Episode 302: Mike Kentz & Nick Potkalitsky, PhD.

Episode 302: A Practical Roadmap for AI in K-12 Education with Mike Kentz & Nick Potkalitsky, PhD.

[00:00:30] Fonz: Hello everybody, and welcome to another great episode of My EdTech Life. Thank you so much for joining us on this beautiful day, wherever you are joining us from around the world. As always, thank you for all of your support. We appreciate all the likes, comments, shares, and follows.

Thank you so much to all our new YouTube subscribers. As you know, our goal is to get to a thousand subscribers and we're almost there, but thank you to all our new subscribers and followers. We really appreciate you engaging with our amazing conversations and connecting with our amazing guests.

As you know, we do what we do for you - to bring you some amazing conversations. And today, I am really excited because I have two gentlemen here that I follow on LinkedIn. If you're not on LinkedIn and following these gentlemen, please make sure that you do. They are here to talk about their new book, their newest release that has just come out within the last week or so.

I'm really excited to have them here to share their story, their work, their heart, and their vision for technology in the classrooms. So I would love to welcome to the show, Nick Potkalitsky and Mike Kentz. How are you gentlemen doing today?

[00:01:38] Nick: I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having us on. 

[00:01:43] Fonz: Yes, thank you so much also for reaching out. And as always, I want to throw in that if you guys are ever interested in being on the show, just shoot us a DM and we can definitely make that happen. So thank you, Mike, for reaching out and for giving me the opportunity to share my platform with you all to share the work that you're doing.

I'm really excited about today's conversation, but before we dive in, I would love for my audience members who may not be familiar with your work yet or have not connected with you yet to get to know a little bit about you. So we'll start with Nick. Nick, can you give us a brief introduction and what your context is within the education space?

[00:02:24] Nick: Yeah, I've been a teacher for about 20 years and have taught Latin, humanities, and most recently English. I've taught middle school through college. I have a PhD in media rhetoric and narrative studies, and I got really excited about AI when it kind of landed in our laps about two years ago. I took it as a challenge to rethink some of the basic premises of my curriculum.

Since then, I've been deeply researching the space. I started an AI consultancy called Pragmatic AI Solutions, offering keynotes, AI literacy trainings, and online courses. I'm also writing a Substack called Educating AI, and we have well over 3,500 subscribers there - just a really vibrant community that brings a lot of energy and excitement to my life every week.

I wouldn't have imagined I would be so deeply immersed in the tech space as I am right now, but I think AI has called us to a new awareness in the teaching field. I've surprisingly found that my deep background in the humanities has allowed me to engage in a really special and thoughtful way. Mike and I do a lot of talking about how humanists really have a lot to offer to this particular conversation right now.

[00:04:19] Fonz: Well, thank you so much, Nick. I really appreciate it. Mike, how about you?

[00:04:24] Mike: Yeah, my background is also in the humanities. As Nick said, I'll consider myself - I've never really been the most tech-savvy person in my life or in the world, but AI kind of opened up, as Nick said, this opportunity to be a part of conversations just from a different angle. I think we've both enjoyed mixing and melding the humanities and STEM perspectives on what it would mean to bring AI into education, how it works, and what it looks like. 

My background started as a financial journalist. I was covering the very exciting world of over-the-counter derivatives, believe it or not, for six years for a couple of trade publications in New York. I enjoyed it - I loved being a reporter, honestly - but I didn't really want to write about finance, and it wasn't very fulfilling or satisfying to me as a human being.

After about six years of that, I decided to switch into education. About 10 years ago, I became a middle school writing teacher at a public charter school, and I did that for six years. Then I moved to the high school level and taught English at an independent school in Savannah, Georgia. Along the way, I got a master's in the art of teaching and then got a master's in creative writing.

Like Nick said, AI sort of landed in our laps as a challenge to think about our practices, our role, and our purpose. For me, it was very much a purpose question. What is my purpose now? If these tools can do the things that I've traditionally been teaching and valuing, where do I fit? What is my job? What is my role? How do I contribute in a positive way?

It took me a little bit of time to get there, I'll be honest. But once I got there, it became my driving force, and that's what I've been focused on for the last year. I also have a Substack blog. I was honestly very inspired by Nick's work to start my own. I started mine just this last spring, but I had been reading Nick's and other people's for a while. Eventually I started to feel like, okay, I want to be a part of this conversation. I want to get involved. 

From there, I presented some of the things that I've done in the classroom and also started a consultancy myself. I decided to leave the classroom this summer. So now I'm full-time in the professional development world, trying to help K-12 schools and higher ed as well in certain situations, adapt to AI in education, whether it's curriculum design, consulting on policy, or workshops to help people get up to speed. So that's where I am now.

