EdTech Empowerment: Innovating Education Together
Hosted by Juan Rodriguez, founder and Executive Director of NextGen Classrooms, EdTech Empowerment: Innovating Education Together dives into the power of technology to bridge the digital divide and revolutionize education. Each episode brings insights from guest speakers across the education spectrum, including educators, tech experts, policymakers, and community leaders, who share strategies to empower every student, regardless of background, with access to cutting-edge educational tools. Rooted in NextGen Classrooms’ mission to create globally connected, innovative learning spaces, this podcast covers topics like digital literacy, AI ethics, equitable access, and transformative practices in the classroom. Join us as we explore the latest trends and tools shaping the future of education and empower educators to create impactful, inclusive learning environments for all students.
EdTech Empowerment: Innovating Education Together
Coaching Creators: Integrating AI and Writing in Higher Ed
Unlock the future of education with Professor Lance Cummings from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, as he shares groundbreaking strategies transforming the classroom. From applied learning and ungrading to leveraging AI and cutting-edge tools like LeftOS, Lance reimagines education to prepare students for an AI-driven world. Discover how experiential learning, design thinking, and modern digital platforms empower students to collaborate, innovate, and thrive. Explore how AI enhances creativity, problem-solving, and engagement, making learning more dynamic and career-focused. Tune in to this episode for a compelling look at reshaping education to inspire the next generation of creators and critical thinkers.
EdTech Empowerment: Innovating Education Together is hosted by Juan Rodriguez, founder of NextGen Classrooms. Our mission? To empower every student with access to technology-rich education. Tune in each episode to hear from thought leaders, educators, and tech experts on transformative strategies in education, from digital literacy and AI ethics to building inclusive classrooms.
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Welcome to EdTech Empowerment Innovating Education Together, where we explore the latest and the greatest in educational technology, discussing practical strategies, insights and stories from the classroom. I'm your host, Juan Rodriguez, and today we have an exciting guest Professor, lance Cummings from the University of North Carolina, wilmington. Lance has over a decade of experience in higher education and is a pioneer in integrating AI and writing into his curriculum. In this episode, we'll dive into how Lance transformed his classrooms into creative powerhouse and the lessons that he's learned from coaching students to becoming future ready creators. Stick around for this captivating conversation on innovation technology and the future of education. Hey, lance, what's going on? How you doing? Hey, pretty good. Thanks for having me here. Ah, you're welcome. You're welcome, man. I heard some great stuff. Man, shout out to Naomi. She told me all about you, so let's jump right into it. Man, I always ask our educators to share their philosophy. I want to hear more about that. So can you elaborate on your philosophy on coaching students to tackle challenging tasks rather than delivering specific content?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so at University of North Carolina, wilmington, we're pretty well known for being applied learning schools, so we focus a lot on not just delivering content to students or having them learn theories, but actually giving them experiences applying those theories in the real world, either by working with a community partner, a business partner or some other, or going out in the field right and doing lab work or whatever those kind of things. Doing undergraduate research, all that, all the stuff that we actually use our degrees for to solve problems where there's really actually no easy answer to solve, answer to solve. And so during my time at UNCW, I've just been developing my applied learning approach and really moved towards what's called ungrading, which you may or may not have heard of that, but it's kind of a movement that's going on where instructors don't give grades Because, especially in the writing classroom, I would say, grades actually get in the way. They make students get nervous when there's grades and in order to learn how to write, and I would say, in order to learn how to solve hard problems, you have to learn how to take risks and you have to learn how to fail and if you're worried about a grade, none of those things are going to happen in the classroom. So and kind of how that's progressed then is I've worked with an organization called District C that's based here in North Carolina.
Speaker 2:They actually work with a lot of high schools mostly high schools but they implement what's called design thinking, which is a methodology for solving complex problems. It emerges out of the field of researching design, but it's actually applied across many different fields. Government uses it, technology uses it, but basically taking students or problem solvers through specific steps to solve, to create innovative solutions for hard problems that are human centered. And so basically it goes you understand the problem, research and understand the problem, you develop an insight and then you ideate, come up with ideas for solutions, and then you create a prototype that you can then test out, and then that's just a cycle that goes over and over again in a lot of workplaces and things like that.
