My EdTech Life

Episode 316: Ken Patterson

• Fonz Mendoza • Season 1 • Episode 316

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 Why Transparency Matters Now More Than Ever with Ken Patterson 

In this hard-hitting episode of My EdTech Life, I sit down with Ken Patterson, a former principal turned AI consultant, who pulls no punches on how AI is really being used in schools. Ken saw firsthand how AI transformed a struggling school into a top performer, but the system pushed back hard instead of celebrating.

💡 Here’s what we dive into:
✅ How AI helped Ken’s school thrive—before the system shut it down.
âś… Why so many EdTech companies are misleading teachers about AI.
✅ The truth about "wrapper" AI sites—what they don’t want you to know.
âś… Why teachers should be leading AI adoption, not just tech departments.
âś… The missing piece in AI-driven education that no one is talking about.

Ken doesn’t hold back, and this episode is a must-watch for educators, administrators, and anyone who cares about the future of AI in education.

Timestamps:

00:00 Celebrating 100,000 downloads! Huge thanks to our community. 🎉
01:00 Shoutout to our amazing sponsors! Thank you, Yellowdig and Book Creator, for supporting this mission.
02:00 Meet Ken Patterson—his journey from music teacher to AI-driven principal.
04:00 Turning a failing school into a top performer using AI.
07:00 Why the system wasn’t ready for AI success—and how it pushed back.
10:30 The shady side of EdTech—Ken calls out misleading AI claims.
15:00 Should teachers use AI for instruction or just for admin work?
20:00 The problem with "wrapper" AI sites—what they’re not telling educators.
25:00 How AI can either empower or exploit teachers—depending on transparency.
30:00 Ken’s unfiltered take on the future of AI in education.
40:00 Final thoughts and a challenge to educators everywhere.

Special Thanks to Our Sponsors!

💡 This episode is powered by Yellowdig and Book Creator—thanks for supporting real conversations in EdTech!

👇 WATCH NOW and join the conversation!
đź’¬ Do you trust AI in education? Why or why not? Drop your thoughts in the comments!

đź”— Follow Ken Patterson: LinkedIn
🎧 More Episodes: https://www.myedtech.life/

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Fonz:

Hello everybody and thank you for my bad. Here we go. Hello everybody, and welcome to another great episode of my EdTech Life. Thank you so much for joining us on this wonderful day and, as always, wherever it is that you're joining us from around the world, thank you for all of your support. We appreciate all the likes, the shares, the follows, and, if you know, you know that you've seen that we hit a hundred thousand downloads already. So thank you all, as always, from the bottom of my heart, and to all our sponsors, thank you for your support as well. So big shout out to EduAid, to Yellowdig, to Book Creator and many more. Thank you all for believing in our mission and today I'm excited, as always, to bring you an amazing conversation. So today I would love to welcome to the show Mr Ken Patterson. Ken, how are you doing this evening?

Ken Patterson:

I am wonderful man, I'm wonderful. Thank you for having me. Thanks for what you do, Really thank you for what you do.

Fonz:

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, ken, and I'm just really excited to get to talk to you and just to hear a little bit more about the work that you are have you? You have been doing, I should say, because I know I've been following you on LinkedIn for a while now, over the past, you know, kind of year and seeing you grow, seeing you do a lot of great things and then, obviously, you know, bringing some great conversation into the LinkedIn space and really just getting a lot of people to kind of think about things differently, see things differently. So I'm really excited to have you here today. But before we get started with the meat of the conversation, for our audience members that may not be familiar with your work yet, can you give us a little bit of a background story and what your context is within the education space?

Ken Patterson:

Yes, so I'm going to make it short, but I am essentially. Most people think about me as I'm crazy about kids, right, I'm absolutely crazy about kids just because I think as long as they are here, we have hope, right, and so I'm relentlessly passionate about them. My email signature when I was in education was always unreasonably committed to kids, because I think we all should be, and so that's my framework. The last position I held in education was principal. So I started off as a music teacher and then I was living life and enjoying kids, having fun with kids. And then it, you know, I was living life and enjoying kids, right, having fun with kids. And then it's kind of like I was called up, like you know, you would run into some great administrators who said, man, you know, you got to do more, you got to do more and I was afraid of not being able to be around kids. So I became a principal, right around, like that was the highest I was going to go, like I needed to see kids every day. So I became a principal. I knew I wasn't going to go higher than that, but what happened was I got promoted from the classroom to assistant principal the year of COVID. So my promotion was online. I interviewed in my pajamas and then the next year, when we opened back up, I fell in love and that passion in that district I was in a very large district in love and that passion in that district I was in a very large district in Maryland and that passion they promoted me really quickly. So I was essentially an assistant principal for a year and so I became a principal and principal late, because you know, some things happened. It didn't happen there. So I got the gig. So it doesn't matter what happened, I got the gig.

Ken Patterson:

So I got the gig and my first year, uh, they were 18 empty classrooms out of 30 classrooms out of 18 empty classrooms. And I don't know about if you've been in education, right, but it's like a shortage. So I had to grab teachers off of um, uh, facebook basically, where I got like a teaching force from um. But that little red tag group man, we've done a little gritty group man I just said just come, show up every day for kids, we'll make it happen. Chat GPT came out that year and, like I was like this is it? This is it Like for principal, data analysis and speed is really what it's about, so I didn't use it. Long story short, the end of that year we got second out of the entire district of 125 schools. First year principal got second out of the entire district of 125 schools.

