S2 E9: Level Up Your AI Education Roadmap

In this episode of AI Advocates, Maggie Mosher and Lisa Dieker reflect on exploring AI tools and strategies for the classroom. Framing the conversation as a roadmap to leveling up AI integration in education, they revisit key themes such as AI as a lesson planner, a STEM simulator, and a classroom collaborator. They also preview their upcoming book and share insights on how educators can continue advancing their AI journey into the next semester. The episode encourages teachers to build on what they have learned and to keep exploring how AI can enhance student engagement, creativity, and support. 

AI Tools:
Magic School AI - https://www.magicschool.ai/
Khanmigo - https://www.khanmigo.ai/
SchoolAI - https://schoolai.com/ 
Diffit - https://web.diffit.me/ 
EL Bot -https://www.canva.com/design/DAF4ZnhZ8TI/bGhftIi8zBjLuBFANJBP2w/view?utm_content=DAF4ZnhZ8TI&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=editor

Social Media:
X - https://x.com/KUFLITECenter
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/people/Center-for-Flexible-Learning-through-Innovations-in-Technology-Education/61563791019174/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/aai-flite-center

Transcript

Music: 0:00

Reclaim your time….., time…., time.

Maggie Mosher: 0:09

Welcome to level up your AI education roadmap next semester and your next level of learning. Over the past nine weeks, we've explored everything from AI lesson planners to STEM simulations. We've seen how AI can be a sidekick, a catalyst and a revolutionary tool. I'm Maggie Moser, and this is?

Lisa Dieker: 0:29

Lisa Dieker.

Maggie Mosher: 0:30

And we're here from the FLITE Center, talking about our new book that's coming out that Lisa will tell you a little bit more about, and talking about all that we've kind of put together over these last nine weeks, how to how to make this doable and really work. After 10 weeks of ideas, it can feel really overwhelming. So the key is not to do everything at once. And you'll notice I have my glasses on today. You may also notice sometimes, every once in a while, Lisa has to stop me and slow me down a little bit. I use these glasses. These are Meta glasses, and they help me to keep pace, because I can get so excited about things. With the disability I have, my brain goes so quickly.

Lisa Dieker: 1:09

Can I Can I interrupt? Go ahead.

Maggie Mosher: 1:13

Yeah, please.

Lisa Dieker: 1:13

Well, so yes, I love that you gave me permission to interrupt, because those who are listening and not seeing, can you explain them?

Maggie Mosher: 1:20

Yeah, so these are Meta glasses, and they are Ray Bans that I have on my head right now. Thank you for reminding me that some people aren't watching us. The Ray Ban met a glasses essentially have a camera in them that can take pictures or videos. So I can say things like, hey, Meta, what am I looking at? And it'll read back to me what I'm looking at. It also attaches to my iPhone in any of the apps on my iPhone, so I can say things like, hey, Meta, play music. And if I have music on my iPhone, it'll play music. I can turn up and down that music. I can say things like, hey, Meta, what's the weather today? It will tell me what the weather is in my current location, as long as I have a location app on my phone, so all the different things you can think of, you can ask it questions like you would in Google search or in any AI search, and it will give you answers into your ear. But what I love about it is no one can hear it who's around me only I can hear it unless it's really loud. I can turn it up loud enough that someone can't hear it. But mostly it's helpful for me, so I use it to remind myself sometimes to slow down, because I worry that if I don't get things said quickly, I'll forget them. Some of that has to do with growing up with a sister, though, who talks a lot, and so if I didn't say it, it would go away. But other parts of it have to do with my brain going so quickly that I need to say it. And so one of the big things I wanted this week to talk to people about was this can feel overwhelming. Your brains are going really quickly with all the ideas of everything you could possibly do in your classroom. And we just want you to take one thing so it doesn't become really overwhelming. Your first step in an AI, for example, could be a brainstorming start by picking one area, one tool, and aim small for a really great, measurable win. So for example, figure out what is the big issue. Is it my students are struggling with creative writing? I can use my AI step for brainstorming. Is it my students are getting bored and I'm not able to differentiate as quickly. I could have them each have their own chatbots in Magic School. Or is it that I'm spending so much time grading that my students aren't getting any time with me? Then start there. Your first step in the roadmap is small. You could build an assessment tool. You could have AI do some of your grading for you. Again, de-identified, but your roadmap should be simple. I'm going to give three steps, and then I'm going to turn it over to turn it over to Lisa. Your roadmap should have first identify or pinpoint the single most challenging or time consuming thing you're doing or what's not working for you or your students. To experiment, choose one of those AI tools that we gave you, discover it or any of these AI processes. It doesn't have to be a tool. It can be a process or an idea we shared. And then third, reflect on it. Ask yourself and your students, did this help? Did this really save me time? Did it deepen my learning? Was this tool the best tool should I be using technology for this or not? Is technology actually making it harder for me, because we should only use it if it's helping or working for us? So make sure that you have that roadmap, create really small steps, have a group, a goal, and remember, the goal is for technology to not add one more thing to your plate. It's strategic. It's not to drain you. AI is going to keep changing. So I'm also going to add, make sure to do this in collaboration with people and Lisa, I'm gonna have you take over that collaboration piece.