Speaker 2:So I think there's a major shift in my classroom that happened when I started working with design thinking instead of giving student projects. So okay, here we're going to create a sign for this organization. I'm giving you the solution and it becomes a project. So everybody creates signs. Well, with the design thinking, we actually don't know what the solution is and it's the students. Part of the students job is to figure out what that solution is and leverage what it is they learn in the course to create something that would help test that solution.
Speaker 1:Awesome, awesome. I love that idea design thinking and I want to throw a quick shout out because we use design thinking for our hackathons with our middle school students and it's super effective and it works really well. But can you share with us, like how has this shift impacted students' outcome?
Speaker 2:So I think student satisfaction goes way up, I would say. And also I think students have learned. I see much better collaboration and group work, working in diverse groups. So I think that's probably the number one outcome that I see that I think is most important. That's probably the number one outcome that I see that I think is most important. In my opinion, this was true before AI, but it's even more true now that we have AI.
Speaker 2:The skills that people are going to need is going to be working with diverse people, solving complex problems and managing complicated projects. So those are kind of the three things that I focus on and I guess, in a lot of ways, those are my outcomes, you know, and and of course, they're learning other aspects of writing and developing content and things like that. But you know, those are all technically, things they can learn out there on their own. People are teaching these things, but they don't always have access to an expert to help them through that and to coach them on how to use those in a real way, and I think that's kind of the resource we have that can't be replaced in the classroom is having that personal expert experience in the classroom, is having that personal expert experience in the classroom, guiding your experience and helping you get better at those different outcomes.
Speaker 1:Awesome, awesome.
Speaker 2:What would you say, these outcomes, what are we preparing the students for? Well, I would say working in the world, with diverse groups, solving our problems and managing complicated projects. I mean, I think in my field, when we're thinking about, I teach professional writing, which includes technical writing, business writing, medical writing, reports when really the majority of those jobs are working with people and solving complicated, often content-related, problems. And so that's kind of what I'm trying to do is prepare them for that reality. I mean, sometimes students get upset because, well, your assignment's too vague. Tell me exactly what I need to do to get an A. But when you go out there in the workplace, your boss isn't going to say, hey, here's exactly what you need to do. They're going to say this is the outcome I want, this is the value I need.
Speaker 1:It's your job to figure out how to get me there there Right on, right on, and you're connecting the workplace with the classroom right, particularly through your approach of organizing writing classes around the creator economy. Can you share more about this and the skills students develop as a result?
Speaker 2:So most of my time at UNCW I've done a lot of applied learning projects, so working with companies. I do a lot of work with multinational corporations and tech writers there and actually taking students to the workplace and even doing a little bit of research. So how do people collaborate in these spaces and actually visualize that and see that? Because a lot of students they just have no idea what's going on out there in the professional world. That's kind of what I've been doing most of my time. I kind of shift right around COVID. I still do that but a lot of my classes are focused on creator economy, which some people may or may not have heard that term, but uh, they'll know what it is when they see it. But basically it's uh people on the internet who are creating content direct to audiences and often making money doing that, sometimes making a living. I think the most famous one is mr beast. I think he's like super rich and all he does is make YouTube videos. Right, and during COVID that actually the creator economy blew up because, well, basically everybody is at home and then people started figuring out hey, I'm making money off this stuff. And so since then the creator economy has gone up like 50% more every year, and so one of the things that I've been doing is kind of researching that element.
Speaker 2:My real background is rhetoric and writing, and so rhetoric is one way to define. That is the art of persuasion, or I would say the art of getting things done with words is one of the ways that I put it. And where are things getting done with words? That's out there in the creator economy. If you just look at the presidential election this year, where was the action? The action was out in the creator, what I would call the creator economy, people who develop podcasts on their own, the creator economy, people who develop podcasts on their own. The candidates had to go to those places because the creator economy has gained a lot of power and I actually think, as somebody who teaches business writing and professional writing, I think even corporations, government businesses, are going to have to take into account the changes that the expectations people have. Also, politicians, I guess, need to take this into account, because people are expecting content to come directly to them and they expect it to be authentic not necessarily perfect and polished, but authentic and bring value to their life and have that direct kind of interaction, not through regular media, and I think that's really changing the way that you make money, you persuade people, all those things that rhetoric is a part of.