Ken Patterson:

First year principal 18 out of 30 teachers had two of them worked at Panera before I hired them, like we should not have had any success. But the AI kind of kicked in and I thought I said this is, we have found the golden spoon, like you know. So I was passionate about it and then I just think that education wasn't ready at the time, because you can't tell I'm passionate, ok, you can't tell I'm passionate, I don't know that the system was ready at the time for someone who was genuinely passionate and genuinely in love with kids and generally passionate about this new technology. And so as it stood, you know the system, I think honestly, I think they do their best, but you know, when you have this type of growth, it was problematic and so I became a consultant. I became a consultant reluctantly.

Ken Patterson:

I was not trying to consult, so I was trying to just tell people hey, man, this thing is it, man, this thing is it. And that's how I got started. And so I'm here, man, just really I like what you do. It's funny that you mentioned EduAid man, because Thomas is the one that told me about you. I don't know, I don't know if I ever told you that, but Thomas said, man like you gotta, you gotta, you gotta see my ed tech life. And you were the first podcast I listened to. Like when I was in my conference and spoke to a. It was a national conference and I just was speaking about passion for education, right, and like people were like, hey, you know, come talk to me. And I was like, oh crap, I got to have a business. So like that's why I say consultant, this kind of came in reverse, if that makes sense no-transcript.

Fonz:

We help the students succeed, because that is your goal in mind. What was that reaction from people around your district?

Ken Patterson:

So I don't know that anybody expected that level of success and, I'll be honest with you, I don't think anybody expected I wasn't know that anybody expected that level of success and, I'll be honest with you, I don't think anybody expected I was expecting it, but I was willing to try anything right, like I felt like if I'm in the position, particularly as someone who has had great experiences and has had challenging experiences in school, if I'm in the position to make some sort of a difference, I'm going to do that. And so I used it. And what happened was I started experimenting with ChatGPT, really as a first year principal. Having only been a assistant principal for one year, you have to understand I'm like I had to learn it. And so I said, well, let me get ChatGPT to help me. I knew that it was. They were.

Ken Patterson:

When the internet first came in, when AI first came out, they were advertising it as like optimization, you know, and all that. So I said, well, I can optimize, like my home businesses or something like that, so I can learn principle. And then when I clicked, I was like, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute, I can bring it here. And so I started like just doing all the data analysis and my staff is on board, like if you're a first year teacher and you have never taught you like, and all I got to do is show up every day and you can do all my data work. So you're like, and all I got to do is show up every day, you can do all my data work. All of my leaders. I had to use them and I was doing their work, essentially because I was getting success and I was early reaching out to like other principals and other friends and they were like oh, oh. At first it was really like you don't touch that, we don't know, we don't get in trouble. So I was like let's go use it. So if you know about AI, it's use cases, right, and it's actually technology in reverse. I literally needed like a fifth year principal to just tell me some stuff right, like I could have. They could wipe the floor clean with me on AI, but I'm here just like. So I had to borrow use cases from my own team. So, like all the leaders the math leader, the reading leader I'm just. I said I'm doing data analysis. They're like are you? Yes, I am, I'm learning AI, right. So I would do the data analysis and we flipped it to where, instead of them coming together in that collaborative planning and just doing data analysis, no, when they came together in collaborative planning, the answers were already the data was already analyzed. Now it's like, how do we apply this? And they were like, oh my gosh, this was so like you know.

Ken Patterson:

So that developed and developed to where nobody was doing anything but being with kids If it took you away from kids, give it to me is what I said. I had a secret weapon. I mean, in that time it was a free chat at GBT. You had to prompt it, you had to give it an identity and all that, and so that that did it, and so so, to fast forward, we were I'm a process guy, right, like I knew that data and all that in the school systems. Like I don't, I'm an integrity and process guy. You just show up every day, work hard and do right, do absolutely right by kids. Everything else will take care of itself.

Ken Patterson:

And so it happened and I was sharing some stuff with other principals because, you know, I'm like use this, use this, use this. Everybody was afraid, everybody was afraid. So the initial reaction was great job, like I got emails from the State Department and, like you know, superintendent had like shouted me out and everything. But when it kept going, like I think people were like wait a minute, like this guy's excited and he won't shut up about it and he's just because I couldn't understand why people just wouldn't use it Like it's free. It's free, I will. And then the custom GPTs came out.

Fonz:

Right.

Ken Patterson:

Like. I'm like I will create you what it's free. It's free, no. So that was it. That was a crisis for me because I think at that time I realized education wasn't ready and there was a lot that went bad. Honestly, that I don't know. I don't blame anybody, but I think we are so accustomed to I mean, it's a hundred year institution, right Like we. We are not even aware of what we have been ingrained in and what we push out and what we do. It's just autumn. So a lot of it was that, but it was a brutal like it was, you know.

Ken Patterson:

So I became a consultant, you know, and then it was weird because I'm trying to tell principals to use it. It's like he's selling free stuff, like that's I was. It was like it's not free. It's chat, tvt, it's free. Well, if it's free, you're probably trying to get money. On the other end, we know about free samples. We go to Costco's and we know what a free sample is. You're trying to get rid of it. I'm not Like, how do you sell?

