things. You know, there was a huge hype and now all of a sudden you saw a lot of businesses come up and obviously a lot of businesses in the, uh, in the education space, I should say, uh, you know, it's amazing how much attention just those two letters, Gardner, once you put it next to your name, because there was a lot of education apps that are out there that just had a regular standard name.

And then all of a sudden it's like, They add AI next to it and it's, it's the craze. It's like, Oh, I want to use that. And I want to use that. And so on. So, you know, we, there is a lot of hype, a lot of the technology conferences that I've been at. A lot of the people that I've heard talk, there is a lot of hype around it.

And we're just here to simply. Be part of that, see what's good, but also, you know, we just want to make sure that we're seeing all parts. So, uh, tell me a little bit about now your experience now seeing this hype and then what it is that you may be seeing in your local schools and your local trusts have, uh, you know, Has there been a change?

Have you seen maybe students being more successful or are you seeing this where it's still causing some teacher frustration just because it's so new? What is it that you are seeing on your side?

[00:08:29] Michelle: Um, I think the UK is particular. It's, it's a bad example of the edtech landscape. Um, I think the first thing I would say before anything is when we hear people talk about AI, we have to ask them.

to define what you mean by AI, and that often cuts through the hype because they're just saying it in the same way that most if you teach middle schoolers, you've probably heard them say skibbidy. It's the same thing, right? It's just using a word because all the cool kids have used it and you don't even know what it means, and then the meaning changes every five minutes.

And AI is a massive area. You know, um, it's about computational models and statistics and things. And there are people who I followed for a number of years, like Dr. Timnit Djibrou and Dr. Emily Bender and people at the DARE Institute. That's D A R E, um, who do amazing work on it. And I would love to see us talk about them and people reference that.

Like you said, the research more. That's not what's happening. And the edtech kind of landscape, if you like, you think about like a little dome, a little bubble is such a mess. It's an ungoverned mess that we somehow trust. And then you're adding the thing I would say, the remark I would say, certainly about the UK and what I'm seeing globally really is that the, the AI is being, is being used to bring things in rather like a Trojan horse.

And I don't mean, again, I'm not saying it's all bad, but I am shocked at how easy it is to bring really terrible things into schools, um, just by saying AI. Um, And I actually don't think, I don't really see the students using it a lot. I haven't done any, you know, research on this. I can't say, well, 80 percent of the, I can't say that.

And I don't really think there's much research been done on that. I have looked around to see, well, what are they saying? Because there seems to be a lot of people saying, well, you know, students are going to cheat. Actually, are they? I don't, I think the, the use of AI, well, and in that sense, really more, when I say AI, I mean like LLMs or AI Gen is being done by teachers and they're often not even aware that they're doing it.

So I would say that, um, I'll give an example of the platform we use here for learning like Seneca. I don't know whether you use that in the U. S., I don't know. But it's, uh, a lot of subjects have, uh, homework that you can set on that, you can do lessons, it's all IT based, but quite, it's not like having a textbook, a lot of it is appearing to be AI generated, um, and then you look at things like Quizlet and Cahoot and, uh, Bookit and all these other things.

Which these are the platforms which have been super useful, um, forever, but now they will also auto generate your answers. So it takes time. So I really see it more as a teacher tool, but I think there are risks associated with that, that perhaps we're not considering. I think we should.

[00:11:26] Fonz: Yeah.

[00:11:26] Michelle: Um, so.

[00:11:27] Fonz: No. And, you know, going back to what you're saying, you're absolutely right.

You know, it's just, it's, it's. Sometimes, you know, we think about this and a lot of, uh, you know, like you mentioned textbooks, a lot of our adoptions now everything is online and now they're adding those components where it's like, Hey, here, create this quiz, create this, create that. But. Then you don't have a physical textbook.

I mean, and I'm not saying like, okay, we, you know, we need to have one, but at least, you know, something tangible, you know, for me, I'm still all about student engagement, you know, color pencils and crayons do just as good as, you know, a lot of the technology that we have, and especially the Chromebooks and so on.

And this week, it was interesting this week from one of my colleagues. We're doing state testing and you know, they're talking about how students are just using a lot of the technology day in and day out. And I hadn't heard this phrase yet. Maybe you have, but they called it Chromebook face. And so it's like the kids just have Chromebook face all day long where they're just sitting there on their screen and that's it.

That's all they're doing. And of course you've got the teacher tools where now. You can go in and it's like, Hey, I need, you know, a quiz on the water cycle, create it for me. And now it creates it for you. But one of the things that you hit on that I wanted to actually kind of bring to light and emphasize was kind of the danger, but the bad habits that can happen.

And that was one of the things that. From the very beginning, knowing what I know, and in my experience in the ed tech space and working with teachers and adults and so on, is the bad habits that can happen that once they go in and put their input in and say, Hey, I want a quiz on this or that they get that output, that's going to be.

Gospel to them and they're going to just say, boom, I'm just going to go ahead and share it immediately without even revising it because they trust this mathematical equation, this algorithm that is predicting the most common word that would happen or come up next to just say, Hey, all right, I trust you 100%.

And let's go ahead and do that. One of my concerns was at the very beginning too, is that a lot of the platforms did not have our standards or were not aligned to our state standards, which now many say they do. But one of the things is when I look at their platforms and then I look at terms of service and then I look at who they are connecting to.

Their knowledge base only goes up to July of 2023. I think that was the last update. Texas is going to adopt some new state standards for this coming year. So I want to know how they're going to go ahead and work that in. If they're plugging in into this other platform, you know, to. You know, produce and their content.

So those are some of the things that I'm questioning that a lot of people may not think about because they say like, well, I, we already have our standards here. We're aligned, but are you really? And then when I put these specific standards in. Or am I really getting the proper output based on these standards and what my state is teaching?