Speaker 2:And so I started researching that long story, I guess and decided to rework my classroom around this idea. I ran into a program called Ship 30, and I think it's still around but basically people who want to learn how to write online they get together in a group and they commit to writing small essays once a day for 30 days, partly to, you know, develop the practice and then also figure out like what is it they want to write about and what kind of things are people out there interested in? And you can actually think about this in the terms of design thinking that they are prototyping pieces of writing and testing it and testing it and testing it and eventually developing something larger out of that. And so I started doing that myself, really enjoyed it, and that's part of the reason probably why I'm here.
Speaker 2:So I run a Medium publication which Naomi, your contact, publishes every once in a while. But Medium is a place where you can it's kind of Uber for writers. You can write blogs and you get paid per views. And so I kind of reorganized my writing classroom around that, having students write two essays every week, two micro essays every week about things that they're interested in, and posting them publicly to see what kind of traction they get. Um and uh, and I discovered that students actually really love writing when, uh, when it's about something they care about or there's something at stake, and so uh it's, it's really, uh, it's really helps student. Help me get students more engaged with content.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I love that right, because there's nothing more empowering than having students empowering students right to become content creators and then showing them that they can own that. Yeah, I mean, I'm all about that. I love that. Can you tell us, like, what tools have you been using in the past, or that you're currently using, for collaboration or to assist your students with writing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm one of those guys who's constantly trying new apps, and sometimes to the complaints of my students, you know. So I'm constantly on the edge of things. Number one they're not writing spaces. They don't really encourage good writing. There's there's also. They are also not collaborative spaces. At least the LMSs that I've had access to they're not very good at creating collaborative spaces. And then also, I do ungrading and it's impossible to set up an ungrading system and Canvas is what we use because it's set up to grade people up an ungrading system, and Canvas is what we use because it's set up to grade people. So I kind of actually just recently tried ditching the entire LMS, which has its problems.
Speaker 2:But I'm testing out a program called LeftOS which is a collaborative space. That's a pretty new app and I think it's working well and I think most of the students like it. But there's uh, it's it's very much in development. So, like you know, we run into issues and things like that. But in a lot of ways, I think it's a good experience for students to understand, to get experience. You know how that, how these apps are developed. Because, like, they'll say, oh, I really hate this. And then I can contact, say, oh, I really hate this, and then I can contact the developer and say, hey, they hate this, can you change this? And then it gets changed and they get to see the app and develop in that kind of way, but some other things.
Speaker 2:So basically I'm kind of looking for spaces where students can collaborate and use an actual writing tool that they use in the workplace. So, for example, microsoft Word really isn't actually used that much in my field. It's kind of what you would use to maybe develop a final manuscript or something, but there's definitely places where they wouldn't use Word at all, and so trying to give them a writing space, that's more, and so trying to give them a writing space that's more similar. So, for example, this is true of Lyft OS, but it's true of things you might, your audience might know of other things like Notion would be another one that's pretty popular. But basically, if you go into the editor you'll notice that it actually is constructed in blocks, so you're actually writing in little blocks, which can be paragraphs, but not necessarily, and then you usually can hit the backslash and you can get all these different options that you call up and that's a very common what the writing spaces look like these days, but that's not what it looks like in, you know, canvas or or word, so. So that that's kind of one of my goals.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, um, you know, and from the perspective of the creator economy, having them actually using some of those uh outward facing uh tools. So I've had them. Uh, I started out on Twitter and, uh, we don't do Twitter anymore, um, but kind of switched to sub stack, which now has kind of a Twitter um replacement called notes. I've had them write on medium as well, um, and then this year I really wanted, I really want to get them to write on LinkedIn, cause a lot of cool things are happening. Ending on LinkedIn. Uh, it's like a creator hub, especially after Twitter kind of hanged a little bit. But a lot of them are a little concerned because future employers may see something that they post there which raises the stakes. But this year I'm having them take over the English department LinkedIn, so they give me their micro content and then I post it for them on there and then we see who gets the most reactions, likes and things like that, gotcha.
