Week in Edtech 2/18/26: Student AI Walkouts, 26 States Push Phone Bans, Khan India Lessons, Utah Math Shakeup, Higher Ed Under Pressure, and More! Feat. Brandon Smith of Integrity Advocate

Join hosts Ben Kornell and guest host Peter Stiepleman, host of The Imperfect Leader, as they explore AI in schools, screen-time policy, math reform, higher ed disruption, and the future of assessment integrity.

✨ Episode Highlights:
[00:00:00] Peter Stiepleman on leading with “ed, not tech” when implementing AI in schools
[00:06:33] Seattle-area student walkout over ChatGPT access sparks debate on AI in classrooms
[00:08:11] 26 states advance phone bans and K–5 screen-time legislation
[00:10:59] Khan Academy’s failed India rollout shows implementation, not tools, drives impact
[00:16:26] Whether global systems may leapfrog the U.S. in AI-powered education
[00:18:38] AI-supported speech therapy and reading intervention free educators for human connection
[00:20:55] Utah’s math overhaul ignites debate over data science, calculus acceleration, and rigor
[00:27:24] Rural districts innovate through regional collaboration and expanded course access
[00:29:14] Higher ed faces declining endowments, enrollment pressure, and early college expansion
[00:35:09] Anthropic co-founder argues AI will increase the value of humanities degrees

Plus, special guest:
[00:39:10] Brandon Smith, CEO of Integrity Advocate, on AI-driven cheating, proctoring reform, and protecting assessment integrity

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Peter Stiepleman: The point that you made early on in the conversation, which is, let's not lead with tech, let's lead with ed. Right? And so if you're meeting the needs, the educational needs of children, then that should be the piece that we prioritize, not just tech for the sake of tech, but tech because it's going to improve or help children meet their goals.

[00:00:19] Ben Kornell: Yeah. So basically it was in Utter Pradesh in India, and in 2022, Khan partnered with 105 government boarding schools to launch Khan Academy, as they would do in the us. And they did teacher training sessions, they had WhatsApp support channels, technical helplines, monthly performance monitoring, all the things one would do in an ed tech context to make sure it was successful.

And it was a disaster because only 44% of the students. Use the platform even once during the entire year. And this goes to show that so much of EdTech efficacy is really around implementation effect.

[00:01:04] Alex Sarlin: Welcome to EdTech Insiders, the top podcast covering the education technology industry from funding rounds to impact to AI developments across early childhood K 12 higher ed and work. You'll find it all here at EdTech Insiders. 

[00:01:20] Ben Kornell: Remember to subscribe to the pod, check out our newsletter, and also our event calendar.

And to go deeper, check out EdTech Insiders Plus where you can get premium content access to our WhatsApp channel, early access to events and back channel insights from Alex and Ben. Hope you enjoyed today's pod.

Hello, EdTech Insider listeners, we have a special episode of Week in EdTech for you. This week I'm joined by Peter Stiepleman. He is an amazing career educator who comes to us from lots and lots of experience in K 12, some in higher ed, and he is also the host of The Imperfect Leader, a podcast around education and transformational practices.

Thank you so much for joining us, Peter Stiepleman. 

[00:02:12] Peter Stiepleman: Ben, I am thrilled to be here so much. Thank you so much for the invitation. 

[00:02:16] Ben Kornell: Before we dive in, just give our audience a little bit of the origin story of how you started your podcast. 

[00:02:22] Peter Stiepleman: Oh, sure. So an imperfect leader, the Superintendents in Leadership Podcast is a weekly podcast where what I do is I ask leaders around the country and internationally as well to think about a decision they made.

Then really dissect it to sort of really look at what did they learn from it? So what got overlooked and what did they learn about relationships and what frustrated them and what could they as an individual could have done differently? And then in the end, what was something that was good that came out of the experience?

Because I do think through our experiences, that's where our greatest learning happens. And so you can call them experiences, you can call them mistakes, whatever you wanna call them. But really superintendents, and I know that you have this experience as an educator and as a school board member, so often you don't get to take a moment to think about like what went well and what didn't go so well, so that you can make better decisions in the future.

And so what I did was I had written a book called An Imperfect Leader Leadership in After Action, where I thought about my own experiences as superintendent, and then I thought, Hmm, what if I could interview other leaders around the world and ask them to do a similar process? And we're now in season four and it's just been going great.

[00:03:30] Ben Kornell: That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining EdTech Insiders today. We've got a awesome show coming up. For those of you following us in all of our iterations from the newsletter, the podcast events, we have our AI and education map that just came out today. So check it out. We have two time, two maps we have.

One is the native AI companies, and that's really the map that we started with almost two years ago when chat GPT broke everything open in K 12 education. And we saw this Cambrian explosion of new EdTech tools and apps. But also we now have noticed that incumbents people with large distribution, some with big tech backgrounds, have also been rolling out their AI technology and products.

We're getting to the point where calling a company an AI company or not an AI company is anachronistic. What we're seeing is that everyone's employing AI tools, whether it's in the production part, whether it's in the delivery part, whether it's student facing or teacher facing. The future is going to be AI ubiquitous.

So we have a second map that really shows how the incumbents are playing in the space. Check out our substack, where we talk about our methodology, and also celebrate all of these great entrepreneurs who've been building these great organizations. The last thing I'll say on this plug is we oriented, as we always do towards use cases in education.

We put the ED first, the tech second, so we've really started with. How do you do diagnostic assessment? Here's the tools that are doing it, not starting from what can AI do, and let's figure out how to make that hammer find a nail in education. So please check it out and we need your feedback. So let us know what thoughts or ideas it's sparking for you.

And then on the podcast, we've got Carl Rectus, Brandon Smith, Dan Meyer, Ella Rocco, and Dr. Rachel and Charlie Thayer joining us. It's incredible to see the number of voices coming up before A-S-U-G-S-V, our big conference. Everyone's excited about these new releases in the next generation. And to celebrate that, we're gonna have a happy hour at A-S-U-G-S-V on that Monday.

It's Monday April 13th from six to 8:30 PM at the Marriott Coronado Terrace room, and we will be sending out those invitations. EdTech Insider plus subscribers. You get first Dibs, so please subscribe. Now before we go and release, we'll have 400 spots for our best friends in EdTech. 400 closest friends last year.

We sold out that event in under 20 minutes, so we really hope that you can sign up for EdTech Insiders Plus and join us. Alright, Peter, now to the news. We generally do a little bit of around the world in AI. What's a headline or two that's catching your attention in the world of AI and education? 