[00:06:55] Fonz: Excellent. Thank you so much for sharing. And I know we're going to be talking about your new book that's come out, "AI in Education: The K-12 Roadmap to Teacher-Led Transformation." Mike, I'm assuming that because you are doing some work in the higher ed space, although the title says "K-12 Roadmap," a lot of these things that you share here can easily be transferred into higher ed as well. So I'm looking forward to hearing a little bit more about your book.

I would love to hear, and I'll start with you, Mike - first of all, the concept of this book and the idea - how did this come about and how did you and Nick both link up with this idea to write this book?

[00:07:31] Mike: It started on Substack, honestly. We were both writing about a lot of the same issues from different angles, and we connected that way. When we started talking, we recognized that we had a lot of similar ideas, but we also appreciated the fact that we were not coming at it from the same lens. We were maybe thinking about the future slightly differently, but driving in the same direction.

Once we thought about it for a while, we realized we kind of complement each other. Nick has an incredible background as an academic, as a PhD, as someone who is really very strong in research. I tried to bring some experiments that I did in the classroom, a lot of analogies, and tried to just bring some sort of separate element. We started working on it in early summer, I think. Right, Nick?

Then along the way, when we talked about what the thrust is here, what we're really trying to say - and Nick, you can kind of put it into your own words - but from my perspective, I was thinking that a lot of teachers were looking to policymakers to sort of provide the answers. From my view, I really wanted to push educators to experiment, get involved, get proactive, and start to make some headway into this space so that they could be a part of the conversation too.

I found it very powerful to get involved myself. So that's why the title says "Teacher-Led Transformation." Let's get teachers involved in all of the conversations so that it's influenced by what's happening in the classroom. And that was where we ended up when we put it all together.

[00:09:05] Fonz: Excellent. Nick, how about yourself? Tell me a little bit about that concept. And then, obviously, one thing that I did notice is that the chapters alternate, as opposed to many times you see with co-authors where everything is blended together, but here you kind of took that approach. So tell me a little bit about linking up with Mike on this project, how did it come about, and then tell us a little bit about that approach with the chapters too.

[00:09:32] Nick: Yeah, I remember we sort of synergized around the concept of process. Mike reached out to me after I put out an article on process pedagogy, kind of shifting away from too much emphasis on high-stakes grading, for instance. I've been doing more outcomes-based, standards-based grading for a while now.

When AI kind of landed in our lap, it eroded the integrity of the products that students were generating. It just seemed like a no-brainer to shift into more of a process-portfolio kind of mindset. One of my chapters focuses on a more portfolio style of writing instruction, and Mike reached out and said, "I've been doing this grading the chats kind of thing." I looked at it and I was like, wow, that's, as Mike kind of said, a delightful complementarity. It wasn't exactly what I was doing, but there was enough dissonance there that creativity emerged when we started to put our ideas side by side.

In terms of the formatting, why blend our voices when each of our voices had this distinctive element? So we kept this dialogue going throughout the text. And then, stepping back and thinking about the overall purpose of the text itself, what we're doing here is we're two teachers who are deeply engaged in this work, and like many teachers, we're doing it without a safety net beneath us. We're designing these methods as we are trying them out.

There's one perspective on that, and it can be a very fearful perspective, like, what are these teachers doing? And I think we have those voices out there in our community saying, "Let's wait for the absolute rock-solid data before we make any moves into this space." Luckily, we are starting to get that rock-solid research, and I'm cooking up a post for next week about that.

But at the same time, we can think about how this is the experimentation that teachers have always been doing. Why not shine a light through our title and through our text on this transformation that teachers across the country are engaging in, give them a lift, and make them feel included in this process of change? Because ultimately, we're just offering one slice of a solution, and we're inviting our readers into a larger collaboration. That's what's most exciting about this moment for people like Mike and I.

[00:13:03] Fonz: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, one of the things that you mentioned is the collaboration piece, really just having those conversations. I'm always honest with everybody that shows up here - I'm one of those in the middle. I try to find that balanced approach. Obviously, I see both sides, and I'm not necessarily a wait-and-see kind of person, but really just doing my own research and learning, going out and hearing people out, listening to new things.

This is what I love about our community, at least with everything that has happened in the last two years. The conversations that have sparked, the ideas and the thought processes, which is something that is definitely exciting but also very scary for a lot of educators.

And of course, like Mike, you mentioned, now with this out, it has you questioning the practices that you were doing and how you were teaching certain things. So I want to ask you, Mike, because this is chapter one, which was something that was very interesting and really caught my attention. We'll come back to you, Nick.

But I just want to talk to you about that and talking about that grief process, the five stages of grief. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how we might be able to still balance that with the research and making sure that when we are introducing anything, we're still very cautious advocates of that? Because sometimes we may move through the process too fast but maybe have not done enough research yet to see what is good or what will work for us. So walk us through that chapter and that thought process of the grief process for all those educators.

