Teach Middle East Podcast
Welcome to the Teach Middle East Podcast, the ultimate audio hub where educators find inspiration, share innovative ideas, and grow together! Brought to you by Moftah Publishing—the minds behind the premier Teach Middle East Magazine—this podcast is your gateway to the latest research-based practices, cutting-edge classroom strategies, and the heartwarming stories of educators from the Middle East and around the globe.
As the only podcast that interviews school leaders from across the Middle East and beyond, we offer unparalleled insights into the challenges and successes that shape educational landscapes in diverse settings. Join us as we dive deep into the fascinating world of education, where every episode promises a treasure trove of insights designed to connect, develop, and empower the brilliant minds shaping our future. Whether you’re seeking fresh perspectives, practical tips, or a dose of inspiration, the Teach Middle East Podcast is your must-listen resource. Tune in and transform the way you teach!
Teach Middle East Podcast
AI in Education: How To Navigate the Future Together With Dan Fitzpatrick
Dan Fitzpatrick returns to discuss the rapid evolution of AI in education since our last conversation in 2023, exploring how generative AI has moved from simple text-based tools to diverse applications creating music, videos, software and more. We examine the complex balance between embracing AI's educational potential while addressing growing concerns about safety, screen time, and the future of work.
• AI now speaks our language, making it more accessible than previous technologies
• Teachers already possess the core skills needed to leverage AI effectively
• Silicon Valley tech leaders often send their children to low-tech schools while developing AI for global use
• The economic framework is shifting toward entrepreneurial skills in what some call the "intelligence age"
• As AI automates more jobs, education may need to focus less on content acquisition and more on problem-solving and values
• Dan's new book, "The Educator's 2026 AI Guide", offers practical tools, case studies, and ethical considerations for implementing AI
• Notebook LM allows educators to create personalised research assistants by uploading source materials
• Finding balance between technological engagement and digital sanctuary remains crucial for student development
Teach Middle East Magazine is the premier platform for educators and the entire education sector in the Middle East and beyond. Our vision is to equip educators with the materials and tools they need, to function optimally in and out of the classroom. We provide a space for educators to connect and find inspiration, resources, and forums to enhance their teaching techniques, methodologies, and personal development. We connect education suppliers and service providers to the people who make the buying decisions in schools.
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Speaker 2:Hey everyone, Lisa Grace here with the Teach Middle East podcast and they say if you're great, you can come back again, and if you're rubbish I can come back again. And if you're rubbish, I'm joking. That is a joke, but it's the second time we're having Dan Fitzpatrick, the AI educator, on the podcast talking all things AI loads to discuss. Actually, stick a pin. The last time we had Dan on the podcast it was June 2023. And so so many things have changed since then and I'm sure his work and his reach has expanded, Because I think at that time, when I was speaking to him, it was the beginnings of things, and now things have grown and shaped. Welcome, Dan, to the podcast.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me. It's great to be back. I can't believe it's been that long and, yes, as you alluded to, so much has happened in those two years in this crazy world of AI.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think at that time people were just getting their heads around the fact that, ok, ai, especially generative AI, because AI has been around forever, but generative AI is here and it's not going anywhere and it's only going to improve. I think at that time we were kind of in the what is it? Do we ban it, do we not? How do we manage it? That kind of thing. But let's kick off the podcast with a straight question, dan what have you seen change since the last time time we spoke? Give me the skinny latte version how long have you got?
Speaker 1:so we've that's why I want the skinny version, I suppose going back to june 2023 my goodness, I think it was still. We were still in that phase where it was. There wasn't many school leaders or schools really looking at this in any depth. It was very, very early days. I think my first book had been out two months by then, and it was very much, I think. How do we start to use this new kind of technology?
Speaker 1:So I think one of the biggest shifts people have had to deal with is the fact that this works unlike any other technology we've been able to use in the past, simply because it speaks our language, like every other. You know, like literally, people have to invent languages and there'll be teachers listening to this who probably teach those languages so students can manipulate computer systems and so on, but even the language of kind of knowing how to press all the buttons in the right order to get something out of a piece of software or to get something out of your computer. We now live in a world where and we're gradually still phasing into that world but where the technology speaks our language, and so I think that's one of the big journeys I've seen over the last couple years people almost trying to get their heads around that and I don't think we're anywhere near it. I've been this week alone, I think I've been in four different schools where I've still tried to had to get that message across. And the great news is, I think and another thing I've seen happen over the last couple of years is that teachers are starting to realize that actually the skills they've already got enough to do some really amazing things with this technology. Because where max does it? Being able to say things in a way that elicits certain responses from students and gets them to get other people whether students or maybe we're a line manager in a school to get people to reach a certain standard and that's kind of the underlying skill of using something like an AI chatbot. Now, obviously, over those two years as well, we've moved from just the basic use of an AI chatbot, like I like to say, text in, text out, and now we're starting to see so many more different types of generative AI. So, from AI that creates music, ai that you can talk to just like we're talking, and AI that creates videos, creates software, yeah, it's been like an explosion of lots of different types of generative AI and then a race for those generative AIs to get better and better and better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I often say. In fact, I remember somebody saying to me around that time we last spoke on the podcast that I think they might have come up to me after my presentation and said, spoke on the podcast, that I think they might come up to me after my presentation, said, oh, you're gonna have to change this presentation quite regularly because things are moving so fast. And it's interesting because I do and I don't. I feel like all that's happening is the knowledge of the audience is just growing wider and wider and wider. So we still have teachers who've never used it before and now we have teachers at the other extreme who are using it every day. So it's almost like just the message that I kind of try to portray now just has to reach a much wider audience rather than just an audience who don't know much about it, which makes it really difficult to try and aim it to every single skill level in the room. But it's a good challenge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, as you were talking, I was reflecting on the fact that at the time when we spoke last time, people were still worried about whether or not this thing would actually wipe us out as humans. Do you think that fear has changed any at all, or has it grown since the AI has become better?