And that, to me, is what really scares me that they're not properly hitting on all of those learning components that the standard, uh, expects from teachers to teacher students and that student expectation at the end. So, I mean, a lot of, a lot of things to dissect there. What are your thoughts on that?

[00:15:01] Michelle: Oh, I could say quite a lot.

So the first thing is, um, like I said, with the Trojan horse, I, to just circle back to your point about your concern, um, I've got several points to the first one is, and this is maybe controversial to say, and I don't want to be Um, to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but we know as, as people who work in education, we are here for the students.

And we know how hard that is. And we know how much, wherever you are geographically, I'm not trying to be political here, but wherever you are, there will be politicians on both sides, every side who don't really like teachers. Because what we're doing is, We are helping, we are, we are there for equality. We are the last, we're often the only chance some students have or some families have to, to get to better themselves.

That's why kids go through and we've still got first gen college grads. We've still got so many children who come through from really, um, uh, deprived circumstances and still achieve. And there should be no barriers to that. We're here to make sure that happens. And my fear is, and I see this with Um, the UK, particularly, we have a, an on, an online platform and it was launched very quickly.

I could talk about this later with, in the, in 2020, which compared to the rest of the pandemic response was launched remarkably fast and remarkably slickly. I don't know whether that's a word, but you know, remarkably well considering it was supposedly an emergency thing. And I, my point is that I think we could be ushering in stuff that will eventually replace us.

Um, and I see this in the corporate world as well. I see teachers saying, Oh, this can do my lesson plans for me. This can plan this. And I'm thinking, well, yeah, yeah. I don't think we should have to do as many lesson plans. The admin we have to do is horrific. Um, that, you know, but equally, if you are saying that this can write my business strategy for, for me, this can write my manifesto for me.

This can write my project plan for me. You are effectively saying I don't need to be employed and they will hear that. And they will get rid of you. They already don't like teachers. So, and we're expensive. And there's a teacher recruitment, retention crisis. We have got qualified educators everywhere.

They've just noped out and gone. And I can't help feeling that already with, you know, Can Me Go having issues, but being brought in, Oak National being brought in, um, a lot of the Harvard's got AI Jane courses taught by a tutor. Um, some, I can't remember what university it is, that they're presenting. Um, all the, all the commencement awards with an AI generated person.

Um, so I just think we're going down a dangerous path. I think we need to be careful. Um, and the other point I would make is that even when I've been in the corporate world, and I'm not the only person who has experienced this, this has been something we've talked about a lot, especially when we go in as consultants, but I have had my work corrected using GPT by adults who are supposedly smart, articulate, well balanced, discerning people.

And I have had entire documents edited to the point where they don't make any sense at all. Uh, and then had to go back to it. And I can tell because I've had decades of working with Google translate. So I, I understand what Google translate, um, generated work and I can tell and because I write I can tell as well.

So, and also because it simply doesn't make sense and you'll go back to these people and you'll say, where did this come from? And there'll be, there'll be absolutely adamant that it is the truth. So I think if we've got adults doing that, we really need to be careful. And then of course, to your point about, is it even to the standard?

And I don't even think, I don't think, There's much appetite for people to even care because the edtech companies do not care. I mean, this is broad strokes and, you know, I'm not trying to say anything litigious, but I don't really think they care because they're there for profit. And they're not, these aren't textbooks that are carefully edited like they used to be by three or four people and if you're a teacher you used to maybe get an editing contract and you'd be super excited.

This is just dragged from the internet. So it's not even necessarily accurate. So you risk these children getting, as you say, not even, not just standard content, but deeply inaccurate, biased information that they could be taking as gospel. I think that's a real risk.

[00:19:27] Fonz: Yes. No, and you know, one of the things that I want to hit on too as well, like you mentioned, yes, there, there, There isn't a teacher shortage.

There's plenty of teachers, but it's just the workplace environment, things of that sort. You know, there's a lot of things against education right now, and it's causing a lot of that frustration. And you've got some wonderful educators that are stepping out of the education fields now. Right now, when you were talking about that, I remember a guest that I had probably over a year and a half ago, like coming back from COVID.

Her name is Maggie Perkins, and she is very big on TikTok. And she was a teacher or teacher transitioned teacher, you know, coming from education and going into, you know, the corporate space. And I remember her saying, you know, that because of this teacher shortage and that it's only going to get worse from year to year.

That she saw that school was pretty much going to be a gym full of kids with two or three proctors and the kids are just going to be on their Chromebooks, you know, that's it working there all day, you know, so I can imagine that there's going to be a platform there, there's going to be some sort of AI that's going to be grading all that content because for three proctors or so that would be there.

And again, I'm only saying what she said. I'm not saying that this is happening or that, you know, this may be happening in our distant future, but I'm just saying that one of the things too, that concerns me, and I always thought about this is that there are a lot of teachers that say, no, AI is not going to take our jobs.

AI is not going to take our jobs. But then I see the teachers, like you mentioned, outsourcing everything. To AI, it's like, give me my lesson plan. Give me my lesson, give me my worksheet. And now mind you there, there's a lot of great things that I do see. For example, when I was in the classroom, one of the difficult things that I had was being in the, in the area that I'm in, that it, it is predominantly, uh, Spanish speaking in my area due to a lot of the manufacturing that was done over across the border.

There was a lot of students that would come in from that, uh, Korean, uh, A lot of students that came in that were, you know, from Israel. And so we had multiple nationalities there. And then all of a sudden they would have to come in, be in my fifth grade classroom. And if it wasn't for my iPad and Google translate, just to help, you know, be able to communicate and communicate the lesson and communicate the content that really helps.

So I can see where now, if I have a student that comes in, I can easily go and translate, you know, and, you know, Create something, maybe even the lack Lexile level of a reading immediately on the spot. So I can see the good in that to help us in that aspect. But one of the things is too, when now we become over reliant on it and then you have content specialists, let's say in a district, now people are maybe seeing, well, do we really need to be paying these people, the content specialists this much when.