[00:06:33] Peter Stiepleman: Well, as you were talking a moment ago, it made me think of, I live right now in Western Washington, so I was a superintendent in the Midwest in Columbia, Missouri.

And have since moved to the Seattle area. And so I pay attention, obviously this is a tech hub out here and recently there was a high school where students, uh, had a protest. They did a walkout on whether or not they could use chat GBT in their school. And I thought that was pretty interesting. I mean, part of me thought like there's a lot going on in the world that one could protest and I know we're gonna stay apolitical on your podcast.

However, I didn't expect that this was going to be the topic that high school students were gonna walk out on. And their thought was they wanted to be able to use chat, GPT and other large language models to be able to do their work. And there were enough teachers who felt like it was a violation of their student conduct to be using AI.

And I just thought how shortsighted that must have been, or at least I think it is in terms of not recognizing and understanding how AI and a large language model could be used as a thought partner, as a support. And so I thought that was kinda interesting. 

[00:07:38] Ben Kornell: Yeah, I mean, just leaning into that, I feel like there's a lot of conversation around technology and what's appropriate or not appropriate in the school context.

And as we know, like kids are immersed in technology in their out of school world. Pros and cons to that, and Jonathan Het has highlighted everything there, and folks should check out his latest podcast talking about like cognitive offloading and cognitive decline related to that. But Missouri is one of the states that's considering a K five ban on screens.

[00:08:11] Peter Stiepleman: Yeah. Well, that's interesting. I mean, actually 26 states so far have had some type of, if you're thinking about phone free in particular, yes. Have actually passed legislation or have had guidance coming out of the departments of education around screens in particular because of how and if you're using Jonathan Height and an anxious generation as possibly as a launching point to talk about that.

I mean, there's every good reason to see that from 2010 until now, about 130% increase in anxiety among our kids and more than a hundred percent increase in depression. There was a recent study that came out that looked at that kids were on their phones for 70 minutes a day during the school day, which means that that's like.

30 days, school days, that's a month and a half of missed learning in terms of, so I'm not opposed to phone free. I have reservations about all out bands because I do see, yeah, yeah. That technology needs to be leveraged to be able to do learning and that there's great opportunities for that. I don't think that they need their phones for most of the day, though.

[00:09:14] Ben Kornell: Yeah, we've seen this yonder pouches and we've seen also technology that can block phones in schools, but now the tide is turning even further. I covered this with the newsletter article, but recently in DC they've been doing a bunch of hearings around screen time overall, just like laptops. Yeah. And learning.

[00:09:36] Peter Stiepleman: Senator Kain and Senator Cotton have co-sponsored, so a bipartisan bill looking at these very questions. 

[00:09:43] Ben Kornell: It's like the one thing that DC agrees on. 

[00:09:45] Peter Stiepleman: I know. Well, that's what my line is always like when Arkansas and Massachusetts agree on something like something's going on this world 

[00:09:52] Ben Kornell: Pay attention. 

[00:09:52] Peter Stiepleman: Yeah.

[00:09:53] Ben Kornell: Yeah. So we were in the Cooley EdTech Insider Conference last week and we had a policy panel and they were saying it's something like you said, 26 states have implemented some sort of cell phone ban or management on cell phone activity and use. But now five states are going further with limiting absolute screen time or banning screens altogether for K five, focused on K five, and this is following Australia, which has done a K five ban.

This is following some of the European Union countries putting restrictions on minutes, on screen time. So saying like more than 60 minutes a day of screen time is bad for kids. And meanwhile you have technology ed tech companies that have been working with students to do reading interventions with tutoring, and a kid is on a Zoom with their reading therapist for an hour or for 40 minutes, but then now that's getting banned because they also did their math.

On a screen earlier in the day. Yeah. It starts getting into really 

[00:10:59] Peter Stiepleman: tricky. So I think you're bringing an interesting topic up. Okay. So one of the articles that I know that you've seen this week is there's a Khan Academy conversation about Khan Academy in India. They're doing a pilot study, and I can't exactly remember where was, but it came out on Valentine's Day.

How about that? So came it on Saturday. And one of the things I think is interesting there is exactly to your point and the point that you made early on in the conversation, which is, let's not lead with tech, let's lead with ed, right? And so if you're meeting the needs, the educational needs of children, then that should be the piece that we prioritize, not just tech for the sake of tech, but tech, because it's going to improve or help children meet their goals.

And so ed tech that allows for reading intervention or math intervention or speech language therapies or reading therapies that really are meeting the needs of a child. Ought to be part of that child's individual plan. I'm not talking special ed necessarily, but just every child has an individual plan within their classroom that says, okay, well this is the exception to the sort of general rule of no screens at all, K five.

So, and that article, and I know that you've got it probably pulled up also, is just really talking about how to be responsive. Because what they found was individual teachers couldn't meet the needs of 30 kids in a classroom. And in some classes in India and other countries, it's 60 kids in a classroom.

And so how can you meet the individual needs of a child? Well, here's an opportunity to do that. 

[00:12:27] Ben Kornell: Yeah. I think the Khan Academy insight for me first on the like screen's, bad screen's good. I think we're in this era where we've lost a lot of our ability to have nuance and technology is, in my view, a neutral thing.

And the use cases are either good or the use cases are bad, and the cumulative effect of the use cases are net positive or net negative. What was so interesting about the Khan study was actually it followed a failed implementation effort, right? Where 

[00:12:58] Peter Stiepleman: teachers were responsible, right? 

[00:12:59] Ben Kornell: Yeah. So basically it was in Utter Pradesh in India, and in 2022, Khan partnered with 105 government boarding schools to launch Khan Academy, as they would do in the us.

And they did teacher training sessions, they had WhatsApp support channels, technical helplines, monthly performance monitoring, all the things one would do in an EdTech context to make sure it was successful. And it was a disaster because only 44% of the students use the platform even once during the entire year.

And this goes to show that so much of EdTech efficacy is really around implementation effects. And so in this latest installment, each school site had a dedicated implementation person who basically worked across these 83 schools that were part of this pilot with 5,000 plus students. And the staff basically.

They supervised and made sure there were two Khan Academy sessions weekly, and then they saw great gains. And so I think the suggestion is in a world of lost nuance, like maybe EdTech apps that are powered by AI can make a great impact if we provide the right. Implementation resources there, and if we don't, they're not going to be.