Speaker 1:That's exciting. That's exciting. Yeah, I mean, let's talk about some of these tools. Right, you had mentioned the Lyft OS. Can you tell us how has integrating tools like Lyft OS impacted students' collaboration and student engagement in your classes, and can you provide some examples as how has this led to innovation project outcomes?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So with Lyft OS, I think the most impressive thing that I've seen so far is in my design thinking class. So I am taking students right now through two what we call team ships where they go through the design thinking cycle and I can watch them. So, on Lyft OS, one of the big things about it is you can have more. You typically have more than one basically screen up and you can actually add different like apps and websites in there.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that my students often complain about is like I got to have all these tabs open to do this, to do my work, which is actually pretty pretty much how we work these days out in the real world, right, but but you know, and this app was kind of built to solve that problem, and so what I love seeing is when they're, they have, like you know, two of their node apps open and they're like interacting with each other right there in that space and I can watch them.
Speaker 2:I can watch them collaborate in real time, not just like hover over, hover over them, but actually just kind of watch them writing or watching them putting together a mind map, things like that. Now I will say, like there's students, there are students who complain and don't like it and even don't even try to avoid using it so they might write in Word and then paste it into, you know, lyft OS. But you know, it's kind of trying to even just exposing them to this, even if they don't buy into it right away. Being exposed to it, I think, is a valuable thing.
Speaker 1:Awesome, awesome. Tell us about these projects. While students are using these tools Like have you seen projects improve? Has there been anything innovating? Have you come out of the students' students projects? Can you share some of that stuff?
Speaker 2:yeah. So, um, I actually so as far as like doing the uh uh. So with the design thinking I, I definitely think I see um them using our design thinking tools a little bit better, because the note space is more easily accessible and, I would say, better organized for the project, whereas originally we were using, like Google Docs and it was kind of random how they would use it. So I can actually kind of shape how they have it organized a little bit to encourage them to collaborate more Now with the creator economy. What I've seen is really a lot of really good improvement in writing and that I wouldn't normally see, I think, in a traditional classroom. And also just students write at the end of the course and say, oh, I love writing again. You know I hated writing before and now I'm kind of starting to like it again. You know which? I think you know maybe that's not an official outcome, but I think it's a good one.
Speaker 2:But I think what happens with having them post these micro essays, you know, in these social spaces, it gets them thinking about you know, all the characteristics of writing that actually apply across all types of genres. So, for example, one of the things that we look at is how do you use formatting to make the micro essay or micro content skimmable and easy to read? You know, if you see a post that's one long paragraph, you're probably not going to read it. You're not inviting the reader to read that, because nobody wants to read a big old block of text. So we kind of practice like how can we use formatting in creative ways to make the content that you're delivering more pleasurable and more accessible? Well, you can say the same thing If you're writing a grant. How can you use formatting to make it more pleasurable and more accessible for your reader? Because you're more likely to get the grant if your reader's in a good mood.
Speaker 2:Or you know an academic article, how can you use headings in a way that's useful? You know that kind of thing. So it actually and it might be part of the repetition too so like they're constantly trying new things and I think they pick up on it a little bit more, rather than doing like, okay, we're going to do three papers and you know, and you're going to write this whole draft and then I'll give you some comments, and you know they probably won't follow my comments, and then they, you know, then they hand in the final thing and get graded or whatnot. But they don't necessarily think, I don't think they necessarily take a lot from that that can be transferable. But I think you know the muscle memory starts to develop when you're you're writing more often.