Speaker 1:Well, literally about an hour ago, I just posted on LinkedIn something I was just listening to a podcast that just came out by probably the world's most leading AI safety expert. Probably with the world's most leading AI safety expert, and he's still very much on that. This is not going to end well. So I think the fear is still there. But in fact, something he said on that podcast actually was that humans are really good at, if they don't have control of something, of just kind of putting it to the back of their minds and just living life normally anyway. Now, that's probably not the most reassuring message your listeners want to hear, but I think what I take away from that is we're still in a period, we're still in the starting stages, I think, of where this technology will go, even though we're like, let's say, three years in since chat gpt was released or just about three years.
Speaker 1:We're still in that kind of infancy period, and I often say to people like, especially if you've, if you've ever had a toddler, or if you've got toddlers at home, like my toddlers, jacob and matilda, they blow my mind, they absolutely blow my mind. So sometimes they do something, I say something. I'm like, wow, we created that that's amazing. And then and then I leave the room and come back in and Jacob's drawn on the wall with a crayon or something and I'm like we've got some issues here, we've got some problems and I feel like that's where AI is still at. We're still at that period of where we're like this blows my mind. But then I suddenly think we've got concerns here, we've got issues, we've got problems, and I think we're still in that kind of early infancy.
Speaker 1:Where it goes from here, I think, is very much up to us, and by us I mean society and some people. I think in that moment kind of laugh and go well, dan, have you ever come across big tech? They're not exactly the safest or the people you might want in control of a computer. That could cause probably the most damage, absolutely, and I it's hard to reconcile that really, but that's the way it is in the world right now. But I suppose the control we do have is in our own sphere of influence as teachers, educational leaders, is we can decide what comes through the door of our schools. We can decide the skills that our students have. We can decide the values we instill in our students so that when they do come across maybe the less desirable side of this technology, they're in a good place to be able to make the right decisions.
Speaker 2:And as it relates to safety, because one of the things that I've been listening to several podcasts as well, and they're talking about safety and guardrails and how do we in schools ensure that this is used safely, because I'm beyond the don't use it point now. How do we ensure it's used safely?
Speaker 1:yeah, I think we. I suppose we've got two different dynamics going on here, and that is using ai in our current structure of education, but what we're starting to see is other organizations going right. Well, how do we shift the orthodox practice of education in terms of what we've always done? So I suppose, looking at the first point, which is probably the most practical for where people are at right now, I think we have to. It goes back to those three things I I kind of said we have to control the tools. We have to control or at least have a major influence over the skills our students are developing and the values that they are growing as well, because when they leave us as well, at the end of the day or before they come to school, like we've got no control over what they're using, what they're, what technology they're using, and I mean just to give one example, they they could very easily navigate their way to a website that will create images. That will create images of anything they want. If you are confronted with a tool like that and your values are not developed, your critical thinking skills are not present, it's a recipe for disaster, really, and we have to safeguard that child, but also the children who are around them, because they could use it in a naive way to harm them. Maybe not from a malicious point of view, and I think it's I'm a big believer that I think kids don't act out of a malicious point of view and I think it's I'm a big believer that I think kids don't act out of a of a malicious mindset. There's there's other needs going on there, but you still need to safeguard them from that too, whether it's the person using it or the people who could be affected, and that, and our teachers as well and those who work in education. So it's not an easy answer. It's a really, really messy answer and I think what it does is it gets to the heart of well, what's education for?
Speaker 1:I was speaking at the cotis more ai conference in the south of england just a couple of days ago and and one of the questions I really tried to, in fact I got the audience to try and answer this question what is education for? Let's just take kind of standard education systems what is the purpose? And I got everyone to shout out one word that they could think of, and we must have had about 50 different words come out, and I think that's the issue. I don't think it's a bad problem, but I think the problem is we can't really agree on what we're supposed to be doing here and despite that, we still do an amazing job and teachers do a fantastic job. But what are we preparing our students for?
Speaker 1:And I think the prevailing attitude and I'm painting very broad strokes, but I think the attitude that normally wins out, especially in my context, in the English education system at the moment is that students learn as much content as they can by the time they end school in order to prove that they know that content and then get a grade to go to a university, something like that, and I think, because of that, a lot of other things get pushed to the side.
Speaker 1:So we get we might get drop down days for students, we might get tutor time for students, where they then have to cover digital literacy.
Speaker 1:They then have to cover media literacy, sex education, values education, whatever, whatever you might call that, whatever that might be, and it's those peripheral, probably what we we associate with the soft skills that are becoming more and more important, and that values-based education, I think is going to be super important when it comes to being confronted with these tools. Is that a watertight way to stop our students from being harmed? Not at all. But I mean, we live in a world where our students are accessing social media. We know that it's very, very difficult to do that anyway, and that hasn't changed and probably, arguably, may be a bit more difficult now. It's not a positive message, but we can influence and we can do it, but we have to make a concerted effort and that's probably going to mean that we end up having to adjust what we do in school to not just focus on what we've traditionally focused on, but to to look at other areas as well have you heard of the alpha schools in the united states?