Ken Patterson:

I did not, I did not sell it. I just I wanted you to have it, I wanted you to have, I wanted to see what. Honestly, okay, if I'm being honest, I wanted to see what somebody who had been a principal for longer could do with it, like I had run out of stuff to do, so I wanted just to see what other people could do with it so I could get more ideas. I wasn't thinking about money, so I was like make money, make money. I was like, no, no, no. So that was the crisis. And then I said, well, let me charge a little bit. And then when I charged, it was like, oh, he's trying to make money. We knew he was just trying to make money no-transcript.

Fonz:

Sometimes I feel that it's a mixed bag. Where it's, the teachers are driving it, but the tech departments maybe don't even know that this is being used, and so it's all over the place, many places, and I know that there's a lot of people with that enthusiasm that are like, well, if you haven't been using it, you're missing out and you're hurting kids and you're doing this. And I was like, well, there's also the other side that's like, hey, you know what? We just want to be very cautious, we want to make sure that what is being put out and what is being used is something that is going to be beneficial and ethical. And, of course, you take all of those considerations and then you've got, like you said, the speedboats that are no, no, no, move fast, break things, don't worry about it, we'll take care of it.

Fonz:

And I'm more kind of like in the middle and like I people on the show, you know, just being a very cautious advocate, where sometimes I'll see the news and I'm like, all right, like yes, okay, this is going to help us move forward.

Fonz:

And then all of a sudden, something happens and it's like, oh, you know, let me kind of like, okay, let's, let's slow it down and maybe it's just me overanalyzing things, but that's why I love having these conversations, because I get to amplify so many voices and so many experiences here, including your own, which I think is something that is very attractive to have a principal or former administrator using this and showing the success that they had, but then also getting your perspective that when you go out there and you visit with administrators people that were in the same roles, doing very similar things and are not you know that they're a little, very cautious, or maybe overly cautious, in seeing what this might be able to do for them, like it did for you.

Fonz:

So I want to ask you now, from that moment on in 2022 to 2025, how are you feeling about AI and what it is that you're seeing through now that you're a consultant? In that consulting perspective, are there still a lot of people holding out and, through your experience, what might be some of the main reasons that they're holding out?

Ken Patterson:

So I'm going to, I'm going to be, I'm going to shock you, right, like I'm going to be honest, right, so you. So, so it's in reverse, the people who are holding out and they're holding out because they don't understand it or don't really see what it is, and all that If they are genuinely doing that, they are in the perfect position, and I mean this is going to be the wildest thing. Educators as a, as an industry, and not even industry education as as all of us, right, we are the most beautiful humans, like the absolute most beautiful humans. We internally care about kids and want to protect them. So something, and I will tell you this, something on the like, some intuition if you really do care about kids and you really are good at what you do, you, you Did, you would not have jumped on, or, if you did, it would have been reluctantly because it was presented wrong. And this is the issue. This is what I was afraid of, right, the dirty, dark, little secret. If I'm being honest with you, the year after I had all that success, it was total failure, right, let me be honest, right, and that's what made drove my guilt to be honest with you, made drove my guilt, to be honest with you, and that's what drove me like on this mad rush to make sure that everybody because I felt like I had I knew what the issue was and I didn't want it to to progress. And here's what the issue was.

Ken Patterson:

The first year, ai, I saw it as an adult thing. Right, I saw it as data analysis because I saw I still see teachers as the gifts of the world to education. So I use it to get everything out of the way of teachers. Teachers did not use ai. Like we had some ai stuff. They would come and like do lessons here and there. The older teachers like they actually the seasoned teachers, like the five or six I had, like that were really seasoned, were actually using it to bring the younger teachers up to speed, like so it was an adult thing. Definitely the kids don't have it. The next year, like we did get a grant from the district and they gave us a bunch of money to use it and so I gave it to the teachers to put inside the classrooms and they were doing all the wonderful things. They were up, you know, they were fortnighting lessons and things like that.

Ken Patterson:

But my data went way in the trash and I was I panicked. I said what is what is this? It dawned on me at the time at least, that AI is very abstract. It's math. It's basically math with words, right. So it's very abstract in how it presents things, but it does not present as pedagogy.

Ken Patterson:

As a teacher, our standards are aligned and they're like things that are connecting standards that we are not even aware of. So if you are a new teacher, yes, you could punch in something and a lesson comes out in 17 seconds, but it may be missing a key that went to the standard two days before or standard back there. It's basically a hotspot. So the kids knew that one plus one was two, but because the common core and because some of this other stuff is more conceptual in learning, while AI is abstract, my kids knew one plus one was two, but when the test came out and they had to draw the relationship between numbers, they did not do it and my teachers did not do it. So it was a mismatch with kids, at least in elementary. I was like crap and then I figured I know why it is. It is about. It's about collaboration and synthesis. So they were too young, they were still learning, like the kids have to learn the thing. The synthesis, without AI, for us, comes in middle school. Right, we're working in groups in middle school. High school, we're putting papers together by college, we're doing research. That's the synthesis adds as you go up Elementary, I was like oh no, so that really was the danger.

Ken Patterson:

And so I saw that that's where the entirety of K-12 started. So in the summertime I was like no, I was crashing out, as the kids would say on Facebook, and the principals groups like hey, you guys got to use this. No, no, I saw the teachers run into it and it to me that the teachers are kids at all, but it's like they're going to do ed tech stuff with it. Like, principals, please, superintendents, I was yelling, I was screaming, anybody would listen and everybody was silent. But the teachers were running with and I was like no, no, no, no. So that was the painful part for me in the summertime, like. But what I had to realize is it was really an issue of control. I can't control that, right, like, I wanted to be one man that like had the answer, you know, but I couldn't control it, so I just tried. So then I kept trying to get into systems. Right, edna Bay came and I'm helping systems out.