[00:14:43] Mike: Sure. Yeah, I think when Nick and I both looked in the mirror a little bit after AI kind of landed on us and asked what's our role, what's our purpose, what's the challenge that we now need to rise to meet - a lot of times when you start asking yourself that question, it gets pretty heavy. It gets heavy quite fast because you start to wonder, okay, what does the future look like? Who am I? What is my role?

What I noticed for myself first was that I was very much in denial for at least the first eight months after ChatGPT was released. My department head was sending us emails with articles to read ahead of department meetings, and I just wouldn't even open them because I was so frankly depressed. Because as a writer and as an English teacher, I'm sitting here going, what's this going to do to the value of the written word? 

It wasn't for a while until I kind of snapped out of that denial phase and started to get to a place where I felt comfortable experimenting. Then when I started working with colleagues - and I'll get to that grief framework in a second - but as I started talking to colleagues, I noticed that they were kind of in the same place that I had been in. They were potentially angry about it, which I think is totally rational and reasonable. They were maybe a little bit depressed about what it was doing to the English classroom and other classrooms.

That's when the idea of, you know, this feels like a grieving process. That's when that dawned on me. It's like, I think we're all grieving. I think we're grieving the loss of the old way of teaching or the old way of assessing student thinking or student learning. And if you look at the five stages of grief, it involves denial first, and then it involves passing through a stage of anger, a stage of bargaining, a stage of depression, until you ultimately reach acceptance.

So the purpose of writing that chapter and also putting it at the front of the book was to try to make educators feel seen a little bit. You know, if you are angry, what I say at the beginning of a workshop that I do for this is - you're right. You have every reason to be frustrated right now. The pace of change is incredibly rapid. We're being asked to flip a lot of things on their head without a ton of really evidence-backed research that we can rely on. And that can be very unsettling from an emotional and psychological place.

So if you are feeling any of those first four stages of grief, again, as I did and continue to, there's nothing wrong with that. You give yourself that grace to say, it makes sense that I feel that way. And once we sort of self-identify that we potentially are in that grieving process, it starts to become easier to move through it.

Once you look in the mirror and go, okay, this is grief, this is what I'm experiencing, then there are proven models, there are proven practices in cognitive behavioral therapy that allow us to move through it. And that's what that chapter goes through. If you are angry, there's ways to sort of flip that energy into a positive, proactive place. 

But to your point, Alfonso, there is that kind of - at the end of the rainbow, there's this risk that we get, let's say we move through those first four stages and we get to acceptance. There's this risk of maybe overzealous excitement or experimenting in ways that are maybe not as responsible as we would like, because we don't know, we just don't know what's going to work and we don't know what's not going to work.

So that chapter tries to not only move through those first four stages, but at the end say, okay, when you get to acceptance, what you're trying to maintain is a balance. You're trying to maintain a stoic acceptance where you're okay with the reality that we're in, and you recognize that it's going to be turbulent. You recognize that we need to develop some forward momentum here, but you're also not necessarily just saying everything - I'm just gonna do every AI thing, I'm gonna use every AI tool and I'm gonna put them all in front of my students, I'm just gonna let them do everything. Because that's just as bad as not doing anything.

And so that sweet spot in the center of cautious optimism or guarded optimism is where really thoughtful, responsible experimentation and research happens. And that's when we start to get some really useful and helpful conclusions that will help the entire education community. So we lead with that chapter, we decided to lead with that chapter to again, make people feel seen. And then, okay, once we get to that stoic acceptance, the rest of the book, I think, is a lot easier to read once you're in that place, because that's when Nick and I start getting into some of the practical aspects, which can be a little unsettling if you haven't dealt with that first. So that's the idea there.

[00:19:06] Fonz: Excellent. Now, one of the things that I do like about this chapter, Mike, and I'll be honest with you, like I said, you know, I know that even for myself, working in the role that I do and being with tech and always being very tech forward and doing all this research - oftentimes you see a lot of people that are very excited about this, and you see them post, and sometimes I feel like it's okay to understand that teachers may feel these grieving stages where they're like, "Hey, you know what, I'm not ready for this," or "I'm still transitioning into this, I'm still trying to figure things out." And there are people and resources that they can look to. But sometimes it's like, "Hey, why aren't you doing this?" The fear of missing out - "You need to make sure that you're doing this already."

Back in show 170, Dr. James Breyer was on, and this was probably two years ago to the day that he was on. He was talking about how many people are questioning their practice and what's happening and how it's changing so quick, which sometimes not all change is bad at all whatsoever. Obviously incremental change, getting used to those things.

But it's just been very difficult for me many times where there are people that are just so excited that are like, "Hey, why aren't you even here yet? Why aren't you doing this yet?" And I always say, "Hey, it's what works best." One of the things that I loved about what you said, though, is as you would with a student - you gave that example - sometimes you just want to throw all the tech at them, but that could just be just as bad as not doing anything.