Teachers can just pop this in into chat GPT and they get their lesson. They get the worksheet and so on. And then you start asking those questions, you know, can we downsize and make profit? And that goes not only maybe in education, but also in the corporate world with we're seeing a lot of layoffs too.

Now I'm not saying it's because of AI, but AI is definitely making some of those menial tasks, um, a lot faster. Talking about Dr. Emily Bender and, um, you know, and, uh, her podcast, uh, they had Karen how, who was a reporter also for, I think, I believe the Atlantic. And she's saying, you know, how Google with an unreleased LLM.

Was saying, Hey, we're going to pay reporters and we want you to create three stories per day. And if you meet this quota using our LLM, then, you know, we're going to give you all, we're going to give, I guess, the, the company a stipend. So what she's saying is that now. You don't even see those entry level jobs like, you know, for journalism or people at all whatsoever, because really what they're doing is they're just using this LLM to scrape the internet and just piecemeal articles together.

And this is the news that we get. So there's a lot of things there. Like you mentioned again, I'm not being an alarmist people or anything like we just want to think about what may be happening. And we're seeing this bubble and this bubble is getting bigger and there's a lot of excitement. But there's going to come a point in time, I think where this bubble may burst, and then we're going to see who the true, true, you know, I guess companies that are out there that are doing or putting in that work and being very, you know, adamant about their work will be surviving and we'll have those platforms that we can use.

So, you know, there's definitely a. A lot of bad that we may see or negative, I should say, that we need to at least consider, but also there is a lot of good that we can consider there as well as, you know, like I mentioned, if I was in the classroom and I have these tools that I'm using for myself as a teacher to enhance what I already have, and again, enhance what I already have, not reinvent the wheel and maybe come up with something that might not be standards aligned and so on.

I would just be very cautious about that too, as well. So a lot of, a lot of things to dive into there. So very interesting things. And, uh, the other thing too, you know, like you mentioned, see, this is a for profit, um, some of the things too is, and I don't know if you've seen it over there in the UK, you know, you have these, uh, pilot programs.

You know, it's like, Hey, can we pilot this? We'll give you these three months for free. And then all of a sudden it's like, Oh, teachers, I want this. I want this. I need this. I need this. And then it's kind of like, well, okay, now you want this. Well, it's going to be X amount of dollars per campus or trust or per, you know, in our, in our, uh, You know, context, it would be per district and then all of a sudden it's something that we can't afford.

So those are some of the things too that concern me where they throw out words like equality, equity, but it's not.

[00:25:39] Michelle: It's the data they want. I always say, even when it's free, I always say, what are they, nobody goes into education for, you and I didn't go into education in, I didn't qualify 20 years ago because I wanted to be rich.

I would have gone and done the grad scheme at Ernst Young or something, um, or McKinsey. I wouldn't be where I am having to buy pens, you know, for years and snacks for kids. No, nobody. Uh, watching this and they went there to, um, is, is doing this for personal gain. Um, you're doing it so others gain and it's a real vocation.

I think it really is. Um, and I think that's what we need to also really make a distinction between, say for instance, what you are talking about. with, oh, hey, I might use, um, Google Translate to help my students because I know I've done that, or I've used, I might use this to create, you know, generate a lesson plan or a worksheet or something, but that's my personal data and that's my choice, um, and that's really not harming anybody.

I think it is a little bit, you know, I think it would be silly, for want of a better word, to loudly say that you were doing all this using AI because they're just going to replace us. Um, because I think the problem is if there's too many lesson plans, then maybe we actually do need to address why teachers have so much admin.

That's a system issue and I think we need to address the system issues. Like if we have children in, Who need that translation? We need that help for them. We're not going to get it, but like, but at the same time, that's the system issue. But if you're using a tool and it's just you using it, like if I use Kahoot, like or whatever else, um, that's my data and my credit card data, all the rest of it, my kids never.

You know, they register with just like a username, they log in with, it doesn't really take anything more than maybe their mobile phone. Something, some details about their mobile phone, potentially. It's not asking them for anything else. I don't tell them to create accounts or anything. But if it's, you know, a homework app, or Um, a work experience app.

We're not getting meaningful consent. There is no meaningful consent for edtech because you cannot consent for something that is required. Um, so it's like this platform you sent me, can we do this? If I'd have had an objection to it, I could have written to you and said, Hey, can we use a different one because we're adults and we have that kind of.

flexibility. Or I could just said, you know what? I don't want to do this. For instance, um, there weren't any issues with this, by the way, I'm just giving it as an example, but you can't do that as a student, can you? So there is no meaningful consent. And then when you look at, um, ed tech, if you look at, I don't go on Twitter anymore, but I used to go on Twitter and do hashtag VC education.

And if you go into these spaces, a bit like when you go to the edtech conferences, it's horrific because they're all talking about the monetization of the data. Um, they're not, and they're talking about all the things that I get in the corporate world as well that don't make any sense, like metrics and engagement and stuff that they're meaningless.

They don't mean anything, but you can have a dashboard and you can make it a truth. But it doesn't mean anything. You know, I can have a dashboard now, present it to you and say, well, here you are. Look, 60% of them did this, and in the red there's this and in the green. And you'd be, oh, that's, that's great Michelle.

And it might look great. But if you ask me to drill down a bit and say, well, what's the impact of this? What's the outcome? And that's what we work with as educators. We work with impacts and outcome. Exactly.

[00:28:58] both: And I would just

[00:29:00] Michelle: say that there is so little regulation around ed tech. Um, and I sent you some links that, um, I think you can, because the, um, soft internet safety labs have been, have done a really good bit of work that I think all families and educators should look at.

And it's actually giving you very similar to the work that CISA were trying to do at the moment, but ISL have gone further and they've given scores to all of these edtech apps. And pretty much all of them are in the red for very high risk, right? Because they are sharing data with. Up to 200, maybe 300 third parties and one, I'll give you an example of one work experience app.