Ken Patterson:

But what was happening is the other thing about ai it has to land for all of us at the same time and then we apply it differently. It's not core. So if edivate was getting these, we were getting contracts right. But it's like if I just go and work with your special education department and just use ai there, it's going to offset, it's going to throw everything off, like it's I'm actually hurting adoption, like at some point it's going to come back and hurt, and so I.

Ken Patterson:

So I had that crisis and, and what happened recently, which is great is is now a couple of school districts are like hey, we get it, let's go, let's do it as a district. Everybody does it together. Now we apply it differently, but it makes teachers humans again. Right, because now teachers it's basically knowledge. In reverse, they have everything they need. So the teachers have always been a gift. They've always been a gift. Now it's us getting out of their way. It's what I did with it the first year Get out of the teacher's way, shut the door, let them do what they do, and we use AI to do all the data analysis and all that stuff like that. So now I'm full circle because I see I think it's picking up. I think it's picking up, I think people are getting it.

Ken Patterson:

Ed tech is not out of the picture. It's just that ed tech, like teachers, kind of moved to aiding. Right, we're aiding, assisting more so than dominating, and I think that identity is what ed tech has to take in order to really, like you know, be relevant in the new era, right? So we want teachers to really be autonomous and we really believe in teachers. We've got to let them be them. That that that's that to me, that's. I hope that helped a little bit. I know, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, of course.

Fonz:

Which kind of leads me to to my next question and, just to be open and honest, I follow you on LinkedIn and, of course, on LinkedIn I did see a post you know you posted up recently I saw it yesterday and it gained a lot of traction and it really just highlights the concerns about edtech platforms just repackaging, you know, themselves, you know, and just really taking those chat, GPT, AI models and again talking about those wrapper platforms and so on. So I want to ask you, you know what are your thoughts on that? You know, right now we're talking, you know how you use ChatGPT on its own, but, as you know, you know, there are several platforms out there, very popular ones, that are just really full on.

Ken Patterson:

Can I call them out? I'm going to call them out. I'm going to call them out. I don't owe nobody anything to kids.

Ken Patterson:

I'll kids all right, let me just say right, I'm sorry. I let me just say rapper sites, that the okay. Let me, let me say it this way, that to me, integrity is first. Integrity is first I, I, when I say rapper sites, it is okay to say we use chat, gbt and we're making it easier for you as a teacher, because it's a lot of learning curve.

Ken Patterson:

But here's what water is, water is H2O, like that's water, we're ice, right, we're the ice company, right, and if that's how we teach, so if I don't make that absolutely clear, there's a little bit of deception to me. Like you've got to be absolutely clear, especially for teachers. They're exhausted. I've been a principal. Like they're exhausted, I did everything I could do to help them out. They're exhausted. They don't deserve to have to look at fine print, they don't deserve to have to do that. So you've got to be honest. So in me I was giving for free, I was literally for free, no-transcript. But when you don't tell teachers who are being introduced for the first time to an LLM what an LLM actually factually, without question, is, to me that's the beginning of deception and I can't trust nothing else that happens.

Ken Patterson:

Now. Rapper sites are great if it's like you know, like I go to 7-Eleven. I don't know, you know I go to 7-Eleven because I don't feel like cooking. So you know, I know that, like they, probably, you know, I'm probably paying three times or whatever, but they're honest about it, right? So, uh, educate, I know that you, I know that I'm not. I get paid nothing from nobody. I want to be very, very clear. I am talking about integrity versus not integrity. Thomas I talked to, like I call him T squared, t squared, tom Tom. So they.

Ken Patterson:

What I loved about them, what warmed my heart, was that they are very clear about what it is. They are like this is an LLM, this is chat GBT or this is whatever. This is what we do to help you. We are in, we are in education and we're going to make it easy, we're going to make the bridge easier for you to move into this. There is no, no question as to what's going on. Every time I was on the internet, people who were part of like magic school I'm going to call them out magic school and I'm only being fair because I reached out to them several times. I went off the last couple of days because somebody inboxed me and said I was doing it for clicks and likes and that is low. That is low.

Ken Patterson:

So EduAid spends a lot of time being very honest about what they are and what they do. And I can, I don't when I figure that out. I just I left them alone because I can trust anything that they do at this point, right, like what. On the flip side, if you obscure that, because teachers don't know what LLMs are, they don't know what AI is, they don't understand that, like you're really just prompt, pre prompting, I'm just literally pre prompting. They don't understand it, but they could appreciate it if you're honest. So there are a lot of sites. I don't even know all the AI sites, but if AI sites are honest about what they are and what they do and they are really giving you their expertise to unlock your expertise and they are closing that bridge and fixing that bridge for you, that's perfect. I think that's perfect. I think that's perfect, like because I think it's perfect because AI is personalized. But if I have to hide or pretend or obfuscate or say, well, sometimes we use this, sometimes we use that, we can't do that Like, we can't do that, right, you can't do that. So that to me that hurts teachers. That assumes that they are not intelligent. It takes advantage of what they don't know instead of helping them understand, and we don't have any place for that in the field of education.