[00:14:19] Peter Stiepleman: Right. You need the human capital to do it. Yep. I mean, you've been a teacher, you've been a board member. I've been a teacher and administrator. We know that the burden on teachers, it's never been harder to be a teacher than it is today, and so to make things available and say good luck is really unfortunate and it's shortsighted.

So putting in the right structures and supports that says we're gonna have someone onsite who's gonna help you implement and supervise, and not supervise the teacher, supervise the implementation, then it's more likely than not that things will go well. 

[00:14:53] Ben Kornell: It's so interesting on this one too, because we're hearing a lot about India and kind of a new wave of the EdTech revolution fueled by AI.

There was recently a summit with OpenAI and Google focused on AI there. We've seen GSV has had remarkable. Results with some of their Indian ed tech companies. And what it suggests is that ultimately India as a market may have some of the prime conditions for AI-based ed techs to succeed. One, it is impossible to scale high quality teaching and learning to meet the full needs of an incredibly large population there.

And these kind of 60 to one classroom to teacher ratios make any kind of human only, labor only interventions unlikely to succeed for all kids. That being said, there's enough funding and enough technology infrastructure where doing a pilot like this Khan Academy pilot with good implementation support, it can show great results.

I'm curious, you know, given that you talk a lot, especially to US superintendents, given that in the US we are asking our teachers and our infrastructure to do so much. Are we gonna get leapfrogged by these other countries where they have maybe a little bit more of a nimble system and more of a burning platform where it's like, we've gotta innovate or kids aren't going to learn.

Whereas in the US we just kind of, the teacher keeps being the bottleneck here. What are your thoughts? 

[00:16:26] Peter Stiepleman: Well, I'm hopeful. So this is the way I would operate as a principal or a superintendent, is in the US in particular, leading through directive gets you nowhere. However, in any situation, you're going to have about a third of your teachers or a third of your administrators who are absolutely all on board want to try something new.

And you've got about a third who are saying like, yeah, I'm interested, but I'm gonna wait to see success. And then a third who say, I'm your fundamentalist, I'm not interested. Right? So often. At least in my experience, we spend so much time trying to convince that third of fundamentalists to like, come on, we gotta do it.

We can do it. It's the right thing for kids. Whereas if we really approach it through more of a, an appreciative lens kind of thing of like, how can we build on success and get more success? You'll start to see good things happen. So the pilot that you just described in India. There's no reason why these types of pilots can't exist within a school in the US.

And then to see that success because people do get into the profession 'cause they want good things for kids, they become fundamentalist in terms of dragging their feet is because there's always a new leader who comes in that says, we're now gonna try something different. We're gonna do it, you know, in a new way.

And people get kind of tired of somebody new coming in every time and saying, we're gonna try something new. So they just kinda get stuck in status quo. I dunno if that was your experience, but it certainly was mine. Whether in a metropolitan district or then in an urban district that was a large system.

It was like, oh, here's the new person. What are we gonna do now? And so I do think you can build on small projects that show success and that will grow. 

[00:17:57] Ben Kornell: Yeah, I hear that. And there's this like deeper change, fatigue. That really dates back to COVID where it's not just leadership change and new initiatives, but also just the educational landscape has changed so dramatically, and what kids' needs are and what school's responsibilities are.

I feel like we're often hearing about the headlines of like these new, innovative ways that AI can be utilized, but if you're like. In a survival mode as a teacher. I remember when I was a first year teacher, my change capacity was very, very low. It creates this environment where it can be hard for schools to pivot and move.

[00:18:38] Peter Stiepleman: You know, superintendents, we cringe. We hear the word pivot. We like get into a fetal position in the corner because every time during the pandemic we were asked to pivot, pivot, pivot. So then we go like, ah, so here's a company that comes to mind. M PET speech, E-M-P-A-T speech. They're speech language pathology.

They provide virtual speech language services for kids. But what is really exciting about taking a traditional model and sort of like turning it into a different and more exciting model is that they run AI in the background for when kids are practicing. So think of like a traditional speech language sort of situation where you've got four kids sitting around a kidney table and you're working with one while three are practicing.

They may be practicing poorly. You don't know because until you start working one-on-one, you're like, oh, actually we gotta do it this way. So now imagine you're working one-on-one. These three are practicing, but AI is listening. It is correcting when appropriate, or it's keeping track of where there are mistakes and then feeds to the teacher or the therapist, Hey, this child had three outta 10 on this discrete skill.

This is where we need to start. And is also writing the IEP description so that the teacher can spend more time doing what AI can't do. Which is be human. And so actually building relationship with kids, teaching children one-on-one and taking care of all the sort of busy work that they have to do as part of their tasks and jobs.

So there's no reason why something like that doesn't or can't work in terms of reading instruction. So the child is working on fluency, particularly in those early years. And so AI is monitoring for rate and accuracy and all those types of things and seeing where the child is getting stuck and where the child, in terms of, whether it's science of reading or just regular, just, you know, basic phonics or phonemic awareness instruction, like seeing where that child needs additional support, letting the teacher know where the child got stuck and writing the report for what can go home.

And it makes for more meaningful conversation with the parent and goal setting with the kid. 

[00:20:33] Ben Kornell: Yeah. I feel like what that assumes is that there's alignment around what good instruction looks like around what the standards look like 

[00:20:42] Peter Stiepleman: in those early years. Though it doesn't matter what state you're in, they're pretty much the same standards.

It's things begin to shift and change as they get towards that middle school and high school. In terms of, yeah, the standards and what the state has adopted, 

[00:20:55] Ben Kornell: one of our headlines this week was from the state of Utah. It's from the Hecker report, and it said this state tried to overhaul math instruction.

It didn't go as planned. And really the needle here in the the pile of hay is that they really wanted to introduce data science standards starting at kindergarten, and this idea of collecting data, analyzing data, and having that be a through line. One of the side effects was that they, they created a new progression that would allow more kids to take calculus at an earlier age, so calculus at as a sophomore or as a junior, rather than waiting until senior year.

And as we know, like access to calculus is of gaining effect for top universities and a vast number of kids in America don't have access to take calculus at all. 

[00:21:45] Peter Stiepleman: Sure. I mean, the biggest challenge that superintendents around the nation are talking about is pushing algebra to eighth grade, not ninth grade, not waiting till ninth grade to do algebra one because a, it may be where if a child struggles in algebra one in ninth grade, then it sort of throws everything off in terms of their trajectory's towards graduation.