I'm not going to name it because I don't want to be litigious, but there's a work experience app here. I know it's in the States, um, and it's, it's one of the only ways that you can get virtual work experience really. And it's got all these companies. But if, and it looks great, but it will share tracking pixels with Meta.

Um, so every student who has, um, an account with that platform will have a shadow account, even if they don't have a real account with Facebook. So we tell students, Oh, be careful of digital footprint. You know, don't send, you know, saucy pictures and be careful what you say online. I'm sure you've done that even with middle schoolers and the rest of it.

We do it all the way up. But then we are around the back, it's kind of like saying to them, eat healthily, but we're giving all the food in the canteen loads of salt and sugar and, you know, and giving them McDonald's every day. It's so disingenuous for us to be doing that. Um, and I think as well, the last point I'd make is that when we talk about bringing AI into schools and people are talking about how disruptive it is, I just want to say, you don't need it.

We need more early rejecters. Who will just say, move, move, study and break things because I always say, okay, AI is great, but does your app even have multifactor authentication? Does your app have a delete account button? Um, how easy is, is it for me to delete my data? Find out where my data is going. Um, and what data does your platform app, whatever collect and share.

Um, because maybe let's. Let's, let's get the basics right first before we start going, Oh, it's using AI, because like, like we've said, it's great, but we can, we can stop for a minute. We can pause, you know, pre K pause, we can

[00:31:31] both: do

[00:31:31] Michelle: this, and then we can, and then we can kind of go, okay. Let's get the basics right, because most schools are still running an outdated version of Windows or something, you know, most schools will still let you bring a USB plug in to present, yeah, which is absolutely not allowed in most businesses, right?

So the, the IT in most schools is creaking as it is. And then we're trying to pretend that we could just bring AI in, in the same way that you'd. You know, Netflix, if you work at Netflix, you can, you could bring AI and do all these fun things because they're really up to date and they really know what they're doing and everything else is in order.

So cool. Let's bring this in now. I'm not convinced having worked, especially in the U S I was working with a number of schools for a nonprofit that had computers. We had Chromebooks in schools and we were using them. I won't name the nonprofit, but we were, they, they had a, reading program. So these students in middle schools would Skype out to partners in different corporate organizations and read on a reading program, and it was great, it worked, all the rest of it.

But that was free for the first year, and then we charged them, which was, you know, again, I mean, this isn't even AI, but, um, but when I went in, I took over the role, and I went into all these schools, which were mostly disadvantaged schools, by the way. The principals had no idea, for the most part, that that was even in the school.

So we had a Chromebook sitting in a classroom where, you know, 10 children a day were Skyping out to people at Cisco and Apple and Google and having reading done with them on a program that wasn't even necessarily district sanctioned, right? And the principal didn't know. So, I question whether or not we can be bringing, we can be acting like bringing AI into school is going to be something that everybody's looking at, everybody knows about, because it simply isn't the case.

I'm not criticizing those principals or those teachers, by the way. Um, what I'm saying is it's very easy for, I'm showing that as an example, is how easy it is to get EdTech into schools. Nobody has a clue. So how can you regulate something? When nobody has any idea what's going on, really. It's a bit like whack the rat, isn't it, that kind of um, fairground game.

I don't know if you have that You have cornhole, but I don't know if you have like whack the rat.

[00:33:56] Fonz: Yeah, no, no, no. And you're absolutely right. You know, one of the things that I see too is, and, and I was like that, you know, until I started working on my, you know, doctoral coursework and did, started doing research.

And I was like, whoa. So, I mean, I would go to a conference, Learn all these tools and then just bring them back and just say, okay, guys, this is what we're going to do. We're going to get on this and we're going to, and okay, like, let's open up accounts. Everybody, you know, whatever the case was, it doesn't matter.

We'll figure it out. Uh, you know, and everything we usually was just single sign on and so on. And let's, you know, bring in this app and this app and this app. And because I was the one that was excited about it. And so every conference I went. I would come and bring and say, okay, now we're going to do this.

And we're going to do that. And some of it worked, you know, some of the students were okay, you know, and you did see some progress, but one of the things is that just engagement doesn't always equal learning, you know, students can be engaged, but it doesn't mean that they're learning. And so sometimes we think, oh, but the students are engaged, but are they really learning?

And that's where I was talking about the research component. of it too as well. I don't think we have enough research yet. I probably after this first year, this is where we're going to start seeing. Is this something that is number one, sustainable? And is it something that is actually helping our students continue to succeed?

Because I remember, you know, is, are the graduations going, graduation rates going up? Are students, you know, uh, You know, are there test scores going up, things of that sort. And like you mentioned too, because of the equity quality and access, you know, you may have some, you know, schools that have or can afford these applications where other districts may not.

And now you're kind of seeing like, okay, You know, is it really the, the AI or the, the platforms? Or was it really the teachers? Was it this, what are some of those factors and so on? So I just really want to see that there is an actual study, just very transparent and see, okay, because again, we went one to one have graduation rates gone up because we're all one to one.

You know, have their students test scores going up because we're one to one, is it the Chromebook? Is it that, you know, so, you know, a lot of things to think about. So the other thing was like I meant going back to what I was saying. Sometimes I feel that as educators, like I said, we get really excited. We bring these things in and we're doing it.

For our excitement because we're excited and then we want to share stuff on social media. Like look at what I'm doing, look at what I'm doing, look at what I'm doing and get clicks and so on. And now I am an ambassador of a platform. Now I am this and then I'm just thinking to myself, you know, somebody and somebody created a post.

I think it was either on LinkedIn and um, They were saying, you know, ambassador programs are the equivalent of unpaid internships, adult internships. And so it's very interesting and a very interesting dynamic of what we're seeing in the education space because of the ed tech companies. And again, it's like, Hey, I give you a free shirt.