Speaker 1:That's right on, right on, and I can only imagine. Right with writing. There must be many challenges, right, as an educator. Now you have tools like AI that can write stuff for you. What challenges have you faced when introducing cutting edge technologies such as AI tools into traditional university settings, and how do you navigate these obstacles?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm a pretty AI forward guy so I actually use AI a lot. I actually write about it in a sub stack called Cyborgs Writing I'll drop that and kind of exploring how it fits into the writing process. Or in tech writing you would call it the information and content development process. In the creator economy they call it the creator flywheel. Basically, you're creating something, you're testing it out and then you're using that to build something more and then testing it out. And so looking at writing not as text generation, writing is more than just text generation. So even if AI generated all our text for us which it's not going to do with the current technology there is way more to writing than that. And the people who are doing the writing, they're the ones with the mindset that enables them to use AI better. So I've always said that I'm not actually teaching students to write. I tell them. I'm teaching them to have the mindset of a writer, which the mindset of a writer is a problem solving mindset and focused on the user or the reader, and take it. And then experimentation is another thing. So trying to develop those mindsets which AI is not going to have, but you can use AI in that process. I think the key is helping students make that decision right. So understand their writing process or the process of their workplace and then thinking about, okay, where is the most appropriate place to insert AI? And I think really for people who want to experiment with AI, especially in the workplace, it can be pretty overwhelming, and so one of the things that I actually recommend is don't try to just use it for everything. Think about that one thing that's going to add value to your life, that's going to solve a problem or make some mundane thing that you hate more efficient, and you try to use AI to solve that problem and that gives you something to focus on and to dig deep in, and you'll actually see the affordances of AI a little bit more and probably develop your approach a bit more and be more targeted about how you use AI. So that's kind of been my approach is really wrapping it up into the writing process.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I'm moving towards is having students actually write for AI. So there's people are debating this, but, but and testing it out. But basically, if you take your AI, so the AI with the current model right now is, like you know, whatever they threw in the model, which is obvious, is not, is not reliable or, you know, ethical, and you know all those problems everybody's talking about. Well, you can now add your own knowledge. So some people just dump a bunch of PDFs in there, which can actually improve it quite a bit, but also, if you're not strategic about that, you could still have the same problems.
Speaker 2:So, being more intentional about the content you're writing that you put into the AI will make it work better, even with prompts. So one of the things that I tell students is don't ask it to write you a LinkedIn post. You know, write your LinkedIn post, then ask it to. You know, write a version of that. Or give it three LinkedIn posts that you just wrote and then come and then ask it for ideas for an article that you want to write. So AI always works better with your own original content that you've already developed and it really ties in really well with the creator economy class that I have.
Speaker 2:So which I? One of the things that I do in my 201 class is, you know so by the end of the semester they've written I don't know, almost you know 15 to 20 of these micro essays. Well, now you can give those to the AI and play around with it. And you know, can AI take those micro essays and turn it into, you know, an article, or actually have them create a chatbot so you can actually put them into a chat bot and then have people you know query your micro essay. That kind of thing Nice.
Speaker 1:That's all sounds exciting and your curriculum right, it seems focused heavily on the students actively building AI tools right and systems rather than just using them. Can you discuss specific projects where this approach was particularly successful?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm still working on this. So I would say the chatbot exercise that I gave was one of the best actually best assignments I've ever had, because it incorporates a lot of the outcomes that we have in first-year composition at the university. So, for example, knowing what kind of knowledge you're putting in there is forcing them to think about who owns what content and how do you cite that. If it's in the chatbot, how do you make sure that people know, oh, that came from this website or whatnot. And also it requires them to write very clearly and specifically for the chatbot, because actually to get the chatbot to even remotely work like you want, it takes considerable work and a lot of playing around with your words and things like that. So it really it's a great like final project because, oh, and it also focuses on the user, right. So like, don't just create a chatbot for a chatbot, but how's the user actually going to get something valuable out of this chatbot? You got to figure that out and maybe even go out and test it on a user. So it's got all those things wrapped up in one assignment that you can pretty much do in like two weeks. So that's probably the best one I've had so far.
Speaker 2:What I'm kind of working on right now is having them create more structured and strategic content that you would put into a knowledge base with an AI. And also people are looking at now using knowledge graphs with AI to make them more accurate and explainable. And basically what this is is you would take a domain knowledge so if you're a literature teacher, it might be all the Shakespeare stuff, so you then you'd start mapping that out. So you know, here's a character that that character is related, this character, these objects are related here, um, and so you're kind of mapping all this out and then when you put it into the chat bot, it actually is going to work with the Shakespeare stuff uh, more efficiently or more accurately. And also you can kind of see, you can kind of see how it's getting its answer, so you're able to do that. So I actually think that would be a great way for students to develop that domain knowledge. So in order to create good content for the AI, you have to have the domain knowledge.