However, it also can mean for the high achieving kid that they may be limited in the kind of courses and higher level math that they may be ac be able to access later in the, in the years, because they took it in ninth grade and not eighth grade. 

[00:22:16] Ben Kornell: And then on top of that you've got, are the kids really prepared for eighth grade algebra and a critique that we're, you know, from some groups in, in Utah in particular, that, wait, we're watering down our standards.

Like, you know, calculus is really hard. They should have more honors math before that or out, you know, this idea of algebra in eighth. I think it's a really interesting. Dilemma in that we know every learner progresses at different speeds. It's also not a race. And sometimes the founda like it actually is better to spend more time getting deeper in like combinatorics, algebraic thinking.

Geometric thinking before you speed ahead. 

[00:22:58] Peter Stiepleman: Yeah. And I might even push out on like, to what extent, I mean unless you're going to be, I have a son who's a statistics major, so I, you know, I have a sense of the kind of math that he took going into even into college, but like. To what extent do we really truly believe that they have to take all these sort of discreet math skills as opposed to, and I'm really excited Ted Ter Smith, who produced, uh, most Likely To Succeed and in his newest film, a Multiple Choice, uh, has a book coming out on math.

And his argument has, at least the way I understand it, has been how do we introduce children to the kinds of experiences where they can use math in a way that is, I guess, pertinent as opposed to theoretical? Right. 'cause I mean, some of the math that we are asking our kids to take is because that was the math that we took.

[00:23:45] Ben Kornell: Yeah. As kids get to abstraction in math, they really struggle and there's so many great ways to make math learning come alive and 

[00:23:53] Peter Stiepleman: Right. 

[00:23:54] Ben Kornell: Actually 

[00:23:54] Peter Stiepleman: describe, so that's my thought, or at least my theory or argument is like if they take it in eighth grade algebra one and they sort of get to the point where then they can take.

They can expand their horizons and take electives that incorporate math, however, maybe into the areas for which they have passion. 

[00:24:10] Ben Kornell: Yeah, it's, it's so interesting, and I feel like math is bringing out a lot of stakeholders on many unexpected side. It's, it's not like a really a two-sided debate. There's a sense of like, what's equitable access?

And those, the argument goes, we need to have math access to top courses so that there's equitable access to college and higher ed. There's also a group that is like, we need to be able to accelerate math and go as quickly as possible, because kids who are high achieving are really having the ceiling, you know, pulled down on them.

[00:24:46] Peter Stiepleman: Totally agree. 

[00:24:47] Ben Kornell: But then on the opposite side, there's a voice around, you know, are we watering down standards? Do we have enough rigor? Do we need to actually slow down math progression? And then the fourth one that I, I subscribe to too, is. How do we make this more about problem solving and teach it in a way that's more concrete and relatable in real world?

[00:25:08] Peter Stiepleman: Yeah. So you say problem solving and I say relevant. How do we make it more relevant? Right. Yeah. And so I totally agree with you. The question isn't whether or not math or no math, the question is like, so what should math look like and how can it be? And I know, or at least I suspect that one of the reasons why I was invited to be your co-host today or to do this with you, and I'm so grateful and I think one of the reasons is because I have.

The ability to talk with lots of superintendents around the country to kind of hear what's going on in their minds. So when you think about the rural superintendent in particular is exactly, I think the second one that you mentioned in terms of math, which is, or, or maybe it's the first around equitable access.

You know, how do you create opportunity where it may not always exist within a rural community? And so, you know, whether it was the previous administration's, you know, infrastructure bill that really said, we're gonna make sure that high-speed internet is available in the most rural parts of our country, because that's where our kids are.

The vast majority of kids going to school are not in the metropolitan districts, they're in the rural communities. And so how do we make sure that there is such talent and intelligence and ability? How do we make sure that they get access to, and how do we support them if they wanna regionalize? Not their districts, but their offerings so that this one district has those higher, higher math skills or higher math courses.

And this other one maybe is, has the welding course and the other, you know, career and technical ed courses so that they're not investing simultaneously in the same things, but rather really being mindful of we'll do this, well, you do that well. And then we combine our forces to do it in terms of providing access.

And then I think it gets back to your earlier question about, okay, so then if you're gonna pass legislation and, and or at least propose legislation and so go back to Missouri, I think they were saying something like 45 minutes of screen time a day for K five. How do we. Be mindful of the fact that if in fact you're in a rural district and you're trying to create opportunity, yes.

Maybe it's world languages that you're teaching at fifth grade, that that ought not to be considered part of the 45 minutes of screen time as opposed to, you know, putting kids on games and things like that just to keep them pacified, you know? So I think there has to be continued dialogue about what is it that is tech and what is it that is Ed and how do we focus on the ED needs of kids?

[00:27:24] Ben Kornell: Yeah. And such a great point too about rural education and what we're seeing often reflects a bias towards urban and suburban realities. And you know, if, if ever I wanna look for real innovation in education, I talk to rural superintendents Absolutely. Or rural districts. There's so much incredible stuff.

[00:27:44] Peter Stiepleman: Yes, I totally agree. 

[00:27:46] Ben Kornell: When we're thinking about all of this, it's all leading up to how do we make kids career ready or college ready? There were also a bunch of disturbing headlines this week around. The kind of state of higher ed and you know Alex, who often is my co-host here, you know, he's been talking for a long time about how higher ed needs to reorganize.

You know, this kind of four years monolithic structure really makes it hard to be responsive and affordable and effective for students. But we're also just seeing the pressure cooker that is higher ed this week, higher ed dive, they said 9.2%. Decline in gifts to an endowments. In higher educations, we see that foreign enrollment is down.

We're seeing student loan borrowers aren't able to repay their loans. So loans are getting cut. And then the school closure, you know, drumbeat continues with several small universities closing. You can check that out in the Chronicle of Higher Education. You know, higher ed schools have started trying to specialize to get a niche, to get a name.

It's backfiring. And so, you know, from a perspective of ultimately this is, this has been the pathway to the middle class for America for generations, what's your take on these headlines in higher ed and where do you think it's going? 

[00:29:14] Peter Stiepleman: Well, it's interesting, you know, I was a superintendent, 19,000 kids, 300 square miles, urban, suburban, rural, and it was in Columbia, Missouri, which is where the flagship university for the University of Missouri is.

So I was in a university town, so more degrees than a thermometer in that town, as my father-in-law would say, and. I would say that when I first became superintendent, I had this notion of four year school. Every kid, you know, what's your plan to go to college? And you know, you could start with a two year school, but you know, two year and four year.