Speaker 1:I have yeah I'm gonna be cheeky and ask you what your thoughts are on as you probably know, I write for forbes and I tried to write an article on them, probably about a year and a half ago now, when they just started and they only had one school, and I found it really difficult to try and find what they were using in terms of artificial intelligence. So when I was trying to do my research, I was trying to figure out well, what are they doing here? Because they claim, don't they, that within two hours of a day they can teach just as much to their students as a normal school does on a full day, and then they can spend the rest of the day focusing on the more social side of education and the I suppose those things we were just talking about, those, those kind of peripheral, softer skills, which sounds amazing. I'd love to know what they using for their ai. I'd love to know that. I think, as far as I could get was it wasn't exactly clean cut. I think they used a mixture of different things and I think they were probably still in an experimental phase, probably still are. Some weren't as keen to talk about everything they were doing. I've seen some of the data, like the two hour stat. I haven't interrogated that data so I don't know how robust it is and how much it would stand against interrogation, and I do. I also wonder about sustainability of a model and it's it's a lot easier to get start getting results very quickly, but how can you, how long can you sustain those results?
Speaker 1:Saying that, I applaud the innovation, and there was a school I forget the name of them in in england about a year and a half ago that started doing something similar with just a small cohort of students, and my thing is if it fails, it fails. But that's how you innovate. Yeah, you, you have to try new things and and I know that's tricky in education because we're literally dealing with the students' lives who are in that experiment at that moment in time. So you've got to do it in a really, really safe way. If you're going to do innovation, you've got to do it in a way that where you have a backup, where our students aren't being failed if the system that you've innovated on does fail. But I applaud the risk taken because I'm a big believer that we need to find another way, especially if education is going to be effective within an AI world, and every indicator tells us we're moving very, very fast towards a world of ubiquitous.
Speaker 2:AI. Yeah, I looked into them because I was curious. I even wrote about it on LinkedIn because I wonder could the model work here, if it's so successful? Because it seems to be working somehow. I don't have all the data and I don't know if what they've put in the public domain is actually verified data, but based on what they're saying is that it is successful. I'm sure it won't be successful for all students, but based on what they're saying is that it is successful, I'm sure it won't be successful for all students. But you know, uae is on the cusp of innovation and they like to really push the boundaries. So I thought why not an alpha schools kind of model? But I've been doing some reading recently. I'm finding there's a pushback, especially among Silicon Valley types, the ones who are making these things. They're putting their kids into really different, alternative types of schools where the technology takes a backseat. Why do you think they're doing that?
Speaker 1:why do you think they're doing that? I think for a number of reasons. I think, and I think we all know that constant technological use is not healthy, for I mean not even healthy for adults, never mind brains that are still developing and characters and that are still developing. So I think, coming back to your previous point as well, which I think fits this I think what excites me is that we are getting different types of schools and we're getting more and more choice, and I think what you said was so crucial that, well, okay, alpha schools might pop up or a forest school might pop up. It's not for everyone, but if it caters to a certain child or a certain family's values, then amazing, absolutely amazing. I'd rather have a hundred different types of schools than just one stale system that tries to cater to everyone. There's that old adage if you try to please everyone, you please no one, and I feel like the education system is the main example for that, really. So I feel like giving that choice is an exciting part of the next few years that I'm looking forward to, and I think it's long overdue. And I think like I get quite excited about the non-tech versions as well.
Speaker 1:I was in bristol in england a few months ago and I was talking to a guy at a conference and he he's opening up schools like not just what we might call a forest school, but literally schools in forests where the children kind of work and play in nature constantly and the school is a part of that nature. And I think he's on to like his fourth or fifth school now and and I so there's that extreme as well, which I don't blame parents and people for, because if their life is going to be surrounded by tech anyway, why not, especially at a young age, like an elementary level, why not have those students have a sanctuary from it, so that there is that balance? And I think the key is balance. I think the key is balance. So I think I think schools probably should have a bit of balance there, like maybe sunscreen time in a meaningful way and then and then time to not have it. But you could also take a step back from there and go well, what's the balance of the child's life completely, not just in school, and if they're getting loads of tech outside of school, then maybe we do have primary or elementary education as a bit of a sanctuary. So I think I think it really excites me the different choices, and I think it's clear that you go over to san francisco, and I mean it's not just the choice of the parents, they're literally having state law that says that that is a bit more advanced than the rest of the world for using devices and devices being introduced to students, and so on. I think, yeah, I could be a number of things.
Speaker 1:I think probably the most skeptical, and probably the main reason, is that these people know, because they probably see the stats on this in their work, of how harmful this technology can be. But also, maybe it's their parents the families are surrounded by advanced tech all of the time that even they, when they come home, they don't want their family to be then in in the sphere of advanced tech. They want to go right, let's just have a break from it. So I think it's probably complex, which most things are on the multifaceted, but probably the most critical take on this I've seen is they're giving it to our kids but not giving it to their own kids, and you could get very conspiratorial around that. But yeah, I think we know, though. We know, don't we? And it's not like Silicon Valley is keeping the data from us. We know that from our experience, especially from my experience. We yeah yeah, I don't know what other parents feel, but haven't we?
Speaker 1:Well, I've got two five-year-olds at the minute. They're five at the same time for about 10 days because they're just under a year apart. But, like especially school holidays, we like, we bought them an amazon fire tablet and put the apps on that we wanted on there. It's like a pendulum in our apps on that we wanted on there. It's like a pendulum in our house. So we let them use it for a little bit. Then we suddenly start realizing that they're taking themselves off to the kitchen table when they're tired to use it and using it as a bit of a crutch for when they're tired.