Ken Patterson:

Ed tech is going to be strong in this new era right, because ed tech still has this place. But if ed tech wants to slide over it and pretend to be something, that's going to be a problem, right, but there may be some AI. Ai gives you an opportunity to be more specialized, even right. So I see AI sites for, like, the revolutionary war right, like you know, you might go to this. You know it gives you a chance to be specialized.

Ken Patterson:

But you have to be honest. We are missing integrity and it was not our fault, it was allowed. Our entire nation is going through the same thing right now. Right, we're just a microcosm. Be honest. We have to be true, because all of that has torn us apart. It has been things that have been hidden and the bureaucracy and all that stuff. Thankfully, I think it's going away.

Ken Patterson:

But if we're in ed tech, it's got to be about honesty and truth. No one should be confused about what we have behind the scenes. A rapper's side is fine, as long as they know that, hey, I can go right to magic school and get a recipe for my dinner tonight right in that second grade English slot. Teachers didn't know that and when I would say that, they would tell me that I'm wrong. So I said you don't, that means they're not, it's not being clear to them or it will be deleted, like, like there was some other stuff going on.

Ken Patterson:

So I reached out, cause I said you know, I know that a deal wouldn't do this, like maybe he doesn't know whatever. I reached out, I reached out and I got it's the swarm. The swarm came and the swarm to me, honestly, are. I think those educators are, are great people, like, like, anybody who wants to innovate, to fix education is a great human. But I think that they may have been misled. Also, they don't know. I'm waiting for the day that we're just all honest with each other and our teachers are able to be special with kids and we can get out of their way. That's what it is, yeah.

Fonz:

And that brings me also to listening to you to where I have been, even since 2022,. What happened for me was that I was taking a doctoral course and the 2022, that November, had just come out Chad GPT. I was playing around with it. I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And then I had to do research on AI and I'm talking about, you know, from 2020 on, you know even prior to that.

Fonz:

And then, when I got to the section of learning what data rentiership is, is all that data, everything that they collect, what they do really essentially is they're you know, that's how they're making money. You know a lot of the platforms and that's why they said if it's free, then you are the product. And many times we do not get a lot of clarity in the terms of service as far as how this is going to be used, how those clicks are going to be used, how the student data is going to be used. They always you know they and they do their due diligence in wording it, and I know that you know many say like, well, we put guardrails on this. My stance sorry, real quick my stance has always been how can you put guardrails on something that you don't own, you're plugging in to something else other than your programmers, saying, if this, don't do that and then just to you know kind of control that output. So yeah, that's where I'm at on that.

Fonz:

And the knowledge cutoff dates too on a lot of platforms that I've seen it in some, where their knowledge cutoff date is, you know, 2023. We're already 2025. Now they either haven't updated their terms of service and privacy or maybe that's really where they're at, you know. So there's still a lot of stuff there that for me, I want to cheer them on, but when I read those things I'm like I don't know if I'm there yet. You know I'm seeing it. But again, that transparency and being open about it sometimes, that that is where I'm kind of like in the middle all the time and just very cautious.

Ken Patterson:

And you should be like. So I think, I think so. We need the like, the ones that run out front. Right, that's me. Right, I'll.

Ken Patterson:

The first time I hear about something, I'm running after it, I don't care, right, like, you need people like that, but you also need to listen to people like that. That that's the other issue. Right, you got to listen to them because if they they've had some success, I started realizing something was off. When you're asking me for data, and I gave you the data that it didn't matter, right, like, like, like, what, what else do you? I said I started with the data that the school system is failing. That's the data I started with. Like, I don't need any other data, then we're failing, right, and so. So there was a little bit more like I was starting to learn a little bit that didn't know.

Ken Patterson:

And education, and you know this, in education, the layers are thick in between. So teachers really don't know what goes on in the second layer. Principals, really, I'll tell you, do not know what's going on above them, right, like I owe no one but kids. So when I talk, I'm telling the truth. So they don't know. And that's by design, right, that's by design. So. So what was happening was now. If you see me looking down at teachers, looking at them, now I see, knowing what I know, ai. They're not getting direction and they are trying their hardest. Like I'm not trying to be like emotional, but like these teachers are trying their hardest. Man like and I know what it is and every teacher that has left these teachers are not bad people like. They left because they cared. So if you have any like hesitation, it's probably because something in your soul says this is not it. This something is off about this. Right are lots of things that can be in the way of success that are intentionally placed there Data privacy if you know anything about AI, you just cut and paste the internet policy that you had, right.

Ken Patterson:

You don't need to do much more than that. And, as a matter of fact, if you don't clarify that you're using a wrapper site, then you get the opposite, because then teachers trust an AI site that's third party because they think in their brain we've been looking at the educational site for our entire careers. You don't know, if you don't tell them the truth, they'll put more information in AI just because they. I hope that makes any sense, but it's just by doing it the opposite, you're hurting the teachers. They have already gone through enough. They've gone through enough, like, stop it. So what I think we have to have a discussion about and I think it's fair is, if we're honest, that's how I know when that magic school thing happened. That's how I know when that magic school thing happened. That's how I know people are not being honest. If we're honest about data privacy, you would have checked that already. If you're marching around here as an AI ethicist, ai governance, whatever you would have known, or unless you don't know AI, either you don't know AI or you would have known that that is not a safeguard. And why are we guarding anything? We should be guarding things away from kids.