You're going to promote this for me and you're going to bring it into your school. And then we'll see who it is that we can talk to, to make sure that we bring it into your school. And so I get it, you know, but again, I'm not saying that it is all entirely bad. Like, I mean, on the teacher side of it, a lot of these platforms teacher, because I get to use it and I have control I'm all for it, but because of terms of service, like you said, you, I still am questioning a lot of the schools.

Have they reached out to the parents to sign off and say, Hey, my student can use X, Y, Z platform? Um, you know, or this is what the teacher is using. Can they or can they not? And are they giving them that information? Because oftentimes, like I said, I go to a conference, I'm going to come back and I'm just going to bring it in to the classroom without even telling my principal or even telling my IT coordinator or anything, because it's like, Oh, it's single sign on.

Okay. And they play it off real easy. It's like, Oh, you don't even need to create an account. Just you as a teacher, create an account, import your Google classroom and all your students are rostered. And there you go, because they're logging in through Google classroom. It's not going to pick up any data.

But then I go look in the terms of service and then they, they make it look real nice until the end. And then you have to go in through a couple of pages deep and say, you know, um, this is, we do not use your data. We don't keep this. We don't keep that. But then there's another section of you continue.

It's like, oh, Well, the data that is used, um, is used for our third parties. And this is some of the data that can be used for our third parties. But if anything new, it should happen. We are not held liable. You're going to have to fight our third party, which it'll say they're clearly who they're plugging into.

And I'm thinking to myself, you've got this school district now that's going to go up against this tech giant and, you know, uh, go into litigation with them. Do they have the money to afford that and go into that? And then meanwhile, the platform. Gets off scot free because it's like, Hey, you signed this, you said, and you took the risk.

And so just because this didn't work on my side, it's not me, it's them. And so see you later. The other thing that worries me that I've mentioned many times is that because of how new this is, a lot of platforms. Coming in saying, okay, let's sign, you know, yeah, we'll give you this deal for three years. How do I know you're going to be here next year?

And, and the reason I say that is what if open AI doesn't update and just like they did dev day and that. hurts a lot of these platforms that are out there right now plugging into this and all of a sudden they're gone. Like we did see, you know, when Dev Day, Dev Day came out and then now you can create your own GPTs.

It's like, well, why do I want to pay 5 a month for something that's going to read my PDFs when now I can pay, you know, 20 a month. And get unlimited PDFs and I can create my own GPTs to do all of these tasks for me. So why am I going to do that? And now that company goes under. So those are some of the things that I think about that.

I don't know. Maybe sometimes I think to myself, is it me? Am I the problem? Like, am I being like, Yes. Am I the drama? Like, am I being too over dramatic? And I know that it probably seems that way because there's so much hype on the AI space and so much of that positivity from teachers that are loving it.

But then I see how the apps are, you know, they're just taking advantage of you. They're giving you a shirt

[00:40:35] Michelle: and. Yeah.

[00:40:37] Fonz: Yeah. And then so to me, I was just like,

[00:40:40] Michelle: Hmm,

[00:40:40] Fonz: I don't know, you know, so again, very cautious advocate. Just like Dr. I'm going to give Nika McGee, who coined that phrase because I hadn't heard it.

So cautious advocate and Nika McGee is also a wonderful, wonderful educator to follow to as well. And I definitely recommend everybody follow, um, Mystery Hype, Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 with, uh, You know, Dr. Emily Bender too, as well. So those are some great resources. Um, but I did want to share this. I, I know you sent this to me, some resources and these will be linked, but I did want to share, you know, uh, we won't go too much into detail.

I'll kind of scroll real quick through this, but I mean, these are all Yeah, the red and the

[00:41:20] Michelle: amber is concerning because Yeah, the red and the amber

[00:41:23] Fonz: It's definitely opaque. That's

[00:41:24] Michelle: the thing that I would say as well, is that, um, When you're talking about the teachers being excited, I think actually teachers are excited about like, our CPD is amazing as educators, it always has been.

I miss it when I'm in other sectors. But I think it's coming from the, the pressure is coming from the districts, um, and, and almost government level, wherever you are. Um, you're told as a teacher that you won't get paid for the next level, or you won't be considered innovative if you don't use tech, and if you don't use AI, and I've seen, especially in the UK, a lot of schools being pushed to do that before they're ready, and it, that seems really wrong to me, because actually, and I'm seeing a lot of educators, especially in the States, and I think the, the U.

1. discussion around what's EdTech and Terms and Conditions is actually more advanced than ours is. The UK is a data exploitation world west, I will admit. Um, I'm really concerned for our students. Um, but they are, there are a lot of teachers that I follow. Um, on social media and just to publish things who are saying, I just want to go back to a textbook.

You know, I don't mind you. I'm fed up with these Chromebooks. I'm fed up with, and the kids are fed up with this. And I want to just get pens and pencils for a bit. And I, you know, I, it's not that they will never use tack. Um, but I think coming back to that grid, like the, the ed tech companies are deliberately opaque, deliberately opaque.

I don't like it because you wouldn't accept that from food. Like if you go to Walmart or Trader Joe's, or if you're very rich, Erewha, and you're, you know, you're buying food, you wouldn't accept a red label on something saying it was highly risky, but look at how many of those are red. Um, and we trust EdTech so much, but when I was a privacy officer for a school, I had an absolute nightmare.

because people were signing up for stuff. Like you say, you go away and you sign up, and they don't really think about it because they're not asked to think about it. They're asked to think about data protection and safeguarding. But you all said, fantastic, you're signing, you're using tech, amazing. We love what you're doing in your class.

You're so good. Come and look at Mr. X. Come and look at this. They're doing this. And it's like, oh, I feel really special. I got a gold star. Um, and, um, That's part of the reason is even if they're asking questions because I had, I sent my staff out to, well, they weren't my staff. I wasn't the principal, but I sent the groups of the people who I was talking to my coworkers.