Speaker 1:So then we kind of wean them off it a bit. They get a bit frustrated with that. Then we don't have them for months on end and then all of a sudden they'll find one of them in a cupboard somewhere and charge it again, and then we go on that cycle again. So we're, as a family, still trying to kind of find that balance. But we know, because it's in headlines, because it's in data sets that are out there, that just going, here's a tablet. Use it as much as you want, is probably the worst thing you could do for a child in this world right now. Saying that it's a struggle to know what the balance is. So I suppose maybe Silicon Valley parents are doing this because maybe they're just a bit more saturated with the reality than we are. I don't know.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, it's a good answer, but I also think the advanced tech that they're surrounded by okay. Fine, they're developing it, but we're all surrounded by the same tech. If you look around your house I just looked at my desk as we speak I can't spin the camera around I've got an iPhone on a stand, I've got an iPad on that stand and I'm on a Mac talking to you Like I can't escape the thing. And so now I'm wondering should schools become safety zones where they're protected from this tech, where this is the place where they are not bombarded by tech, where it's a tech-free zone? For the most part? It can't be completely free, we get that, but should we be leaning the other way because the tech is so pervasive everywhere else?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's tricky, isn't it? Because I know sometimes when I'm using my iPhone, like it's in a very meaningful way it's for work, it's for contacting my family and I see that as a positive. I don't say that as something that's having a negative effect on me. However, when I got into bed in the evening and I'm scrolling through video after video after video for 20 minutes, and then I realized what am I doing? I should be asleep. I've literally almost been in a trance for 20 minutes just flicking through videos Then I'm like that's completely the opposite. It's not meaningful, it's harming my sleep, it's harming the pattern of my day. I'm being used by the. I suppose that's the difference, isn't it? Like the? The first examples I'm using the technology. The second example the technology is using me, and I think I think that's a probably quite a major distinction.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, I'm not one of these people who says schools shouldn't find phones and students should be allowed phones, I think. But I think if you're gonna ban phones because you're scared of the technology using the student, then we need to give them something as a replacement, like a meaningful piece of technology that they can use, and not to have all the time, like maybe that's a chromebook, maybe it's a, an ipad, whatever that is controlled, that has the apps on that they need to use for learning purposes, if and when the teacher decides. But yeah, it shouldn't be all the time. I don't think it should be, it's just not.
Speaker 1:I don't know about you, but I mean, you probably spend a lot of time at our computers and after after an hour or so, you, you do just, I don't know about you, but I'd start to just get a bit. My head gets fuzzy, even if I'm using it in a meaningful way, I might. I need to just close the lid, go make a coffee, go get some fresh air for a bit, and I think we need to be mindful of that for our students as well. Yeah, but it's yeah. Like we said before, it's messy, we're in a messy situation, but we have to.
Speaker 2:We have to continue evaluating that, I think yeah, and because I thought of it as well, because I think of these things a lot. One because I'm an educator and two because I'm a parent of teenagers who don't have phones, who bug me, mom, we're the only ones without a phone, I'm like, and you will be until you are 16, so really you get used to it. I've been 13, so they only have three years, so nothing too major. They've lived all their lives up till now without it. They've got a Nokia brick and they absolutely hate me for it, but I'm like you will carry that brick and it's only for calling mum and dad should there be an emergency.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was reading an article recently about a guy who I think he had three kids, two teenage daughters and a younger son and when the teenage daughters had left elementary school it was almost like a rite of passage that they would get a smartphone. So 11 years old, and then when it came to, his son didn't seem all that interested, so they decided, oh well, we'll just not do that. His son didn't seem all that interested so they decided, oh, we'll just not do that. And he was saying the difference between like 12 13 years old between his son and daughters is like night and day in terms of how they act, how they behave, where they play, how they play social skills. Also, I think he said like his son just feels a lot more like a child where his daughters grew up very quickly with the smartphones. It's just interesting to listen to you talk about, because I'm going to go through that in a few years time and I'm going to make those decisions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's individual child. I just I'm just scared to give them a smartphone. That is going to completely suck their attention. So they do have iPads, but we monitor that very closely and we hand it to them and time goes, ding, ding, ding, time's up. They hand it back. We check the history, we put that away Next, you know, they know the times that they can use it, but I'm just, a cell phone is with them all the time and I'm like how do you even control that?
Speaker 1:and what's the so you're their friends. Are their friends got smartphones? Yes that's another layer of real complexity, because do you ever feel guilty that you're not like letting them socialize in that digital way with their friends or like? Because I mentioned that that's quite a complex dynamic hard.
Speaker 2:It's hard. I don't feel guilt all the time, but there are some times when they have like stuff and they're like oh, mom, can I?
Speaker 1:and I'm like yeah, that must be so tough. It's hard even them just going into school the next day and like not being part of a joke that was said on a social media platform the night before one son, for one son.