Lisa Dieker: 4:42

Yeah, so, you know, Maggie, I think you really emulate everything beautiful about the use of AI as a human and how you use it for yourself, and you really empower others. And that really aligns with our book and this theme of collaboration. So the book is titled, "Empowered by AI 10 Practical Approaches for Today's Educator." And it goes to that point that Maggie was making of of keeping it personal, keeping it simple, keeping it easy. And we gave you 10 so you could choose one, and one that I am a researcher and an expert in is the collaboration and co-teaching area. And so, you know, as Maggie said, this is great, but don't think it's a solo adventure. So imagine I had the privilege of co podcasting with Maggie Mosher, or co teaching with Maggie Mosher Maggie, and I then could pick and choose. So Maggie is going to learn Diffit, and I'm going to learn Google Gemini Pro for education, or she's going to learn Khanamigo to do more in the math problem area as a bot tutor. So think about that is as, what's your team? And do we all learn the same thing? That's fun sometimes, but with AI rapidly evolving, maybe we on our fourth grade team. We all learn tool A, and then we each have a B we're learning, and we and we share the wealth, you know. And maybe I'm now the one who does the differentiation for the whole fourth grade team, and you're the one who does the bots for the fourth grade team. That that's what we want to be your roadmap as you move into the spring. So when you think about if you happen to have the privilege of having a co teacher, the first thing I'd say to Maggie, look, here's a really practical way. Let's think about using AI. Do we worry the most about code planning? Nope, we don't need to worry about that. We actually have a block of planning time. Wow, that's rare, but we got lucky this year, you know, and we have lunch together, so we will know each other really well. What about instruction? Well, we both are pretty good in that. Oh, Maggie, what about time for assessment? And we both are like, we don't have that. Okay, so if we aren't careful, our assessment time will be taken up by our co-planning time, but if we embrace AI, so what's Maggie going to learn? What am I going to learn? That's an example. How I'd use it if I have the privilege of having others collaborating with me. And I think we often think in this, you know, 10 weeks that we've given you, you got to learn it all. Nope, you got to learn something so that you can pick one and use and I'm going to turn it back to you, because Maggie, I know one of the things we think people should think about after week 10 is, how is it safe to use with kids?

Maggie Mosher: 7:12

Yeah, and I would say I would start with FERPA compliant AI. So if you're planning on having students interact with it without you around, use AI systems that you can see everything they do. So Magic School AI, SchoolAI, both for free, will let you see the entire chat history of your students with their bots. Both will also let you create your own bots that are personalized to your students, and choose which bots they can interact with when? Why is that helpful? Because you as the teacher, are the strategic genius who decide what's best to teach and when to teach it. And I would start with things like, that prompt bot teaching them how to better prompt AI is really important as a first skill. So this is a question I have. I just put in whatever I think into the prompt bot, and it will rephrase it and form it to me and tell me. Why are these things important? Why is it important to tell the chatbot who I am? Why is it important to tell it what the output should be? Why is it important to give it a tone to state specifically what reading level, grade levels, what specifications I want, what colors, what images, what specific talents I want it to have? Why are those things important? And it'll walk them through that. Then I usually have as their second chatbot, one that's something like make it relevant, that can help them understand everything we're doing in a day-to-day, why it matters for them, and so that they're really starting to tune in and really understand that I, as their teacher, want what's best for them at all points in time. I want them to meet their goals, and this helps them to see how I'm doing that in a way that I can't tell them, and strategically to help teachers remove the tasks that drain their energy so that they can really pour that energy back into the human art of teaching, because it is a job that takes a lot of energy out of you, but we shouldn't let It take the energy in the mundane things like automating or grading and having more time for extraordinary things that really help us to build relationships with students. We can even have it help us with those emails to parents that sometimes are hard to generate and time consuming to put in a specific way that sounds like I really want to say it and comes across in an appropriate way, over an email. So I think all of those things are really important to remember.