Speaker 2:For example, I'm working on so students in my current class right now. I'm not sure if we're I'm not sure if we're going to get to the AI stuff, but I'm teaching this class because various factors. But, like next class I'm teaching, or next semester I'm teaching writing with AI. And you know one of the things like, for example, one of my groups is writing about things people could know about crises hurricane crisis, specific to Wilmington so actually writing little pieces of content that are specifically focused on people here at Wilmington that they need to know about hurricane crisis.
Speaker 2:Well, you can start putting that into a knowledge base and then run a chatbot on that and if it's more structured, it's going to work better. And then you can actually make that a project that you do every class. So, like I could have every class you know. Add to this you know the knowledge base for this chat bot. You know so, for example, and then also another group is doing like advice for STEM students, and so really, like any domain you can think of, you can make an AI work better by developing content for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome man. I really love that. We just had a guest His name is Abram Maldonado, from New York City, who's actually was talking about how school systems, school districts, should kind of like have their. How school systems, school districts should kind of like have their own AI systems, right, and how they should work on like writing that content or that information that should be dumped on there into the AI where educators, parents, students can go on there and gather some information that's needed on information about the school, about what's going on. But I love that idea of having a group of students work on a specific theme. But for folks like you and I, right, like, when we hear about these new technologies AI or VR, ar we get like really excited, I like to call it, we like to geek out, right. How do you balance the excitement of exploring new AI technologies with the stability needed in a structured educational environment?
Speaker 2:That's a good question Are my classes stable? I don't know. I think maybe the really having a sense of playfulness and experimentation. Playfulness and experimentation, well, and I would say coaching, I think, is probably key to how I implement new technology and keep things stable. So, for example, one of the introducing AI I have introduced AI in my class this semester and I've focused on doing more coaching, so focusing more on what we're doing in the classroom and not so much on the homework, having them do my homework, trying to have them do it in the classroom, where I can participate and how they're and they can participate with each other.
Speaker 2:And so when we test, I say, ok, let's, let's take this AI and get some feedback on your article. I can actually watch and see how they are using it and I can give them advice or tell them why something didn't work the way that they thought. But what I've found is it's actually useful to give them a very structured activity, for example, with AI. Structured activity, for example, with AI. So having the steps as small as possible, as clear as possible, and then taking the students through all those steps, because I think the tendency to approach AI is to approach it informally and kind of in a sloppy way because we just see it as a chatbot. I mean, there's a really downside for it being a chatbot and one of the probably the most effective thing I've done so far is I used it's a tool called Boodlebox and basically it's a you can think of a Slack channel where you can have multiple humans conversing but you can have multiple bots. So they have all sorts of bots for different purposes, but you can also access ChatGPT, google Gemini pretty much any AI model you can think of you can access in there. But you can also post without calling up the AI.
Speaker 2:And so what I had students do is I actually told students specifically what to write without calling up AI. So, for example, I put my feedback into the Buddha box, write a response to the feedback. So what did they think about the feedback, what was good about it, what was bad about it, what do they think they should do in response to that feedback? And they would post that in there. And then I had them reflect on what are your strengths and weaknesses when you revise a paper. So they post that in there without calling up AI.
Speaker 2:And then I had them post a collaborative post where they kind of talked about what they think their plans might be, and then I prompted AI myself to say all right, given this information, what would be the specific tasks that we need to do to get started on this, and who would be the best ones to assign this to? So and so they actually can see that it is effective when you're doing it the right way? Because the more context that you give the AI, the better it works. And so I was basically, you know, forcing them to give it the context that it needed to work well context that it needed to work well.
Speaker 1:Now, when you're using these tools right AI, specifically on your AI-driven projects, you need tons of support, specifically the funding. Right Funding for new technology can be a hurdle.
Speaker 2:Can you share some of your strategies that you have used in the past to secure funding for your AI-driven projects? Yeah, that's a real issue. I kind of call myself a rogue academic because I've kind of gone rogue, but to be honest, the UNC system does not fund us very well in new technologies. It's actually extremely difficult to get a new software approved. I mean, I might get funding, I could get the money, no problem, but can I get the app approved? That's a whole nother ballgame.