Speaker 2:My other son couldn't care less if the moon is blue or green, but for once one, one of my twins. He does say, oh, they were standing around this meme and I didn't know what the meme meant, and blah, blah, blah and I'm, and I'm like it's fine, it's a meme, it's going to die in five days, it doesn't matter. Anyway, no one remembers it in a few days. But let's talk about inequity though, because it's one thing for middle class parents to say let's withhold this tech, they can have it at home. We're educated, we can guide them Da-da-da-da. What about the kids who? School is the only place where they'll interface with this level of tech, because there is deprivation at home. How do we manage that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do. Personally, I do think the school has to have a balance. I get the extremes, I get the forest school they're both extremes but it needs to be a most schools probably need to just have that healthy balance where our students are able to use and are exposed to advanced technology that's going to impact the rest of their lives, but then also are taught in a healthy way that this isn't everything. It's tricky, isn't it, because I think schooling hasn't necessarily done a good job for deprived families and deprived students in terms of tech anyway. So it's not like they come to school and get to do that, and in fact I think there's a generic trend for more deprived schools or schools in deprived areas, I guess in the UK, to go very traditional and not use as much tech. So I think we've already got that inequality to a certain extent, which is probably being made worse by artificial intelligence, just by simply because if a student's got access, if a student's got the skills, then just by default, when the technology gets better, their capabilities are advancing and obviously a student who doesn't have that is staying quite static in in that field. So I think we'll probably already got that. I do think, and I I've been thinking about something a lot recently and I I was playing around with these ideas in a talk the other day. Sometimes I like to just scrap my talk and to do new things. I used to if I was a teacher, I did a bit of stand-up comedy and sometimes like to do like almost like the equivalent of a new material night, where you just go right, let's just try some ideas and see if it resonates, and so on.
Speaker 1:And I was talking about kind of how in agrarian times, feudal times, when we had the thing that made wealth was land, if you were a landowner, you were the people in society who were making the wealth, generating the wealth. And it led economists at the time to come up with the kind of economical theory that well, there are three ways to make wealth there's land, there's capital and there's labor. And then we kind of see, as we go into the industrial age, that land isn't as important but capital and labor become really really important. And around that time another economist said well, actually there's a fourth, there's a fourth factor here and that is entrepreneurship. And I think what we've seen is we've entered the information age and kind of the 80s and now getting into probably the second stage of that, what people are calling the intelligence age, is. We're seeing the importance of land, the importance of labor and capital to a certain extent decline and actually the importance of entrepreneurial skills go through the roof, because anybody with a laptop can sit in a starbucks, not own any land and create a multi-million dollar company, and it's happening all the time. And then we're starting to.
Speaker 1:Some people are saying especially people who work in the eye are saying that it's probably not going to be long until we have the first single person business that becomes a unicorn like a billion dollar business because of what these tools will allow us to do. So I think I honestly think that the greatest thing we can do for that equality right now is give our students not just the skills but the awareness of what they could achieve with this technology the fact that if you're from a council estate in gateshead and you've grew up in a family that has no money and you've never met anybody who's been an entrepreneur before, you don't just have to have an idea and then let it die. Actually, there's now the capability if you can get on a bit of tech, get on a laptop at school or whatever, to actually advance that and make something of it. And if that is now possible, which it pretty much is then I think the greatest inequality factor here is that awareness and skills, or the confidence as well to go right, I can create something and find my meaning in that creation and actually maybe earn some money in that creation, start a business, whatever it might be, living in that entrepreneurial age which I think we have been for a little while already. Then how do we equip our students to thrive in that world and where, essentially, we've got an education system that was formed mainly in in the industrial side of things, where our students, if you went to a estate school, you were kind of largely trained to be part of that labor and to be able to use the capital, so the machinery, the, the systems, whatever it might be, and we still largely I think it's unfair because I'm painting in very broad strokes and being general here but I think largely we still kind of live or we still kind of operate in that system with an education.
Speaker 1:But the world has moved on since then and you could in fact say it's moved on twice since then and now actually given our students the hope, the values of an entrepreneur, the. And when I say entrepreneur I don't just mean someone who creates a business. I think the true essence of an entrepreneur is someone who creates a business. I think the true essence of an entrepreneur is someone who discovers a problem and can then think of a solution and bring that solution to life. So kind of those three steps. And I think if we equip our students to be able to do that, then we are getting them ready for this world. If we don't, then we could have one school on one side of the street, another school on the other side of the street preparing their students completely differently for the world ahead yeah and I think I don't think we've ever had that before.
Speaker 1:I think all schools, whether it be the elite private school, whether it be a comprehensive school in a council estate, I've kind of still had the main objective right we need to get you to pass these exams and go forward and get to the next stage. There might have been various levels of success there, but still the same objective, whereas now I think we've reached a point where there's different objectives. A school like Alpha School, a school like an enterprise school, has a very different objective to a school that's just getting students ready for an exam, and I think that would lead to huge inequalities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree with you. I was thinking about the fact that a lot of students now are questioning whether or not they should even bother to go to university, whether they should just go ahead and pursue their entrepreneurial endeavors. And you can't blame them, because no one can seem to tell us what jobs we will have, what skills we will need, apart from the human skills, which I don't call soft skills. I call them core skills. So, apart from those core skills, nobody else can seem to tell us what it is that we will be doing in the future. Who's going to get wiped out? Which jobs?
Speaker 1:I've listened to hundreds and I do mean literally hundreds of podcasts, and everybody says the same thing we don't know well, interestingly, I think and I hate taking an extreme attitude on this, but sometimes I'm just led there by the evidence I think I think that we could be in a situation where very few jobs exist. See, that's the problem.
Speaker 2:So what do we tell students?