Ken Patterson:

Today I saw for the first time and I'm going to shout after I say this. Today I saw for the first time and it warmed my heart and I'm trying not to be emotional man, like, like. I'm passionate. I'm passionate because because I know in my community, as a minority I'll be honest with you I know what not having access can do and perpetuity, right. I know what not having access can do in perpetuity, right. I know what not having access can do, and so I felt that this was intentional.

Ken Patterson:

And so today I saw it was an educator in Africa and he said, like he's a proud gatekeeper. And I immediately was like, no, no, the gatekeeper, because I had been trying. Nobody was giving Ken any attention. Right, because I know what it is now. Now, it's because Ken was not in it for anything wrong. I was in it for you, right so like. You can't have Ken around if you're trying to steal money from people, right so like. But this guy called gatekeeper. I was like, no, the gatekeeper's kept Ednavate out. So I almost like, in that world they see gatekeeping as protection, protecting the kids from the bad stuff. That's the gate they keep In America. It seems like the gate we're keeping is protecting the bad stuff from the good people. And so when he said that he says I'm a proud gatekeeper, I got it. I got it.

Ken Patterson:

We need gatekeepers, the real ones, the ones that make sure that teachers should not have to read fine print. They should not have to feel like they're going to get in trouble. If they do, they don't even need, they don't need the ed tech. They need, like, the honest ed tech because you need kids, you need to be able to see if kids are learning, yes, but they don't deserve to have to sift through more paperwork to figure out what they, what they could put in there, what they can't they, they don't do that.

Ken Patterson:

That's why I said and this is it enterprise when I, when I put out the um, the evidence of things unseen, or the evidence of things not, saying that was a a new era of framework for education based on what I know is truth. I, I don't. I know it's truth, I don't, I know it's truth. And what it does is it it? It builds the teacher. We have so much talent outside of the field of education that just simply could not stand one more day of their dignity being ripped apart. Right, and we've, we've pushed them out and we've made them look bad. They may be the best, the best force. Right, they may be the best force out there. So the ones that are remaining, that are holding on tight, you don't lie to them, you do not take advantage of them and stop treating them like children.

Ken Patterson:

So, when the AI policies and governance and all these people are marching around with it, that was I had been with kids as a principal. I, every day, I had to shield my teachers from stuff I knew did not make sense. I would get in trouble. Actually, I won't get in trouble because this is all fake. I will not get in trouble. You're not getting rid of me. I knew that all I had to do was love my babies, and if I loved them babies, the parents would stand up for me. I knew that.

Ken Patterson:

So if there was something that didn't make sense, that robbed teachers of dignity, I did not bring it to my building. I did not bring it to my building, and all I want is that for the entirety of education. And so when I see these things, when I see things like data privacy and this and that, and oh, we got to do governance, we got to put guardrails, we got to do all that, I feel like it's limiting. I feel like it's intentionally limiting, because none of these words occur in other countries and none of these words are priorities in private schools in our own nation. Let teachers be human, use AI to clear the forest and let them shut their doors and be great. That's what AI is for. I'm sorry.

Fonz:

That is very well stated and very well said. I'm passionate man. No, no, no, and that's great, and that's what we love here, and that's what I love about doing this show is the fact that it's I am right in the middle and I give equal time to both sides, and, again, it's just to continue these conversations. Sometimes, you know, maybe there's somebody there like like I reached out to you because of what you shared and I was like I gotta have ken, because I need somebody that is again like you right now, that it has nothing to fear, and you're just being open and honest with your observations because, like we were talking right now, even myself, in my current role and in any role, it's like there are very few and many people know this, and I've talked to those people and I said that there are probably just a handful of platforms or apps that I will directly stand behind because of their openness, transparency, genuineness, authenticness and authenticity, I should say, and about them and what they're doing, and that they're very open about it. There are many other apps, too, where I'm just like, well, I'll say I've seen stuff that comes up.

Fonz:

You know, sometimes it's like, hey, I got this weird answer. This student got this weird answer and I was like, well, this shouldn't be happening. You know why should a teacher have something else to worry about on their plate when they put this application on there and the student gets a wrong answer or something that is harmful or gets, you know, even a lot of the image creators. When you type in certain words there still hasn't been a fix for that images, we, even when I try to create myself and then I put their stocky Hispanic male, it always puts me with a beard and a mustache, you know, and I'm like, and that's because I put like, no beard, no mustache, and I always look the same, you know. So it's a lot of those things that I'm concerned about, and worried about because, yeah, maybe some people, and sometimes I think like, am I overthinking this? But no, it's like you're saying that intuition that I feel like, wait a minute, like this isn't where it needs to be yet.

Fonz:

So maybe we need to hold off a bit on that and let's see which ones are really working and are doing like you said.

Ken Patterson:

So you're right, you're right. But here's where we lean in. It's opposite, it's everything in reverse. This is I tell teachers and I tell educators, literally everything in reverse, everything in reverse. That's my, that's my thing. That slipped your thinking. Just just try, just flip your thinking. They're large, I call them large learning models, but they're large language models. I'll use L for learning just to kind of give teachers understanding that it does learn right.

Ken Patterson:

So it also wants to be corrected. It can be corrected. I had the same issue you had. I typed in on a Father's Day. I said good father tying a tie for a black son. And it was a white dad tying a tie for a black child, Not that white, that's not what I'm saying. It's just assume that good father meant white male, and if a son needed a tie to be tied, it's a black male. So because at first I said father tying, you know, good father tying tie, and it was too white. Then I said no, black son. Then it was a white father, black son. I said it didn't even put the two together, you know.