And it didn't take very long before getting to really spend time with our Chamber of Commerce going to visit other schools. And other communities that were like Columbia. So members of the SEC, we would go to Ann Arbor, Michigan. We went to Lexington, Kentucky, went to Knoxville, Tennessee, and to sort of understand what their communities were dealing with.

And one of the things that we saw in Washtenaw County, Michigan was an early college program and it was, Hey, not all your kids need to go to college, but they need to have a plan. And so whether it's a two year program or a four year program, or it's an internship, or it's the military or it's going right into the workforce, what will your school district do to prepare kids for life?

So college, career, and life. And so it really was an eye-opener for us to say, first of all, college is really expensive. As you noted, it's very hard to pay back student loans these days, and so why don't we create an early college program where kids can graduate from high school with their associate's degree with all rights and privileges as a high school kid, and also attending the local community college and have two years done.

And in Missouri in particular, all the community colleges have an arrangement with the state university so that when they finish those two years, they can then enter their junior year. Debt free, right? 'cause we take the money that we would get from the state and apply it to their tuition. And so I think that's one thing that you're starting to see, not just in Missouri, but all across the nation, is in looking for an early college program.

Now. That's one thing. The second thing that I was just thinking about was just in terms of like, how do we think about some of these schools and, and like specializing. I'm starting to see that, you know, there are schools like in Northeastern that's buying up other colleges and creating these niche programs and that's been kind of popular, but not everyone can do it.

And then the third thing I was just thinking about is just in terms of going back to our early conversation with AI, if it's appropriate, is just even the colleges themselves are wrestling with the appropriate use of AI. Whether it be lawsuits that have been mounting, where parents are suing universities saying, look, my kids' syllabus still says, you know, a chat GBT.

Like, hey, great job Peter, and creating this syllabus. I love what you're doing. You know, it's so complimentary and yet. They didn't do any of the work that somebody else did, at least according to the parent. And then you're starting to see there's no clear guidance on how a child can use or a student can use AI.

Is it as a coding partner, can they use it as a thought partner? If they're a second language learner and they're writing their essay, can they feed their essay into AI to clean up all the mechanics of language so that they can turn in a more polished paper that reflects their ideas, but not all the sort of issues.

I do think that, yeah, you're starting to see a decline in international students coming to the US because they don't see this as the most hospitable environment. And universities haven't totally figured out how to leverage the K 12 environment to make up for potentially some of that loss. So that's two separate thoughts, but certainly in my mind, 

[00:32:43] Ben Kornell: and I feel like this trend is accelerating, and so if you're looking at the ROIA small four year private school, it.

Not only was it under pressure before now, it was really under pressure because of these early college programs and the debt lowering, which seems to me like a great thing for students. So, 

[00:33:06] Peter Stiepleman: and families, parents came up to me and said, you've saved our family. Like this was a game changer. We didn't know how we were gonna afford college.

I, you know, we were already on a second mortgage with our first child. We didn't know how we were gonna do this for the second. And the other thing is there is some legislation around the nation, and I wish it would get more use, something called a Visiting Scholar program that allows individuals who may not have a teaching degree to come work in public schools for up to three years.

Teach within those systems. And so think about if K 12 or pre-K 12, we're able to leverage the experience and the degrees at the university setting, whether that be community colleges, colleges, or large universities, and be able to maybe make some of their faculty full-time who have been part-time or if they've got under enrollment in certain areas to come work in those public schools.

Anything from world languages to that calculus course where it's hard to find a, a qualified calculus teacher to working in the career and technical ed areas because you have this project lead the Way and you're doing a lab, but there's someone in the med school who could come, you know, teach one class every day at the high school 'cause they've got this visiting scholar certificate that sort of says, okay, it's okay that you didn't go to teacher's college, but you've got the.

Background to do it and we'll support you with the classroom management. So there are ways to be innovative that some have the legislation but aren't leveraging it, or others should also be considering how to marry this pre-K through whatever grade 26 or whatever it is, you know, to see this not as separate entities, but as one educational environment.

[00:34:50] Ben Kornell: Yeah. I mean, in some ways it's just this false separation that we've, you know, had since the Industrial Revolution. Yeah. Now here we are in the AI revolution. Maybe this is the time, 

[00:35:00] Peter Stiepleman: maybe this is the time. 

[00:35:01] Ben Kornell: Were there other headlines that caught, you know, were kind of in the speed round? Anything that caught your eye on the headlines?

[00:35:09] Peter Stiepleman: Okay. Well, so Ben, I, I have a liberal arts degree. I went to a small four year college and so I know a little about a lot of the things, but I would say, so there was a Business Insider article, anthropics co-founder was the headline of, of this, talking about that she doesn't regret her literature major and says that AI will make humanity majors more important.

So this whole idea that, you know, the tasks that can be done that maybe, you know, even 10 years ago we were telling kids to go back to school to learn how to code is probably not as important these days since, you know, whether it be Gemini or, or some other, we'll use Anthropics, right? So that you can code so quickly.

She was saying it's more than ever the more than than a STEM degree is to have those abilities. And I think you mentioned it early on in our conversation, the ability to critically think to apply that kind of learning and a liberal arts degree or the humanities absolutely are the pathway to do that. I feel that way, but I'm certainly biased.

[00:36:09] Ben Kornell: Yeah, I feel like, you know, I'm history and literature major here. Full disclosure. 

[00:36:13] Peter Stiepleman: Woo 

woo. 

[00:36:13] Ben Kornell: I feel like there's two views of the future. In our EdTech Insiders WhatsApp, we actually were sharing articles. One view of the future is like you've gotta learn the technology so that you can, you know, interface with your AI overlords.

And another one, which is, 

[00:36:29] Peter Stiepleman: I'm always saying thank you to my AI. Whenever I like, Hey Google, can you turn on the den lights? Thank you so much. 'cause I figured they'll, they're keeping track. 

[00:36:38] Ben Kornell: And then the, the alternative is that actually this is the beginning of human flourishing, where your technical skills have no relation to your ability to build tools and products.

I, I feel like I'm more in the second camp now, that being said. The kind of critical thinking and the design choices and knowing how to leverage these tools to get what you want. It relies on deeper cognitive lifting and thinking. And you know, what we'll find is like a five paragraph essay isn't necessarily the mode to get our kids thinking this way.

