One Year of The AI Education Conversation: Five Takeaways

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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day marks the one year anniversary of my journey with The AI Education Conversation.

I posted this one year ago — one of my most engaged posts of 2023. To be honest, I did not expect to receive any response from the linkedin community. I posted it as a self accountability measure for the podcast I was apprehensive about launching.

I started The AI Education Conversation because I’ve dedicated my entire career to empowering young people in schools and I’ve had the privilege of interacting with so many amazing educators over my career. Yet over the last few years, one thing was clear — all of my friends and colleagues were feeling burnt out and being consumed by the vast amount of expectations and responsibilities they hold working in schools.

When I stumbled upon an application called ChatGPT during my winter break last year, it changed my life. It changed my life because the proceeding worm hole of engaging with the tool painted a clear vision in my head I was determined to create.

A vision where the educational system transformed.

A vision where my friends and colleagues weren’t expected to create miracles with popsicles sticks and duct tape.

A vision where our young people, like so many students I’ve had the privilege of advising over their career, would be able to realize their dreams and feel prepared after graduating high school.

While there is still so much work to do to make this vision come to fruition. I am grounded in my purpose for the trek ahead.

Educators and schools are still not talking about AI beyond academic integrity and detectors.

A proliferation of new AI ‘applications’ — essentially ChatGPT wrappers — and edtech companies following the same trajectory of edtech companies before ChatGPT will come in hot to schools promising transformation and delivering headaches and non-school centered applications.

The workforce is adopting AI applications at a seismic rate and leading technology companies continue to rapidly develop AI tools — making AI policy and literacy a difficult mark to hit as the bullseye continues to move.

There’s a lot of work to do.

To those supporters in year one, thank you for believing in the conversation and in me. I will continue building our space in year two.

Bigger conversations. Episodes dedicated to onramp our colleagues through AI Essentials. Written content to complement or standalone in between episodes. AI learning experiences for schools and districts determined to make headway in 2024.

A special shout out also to the many guests who gave their time in year one to talk AI in education: Alex Kotran, Adeel Khan, Brad Smith, Michael Smith, Amanda Bickerstaff, Nneka Mcgee, Elsa Friss, Scott Freschet, Jake Hall, Adam Seidel, Gavin Smith, Josh Otlin, Marie Bigham, Steve Eno, Bree Dusseault, James Hutson, Aashika Vishwanath, Sherry Lewkowicz, Katie Moylan, Corrine Hoisington, Keith Rispin, Rob Huberty, Tim Sulzer, and Spencer Burrows.

To cap off our first year, and to share some of my favorite moments for those of you who have not been able to check out the full slate of episodes yet, I wanted to share five of my biggest takeaways from year one:

5 — Some AI applications which can be scary and we need to be diligent in responding to them

• I highlighted the world of deepfakes in episode 12 and we talked about AI tools are making this process even easier
• Dr. Siwei Lyu (a year two episode) also recently came on and we revisited the topic of deepfakes through his 20+ years of experience in media integrity and the advancement of these tools

4 — AI has tremendous potential to transform college access.

• (#10) I shared methods for analyzing student financial aid letters using AI and shared the study with my counseling colleagues.
• Adam Seidel(#15) and Marie Bigham(#29) also talked through the tremendous potential for AI to support college counselors and higher education professionals with their work.

3- The work of AI implementation is complicated, nuanced, and varied depending on school and state context.

• (#21) Dr. Nneka Mcgee, Chief Academic Officer of a public school district in Texas, she walked through real logistic challenges as well as mindset shifts which need to happen to see systematic adoption.
• (#28) Amanda Bickerstaff gave us her assessments on AI, the critical need for AI policy, and her experiences implementing AI with schools.
• (#24) Michael Smith also gave us his perspective on how Australia is receiving and responding to AI developments through his lens as an educator in Tasmania.

2 — The future of work will be revolutionized with AI

• (#31) Dr. James Hutson gave us a historical + academic perspective on how AI may lead to the evolution of artistry and content creation, which so many of our young people are into now.
• (#22) Corrine Hoisington gave us a broader perspective of how AI will be disrupting major workforce sectors and where she sees the big disruptions happening
• (#25) The Manufacturing Millennial, Jake Hall, gave us some great insights as to how artificial intelligence and automation are revolutionizing manufacturing and changing the job landscape there also.

1 — Many schools are being transformed with cool AI applications to promote learning, support, and safety

• (#20) Alongside has an AI powered application providing tier one mental health support to students in schools. We know how important this is given the scarcity of counseling professionals in schools and the rise of mental health challenges in young people.
• (#17) Zeroeyes has developed AI gun detection applications which ensure schools have a rapid response to any active shooter situations.
• (#23) Quill talked about how they are improving the writing experience for young people, even in a world of AI where you can get an AI tool to write an essay for you in seconds, and how they are working to redefine the relationship students have with writing.
• (#27) Steven Eno gave us a great use case for how to encourage all of his students to follow their ikigai, which is a Japanese term for the intersection of passions, purpose, and strength, and differentiating projects through an AI powered platform he developed called Project Leo.

Check out the full anniversary episode here. Join the conversation at TheAIEducationConversation.com.