So I always say, okay, how about we let the students lead with the tech and see what works for them? Because maybe for that particular assignment, it may not be that particular platform that you want to use. It may be something else. So how about you let them lead?

And I feel the same way with teachers as well, where we want to throw everything at them. But maybe that approach of, "Hey, let me let you lead with the tech. What is it that you would like to do or accomplish first or learn first, start with that, and then just continue to grow." Because, I credit Renee Dawson for always saying, you know, in any training session, you're always going to have the speedboats, the tugboats and the anchors. You're going to have the speedboats which are going to take off right without you - you barely even taught them how to do something and they're already on level two, level three, they probably already got their certification while they're there with you and so on. And then you've got the tugboats that are a little slower, but they're willing to help those anchors and they're still working side by side and doing that.

So I do appreciate this chapter, and I do appreciate you being very conscious of teachers' feelings and how this process, even though it's been two years, it's still a work in progress. But that's one thing that I do appreciate, because oftentimes it's like, go, go, go, why aren't you here yet? And people really feel hurt and sad that people aren't seeing this or at that level. But hey, it's perfectly acceptable, so I love that.

Nick, I want to turn over to you now for chapter two, "AI's Impact on Existing Educational Changes." I want you to tell me a little bit about what your thought process is on that shift that we talk about so much from standardization in education to now personalization in education through AI. What has been your experience with your students and your practice and through your research?

[00:22:35] Nick: Well, this whole chapter kind of came out of stepping back from an "AI is the solution to every educational problem" approach, which I started to see emerging in late 2023, where we started to see articles linking AI to Bloom's sort of Sigma problem.

We had the AI optimists who were very much in the camp that we were about to see education totally transformed through advanced tutor applications. And you know, I was suspicious of this rhetoric, just having been in the business for a while and having seen other tech kind of come in around similar promises. 

So I started to think about AI as a lens that allowed us to look at existing problems within our school system. One of those was focusing on problems that were emerging from standardization, in particular the way we assess students, the way we set up our workflows in classrooms, the way that we still rely on teacher dissemination of information as opposed to more project-based learning. 

It seemed to me like when AI got dropped into schools, it sort of exacerbated all these existing problems that were already there. And instead of thinking of it as this radical solution for these problems, I started to think about it as a microscope that allowed us to drill down and think, "Oh, we actually do have long-standing alternative pedagogies that are kind of sitting there on the fence in many cases." And we also have other teachers that are the quiet pioneers that have been working on these pedagogies for multiple decades and having amazing outcomes in small ways, chipping away and seeing great success.

So I started to think about how this AI moment can be an opportunity for us to think more broadly about how we can use AI to zero in on these longstanding problems, but also then bring to surface some of these solutions that we've maybe been systemically a little bit hesitant to adopt in a broader, more widespread way. 

At the time of publication and composition, I was doing a good deal of writing about looking at more curricular reform. And that's kind of just a framing piece as one component of the larger package here. Admittedly, it's a bit of a bitter pill to swallow for the individual educator who doesn't necessarily have that much control in terms of systems, but you can also look at it as an affirmation for teachers who maybe are trying project-based learning or who are trying to do alternative kinds of assessments.

You are on a good pathway. And this is something that is going to really help you in the long term be more responsive to these new technologies. And then we get to more specific practices later on in the text that make it much more concrete. That's kind of a heavy theory chapter, if I'm being honest.

[00:27:20] Fonz: Yeah, no, but it's great. And the information that you've shared is definitely something that is very useful. And like myself, it's something that really is in the back of my mind, and not only for me, but for many educators also, how we can help improve the education process and just really change things around.

I've always been a big proponent of project-based learning and creating portfolios and having these capstone projects that build on the weekly, on the monthly, all the way and lead up to a final project. And you're putting all of these tools and skills to use - critical thinking, thought process, collaboration, communication, all of those tools and soft skills. So that's something that I really do enjoy and like.

And of course, I know that there are many people on both sides. So I can definitely see how this can help transform in many ways some of the things that we are currently doing, obviously for me, for efficiency too as well.

But I also want to talk to you now, Nick, and we'll come back to Mike in the next question. In chapter three, one of the things that is mentioned here is talking about - obviously, we know that as quickly as an AI startup can go up, it can easily go down, especially with the way that we see things changing continually. You're seeing changes to access to APIs, you're seeing so many large language models, and then all it takes is one error, one mistake, like we all know with Allie and the chatbot for LAUSD.

So we know that there are oftentimes those risks, and many EdTech companies always come at it with the "app-first approach," like this app is going to solve this issue, when immediately it just may turn into, like you mentioned here, sort of like a bandaid.

So I want to talk to you a little bit about this and what would be your best advice for not only the school leaders at the top, but as far as teachers or even people in my roles that are like that mid-level coordinators for digital learning - what would be some advice for that in the near future? And what should we look out for?