Ken Patterson:

So as you use it and you fix it and you do that, we need to lean in, because the more we lean in, the more it's learning. It learned what we had put in in the beginning. So everything that we gave it was a snapshot of who we were. If we want to be better now, we should see it being better. Like you may put something in Los Angeles, I may put something in Maryland, if we're both fixing chat, gpt and correcting no, not that, no, not that.

Ken Patterson:

This it's learning and collectively we're building it. So, really, if you think about it in reverse and this is this sounds really crazy, I know, but we almost can tell how much better we are as a society if everybody's using it and we're seeing better outputs, because it's going to do what it's learning from us right now. It's it's. It has what we had. It has what we were. That's why we have to use it, and educators especially have to use it, because we might have it. We're actually the ones you think the robots are teaching the kids. No, we need to teach the robots. They're not robots, by the way. We need to teach them and we need to teach the kids right so that when they use it, it's building the LLM the right way. It's building the right way.

Fonz:

And that kind of brings me to, kind of my last question, as we kind of start wrapping up. I want to ask you, you know, for you, how can we better this education scape, you know, as far as the collaboration with, maybe, teachers and ed tech companies, you know, should there be? You know, I think many times it's there, there's companies that have been started by educators, but then, at the same time, it's like there's some that haven't and are still being put out there and maybe they don't have that experience and they give you what they think the teacher wants. So, for you, what might your suggestions be as far as your perspective? What do we need to do to make this better? So, what?

Ken Patterson:

I've thought a lot about this, right? So the reason why and you've got to look at that framework the reason why that framework is so complete and so pure is I sat as a principal. I, that is a. That is a very unique position because you know everything, like. You know how everything works. You don't know what they're doing because things are hit, but I, I can 100 tell you what a friday school lunch in elementary school has to do with the budget at the top, right? So that's what ai actually does.

Ken Patterson:

So, to begin, there cannot be any silo discussions, right? That's the issue that started it, where teachers ran to it because they heard it's not going to take your job. Ai is going to take your job. It's somebody who uses AI. Whatever the saying is. I was looking like no teachers. You guys deal with kids. You're never losing your job.

Ken Patterson:

Anybody that tries to put robots in a classroom is going to fail. It's going to fail, right, they tried something somewhere else is going to fail. So what we need to do is it needs to be, always need to be diverse groups. That's the point of AI. Ai is trying to pretend to be collaboration. That's what it's pretending to be. Every piece of technology is pretending to be something. We just did not know what AI was pretending to be, because we do not collaborate, we don't have like, we don't naturally do that anymore. The internet is fast communication between computers. Ai is like internet in 3D it's collaborating with information. Ai is what you don't even need. I kept saying AI is that tech and people are like. This guy is weird. It's not tech. I bet you're figuring it out now. Ai is what happens when we collaborate. When three people get together and start sharing ideas, all of a sudden, it seems like we all get smarter. Or when I was a ap, my joke was I was a seventh grade assistant principal and I had three kids in detention that were like I was like, no, they should not be together. They're going to be very creative. What happened?

Ken Patterson:

So we have to start by being um, collaborative, but everything in reverse. The teacher is now the boss. We've, we've, we've hurt them enough. We've hurt them enough and I am unapologetic about that and anybody who does not see it that way. You can absolutely probably work backwards and see that they are still waiting to maintain control and treat teachers like kids. The teachers are the bosses now, right? So what we need to do is figure out what they want right.

Ken Patterson:

Edtech has tried. Edtech has been in the worst situation. Right, they pay for it, but the teachers use it and they don't. Edtech knows where the gaps are right. So EdTech is like you know. We built this thing but the teacher needs to be the boss. Whatever the teacher wants is what the teacher gets. Everybody else needs to move out of the way. And if we don't do that, I will leak all of the secrets going up, because none of that really matters. If the teacher isn't in charge, anything up there that we're doing that doesn't serve the teacher means that we don't want them with the kid. We gotta move everything out of the way so the teacher and the child can be together.

Ken Patterson:

And our start in conversation is with teachers say what do you need? What can I do? They know more than we ever will. I learned that in my classroom. I told that to my teachers when I was a principal. I don't know fifth grade ELA. I won't even pretend to know fifth grade ELA. You are the fifth grade ELA. You got a master's in reading. I'm not trying to be that. I can help you connect with that kid. What can I do to serve you? What can I do? What data can I give you that will help you out in your classroom? That's what happened. We need to start with the teacher. They are the boss. We owe them. We have hurt them. We have hurt them. We have hurt them. We have hurt them. They are the boss, and then we ask them what they want and when that happens, we all get around them and we figure out. So they leave and go back with kids. Then we sit around and figure out how to put into action what they asked us to do.

Fonz:

That is fantastic. Thank you so much for that perspective, ken. Thank you so much for today too, as well, like everything that you shared, your passion, your authentic voice, your genuineness I mean, like I said, this is I'm thankful that we were able to make this conversation happen, and I really do appreciate your shares, ken, thank you so much. But before we wrap up, I always love to end the show with the last three questions. So, ken, hopefully you are ready. So, as you know, every superhero has a point of weakness or something that weakens him. So, for example, superman, kryptonite kind of weakened him. So I want to ask you, ken, in the current state of education, what would be your current edu kryptonite?

