Class in Session: A PHD Class on AI in Education from an AI Powered District Leader
Just when I think AI developments will calm, OpenAI drops a huge announcement in their text to video tool: Sora. The videos looked game changing and my excitement around AI tools is at an all time high as it is for many folks.
Are we finally at “the get on the train or be left at the station” moment?
Our guest today says there’s still time: it’s okay to breathe.
My SECOND conversation with Dr. Nneka McGee was a special one. In addition to being the first guest to return to our conversation, Dr. McGee is a true AI unicorn — a district leader with deep experiences in education (most recently as Chief Academic Officer of San Benito CISD in Texas) and a depth of experiences in Artificial Intelligence well beyond the ChatGPT era.
Honestly, this conversation with Nneka was probably one of my favorite conversations on my journey so far — maybe it is because we are talking for the second time or because we’ve both grown tremendously in our knowledge around AI in education over the past year.
Buckle your seatbelts and get ready for an hour-long doctoral level class with Dr. Nneka McGee.
I struggled to limit our takeaways to just a few because there were so many good nuggets, here’s my top six:
Relationships matter
In absence of consistent teacher training, relationships between teachers in the building is how teachers have mainly developed around AI, though not systematically.
The AI privacy landscape is complex
While Acceptable Use policies state users need to be above 13 years old, Dr. McGee lays out how school districts have bypassed this using in loco parentis agreements to partner with technology companies around student use.
Developing our AI understanding, but still understanding
Our increasing collective AI proficiency has allowed us to interrogate AI use cases in ways we were not doing last year/pre-chatGPT. Despite this, the landscape as a whole continues to hover around basic understanding of AI tools, not quite at the application or innovation stages.
AI implementation starts with priorities and plans
While training is a helpful first step, we won’t see fundamental application of AI in school districts until it is embedded at the policy level — in district/school report cards and campus/district improvement plans
Play the AI long game
It’s okay to breathe! Developments across AI are really exciting and we both believe in their potential for transformation, but this doesn’t mean we have to burn everything down tomorrow. The educational experience will be transformed through a thoughtful foundational vision setting which incorporates AI capabilities and plants seeds for a larger bloom at a steady pace, rather than by purchasing multiple new AI one-off tools tomorrow.
A funding cliff is coming
School districts benefited from a massive influx of federal funding called ESSER during the pandemic. That funding will be sunsetted over the next year across schools. Schools and districts will not have the same financial capacity to deeply invest in new technological tools like they could over the last few years.
Special thanks to Dr. Nneka McGee for sharing her perspectives for the second time! Check out a full day of AI Education learning with Day29 led by Dr. Nneka McGee on February 29th. Check out her full doctoral thesis here.
Check out our full conversation here. Join the conversation at TheAIEducationConversation.com
I’ll be presenting at Sequoia Con 2024!! If your team, school, district, or institution is ready to take the leap in exploring AI implementation, my session will support with strategies for implementation and navigating change management!
The team at Evergreen is also giving any of my followers $50 off conference registration if you use my code: AICONVO.
You can register here. Hope to see you at my session!
#HumansAtTheHeartOfEducation