Speaker 1:that yeah, yeah, I well, I think we need to prepare them, not to go and take a job in somebody else's idea of what work should be, and that's the thing. And I'm coming back to the entrepreneurial side what if we're still gonna need entrepreneurs in that world? We're still gonna need to look for those problems and discover solutions, and I think that's still gonna be necessary, that mindset. So I think I think that's why and I come back to the entrepreneurial side again that just preparing students to go and take a job that somebody's going to give them is probably the most interesting we can right now, because what happens when people stop giving those jobs?
Speaker 1:And I I just that presentation I mentioned the other day. I I snipped a few headlines just from the last month about five or six of them, put them on a slide and they're from major, major newspapers and and news agencies about how students right now who've just graduated can't find jobs. The job market is drying up, and it's not solely down to AI, but AI is in the mix there, so it's already happening. It's not like we're talking about something that's going to happen in 10 years, it's literally happening right now.
Speaker 2:My own children are what should we do? And I'm like you know what. Just do the best you can. Learn as much as you can and we will see how things go as you move forward. I've got no advice for my own kids, let alone people's children out there. Nothing I can just say to them listen, try to be the best person you can Try to you know, learn as much as you can, experiment, do different things and hopefully the path will appear. I don't have anything else. That's all I have.
Speaker 1:I don don't think. But I don't think the opposite has been true in the past. Necessarily. I don't think we've gone right. Okay, you're 13, right, sit down. What do you want to do? You want to be an architect, right? You, I'm going to really help you to like I'm sure there's the odd student like that. But I mean, I know from my personal experience I I mean to a larger extent I still don't know what I want to do, but I think I don't think I ever have. I've kind of just kind of I've always made sure I've been skilled whatever I've done and always given myself those opportunities or those choices, but I've never really known what I want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not in that way. I mean you could have said lawyer or something, but now you're thinking maybe there will be no lawyers. I could have said accountant there, you know, but maybe there will be no accountants. So it's just those like but, but I would. I heard hinton. What's his name? David hinton, jeffrey, jeffrey hinton. Sorry, I said the wrong name. I used to work with david hinton, by the way. Jeffrey hinton. He said plumbing and I was like maybe Robots? I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he said that on Diaries of a CEO, didn't he? And that podcast I listened to this morning that was mentioned before was Diaries of a CEO, and he said something which made me think ah. And he said you can't even guarantee plumbing now because we're moving. I don't know if you've seen the progress on humanoid robots yeah, I've seen some, not not a lot yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, the chances are in the next three to five years people are going to start having these at home and if that has got the ability to be able to learn anything in a split second because you ask it to, then if you've got your own humanoid robot at home and something happens with the plumbing, are you going to ring a plumber? Are you just going to say to your humanoid robot, can you fix it for me? And it quickly downloads the manual and everything it needs to know and goes and does it because it has more dexterity than a human being, it has more strength than a human being. Now people might be sat there listening to this thinking this guy's gone mad. It sounds like some kind of sci-fi future. It's literally not. These things exist and they're getting exponentially better all of the time and this is going to be part of our reality. I think we're going to have another chat gpt moment when I become the mainstream, where the world kind of is shocked, but these are going to be a reality.
Speaker 1:I think it's interesting what you're saying because I wrote in my last book the one before I've just released, infinite education. I wrote a chapter called humans of the gap and where I kind of made the argument that we shouldn't be placing humans in the gap of what ai can't do, because if we do that, if we go right, what can ai do? Okay, well, then we've got a big gap here that ai can't do this, this and this. Right, that's our curriculum. Now we're going to teach our students how to do them.
Speaker 1:Then that gap's going to get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller, to the point where it closes, or or the gap in the gap oh my god, if we put the value or the dignity of our children on their work and that's something we've done for hundreds of years now work is kind of work, indignity of being two sides of the same coin then I think we're setting them up to not just have a future where they don't have a job, but we're setting up to a future where they're not going to feel like they've got any value in the world. So we've got. I think we've got to change the script and we've got to. We've got to stop thinking where does our value come from? Because it's not just the thing I do from nine to five every day. It's got to come from a deeper place. I think, and we're I'm almost like sounding spiritual here, but it's like, but it's more societal really. It's kind of like, and I think, by the way, I don't this is nothing new.
Speaker 1:I think we, throughout human history, we've created technology that has shifted how we function as a society.
Speaker 1:I mean, again in that book, infinite Education, I kind of do a bit of a historical timeline of this, going all the way back to agriculture and farming.
Speaker 1:There was one point where families didn't mix and if they mixed, it was to kill each other. We were like small tribes living out wherever. When farm and agriculture were invented and started to grow, we literally had to learn how to get alongside each other so we could take advantage of that technology, completely changing our skill set, completely changing our societal values, our societal creating society, and then obviously it leads to education and to healthcare and and then to politics and then to democracy. And now you take that context and now bring in the context of some people are saying AI is going to be a larger shift than anything before. Then I think it's probably not outrageous to say we need to expect another societal shift, something the level of that, which is completely unfathomable, mainly because we don't know what that will be yet. But I think one of the one of the core things going back to that original point, one of the core things is that where our value comes from in society is gonna have to change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or or we're just going to have to accept our doom. I know that I'm dying. I'm just I'm just. I'm just listeners. I am being as positive as I can be, but after you've listened to one or two, three or four podcasts on this subject, you're like what on earth is happening. But let's take it back to education.
Speaker 1:I was in New York a couple of weeks ago and I had breakfast with somebody who works at deep mind which is like this oh yeah and they were saying to me we're talking about ai and education and I kind of said what I said to you before.