Lisa Dieker: 9:26

Yeah, and, you know, I'm going to piggyback a little bit on what you normally lead on is the privacy issue. So you do have these wonderful Meta glasses. We're not here to sell you anything. We're just here to talk about what we use as practical tools. And you know, Maggie's found such great use for them and coaching her, really, as an AI coach in her ear. We actually have a couple schools that are using them for kids with visual impairments. And you're probably like, great, how does that work? Well, first of all, they're not overly pricey. We know lots of tools that are expensive. They're not free, they're about $300 but what they're doing is they're actually connecting them to burner phones or closed iPads, so that if the student does record, so I have a school whose student is recording their alternative portfolio assessment by themselves instead of here. Here's my paper, can you upload it? Think about the empowerment of that, but it's on a closed iPad only connected to the glasses at the teacher's desk, so that it isn't going out into the world, in the cloud and everywhere else. So I think those are the kinds of things that you have to think about as you adopt new tools. And there's so many free image generation tools. But I also don't want us to forget as we move into this final week that you know, also draw on a picture. If you can draw I can't, but if that's what you prefer to do, it doesn't always have to come from AI. So don't go to the other side of the world where everything is AI. Because I personally have a rule that if there's a new tool I want, I only do it the first of each month. So one new tool a month, that's plenty for my brain, and my brain goes fast, so I could probably do something every two weeks. I'll learn about new tools, but I get to know a tool deeply about one a month, and that seems not quite so overwhelming. So some lots advice from you, Maggie, for people, as they think about all we've shared, how they're going to take their little roadmap and not go on a ditch and not go you know, this is too much.

Maggie Mosher: 11:19

Yeah, what I love about what we said so far is the privacy matters a lot. Understanding what the students are doing with it matters a lot. The safety matters a lot. So thinking too about, yeah, I don't want students to go on ChatGPT and ask for pictures because I don't know what they're going to get. I don't want them just asking random chatbots for answers because I don't know if it's going to be accurate. So having them go on things that are already validated, for example, custom GPTs, like EL that one of our friends created, Tiffany, it has 50,000 reputable sources. So giving things that are reputable, like SchoolAI, Magic School NotebookLM Gemini Pro for education, things that where I can say, validate this content for me and teach them to say that, validate this content, tell me where it's from, make sure it's an empirical study or from a good source. And you can have the the response only turn green if it's been validated by one of the sources that you trust, and everything else is yellow. And then you can ask it, where did you get the other stuff from? And it will have to tell you these are the other sources. Why I like keeping them on safe chatbots as they continue to grow, is so that they get to know what they can trust, how they can trust it, how they can validate their own information. Because the AI landscape is continuing at a breathtaking fast pace, and new tools are emerging constantly, and the old ones are becoming even more powerful. So our roadmap on teaching students right now isn't a static document, it's a constant change. And so we're going to have to come to this with a mindset of curiosity and courage, but we're also going to have to come to it with a mindset of being critical and confident that what we're doing is actually helping students. So because of teachers like all of you who are listening. The future is incredibly bright, and we don't have to worry about these things, as long as we're keeping to learning, we're keeping to innovating, we're keeping to making a difference, and we're keeping to doing that in the most safe method possible for our students. That's my

Lisa Dieker: 13:16

Yeah, and I'm going to close with excuse the pun, last. but we are at the University of Kansas, working in the FLITE Center, which stands for Flexible Learning in Innovation and Technology and Education. And I think that word flexible, I think the pun is, I do not think there is a yellow brick road to take you where you want to go in AI. I think there are lots of roads, and some probably are not just not yellow. They're probably dangerous, so Be safe, be private, protect your students and be kind to yourself, because we know that's the most important thing. You are our greatest assets. You are our heroes, and we need you to come to kids with as much time on your hand, and that's what we believe AI gives you. So in closing today, we just want to let you know that our spring podcast, our next series of podcasts, we're going to be kind of enhancing the chapters that we've written, talking with our author. And our author on the book is also Megan Turpin. We'll we'll have some guest from that world, and we'll kind of balance that out, which is continuing to give you really practical, quick things to do in your classroom. So thanks thank you for joining us on AI Advocates.