[00:29:36] Nick: Yeah, well, I work with small school districts and very large publics. And right now, the big move is to buy into some sort of AI app across the board - I won't name the major three products - but something that has ready spots that can generate rubrics or emails, that kind of thing. 

I think this is kind of the "tech before the teacher" approach. I understand it, in terms of teachers not having a lot of time and maybe not a lot of engagement. So put the tools in, just see what teachers do, give them an API that's FERPA-protected, gather the data and see whether to continue with the product. Maybe do some limited trainings through the corporation or whatnot. So that's like the dominant model that's happening. 

I would advise schools to maybe think about it in terms of developing AI soft skills that are independent to any particular app right now. I mean, I think you do have to have something that teachers can use as part of a training cycle. So you'd have to open up some sort of training cycle application through a firewall, but to just teach them some basic prompting and how AI works with an AI trainer who's maybe not necessarily affiliated with a corporation is probably a better way to go

I mean, I'd hate to see a whole generation of teachers who just only know how to use the salad bar version of AI versus being able to know how to make the salad themselves. Because I think ultimately, for us to get to a place where we are using AI in the classrooms with students - and I still think that's a very open question, the things that Mike and I are doing are very much exploratory in our books, and we're definitely not saying let's just radically alter the curriculum and go full AI in writing classrooms - what we're suggesting is maybe trying it out for a lesson once a semester. That's kind of where we're at actually in our classrooms. 

But even to keep up with students and their own use outside of class, I think teachers need a little bit more literacy than what they might get with the salad bar approach. And I think to your point earlier about following where the student wants to go, putting a teacher in front of an AI app that has some protections and security built in and seeing where they want to go with it, as opposed to having a lot of pre-selected options, I think you're going to get better outcomes that way too. So when I can get an ear that listens to me, that's kind of where I'm advising schools to go right now. 

But ultimately, most schools are just looking for a tech solution that they can buy into. Unfortunately, those buy-ins are really expensive. And guys like Mike and I could set you up with much cheaper solutions and probably higher quality literacy content. But that's just how the market is right now.

[00:34:14] Fonz: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think from what I'm hearing from you too, is just really going back to talking about putting teachers and putting the tool in front of the teachers and see where they want to go. I mean, the transformation and all of the changes will come through the biggest asset, which in this case would be the teachers. They'd be the biggest asset that you have.

And like you mentioned, sometimes it's just that one speedboat or two speedboats that you have down the hall or on your campus or in your district that can help other teachers or bring that ease. And I think it's very interesting because the way that we're talking about this, it's like, for me, it seems like it's the same approach for every - it may be every year, or every other year, or every third year, when we get a new platform, it's always like, "Oh great, here's another new platform that I need to learn. And this is gonna be for math, and this one's gonna be for science."

So it really isn't anything different, it's just really the fact of the technology and making sure that it's safe and making sure that teachers do understand some of it, which kind of brings me - and it's a nice segue to the next question that I want to talk to Mike about in the next chapter.

Mike, you talk a little bit about, and this really drew my attention, the car engine analogy. So I want to ask you here - obviously there are some people that really think that teachers should not be using this technology if they really don't know the ins and outs of it.

So how do teachers understand, if we are going to be using or learning this new technology, how to manage or learn a little bit more about the limitations of this technology that it may have? Obviously it would be through practice, but I just want to hear your take on that and tell us a little bit more about that car analogy too.

[00:35:57] Mike: I think it's both, honestly. I think, to your point, you do need to know a little bit about how the engine works, quote unquote. You do need to understand that it's predicting sequences of text, for example. You do need to know at least some of the overview of the background.

But I would - the car engine analogy leans into this idea that I can drive a car without knowing everything about the engine. I should probably know a little bit, right? I should probably know what it sounds like when the engine needs to get checked. I should probably know what it sounds like when I turn on the car and I go, "Oh, you know what? I don't think I should really take this on a long road trip. This doesn't, this seems like it needs to go into the shop."

But on the same token, if you consider the skills that it takes to drive a car safely, it has very little to do with building an engine, fixing an engine, maintaining an engine. It's all about awareness. It's really all about being aware of your surroundings, being reactive, being present, being conscious. And of course you have to practice as well, which goes to your point.

And what I try to get people to recognize is that when you're using a large language model, it's very much communication. You're writing questions and you're reading answers, or if you're using the voice mode, you're speaking and listening. So if you can engage that part of your brain, which is the sort of the humanity side of your brain, which Nick and I talked about at the beginning, then you're going to be able to drive the car safely.

And that goes back to this consciousness idea. If I'm conscious of the fact that while I'm using this, I need to go back to my ELA life, you know? But to your point, Alfonso, there is a balance here. I mean, you can't just completely ignore understanding how the engine works. And I think for me, if I look back on my journey here, I started with a prompt engineering course. That was the first thing I did.