I sent them out and I said, can you just ask if you're using a tech platform? Can you just send an email to their data protection people? There is try sending an email to the data protection person. The privacy person at an edtech company doesn't exist most of the time. And one company in particular lied.

Right. multiple times to this, to this teacher who, as if she was stupid, and I'm not saying that you have to have a PhD not to be clever. You cannot have a college degree at all, or you can just have your GED. I don't, I'm not going to patronize you, but this was a woman who was qualified as a pharmacist who'd just come into education, right, because she'd wanted to teach.

Super bright woman, much more clever than me, and They were fobbing her off with lies about, oh, it's to be encrypted and rubbish that there's just absolute rubbish and saying, oh, I'm the data protection person and lying to her about stuff. And I basically took over the email he she forwarded to me. And I said to this man, I saw a parent.

I don't know who it was. It could have been anybody. It goes. I said, I've looked you up on LinkedIn and it says you're the front end developer. If you were the chief privacy officer, you'd sure as hell be saying that cause you'd probably be paid more. And it's like, you're a front end dev and everything you talk about on LinkedIn and on your blog is development.

It's nothing to do with privacy. So they just sent out a member of staff to just lie. to somebody who is perfectly capable of understanding or could have So that's my problem that they are not transparent. And when we do ask teachers to ask questions, you will not necessarily get the right answers. So you have to work with your IT or your legal.

Or somebody else, and then that involves a whole other bit of work. And I can't really see that happening very easily. But the last thing I would say is, these kids are different. These kids are built different. And whereas five years ago, we might have got away with it. We are going to be held liable as individuals, as, uh, and as schools.

Because this lot that have lost, they lost their college graduation there. Yeah, they lost their high school graduation. They're protesting out there now. They're not even going to get, you know, degree, graduation. We've taken everything from them. And the younger ones are now seeing that. I mean, Gen Alpha, good luck.

Because if we think we can get away with abusing their data, getting their digital footprint, and sharing tracking pixels with Vector, because we've given them, we've made them use a certain platform, and we said, oh, it's disruptive AI, it's useful for you. Um, or if we've used an LLM, To set their homework and set their testing, but it hasn't, they, they're scoring low or they're not at the level they should be when they go on to college because the product didn't have the up to date, like you said, the up to date testing standards or anything, they're going to come for us.

[00:46:38] both: Yes.

[00:46:39] Michelle: I'm not saying, Oh my God, I'm scared. And I'm saying we should be mindful that these are young people and they are built differently and they have lost a lot of hope and a lot of trust. And I'm waiting, I'm waiting. There are lawsuits already coming through, class actions and things, and I think that is a movement that we could see building, and I think it will be the consumer, the students that will drive that, more than it will be the teachers, because I just don't think the teachers are in a position, workload wise, to do anything.

We're the best we're in the world. I don't think many teachers have that time to do that.

[00:47:15] Fonz: And that's saying, like you mentioned, they don't have the time. And, and that's one of the things that I feel, and if you notice on LinkedIn and a lot of, uh, other platforms that, Oh, we're having this, uh, virtual, You know, uh, conference and this and that, and then their quote will be like, help fight burnout, help do this.

And so they're, they're, they're for myself, I'm thinking companies are preying on the teacher's burnout on the teachers, just being tired. And they're saying, Hey, we've got the solution for you. And I'm going to go back to, I forget what episode it is, but Dr. Kip Glaser, who said. And she coined, and I heard it there, and I'm just giving her credit for this phrase, tech chauvinism, where the app will say, Hey, I can do this better than you, so just plug this in, and we're gonna be good to go.

And they prey on, on that burnout, which, like you mentioned earlier in the show, um, A lot of it is systemic and it's things that need to be reconsidered all the way from the top down that need to be addressed. And that's why teachers are feeling overwhelmed because it's like every year admin will say, Hey, we're going to take this off of your plate.

But in a very coy manner, it's like, Hey, I'm going to give you these other two things subtly underneath that. But we took one thing off of your plate. You no longer have to do this. Yeah, but you just gave me two more things, you know, so that's the way it goes. And so those are some of the things there that need to be addressed at that systemic level within a district all the way from the top down and, you know, making sure that those things take, get taken care of.

But a lot of that is, uh, Come, uh, to our conference and we're going to show you how to, you know, get rid of teacher burnout or, or relieve your teacher burnout, or if you're burnt out, use our app and use this and use that. And then oftentimes too, a lot of the people that are giving, or the main speakers are people that have been far removed also from the classroom and are not currently in the classroom.

And I think it would be more effective if a teacher. You know, who is using this is the one that's, you know, providing the training and the service and so on. But then at the same time, it's like, we need to dive into that app too. It's like, let's look at the terms of service. Let's look at that privacy issue.

And I think at this time, it's just, we've reached that level of frustration and desperation where it's like, just give me something. To do and to be able to use and to help my students, because I know that we all mean well, but do those apps mean well when they're, you know, using an API that's plugging into open AI and then saying, yeah, you know, this is our platform.

If the thing goes off the rails. You can't put guardrails on something you don't own and that to me is a problem and an issue there that when we start seeing, you know, the outputs that are coming out, you know, like I mentioned to you, that Canva incident of a TikToker that went in and put in into Canva.

I'm looking for a picture of a ankle bracelet worn by a juvenile and the outputs were just basically, you know, It blew my mind. Then I went in and I put in, I want a picture of a janitor standing in a hall. And then all the janitors were just one specific race. And then I clicked again to regenerate same race.

And it wasn't until the third and fourth iteration that I got a different race. So those are some of the things that are out there that are very scary that we're not thinking about and slowly. It's going to start creeping in. And how are we going to handle that? And how are these platforms going to handle something that they can't control 100 percent because they don't own the large language model or, you know, whatever it is they're using to generate these outputs.

And that to me is very scary.