Speaker 1:I said, well, there's kind of two parts. This is the ai helping us with what we're already doing, and then there's the ai potentially disrupting education. And she made a comment she's a lovely person but, like made a comment like and I've made this comment many times of, well, we're concerned about how we can help teachers and so on, and I said pretty much what you just said. I said, yeah, but DeepMind has got a bit of a history of ex-employees going on podcasts and saying this is going to be the end of the world. So, so, literally, people who've led in that team or led in that company have gone on to say, actually, this is a bit more concern and which is why I'm kind of talking about this I try to avoid these types of conversations because I just don't think they're they're practical and help all that much with educators on the ground.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I just listened to that podcast this moment. It was fresh in my mind, but it's. I think it's definitely something we need to do and I think innovation has those two parts. Doesn't it like innovation should help right now with the practical, but also it should help us look to the horizon and go right. Well, if we look up, where are we headed and and I think sometimes it's good to just sit back and go right we know there's tools out there that are helping teachers save time creating lesson plans, all that stuff that's been around for a few years. But actually we should probably every now and then do this, have a conversation where we go. Let's have a look towards the horizon and prepare ourselves.
Speaker 2:Listen. The direction of this podcast, I think, is necessary, because we could have sat here and I could have said Dan, what tools have you discovered for teachers? About AI, and I thought of duping about that, you know. Yeah, we're going to talk about that in a minute, but I think when people plug this into, the most people listen to us on their commute to schools or they play us. I've heard I don't know, but I've heard that they play us in their classrooms when there are no students. I'm like, maybe when the students are there, no, but they need to. Now, you know, we all need to start to think deeper about this, deeper than tools, because tools are good, they're cool, we love tools, but to what end? Tools, but to what end? And that's what I think this conversation unearthed. It's us going back and forth on how are we thinking about this, the thinking behind it, and no, we didn't have the answers and we don't and we probably will never, but it's good to think about it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, and I think there aren't going to be objective answers that it's going to be different for every school. I think it's going to be different for every family. That's what. That's another reason why I think I'm excited that the fact that there's more choice coming in terms of education, because you know what you might get a family who are like I I've read some of the research, I don't want to have any screen time, I'm going to send them to a forest school, whatever it might be, and then you might have another family who goes.
Speaker 1:No, I want them to use this all the time. I want them to be able to create with it, to be able to learn from it. This is what they'll be doing for the rest of their life. And you know what? Both children at the end of life and doom, and another to be a slave of ai for the rest of life, or whatever it might be. I think humans find a way. Yeah, people who've had the worst education ever go on to become some of the biggest entrepreneurs. Some people who've gone to ethan and had the best education in the world supposedly sometimes don't go very far, it's like, and that tells me it's more about the character, isn't it? It's more about the values of a person, it's more about their ability to keep learning, and maybe that's what we need to focus on a bit more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree with you, but educators know you as the AI educator and now you have written a whole guide. Yeah, yeah, I edited it. Some of the tools and some of the the bigger things that are happening within this space. Tell me about it yeah.
Speaker 1:So I mean, if people are listening, I'm holding the book up now, so it's it's called the educators 2026 ai guide. So I wanted because things move on fast and because there's some amazing teachers and schools around the world doing some incredible things I wanted to try and just capture the moment for the next academic year so through to the end of 2026, and go right, if you want to be out front with how some of the best schools are doing this right now. Here's a bit of a manual and here's a bit of a companion for the next year and it's split into three basic parts. So it's the first part is the tools. So I put surveys out and if people follow me on linkedin they might have seen I about six months ago, I put a lot of google forms out saying, right, tell me what your favorite tools are, why, and for leaders, for teachers, engagement tools, all that kind of thing and gathered it all back and kind of looked at well, what are the tools out there that are having the most impact for certain tasks or certain areas of the job and for students as well, and then kind of collated them really. So we thought like we've got a chapter on top tools for teachers, tools for AI, tools for ai, tools for assessment, feedback, tools for engagement, terms for professional growth, tools for education leaders and so on, accessibility, and kind of just collated them into like a bit of a bit of a directory, I suppose, first and foremost.
Speaker 1:Then the second part is as, going around a lot of schools, I noticed there were seven kind of trends in terms of ai adoption, in terms of what schools were doing so, in terms of how they were auditing what ai they were using, how they were anchoring it in their practice, how a lot of them were acting very quickly, blinding to context, how they were activating their teachers to use this, accelerating innovation and aiming high with innovation as well. So I reached out and just said right, well, to some of the skills I worked with, but also some other skills, just to say, right, do you think you might exemplify any of these lessons? And then got hundreds and hundreds of case studies coming, which was amazing, and was able to sift through and pick what I thought were the ones that kind of exemplified this the most at the moment and I thought would might help other schools. So there's essentially seven case studies and we've got case studies from around the world. We've got the United States, ireland, england, the Far East, we've got one from Dubai and, yeah, a couple another one from America. So so this is not theoretical, it's actually. I can I learn from someone who's actually implementing this right now. What are they actually doing? And I was really clear that we needed to see some data in those case studies as well, of impact. So we've got some hard data from each of those schools as well.
Speaker 1:And then the last bit is, I suppose, the bit that everyone's worrying about. It's those ethical concerns that we look at. So there's a great chapter by R Kingsley on governance. There's a great chapter by Matthew Weems on data. Victoria Hedlund wrote a chapter on bias and how to manage that, and Dr Karen Boyd from the states wrote a chapter on the environmental impacts as well.