And at the beginning, I think for the first five minutes, Jules White from Vanderbilt University - I think he did talk about, here's what's going on. Here's what the engine is doing. Just so you know, this isn't a human. Here's what it's actually doing. But then from there, he moved me into, and one of the first things that I remember a light bulb going off, he said, "This is more of a creative writing skill." And he talked about the fact that his father was an English teacher. And he said, I'm actually now - he's a computer scientist - but he said, "I'm leaning more into what my father taught me as an English teacher."

So there is a balance, there is a mix, and you need to meld them together. But if you - you know what that chapter does after the car engine analogy and getting us to recognize that the skills are different - is show that you can really split these out by the disciplines that we already have. And you can use your STEM thinking skill to understand how the machine works.

But if you're focusing on safe and effective use, you're going to prioritize those humanity skills around effective communication and writing good questions and close reading answers and critically evaluating language.

So, it's tough, because sometimes with that analogy - I don't know if this was your reaction, Alfonso - but sometimes I think people think I'm saying, like, ignore the engine completely, and that's fair. That's fair, because that's kind of how I wrote it. But I do recognize that there's an importance, there's a value there of at least knowing some of the basics.

[00:39:00] Fonz: Absolutely. And yes, that's wonderful. And you know, I totally got what you were saying on that, but like you mentioned, you can also see how people - it's like, sometimes you just don't want to worry about it. It's like, "Hey, as long as my car turns on, I'm good. And as long as the engine light isn't on and all these lights are not, Hey, I'm good." It doesn't even matter.

And although you have to know, like, "Hey, at this much mileage, I do need to do some maintenance." Obviously, like you mentioned, if it sounds a little bit funny, then maybe I need to kind of check that out and things of that sort.

So yes, absolutely. I agree with you on that. Now, I want to ask you, Mike, a little bit before we kind of start wrapping up, also talking about AI literacy. One of the things that I want to ask - and both of you can answer, but I'll start with you first - I know that we use AI literacy or we use that term a lot, and back in episode 300, I had Benjamin Riley on the show and he talked about AI literacy.

I guess he made a distinction between AI literacy and AI training, where oftentimes I feel like they might be kind of intertwined or maybe just mixed up a little bit, where sometimes - and I'll be honest, I will go to a conference and we'll see something on AI literacy, but it's really just showing you how to use this app as opposed to AI literacy, like you mentioned, understanding a little bit about what goes on under the hood and understanding that on a slightly bigger scale, more than what we already knew.

So I want to talk to you a little bit about that as far as AI literacy and how you both - where you both stand and what is it that you share with the teachers on your Substacks and so on, as far as AI literacy.

[00:40:39] Mike: There's a very real tension here, and I think you described it well, which is that when you walk into a room and you're going to quote-unquote teach AI literacy, a lot of the people who are in that particular class or workshop, they want or expect that they're going to be shown the tools. Show me the tools, show me how to use them, show me how it's going to make my life better. 

What I found, though, is that when you take that approach, what always happens at the end is that the teachers in the audience then say, "Well, what about the big issues? What about protecting my thinking? What about making sure that I'm still an active participant and I'm not over-relying? What about making sure that I'm not handing over all of my cognitive processes?"

So then what I try to do, and I think Nick does the same thing, is say, okay, we're not going to just do a tools and takes thing where we show you all the tools. Instead, we're going to talk about what it would mean to have deep AI fluency where you understand what's going on, how your word choice, for example, dramatically changes your interaction with a large language model. That's something I try to focus on a lot - specific ways that you ask questions, or the buttons you click on some of the EdTech tools, it dramatically changes how these interactions happen. 

So I view AI literacy more as the second version of what I just described. I try to take teachers directly to the source - to ChatGPT or Claude - and walk them through what happens when you prompt it this way, what happens when you prompt it that way, you might be able to use it this way. Here's how you have to think about it when the outputs are coming at you. 

And then I tell them, listen, at the end, you don't really need me to show you how the EdTech tools work because once you know what's happening at the ChatGPT level, it's going to be very easy for you to intuitively pick up how to use some of those tools. 

But that's not an easy thing. It's a really big concept. The idea of being fluent in AI or literate in AI is such a big, big concept. So the best I can say is I try to just start, go right to the source and start with that mindset. Here are the mindsets you need. Here's some of the philosophical frameworks. Now let's test it out a little bit. And educators start to draw their own conclusions.

And I think that the best part about this is it can be passed on to students in that holistic way where students will draw their own conclusions that are thorough. But if you're giving them the right mindset - and I know that's a little bit meta in nature - but it's the best I can answer that question.

[00:43:00] Fonz: Oh, excellent. Great. How about you, Nick? What are your thoughts?

[00:43:04] Nick: Well, I think a lot about rhetoric in this context, and one concept in particular - voice. Because it's something that kind of traffics between both something that's more mechanistic, like the voice that's produced in terms of a specific output - and you can train AIs to take on specific voices - but then there's something more personal, almost spiritual, about your voice as something that you uniquely possess.