Ken Patterson:

So I'm going to flip it, man, what was a kryptonite? And the old may be our strength and the new right. So, before I would say, my kryptonite is this passion, this excitement. Like I get riled up because I love kids and so, you know, in the old system we're supposed to be controlled, maintained, right. Can't be like that. Now, I don't know, I got to be me, like, let me be me Right. So my kryptonite was, was really that I get passionate and that passion sometimes goes before me. So so that is something I still have to work on, right. So, like you know, I do have to.

Ken Patterson:

Just because I grabbed AI and ran with it and it was the best thing since sliced bread the first day I touched it, I have to know that, just like I want everybody to be themselves, I have to be patient with people who are being themselves. I can't interpret that because they're not. You know, after I did it long enough, I realized that they're actually being wise about it. Right, I'm not. That's when I think I'm not. I'm going to jump into it and jump out of it if it hurts, but I think for me it's learning just what I want. Seeing that I am also not doing that sometimes when I'm driving AI because of the benefits, when you've got to give people a chance to it's an adjustment. So that's for me. That's my education at Crypt Knight. So if I'm excited, it's not because I'm passionate, that's all. I'm not trying to push anybody down the road anymore.

Fonz:

Love it, love it. Great answer, ken. I appreciate it All right. Question number two Ken, if you could have a billboard with anything, on it.

Ken Patterson:

What would it be and why? Tell the truth, tell the truth, truth wins. Tell the truth. And the reason? Because once truth is here, then we all can live free, right. We all can be free, right. Nobody's hiding anything. We can trust, because if you trust, you move fast, right. And no one needs us to trust more than people who work with kids, because because they are dependent on us. So I'm going to say tell the truth, um, be truthful, be open, be honest, um, even if people don't agree with it. But we've got to be able to trust each other because kids are at stake love it.

Fonz:

Great answer, all right. And last question if you could trade places with anyone for a day, anyone, who would it be and why?

Ken Patterson:

I didn't think you would ask me this man. It was a five-year-old kid that I had I was a principal and it was a five-year-old kid that I had that I was a principal, and it was a five-year-old kid, and the system was trying to make me not give the kid what they needed. And if I could trade places because I haven't seen him since I've been gone I would trade places with him so I could be five again and have fun away from all this. That's why I do this. I'm sorry that I I'm sorry, but if I could take places, it would be with him. They wanted me to. It wasn't anybody individually. It was not designed.

Ken Patterson:

He has autism. He had autism. He was tearing the room up. He's a little black boy. All I saw was the other 19 kids see a black boy mad. They didn't understand he had autism. They just saw him throwing chairs. So so this was a psyops nightmare. I I didn't see it as just a kid being a problem and I tried to move him and they did try this. You try to try that like I got him moved, risking my life and career, basically. But I don't care. But I want to see him again. I want to see him again. I would trade places with him to see if he's okay All right.

Fonz:

Thank you, ken, I really appreciate that. And again, just the passion, I love it. Thank you so much for just really opening up and sharing your heart, sharing your experience. Like I said, this is why we do what we do, man just to bring some great, honest conversations, and sometimes the conversations may be a little different than what other people expect, but sometimes we got to speak the truth. That's right, you got to ask Ken about it.

Ken Patterson:

No, my kindergarten team bought me the shirt. It's a private gift.

Fonz:

Oh okay, there you go, I love it. I love it. Well, ken, before we wrap up, can you tell our audience members who might be interested in reaching out to you how it is that they can connect with you?

Ken Patterson:

If you're on LinkedIn, hit me on LinkedIn. That's the best place. And we are building the edge of Renaissance. It's called the edge of Renaissance. So innovate is really. We're here to help people make it make sense for their districts. Right, and in a real way, an honest way, Like we have no product but we will direct you to products. Who are telling the truth, we will help you align things. That's what we do, right? So the Ednavate is kind of like outlines that, but hit me on LinkedIn or go to wwwednovate LinkedIn or go to wwwednovate. That's like educational innovation. So E-D-N-O-V-A-T-E ednovateai. Or you can email me at ken at ednovateai. So we are here, in truth, to help people move forward, Like let's do this thing right. That's all I want. That's all I want. That's all I want. That's all I want.

Fonz:

Perfect, Piper. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, my friend.

Fonz:

And for all our audience members. Please make sure that you visit our website at myedtechlife, where you will watch this episode. We'll definitely make sure that we link all of Ken's information his website. That way you can go ahead and connect with him, reach out to him if you have any questions or if you need anything. Just feel free to reach out, because he definitely has a heart to help people, and especially if it's something that's going to get down to the students as well. So please make sure you reach out to him and make sure that you check out the other 315 episodes that we have, where I promise you 315 other episodes where I promise you you will find a little something that you can sprinkle onto what you are already doing. Great.

Fonz:

Like I mentioned to you guys at the very beginning, we love you. We thank you so much for all of your support. Thank you so much for all the downloads. Thank you so much for the follows to our sponsors. Thank you to book creator, who is our newest partner. Thank you to you. Big shout out to you, to Edu8, to Yellowdig. Thank you for believing in our mission. You will appreciate. Yes, that's right. Thomas Thompson, thomas, text me back. Thomas, thomas Thompson and Thomas Hummel Great people. Make sure that you follow them too as well. So thank you, my friends. I really appreciate all of your support, and until next time, my friends, don't forget, stay techie. Thank you.