And, and so a big concept that I, you know, I was at the Stanford AI Summit last week, and Lauren Uro from Common Sense Media introduced this concept to me of moving from critical thinkers to critical creators. And this idea that like making learning visible, which is a term in project-based learning that's like gold standard.

[00:37:34] Peter Stiepleman: I was gonna say. Yeah. A and it actually aligns with some of the, when we say standards-based reporting is how do we provide multiple opportunities and different ways for children to show what they've learned? And it ought not to always be this essay or multiple choice test. 

[00:37:47] Ben Kornell: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, it's been such a pleasure to have you on the pod, Peter Stiepleman, and I will say the idea of taking a reflective practice that you did yourself reflecting on your own journey as a imperfect leader and then walking others through, it sounds like a, an incredible canvas for everyone to learn, evolve and think about leadership.

So everyone EdTech insiders, please check that out. Also, if you get a chance to subscribe, you know, your EdTech Insider plus subscriptions help make all of this happen. So thank you Peter for joining us and thank you audience. If it happens in EdTech, you'll hear about it here on EdTech Insiders. 

[00:38:28] Peter Stiepleman: Hey Ben, you are a futurist.

I'm more of a contextualist, meaning I like to think about where we've gone to know where we're going. Yeah. The two of us together, we're a mighty force. 

[00:38:37] Ben Kornell: That's right. Let's do it. Alright, thanks so much.

Hello, EdTech Insider listeners. I'm here with a special guest, Brandon Smith, CEO of Integrity Advocate, a leading voice in assessment security.

With 12 years in law enforcement and deep experience in EdTech, he brings a security based approach to online proctoring that emphasizes fairness, proportional response, and evidence-based decision making. We all know assessment's one of my favorite topics, and so it's so great to have you here. Welcome Brandon Smith.

[00:39:10] Brandon Smith: Thanks for having me, Ben. 

[00:39:12] Ben Kornell: So folks who are listening now, we're actually including in the show notes and ebook and a link to Integrity Advocate, and people can find and read more. But you argue in your book that assessment security has entered a fundamentally new era. From your perspective, what's changed most in the last few years is AI, remote delivery and scale have converged, and why are traditional approaches no longer enough?

[00:39:37] Brandon Smith: Yeah, so I really think that if we start with just the capability leap, if you look at it like AI dramatically lowered the skill barrier for people to try to cheat or to successfully cheat. And what used to require somebody taking some expertise, maybe getting someone to take a test by proxy or going on forums or maybe a custom method that they came up with, like, today's world is just point and click, right?

And so another thing that stands out is remote testing just kind of became default. So if we think back, like prior to COVID, there was a lot of testing still happening in person. After COVID online testing kind of became the new mandatory. I remember that we used to say after campuses started opening up after COVID, there's no way kids are going back to take exams and get an afternoon parking ticket if they could just stay at home and do their class and take their exam when it was convenient for them while trying to do the other things of that are involved with life, like their part-time job and everything else.

And that certainly proved to be true scale. We've also changed the economics. So at scale, like even a very small failure rate becomes like a major integrity event for some of these schools. So think of the really large universities that maybe have like 30, 40, 50,000 students who are taking exams and they're taking eight to 10 of them a year.

Let's not forget that at scale, if you miss something really small across the half million sessions, that's gonna become a really big deal. Right? And so thinking about that, like you have to think for these software companies that are doing this like. Adaptation speed really comes to mind because these threats now evolve faster than like we can adjust our product roadmap, our release cadence can't keep up whenever you're doing like agile software development.

So what takes us two to four weeks to get something new out? AI has new tools popping up almost every day, and so things are just a lot more fluid now. And then I would say around like why the old approach fails. Things are just static, right rules and like, okay, blacklist or a single flag means something in like a very dynamic landscape.

These people optimize for how to cheat and so we have to optimize for. Catching the individual. That was the old mindset. And really that was not the way to look at it. Like we should have been thinking of it from like, how do we protect the program as a system like you combine deterrence or like the overall design of the assessment or how someone's gonna respond to a question, thinking continuous improvement, like those types of things that no longer is gonna work in today's environment.

[00:42:14] Ben Kornell: Yeah, I think there's some romantic thinkers out there that think it's all gonna go back to in-person paper and pencil testing. And the reality, you know, what you shared, I think shows that there were some real benefits of moving so much online, the convenience, the access, also the ability to efficiently get the data and score.

But now there's this arms race essentially, where every time there's a tool or a deterrent, there's ways around that. And we've seen also a bunch of negative outcomes with AI detection systems. Falsely accusing people and so on. One of the biggest critiques that you raise is this tool chasing proctoring approach.

Why does relying on individual tools for detection or detection features break down so quickly in the age of ai? Is it that things are constantly dynamic or is it the management of multiple tooling? What do you think is the problem with that patchwork work approach? 

[00:43:14] Brandon Smith: Yeah, so I think, like I was just saying, these new tools are coming out almost every day, right?

And it's like these AI tools have kind of become like a whack-a-mole issue, if you will, for us. And so everybody's doing their very best to stay in front of the next one or like the next iteration of what it can do. But like if that's your only focus, if you're just heads down looking at that as like a single point of failure in the process, you're really putting all your eggs in a basket, right?

And if you bet all your integrity on like one detector, and it doesn't have to even be AI, right? Like it could be, some companies focus on one particular thing that's not AI, but it could be like the AI writing detection from essay based exams, or like AI auto answering exams for you. We know tools are doing that these days.

Or maybe you're just focusing on erratic or suspicious eye tracking. Test takers can beat one thing if they narrow it down and figure out that's all that you're doing or chasing. And so we have to remember like what did cheating used to look like? AI now is masking for less obvious behaviors, but we really have to think about it as a whole.

And so I think a really good example for everybody listening could be something really simple like you're looking off the screen to the same place over and over during an exam that used to mean, okay, like they're using notes or something off screen to help them, but now AI tools just take the exam for you while you're sitting back and staring at the screen, right?

So what I'm saying is like we should focus on the system as a whole, not a single feature. And that system has to look something like the assessment design, so it's like before the exam even happens, are you using best known practices when you create that assessment to make sure that cheating can't occur through like the time you allow to answer a question or maybe you're blocking.

Backwards navigation or making sure you're randomizing your question poll, like those kind of things. And then you have the next layer of controls, which is like, are you doing ID verification? Are you doing a room scan of the environment? Are you going back and reviewing analytics? Like one of the things that always makes me laugh is.