[00:51:07] Michelle: Man, I miss books. I just, I, I, I miss, I miss the, you know, only a few years ago we had like online textbooks and those were great. Cause those were still, you know, And you could edit those, you know, it's easy. I, because I've, I've been in the corporate world, we've gone in and we've gone, right, we've got this for one client, we need to edit it, we need to put in different language or update the photo.

It's, it's better because at the moment we don't know. And I, I do feel very sorry for educators because, and I'm on their side, and that's part of the reason why I still go into classrooms and do some teaching and work with schools and in them, because as you say, you have to have that relevant experience.

You have to know what you're talking about. You have to see it. Um, And I, I don't think it's the responsibility of the educator of the school really to be, I do think they have to check terms and conditions and things, but I think that before anything comes near the school, it should have gone through, um, because you know, you don't go, it should have gone through some checks.

And I know Cesar were trying to do this. But it's really a, it's kind of a voluntary thing. And, and yet you've still got hundreds and hundreds of their check caps that are bad. And it's, it's not on you. Like if you or I go to, um, I don't know, Target and want to buy something, we trust that the, the meat that we buy there, the product, we, the spray, we buy that, you know, the diapers you buy for your kids, whatever else, um, is going to be already checked.

Like you might look at a label to check for peanuts or other things, or is it organic or whatever else, where has this come from? All those things as a consumer but you trust at base that it's safe for you and when we find out like that there's lead in something or it's a massive scandal because you've broken that consumer trust and the consumers that you're not expected to go to go into target with like food testing kits and because why would you so why should educators have to do all that work as well they haven't got the time they haven't got the time schools aren't You know, like offices where you can just go and walk down the corridor nice and chill and like Somebody will be in their office or you can just hit them up on teams and then hey Yeah, sure meet you for coffee in 10.

Like it's just not like You know, it's chaos from the moment you get in to the moment you finish Which is very long hours Um, and I think the problem is that teaching is a real job ed tech and a lot of people working in it It isn't a real job. I mean, most corporate jobs I've had haven't really been real.

I always think, my God, um, I'm sitting here having a coffee, not really doing much sitting on a call. And yeah, I used to be, you know, I was full time teaching, you know, sitting in, standing in a room trying to stop everybody from trying to stop anarchy and trying to get learning done. And it's a real job.

So when I talk about checking terms and conditions, I don't want it to just be on educators saying that's unfair. What, how are they supposed to do that with, with all the social work we have to do? Um, with all the planning somebody has to do. I mean, I say all the time, like people would actually pass out if they had to do even one hour.

in teaching a lot of the time nowadays. It is, it is an intensive job and that's why people are, people are leaving because they can, there's just too much, you know, but I think, I think we do need to, but the government needs to be doing that and the FTC are, by the way, doing quite a bit, but they rely on people reporting and I think it's a sad reflection of how we've been.

How far we've come. That's the last thing I'd say that when I left education in the UK in 2006, and we moved overseas and I worked in schools overseas, when we left, um, the unions were telling us sort of 2005, six, they were saying, Oh, you know, don't be on social media. Don't be on social media, lock everything down, there's this Facebook, be careful, you know, um, and I wanted, I could have made a lot of money, my God, I could have been rich by now, because I was saying, I want to create a website where they can have their homework and stuff, and I was told by the district, no safeguarding issues, and the rest of it, you can't do it, I mean, look where we are now.

And then I've come back, and when I came back in 2018, I was shocked because the way it was in the U. S. and France was very different. And you, I had school principals telling teachers to get the kids on Twitter so that they could like, um, posts from the school. Um, why? We're just obsessed with this. And then just the amount of parental apps, homework apps, platforms and things, which is all great.

Good in some ways, but the fact, you know, we, the school was closed once and we had four, four parental communication platforms, two apps, and we had to have two different websites we had to look into, and they still couldn't tell us that the school was closed, so we all turned up. So, you're not even using them, but you've just got them, you've just kind of, so I think, I think there's this pressure.

To be tech, techie and, um, to do things and we're not really thinking. And also the other, also I just forgot, I just, it really concerns me the way that schools are putting photos of children online now as well. Like I would say with the image, like when you talk about Canva, those images are brought from somewhere.

So I say to schools, don't use any pictures which have the children's faces. Um, you know, picture them from the back. Because those kids that, all those images are going into some sort of AI generated thing now. I think we have to act accordingly for those students. You might not ever know that your face has been part of some database.

But I still don't like it because they can't meaningfully consent.

[00:56:36] Fonz: Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. That is one of my biggest things too that I'm like, how do teachers get away with showing student faces because you need to get permission? And some teachers will say, well, I got permission from the parents.

I was like, but wait a minute. I mean, it's like you're working for this. Broader entity, you know, shouldn't you have talked to your principal first and then see if that comes in from our, you know, superintendent or your chief technology officer, somebody there that might handle safety because you're absolutely right on that, you know, and that to me is a big issue too.

I know when I was working in. My elementary, uh, I know that we had a list of students that'll say to like, uh, do not photograph, you know, for various reasons, you know, dealing with family issues and things of that sort. So they don't have any kind of identifier or anything of that sort. So I was

[00:57:26] Michelle: like,

[00:57:27] Fonz: yeah, I was like, don't even get into any trouble at all whatsoever.

I was like, don't even take any pictures. Or like you said, if it, if you do take a picture, it's just something that's going to be. You know, from the back where the students are doing work or anything. But even then those pictures shouldn't even go on your personal accounts. They should be, you know, on school accounts too, as well.

You know, so those are a lot of issues there too. But, uh, again, you know, it's very interesting times that we live in and boy, how times have changed and, you know, the conversations that we're having, you know, and that's interesting. So, but Michelle, I would just want to thank you so much for your time with me here.

I know it's a six hour difference. So. And everything, but thank you so much. And I'm glad that we were able to make this show happen, um, today. And thank you so much for your insight, your experience, and all the great things that you shared and these wonderful resources too, that will be there on our website and with the show notes too.