Speaker 2:What I've done often is that's one of the reasons why I think I use a lot of the beta programs, the programs that are in development because you can contact I can contact the developers directly and say, hey, I'm using this in the class, can you give us all three accounts, you know, and I'll write about it online, or you know the students might continue to use it later, or you know that kind of thing. So I've done that. I've purchased stuff on AppSumo. I don't know if you've ever heard of that, but you can get a lifetime uh, like lifetime licenses for for some of these things. Um, it's kind of a risk because you know you might shell out the money and then, and then you know it doesn't work out but uh, um.
Speaker 2:But that actually is one of the reasons why I started writing online because I wanted to experiment with these AI programs but I knew the school wasn't really going to fund it and we didn't have access to Copilot at the time. So we do have access to Copilot right now. So I am trying to use that more for the students. But it is the worst performing AI model on the market, so it's actually kind of a negative. But that's one of the reasons why I started writing online that basically, money that comes in through medium or sub stack actually supports me purchasing some of these. So, for example, I did purchase a lifetime a license for Lyft OS that I could put unlimited people into into that, so I can basically use that for my classes, you know for well, for life, I guess. Now the risk is you know they go under, it disappears, or I decide like it doesn't work anymore and you know I lose that money. But but so far it's working out pretty well.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice. And also, like you want to, can you share with us, like what strategies do you employ to ensure students buy into and see the relevance of these new AI tools for their future careers?
Speaker 2:So how do you create buy-in? That's probably one of my biggest challenges, because students, you know they want I don't know. I get mixed signals. I think a lot of them. They just want it in Canvas because you know it's one place they go to see everything. Other people they were like, hey, this is pretty cool. It does, you know, because it does create issues with sometimes with communicating with the students and making sure they know what's going on when, that kind of thing. But I think, yeah, I guess the question is, have I been successful in creating buy-in for these? I don't know, I think we're some students for sure.
Speaker 2:One of the things I have done is bring in professionals into the classroom and to talk about how they're writing and how they're using AI. So in my 204 class, or my introduction to professional writing class this semester, I actually brought in a creator, nico Appel, because he had some really cool ideas about content strategy and AI, which is basically how I'm teaching. This class is through the lens of content strategy and so they actually see somebody who's really using it intelligently in a way that's useful. And then I brought and then I got a. I brought in a um, uh, entrepreneur, uh, for entrepreneur day this week and you know. So he talked about how he uses LinkedIn. I would say it's hard to get students to buy into LinkedIn because they they see it as just like a boring place where a bunch of you know people in suits. He should talk about whatever.
Speaker 2:But uh, um, so, uh, they think it's lame, right. But you know, I brought in this entrepreneur and he's like talking about how you know how many connections he's made, these million dollar contracts, because he's on LinkedIn and he's got a ghostwriter that he pays, you know, $10,000 a month to write some of his LinkedIn posts. You know, and it's like which you, which I appreciate because it shows that, hey, students, yeah, you can make money writing that kind of thing. And he talked about how he uses AI, even though he doesn't consider himself a writer and he writes, but he doesn't consider himself that great at it. That's why he hires a ghostwriter to level it up.
Speaker 2:But you know, he was talking about how he uses. He uses AI because it kind of brings them up to a certain level, and I think that's kind of what AI does. Is if you're down here, it'll bring you about to the middle. Is, if you're down here, it'll bring you about to the middle, and that's about as far as it's going to get you if you don't develop more writing skills that are going to bring you above the AI. So having students hear people who are actually using some of these things, I think is extremely useful.