And we see so many posts and articles put out about students losing their voice, authors losing their voice, teachers losing their voice, their distinctive instructional footprint by engaging with AI and using AI as an instructional assistant.

So I think these age-old rhetorical concepts have a very unique power right now. And so I have this intervention in the book about using voice as a tool for working with students, thinking about how they can maintain voice when interacting with AI tools. And it's been pretty powerful in the several iterations I've done with students. 

It's kind of brought into just a larger way of doing secondary language instruction. It's kind of trickled down from something that we tend to do mostly with university students, but these concepts, I think, are going to become increasingly more pertinent as we think about context and voice and situation throughout our practice as writers, and think about these powerful tools that can transform our words for a variety of different contexts almost instantaneously. 

So there's nothing like an easy solution, but I think by equipping our students with a more nuanced architecture of terms - and our teachers too - we enable them to see the nuances that are at play and give them the power to make better choices about how to interact with these tools. And also when they don't want to - when maintaining their voice in the most ultimate sense of just refraining from using is the best way to go about writing and communicating, because that's always going to be a choice.

So we definitely have to position that as something that is always going to be an option.

[00:46:24] Fonz: Excellent. Yeah. All right. Well, before we wrap up with our final three questions, which hopefully you got a chance to look over - they're in the calendar invite and so on that I always love to end the show with - I would definitely love for this episode to leave my audience with some actionable steps.

So I'll start with you, Mike. If there is an administrator, if there's a teacher right now that's listening to this episode who is feeling maybe either inspired or a bit overwhelmed - or both inspired and a bit overwhelmed - what would you recommend that their first three steps would be to begin their journey with thoughtful AI usage?

[00:47:00] Mike: I think - so I'll do administrator first because I think administrator and teacher are different. For an administrator, the number one thing is figure out a way to incentivize learning and experimentation among your faculty, which I'm sure every administrator is already thinking of, but that needs to have moved up higher onto the priority scale if you're an administrator, considering the situation we're in. 

I think having a really robust AI policy and incentive structure for experimentation and research is the type of thing that's going to differentiate schools in the future. Parents are going to want to know, okay, this school has thought about this, the school has an idea, even if it's not perfect. So I think as an administrator, that kind of needs to happen. And you've got to find teacher leaders who are going to be willing to do some of that research. And if you can incentivize them in some way, then you're going to generate that type of experimentation and data gathering that then allows you to really have a nice policy and be able to talk to parents and say, we have been thinking about this, we are taking steps.

I think on the faculty level, the risk is being overwhelmed because teachers, as we know, are already underpaid and overworked. And so to ask them to change things on the fly is very unfair. However, to the extent possible, I would say lean on community. If you can't find community directly in your school or school district, I really would recommend looking to places like Substack, LinkedIn, Blue Sky. 

They have been incredibly powerful for me. I wouldn't have met Nick if it weren't for Substack. And here we are today, right? Perfect case in point example. There are educators out there. 

Just as an aside, at ZainTech, we host a virtual free bi-monthly meetup for educators who want to talk AI, and it's fairly informal on purpose so that anybody can feel like they can come and at least hear or listen and share, and I think that's what has to happen from the faculty level.

And the last thing I'll say for the faculty is, as you engage in that, as you said, Alfonso, you probably are going to end up feeling overwhelmed again. So, baby steps, give yourself grace. You deserve the time and space that you need to move forward, but push yourself as much as possible to keep that forward momentum going.

That is the number one thing. If you can keep a forward momentum going, it doesn't matter how fast you're going or how far you're going. As long as you're moving, you're doing the right thing, I suppose you could say.

[00:49:22] Fonz: Excellent. Thank you, Mike. Nick, any action steps that you'd love to add to those?

[00:49:27] Nick: Well, I would ask administrators to engage with their teachers to see what they're already working on. Because there are probably some great ideas kind of happening under the veil. And I would also advise setting up a cohort where those teachers who are already working with AI can come together and share ideas and take some leadership within the community, like an AI committee that can start to make some plans in terms of AI literacy. 

So it's always good to allow teachers to have some time to do some training. As Mike kind of alluded to, it's definitely hard to train yourself on the fly. So seeing a leader setting aside a little bit of time, even if it's only an hour during a PD or an hour or two over a couple PDs, towards just voicing some conversations about this new technology - it kind of goes a long way. It puts it on the map as an issue that is worthy of consideration as opposed to something that can continue to fly under the radar.

And for teachers - just continue the amazing work that you're doing. But if you can engage in conversations with your students about their use, it really goes a long way. And I kind of think about transparency as a very important value right now. I find that I really learn a lot from my students in terms of their own practices and their own engagements.