So thank you so much, but before, before we wrap up, Michelle. As you know, I always love to end the show with the last three questions, just to kind of lighten the mood a little bit. You know, I know we've had a, uh, you know, an interesting conversation, a lot of things there, uh, but you know, let's lighten it up a little bit.

And so let me finish off with the last three questions. And so question number one for you would be, as we know, Every superhero has a pain point or something that causes a weakness. And for Superman, if you're familiar, kryptonite was that pain point or that weakness. So I want to ask you, Michelle, in the current state of education, what would you say is your current edu kryptonite?

[00:59:01] Michelle: Um, the entire system needs to change. So yeah, that's my biggest thing. Cause I think a lot of the problems we have. If you wanted a real, a real specific example, school uniforms that we have. You don't have that, so, uh, Yeah, that's, that's a real issue for me. I hate it.

[00:59:22] Fonz: Is that what you said? You said it's the school uniforms?

[00:59:25] Michelle: Yeah, so, yeah, they are terrible, uncomfortable. You would get better behavior if you had them in comfortable clothes.

[00:59:32] Fonz: I see. Oh, you know, it's very similar here, like in the US when we say like, why can't just teachers wear jeans all day? I mean, they're comfortable clothes, you know, they probably get more done, but it's like, no, you can't wear jeans only on Fridays or it's like, oh, you have to pay to wear jeans, you know, so it's at the beginning of the year.

Pay us like 25 and then you get a gene pass once a month, you know, or something like that. So yeah, very interesting. And I agree. I mean, the more comfortable you are, the better you're going to move around. Like you're still, you know, professional, you know, it is what it is, but yeah. So hopefully that'll change.

All right. Question number two, Michelle, if you could have a billboard with anything on it, what would it be and why?

[01:00:16] Michelle: Move slowly and fix things for obvious reasons. Just don't be afraid to, to go slow and chat and say, I'm often the one in the room who says, have we thought about this? I'm not very much fun at parties at all.

So I didn't get invited. That's why I'm here on like a Saturday afternoon. Um, But yeah, just to not be afraid to be the thinker, the cautious person. We need the squeaky wheels. It's not being a blocker. It's just being a thinker.

[01:00:45] Fonz: There you go. I love that. Man, you and I have so much in common. I'm the same way.

You know, it's like everybody wants to, uh, measure once, cut twice. I'd rather measure twice and cut once. And then I'm seeing like the odd ball, like, Oh, like. You're too slow. You're too, I was like, no, I'm just being very cautious, you know, just, and it's okay, you know, to think. And, but like you said, there always needs to be a balance.

You always have to have that forward thinker. You have to have somebody that balances them out too, as well, and just kind of thinks of things. And then you've got, you know, the other people also that play a specific role. You know, it's almost like a family and it's just a matter of juggling. All those personalities to there as well.

But I think a lot can get done if you just kind of, just like you said, slow it down and see what we can fix and actually get to the root of the problem and not just try to put a bandaid on there because then that's going to hurt when you rip it off and then you're just going to need a bigger bandaid and so on and so forth.

So I agree with you 100%. All right. Last question, Michelle is, do you have a favorite hobby or activity That you wish you could turn into a full time profession.

[01:01:52] Michelle: I have turned it into partly a part time profession, believe it or not. I do, um, tarot reading for business. Um, so I have a Patreon where, um, people can, I'm not plugging it here by the way.

Um, but I, it's really weird that you wouldn't think that, um, business is the biggest thing I, I make money on really consistently is. giving, I have a whole clientele of mostly straight white men who pay me to give them like a three card read on a tarot for what they should do in their career. Basically,

[01:02:27] Fonz: which started as a hobby

[01:02:32] Michelle: because I love it.

Um, because I think working with children like this week at the moon has been in Scorpio, by the way, which has been why everything's been like, Oh, they've been a bit crazy. I don't want to say crazy. That's ableist term, but they've been a bit off the wall. So, um, you often have to think, don't you? As a teacher, what's the weather like, or why are they doing this?

And it's usually the moon or,

[01:02:53] Fonz: you know, Oh, my goodness. That reminds me, you know, well, anytime that I see rain and I'm working, you know, Monday through Friday, if I'm there in the district and there's rain that's coming, it just immediately sends me back to my classroom. And then I could just imagine all my students like, yeah.

You know, it. It's so weird because it's like, you've seen RAINN before, but because we had our window open, they're like, Oh my gosh, it's RAINN and everybody runs to the window and then all of a sudden they just get very anxious and active and so on. And so, yeah, I completely get it. I understand. I know exactly where you're coming from.

Well, Michelle, this has been an amazing conversation. Thank you so much again for spending a little bit of time with me. And like I mentioned earlier, sharing your experience and also getting your perspective and seeing how things are overseas as well, because I think we definitely need to open up these conversations, not just here within our space, but also see how other spaces are doing other countries and other places.

And just to continue to learn from one another and just get. You know, just some data get, you know, like this, this podcast actually is probably going to be used for my dissertation, you know, cause it's archival, I get to download it and then I get to put it in my dissertation that I'm working on. And so it'll go into that, but it's just a learning experience.

So it'll just, it'll get used for that. And so I'm just excited, you know, about what is coming, but again, being very cautious too, again, it's, it's good to be just, you know, I, I always. And I was telling a lot of, uh, platforms when I went to a conference in February, I said, those that move slow are going to get a little bit further because there's some that are just going on all in 1000%.

And sometimes what happens is there's an oversight. There's too much excitement. There's a lot of things that may happen and so on. But I said, if you move slow. See those that are ahead of you. See what happens there and you can go ahead and fix that before it gets to that point and so on. You know, you're going to be, you're going to be fine.

You'll be there. So yeah, those are the things there. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. And for all our audience members, thank you so much as always for making my EdTech life part of your day. Again, if you haven't done so make sure you follow us on all social media. I'll At my ed tech life, make sure you jump over to our YouTube channel.

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