Speaker 1:It definitely sounds like it is Definitely solid. It sounds like something that would encourage students and get them inspired. But let's look ahead, right. Let's think about what is your vision for the role of AI in writing and content creation, and how do you prepare your students to be the leaders in this evolving field?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think a lot of. So one of the ways that I'm thinking about it is from the field of tech writing, where, you know, obviously automation is actually a key feature of tech writing, because there's a lot of mundane things that people are writing that they don't want to write, you know, and if you can get AI or automate it in some way, then you can focus on things that are more creative, that you care about more, and that kind of thing. So and so, in a way, I want students to you know, be able to discern what are, what's the kind of writing that they care about, that they're involved in, and when to choose AI and when not to choose. The other way I'm thinking about it is like writing for AI, not just writing with AI so building your own tools and I guess that's kind of one of the ways that I bring in new technology as well as just trying to build some of this, you know, myself, or you know getting involved with other people who are building these things. So thinking about that, the content in these systems that you're creating, and so you know you're writing the content like a lot of tech writers. Well, theoretically, we're moving towards this phase where we would call it maybe content design, where where writers are doing a lot of the writing for the AI on the backend, or tweaking the AI on the backend, and then the looking at the output, and then they're analyzing that output and making adjustments, but the actual a lot of the writing in the middle is, you know, is done by AI, and so those both of those two things are still require writing skills, a writing mindset, and so helping students understand the how AI ties into those systems better, I think I think is is one approach.
Speaker 2:In a way, this is informed by the history of a composition, I would say. So every time we have a new technology, it changes the way we think about writing. So the printing press came out right, and that's when we started thinking about grammar and punctuation and all that stuff, because we had to standardize it, because we could print out a bunch of stuff at once. And then you know, the web came, web 1.0, and you know anybody could publish on there. But then web 2.0 came, and then or I should say 1.0, you needed to be a coder to create a webpage, but then 2.0 came and you can actually start creating your own webpage with just the editor box so anybody could create a webpage, and that kind of changed the game, the writing game.
Speaker 2:And so what happened? There is writers, creators, people with those mindset started building not just reading web pages, but building their own web pages. And then social media came. You know, you think about how much of the social media do you consume versus what you write, versus what you create. There's a very small percentage of people who are actually creating in those spaces, but the people who have those mindsets are doing it, and doing it successfully. And so I just take that same mindset to AI, and how can we help students learn how to build and shape these AIs in ways that are valuable to them, so not just to be users of AI, but builders of AI?
Speaker 1:Right on, right on, and I love that kind of like that. What you just mentioned right, it's that over the years, we have evolved with technologies. That has impacted whether it's writing or any other thing that we do in education whether it's writing or any other thing that we do in education and even, like one of our guests has said, that the AI right now is the calculator moment, when calculators were introduced, how, like, everyone's freaking out in the classrooms and how it's going to be used. But with any technology, there's many challenges and different ways to integrate this into the classrooms. Right, we're going to end this with. What advice would you give educators looking into integrating AI and emerging technologies into their classrooms effectively?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I would just say target something specific that you want to do, a specific outcome that you want to do a specific outcome, and then think about how that AI is going to work specifically in that region. So I want to try to use you know, I think people get overwhelmed, especially now like there's new AI tools all the time and new technology all the time, and it can easy to get overwhelmed Find the one thing that kind of clicks with you and then focus that on something specific that's going to bring a lot of value to your classroom and I wouldn't worry about so there's the fear of missing out, like I would try to suppress that. If you're using, you know, chat, gpt, gemini, claude, you know, just pick one and experiment with it and and get to know it a little bit and then you'll, you'll develop. You know what kind of mindsets you need to make that, make that work.
Speaker 2:I won't worry about using all these other tools and actually I would be very hesitant to adopt an AI tool that's built by somebody else in education, because, especially if you don't know how that was built and I would say a lot of the education tools, if it was one of the things I've said is you know, if it was built for education, so their audience is education, then it's probably a crappy tool, you know. So, um, that's not true of every everyone, but like so many of the tools, it's like you know, they're focused on getting that huge contract and then then they're good, right. So if they and they're not necessarily taking into account use, user perspectives and getting to know the teachers and what they need and that kind of thing, so so yeah, I would just try to focus on something specific and and really get to know that. But well, awesome.
Speaker 1:Hey, lance man, I can't thank you enough for this episode. I'm really super insightful. Thank you for sharing all your knowledge and insight. I want to thank our audience for joining us on EdTech Empowerment Innovating Education Together. A huge thank you to Professor Lance Cummings for sharing his inspiring journey and practical insights. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave us a and share it with your fellow educators and tech enthusiasts. Connect with Lance. Visit his website at isophistcom that's I-S-O-P-H-I-S-T dot com and keep an eye out for our next episode, where we'll continue exploring the best practices for technology integration in education. Until next time, keep innovating and empowering through education.