We have find someone that's cheating on an exam and they're like, we had no idea. And we're looking at it and we're like, this has been like a C 70, 75 average student for 10 exams in a row. And all of a sudden on the last four they've gotten a hundred and they finished it in record time compared to the rest of the class.

If you were actually looking at the analytics, like you should have known, you actually probably didn't even need us to tell you. And then I think another piece of it is just like deterrence and messaging. So like you have to be really clear with the rules these days, the old days of don't cheat, have academic honesty and do the right thing.

You need to be really clear what's allowed and what's not. We need to have visible enforcement, meaning if you're doing something we need to tell them like, Hey, we see you're looking off screen. Refocus your attention on the exam. And these institutions, whether they like it or not, really have to start being consistent with consequences.

So what I will say is like, if. You work somewhere and they're spending the dollars on proctoring, the most powerful thing you can do is to take action whenever cheating happens. So that accused test taker is literally the best form of deterrence money you can buy. When they go out and tell a friend or post on social, create a Reddit thread, whatever their means of getting the word out is when other people hear like, Hey, there's consequences if I get caught.

That is a huge deterrent. So like people forget the follow through whenever we actually catch someone. There's always a lot of, well what if, do I have enough evidence, a conversation, even if you don't expel them or fail the course because of it. Just that conversation and kind of calling them on the carpet, if you will, is a huge deterrent for like others that are taking the tests later down the road.

Right. 

[00:47:09] Ben Kornell: So I want to get to like what you're seeing in the space, but also just hearing you talk about this, you have such an interesting background. You actually have worked in law enforcement and security, and so you're bringing that mindset to exam integrity, which is really unusual in ed tech. Like how do these principles translate into online assessment without creating a surveillance heavy or punitive experience?

And I think the fear is like, so you call the kid out and there's inconsistency in what they're doing. And that is such a foreign thing for educators. We are just not used to that. And I think in law enforcement or security, here's the rules, here's the consequence. That's a little bit more of a norm. So how have these things translated and where are they not translating?

Or where are you having to do mindset shifts or change just given your unique background? 

[00:48:05] Brandon Smith: Yeah, so I think a lot of people go into this assessment and proctoring world and they think of it as, we need to build the biggest jail and punish everybody, right? At the end of the day, that's not really the idea.

And if you come from that like law enforcement background, that's not really what law enforcement's goal is either, right? Like it's not to operate off of fear and punishment. Sure, that's a component to it and it works. But at the end of the day, like what we're looking for in Proctor is just a truly level playing field for everyone.

And what that means, because we hear it a lot, but like what it really gets down to is like there's that student out there who never cheats, right? The one that's like 110% dedicated to their studies, they want to be number one in their class. Like that means the world to them. That's what they've worked their whole life for.

And when all these people around them start cheating and start. Getting better grades than they are. They start questioning like, am I good enough? Do I need to cheat just to stay ahead? Like, I know I'm smarter or better at this than the person next to me, but like they feel they're like losing, right? And we want to take cheating outta the equation and just make it a level playing field where the grade everybody gets is the grade everybody earned, right?

And so. When you think of certain things that happen in law enforcement, like people forget police, or if you think TSA at the airport, just their physical presence being there, the uniform, the badge, the branding or what have you, the signage. Like a lot of times that is enough to deter people. There's people that literally are like, man, when I go to go through TSA, I'm not smuggling anything through, but I get really nervous and my hands get sweaty.

And just the fact that they're there like makes me nervous. We have to remember there's levels to this and that's how law enforcement takes an approach to law enforcement and like their community policing. You have to have all of the layers there in order for it to work. And so we were just mentioning, okay, like when a kid cheats, a word gets out.

I mean, we can all kind of take that in and the example of you're driving and like maybe it's been a while since you've had a ticket and all of a sudden, you know, you see somebody pulled over on the side of the road and. Please stop writing him a ticket. That fear reminds you like, man, I, I really need to start paying attention to my speed again.

Right? And if, if nothing else, it slows you down in the moment. Right. And so that visible deterrence that like in your face is like a huge piece of it. I also think people come into proctoring and like, they're not thinking about the situational awareness piece of it. A law enforcement officer would, you know, like they don't actually know what's possible, right?

That's a big one. And we talk to people all the time and they're like, we want you to catch people doing this. We think this is what people are doing. And it's like, you, you have no idea what people are doing actually. Like we live and breathe this stuff every day. It's up to us to actually know what the current trend is or like what people are doing or what they're posting about.

You know, ways around these exams knowing human behavior, the kind of indicators or the things they do, maybe they tip off their fixing to do something, right? Learning what those signals are, you know, prioritizing our humans to give attention to those people that are like doing the things that are obvious.

We think that that's a really big part of it. AI is great. AI is very black and white, though. It says there's like two people in the screen or there's not. And we very much feel that. That just puts the burden back on a faculty member who doesn't have time to review hundreds, if not thousands of sessions that have false positives.

We feel very much that a human can look at that and say, mom dropped in and said, Hey, it's time for dinner. No harm, no foul. Let's get rid of that as a violation. Versus if like their roommate's looking over their shoulder saying, Hey man, like the answer's a right. And so, you know, I, I think at the end of the day, everybody.

Wants to think of how we catch these kids that are cheating. And that's one mindset. But if we really step back and remember like level the playing field, the thing that no one actually likes to talk about is just the response to it all. It's like everybody feels like they wanna catch people cheating, but then it's have they actually taken the time to say like, what do we do in response to it if we catch people?

And so there's obviously like levels of cheating. There's like maybe low, medium, and high how much effort was put into it, or like the steps they were going through to actually have cheating. But we as a proctoring company have to be very careful, just like police or like loss prevention at a store. Like you don't wanna accuse somebody of doing something, right if like you don't have the proof, you never wanna falsely accuse somebody.

And so we very much think of it as like. You have time on your side and you have to ensure you have the evidence or the proof that someone's doing something. The end of the day, all of us have been there or our kids are there. We know somebody that has like test anxiety, right? A lot of these high stakes exams, those are the ones that are being proctored, and the last thing we wanna do is create more anxiety, especially if it's unnecessary.

To use somebody that they're doing something wrong, like that would not be fair to them and really is like we're overstepping our bounds if we're doing that. Like we have to be very cognizant of the fact that we are an authoritative figure to them in this scenario. And so we really should, with very white glove, be mindful of that and really only step in and say, Hey, we see what you're doing here if we for sure have the evidence.