And you'll actually find that more often than not, they're actually pretty opposed to AI and its disruption of school. And that's an interesting perspective to get. It sort of tempers your own practice a bit and your own potential optimism about these new tools.

So yeah, activate your student learners and see what they're engaged in with these new technologies and just keep up the great work you're doing, teachers.

[00:51:54] Fonz: Excellent. Well, thank you so much, gentlemen. I really appreciate your time today and everything that you shared. And again, "AI in Education: The K-12 Roadmap to Teacher-Led Transformation" is the title of the book. Please make sure that you look out for it on Amazon. Please make sure that you connect with Mike and Nick, and all of that information will definitely be in the show notes so that you guys can connect.

I highly recommend, like Mike said, find your niche, find your click there on socials, whether it's LinkedIn, Substack, Blue Sky, wherever it is. You're always going to find some wonderful educators. So just find and connect. And I promise you, you won't regret it. You'll definitely learn a lot, especially with these two gentlemen, with Nick and Mike and all the great stuff that they put out there. 

You'll definitely see that in the show notes. But before we wrap up, gentlemen, I always love to end the show with the last three questions here. We're going to start with you, Nick, first.

So as we know, every superhero has a weakness or a pain point. For Superman, we know that kryptonite kind of just weakened him in the sense that he would lose some of that power that he had. So I want to ask you, in the current state of education, what would you say is your current edu-kryptonite?

[00:53:05] Nick: I would have to say high-stakes assessments. Yeah, definitely.

[00:53:10] Fonz: All right. All right. Mike, how about yourself? What is your current edu-kryptonite?

[00:53:14] Mike: Mine's a little broader. I think it's just FOMO. I want to be at every conference. I want to be talking to every person. I want to hear every podcast and read every article. And I feel like if I miss every Substack that's posted or something like that, that I'm going to miss some hugely important things. So FOMO, and then I get paralyzed by it. So that's mine.

[00:53:33] Fonz: Hey, you and I have a lot alike in that sense. Like seriously, the FOMO, but then it's - I get that analysis paralysis and I just - I'm like, okay, I ended up not doing anything, but I still have that FOMO.

All right. Question number two, this time I'll start with you, Mike. If you can trade places with a person for one day, who would it be and why?

[00:53:51] Mike: Now, does this need to be education focused or no?

[00:53:54] Fonz: Doesn't have to be education focused.

[00:53:56] Mike: Jalen Brunson. The point guard for the New York Knicks, Jalen Brunson. I'm a big basketball fan and a big basketball player, and I'm a big Knicks fan, and I would love to play at the Garden and be running the offense for the New York Knicks. So hopefully that's a good one. Jalen Brunson.

[00:54:13] Fonz: Jaylen, well, definitely. I'm going to make sure and tag Jaylen on this and at least make something happen or somehow you two can both connect or something. That'd be great.

All right, Nick. How about yourself? Who is one person that you would love to trade places with for a day? And why?

[00:54:27] Nick: I'm thinking Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist. I'm a big space nerd. And he's just such a brilliant guy and I've always wanted to understand quantum mechanics. I've always read the popular science versions and that's about as far as I've gotten. So.

[00:54:48] Fonz: All right, great answer. And finally, the last one, Nick, we'll start with you. If you could have a billboard with anything on it, what would it be? And why?

[00:54:57] Nick: I had to write this one down, but it's "Learn something new, teach someone else, repeat."

[00:55:05] Fonz: Like that - simple, short to the point and very powerful, impactful. And as, even then, like, you know, I just - I always think everybody is a teacher, no matter what, even though it may not be your profession. But everybody's a teacher. I mean, through the storytelling process and experiences, we're always learning from one another. So I absolutely love that billboard.

Mike, how about yourself?

[00:55:25] Mike: Yeah, I was between two, but I've decided right now to go with "Be less impressed, get more involved."

[00:55:33] Fonz: Oh my God.

[00:55:33] Mike: I stole that from Matthew McConaughey. I love it. I heard him talk about it once and I was like, that is a great way of thinking about things. Be less impressed, get more involved. Because I just think, going back to the analysis paralysis thing, sometimes we get really, really impressed by whoever, and we think, wow, I can't - I'm not on that level. You are on that level. You have plenty to offer and you should contribute and get involved.

[00:55:56] Fonz: Yeah, definitely. And that kind of falls in line with imposter syndrome too as well. Like, yes, what you mentioned. I mean, we get the analysis paralysis, but that imposter syndrome - I'm like, oh man, I'll never be like that. But no, absolutely. It's all about just doing it, trying it, and you know, like you said, really having that confidence. 

So, thank you so much. Gentlemen, thank you again for just a wonderful conversation. And for all our audience members, thank you as always for making My EdTech Life what it is today. Thank you so much for catching this episode. And also please make sure that you visit our website at myedtech.life, where you can again listen to this episode and the other 301 episodes that we already have.

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