Speaker 1:So it's trying to give like a snapshot of what's really important to educators right now over the next year what tools could they possibly use, how could they integrate them into a meaningful strategy and what concerns are there for them to look out for really. So it's kind of like the opposite. It's not the high level kind of. Some of the stuff we've just been talking about. It's very much on the ground and my last book, infinite Education, was quite high level. It was this stuff that we're talking about.
Speaker 1:So I really wanted to kind of now hit the ground and give teachers not just a book they could read on a weekend, but something they could carry around at school, they could write in, they could make notes on, and we've also I was really excited in they could make notes on, and we've also. I was really excited. We partnered with an ai company called symbol who made videos for every chapter. So you use artificial intelligence. They've created like a 10 minute video for each chapter, which gives you like. So if you do not someone who likes to read all the time, if you're someone who hasn't got the time to to sit down with a book, then there's a some accompanying videos that give you an overview.
Speaker 1:And I was really excited as well because we've got some amazing companies to support it. So we've got google grammarly school, ai, brisk magic school and quiz gecko who supported us on that journey, and some of their innovators contributed as well, like little chapter introductions, which is great because I wanted to have that various points of view, so educators, leaders, but also those who are in edtech companies creating these tools, and then we get the full kind of 360 on this of opinions, of what's going on there. So, yeah, I'm to be honest, I'm really really like I can say this without having a big head. I think it's really good because, because I didn't write it like I wrote an introduction and an afterword, but like, as a result, I think I'm really proud of it. I think it's probably the best thing I've done so far and because it's just got that breadth of of experience and voice in there from educators around the world. So, yeah, if anyone's looking for anything really practical, then Can you hold that up again?
Speaker 2:if you are listening to this on audio, it's called the Educator's 2026 AI Guide and you can get it on Amazon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it became an Amazon bestseller a couple of nights ago, which I'm really proud of as well. So thanks for letting me plug it.
Speaker 2:Lisa, Appreciate that no problem. So final question and that is my final question on the pod is one and I have to end on a tool, just because I want to go check it myself One tool that you have discovered recently that you are excited to share, that other people can check out Preferably something free, but it's okay if they have to.
Speaker 1:I you know, I suppose I've got a geeky one, but I suppose, no, I'll stick, I'll keep it for teachers. I honestly think that one of the best tools that a teacher can use right now is Notebook LM. One of the best tools that a teacher can use right now is notebook lm, I think, for I really like it. Number one because you upload the source material and and whatever happens within that platform is based on the source material you've provided. So you are providing the foundational knowledge and then, therefore, you can be confident that whatever it does or whatever it creates for you is based on that robust research, like hopefully you've done.
Speaker 1:And secondly, I love the ability for to interrogate source material, documents, policies and one of the ways I I use it the most, because I imagine a lot of people listen. This they've probably probably come across it before, but one of the ways I use it the most and it's going to sound really strange, but but I collect people's brains, all right, now let me explain it. So if I'm an admirer of an author or somebody out there and I'll give you an example there's a guy called Daniel Priestley and if you listen to the diary of a CEO, you probably yeah, he's like this entrepreneurial guy person.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really like him and I like his advice, I like his books. So I decided and he knows I've done this I told him about it because he reviewed my last book, so I was chatting to him and I told him I'd done this and he was pretty cool with it. So I essentially took everything I could find on him, so YouTube transcripts of interviews he'd done. He puts his books out there for free as PDFs, articles, blogs, everything I could find and I put them in a notebook. I learned, and every time now I come across something, I pop it in there from him. And so now if I've got a question or if I'm thinking something about my business, let's say, I jump in there and I ask it a question and I know that the answer I'm getting is likely what he would probably say to me in person, because it's come from him and I think obviously this is not a replacement of him, but people or students, the people listening to this, teachers, leaders can go and start building like their own, their own kind of light.
Speaker 1:They probably have expertise that they can tap into whenever they want, and it doesn't just have to be people, it could be themes, it could be like if you're like me and you come across articles, podcasts, let's say, about leadership, and you you know I should listen to that, I should read that and you bookmark it.
Speaker 1:The chances of ever coming back to that bookmark are very slim. Let's be honest, why didn't you just create a notebook on them, called leadership or whatever the theme is, and every time you come across a bit of content, just add it, just add it, and then, when you do get a spare 20 minutes so in a week's time you're not going through a list of them thinking I'll give you a listen to this, read this, you can just have a dialogue with it, and then you're bringing your concerns your issues are the things you need help with in that moment to the content, and the content is responding to you in a relevant way and I, I, yeah, I think it's a phenomenal tool. It's like just giving anybody a research assistant. Essentially like, if you think of a professor in university, they literally pay to have research assistants.
Speaker 1:Do this work for them that's another job gone but a good news for everyone who can't afford to employ someone to do that, that this technology can be that for them. It can be. I think that goes for ai in general at the minute as well. Like I think a lot of people get worried about asking ai questions and and so on. I think you've been a better ceo, or they'd be. The principal of your school has a pa that writes letters for them, that writes emails for them. That does a lot for them. Why are you denying yourself that just because you get a bit of a weird feeling about ai, like you could be using ai to be a personal assistant for you.
Speaker 1:That's not to do everything, not to trust fully, but to provide some first drafts yeah I, I think, and once we kind of get into that mindset, I think we we start then properly tapping its potential on a personal, practical level yeah, oh, wow, thanks dan thank you so much for having me back. I really appreciate it and, yeah, have a great year ahead, thank you, and the same to you.