And that's not just like we think, right. Through a video or like through an audio evidence these days has to be more robust than that. Like you have to have logs, you have to have the screenshots, the audio, all of those things together to really make a comprehensive, and, and I don't wanna really directly tie it to like as if you're taking them to court, but like again, if you walk through those principles of like how law enforcement works, you're not gonna arrest somebody or you're not gonna charge somebody if you don't have that evidence.

It's the same thing here. It's like you really have to be mindful. And if you don't know, you don't know, it's still okay to flag it, right? Like you can still tell the faculty, we think we're seeing these things, these are the suggestions that we have for you to do on the next assessment to kind of close off that loophole.

But at the end of the day, let's not make any false accusations. 

[00:54:07] Ben Kornell: Yeah, I mean, part of what I hear you saying is just also being clear about what's acceptable, not acceptable, and that we care enough. We're going to be monitoring this exam. And you know, even if someone's not accused of something but they're redirected or they're notified that this exam is being proctored in these ways, it gives you confidence in your own score that where you landed and where others landed is a valid assessment because you know that people are taking the time and energy to make sure it's proctored.

And I just love what you said about actually even looking at the design of tests. I think so many people are trying to put a bandaid on this one, which is like, okay, how do we just layer on some other fix? And that arms race is a never ending arms race. If we don't go back and say, okay, let's just rethink how are we designing the assessment and how are we designing the expectations and the social.

Components alongside the technical solutions. So, you know, what's your assessment of the state of cheating? You know, here at EdTech Insiders, I don't know, it was maybe a year ago, there was actually a great report that showed actually, like cheating levels have been at the same level for basically 20 years.

It's just the, the tools are so much more effective or so much more readily available, but we're, we're actually seeing a lot of high integrity students across all age levels. Are you seeing more cheating activity in younger kids? Older kids, adult learning? I mean, you know, your, in your company, you can really serve it all.

Where are you seeing the pockets where there's the most cheating activity? Is it more on those high stakes summative assessments, or is it on ongoing assessments? Like what's the state of cheating from your vantage? 

[00:56:07] Brandon Smith: Yeah, so one thing I really love about the space in general is people really take a lot of pride in what they do, and so you're a hundred percent right in the sense that like it's not necessarily that we're seeing more cheating.

People actually take pride and just have like a a code or like their own integrity, if you will, that apply to these. A lot of times it could depend on what they're doing, right? But a lot of people that are seeking out higher education, they're paying to go to school or what have you, they understand that's an investment and like cheating their way through is not the best outcome if they want to have success after that once they get into their career.

And so I think a lot of that still applies. I also think that from surveying that we've done that, we also know that whenever just proctoring is known to happen, whether it's in person or if it's like remote proctoring, about 90% of the people say like if they know that they actually take steps to make sure it looks like they're not cheating, right?

So that's very telling as well. I think what we're seeing is people are just getting more creative. If they're gonna cheat, they're gonna cheat, right? But it's like they're getting more creative of how they're trying to do it. So that's one piece. And so another is like, I do think that we've seen younger age kids unfortunately, where it's not the serious high stakes midterm or final like at at a college level, but the K 12 world, even in like their homework, it's so easy to just take a screenshot of a geometry question and throw that in chat GPT, and just answer the multiple choice, right?

Where now that things are online, a lot of times there's not an easy way to show your work. Where maybe when we were in school, you know, you had to turn in the work and they could see the two pages where you'd work through the problem. I think some of the ed tech that has come out has made it easier on the faculty member side to just say, answer it as multiple choice and then they don't have the work of going through, you know, all the written work you did.

But then that's opened a new loophole up where like a student can say, well, like, I'm not gonna do my homework. Or I'm late on it. And so they rush through it. And then it's one of those situations where like we don't have anything in place to like know that they've fallen behind 'cause there's no indicators, right?

They get in this situation where almost they have to cheat. I mean, I hate to say that, right? But it's like, Hey, I cheated through the last two weeks of math homework. Now the exam's coming up, they're not gonna pass it. They don't know the content. And so we end up in this loophole where like a lot of K twelves are cheating on their day to day homework and assignments.

And that's leading to them cheating on assessments where it's hard to say whether or not they would have pre, like without the cheating on the homework or the assignment, but it's definitely like a concern. And then it's happening everywhere. It's not just on like traditional, you know, true faults or like multiple choice type exams.

They're actual written content, they're English or you know, literature courses we're seeing and hearing a lot about just. Using AI to like write for them. And it's sad because there's a lot of tools out there that can easily detect if something was generated or written by AI. I don't think that schools either have the budgets, the training or maybe even the know-how, how to combat and have like a proactive plan to kind of hedge that off.

And so I think we're at a point where we know it's happening, but I think that the students have adopted AI faster than the school has put something in place as a deterrent to kind of course correct there. I think they're definitely playing catch up and I think as we think of just our education institutions and just like the state of like our kids that like that's a very concerning place for us to be in.

[00:59:35] Ben Kornell: This is the challenge and already we're seeing people losing trust in institutions for other reasons beyond assessment. But if you don't believe that it's a fair game in terms of teaching and learning and assessment in school, how are parents and students supposed to buy into those? Systems. Thank you so much.

Um, you know, I think it is something that we all know is happening and the idea that we can just ignore it and it will go away. That's no longer an acceptable stance here. And, you know, thanks for telling us about this work. If people want to find out more about Integrity Advocate, what's the best place for them to go?

[01:00:16] Brandon Smith: Definitely Integrity Advocate.com. Our website has a lot of information, not just about us or about proctoring, but. We do a lot of thought leadership pieces around some of the stuff we've talked about today. That's our vision is to get out in front and while we're, we're one of the people in the game that's trying to keep up with all the changes and stuff, like, we're also trying to get the information out to everyone to understand how fastly this stuff's adapting and what are some of the things that you can do yourself.

It's not always on a tool, right? Like we've talked about some of the assessment setup and things like that. And so yeah, check us out and of course we're available on social and stuff as well, but, uh, our website would be the best place to find us. 

[01:00:56] Ben Kornell: Well, thanks so much Brandon Smith. CEO. So great to hear everything that you're working on and folks can check that out@integrityadvocate.com.

Thanks so much, and EdTech Insider listeners, we're off next week, but we'll be coming back with new episodes. Alex and I will be doing our week EdTech podcast, so stay tuned. 

[01:01:18] Alex Sarlin: Thanks for listening to this episode of EdTech Insiders. If you like the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the EdTech community.

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