S4 E3: Navigating the Future of AI in Education

Lisa Dieker and Maggie Mosher predict what the next five years of AI might look like in K–12 education. These predictions include how technology will shape classrooms, educators, and students. They discuss the rapid pace of innovation and the likelihood that AI will become a normalized tool used in schools every day. The conversation highlights both the opportunities and challenges ahead, including the need to prioritize mental health, set healthy boundaries with technology, and ensure AI reduces workload rather than adding stress. 

The conversation also highlights how students are becoming more fluent with AI and how classrooms may rely on them as leaders in navigating new tools. They anticipate a shift toward more human-centered connections, even as AI becomes integrated in daily life. Throughout the episode, they encourage educators to stay curious, flexible, and grounded in relationships, emphasizing that while AI will evolve quickly, strong human connection and thoughtful implementation will remain at the heart of teaching and learning.

Resources:
Be My Eyes - https://www.bemyeyes.com/ 

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.

Maggie Mosher: 0:09

Welcome to AI Advocates. I'm Maggie Mosher.

Lisa Dieker: 0:12

Hi I'm Lisa Dieker.

Maggie Mosher: 0:14

And today we're doing the future forecast, quick predictions for the next five years in K-12 education. Lisa, what do you predict is going to be happening?

Lisa Dieker: 0:23

Oh, gosh, five years from now? Well, guess what? I don't think there will be any hype left. We'll just be using it. So there's my prediction. What's yours,

Maggie Mosher: 0:32

I think that it's going to be surprisingly fast. Maggie? How fast technology is going, like it's already going so fast, but I think it's going to outrun us by a lot, and we're going to have to start doing a better job and mental health and really preparing people for that anxiety that comes with, okay, this is not we can't work 24 hours a day. We can't be machines. You're not the machine. So how can we use the machines to make our jobs easier and lighter, as opposed to trying to keep up with machines?

Lisa Dieker: 0:57

I know well, and I actually think we're going to see a little like we did after COVID. Do you remember how you just couldn't wait to see people? I think people will get really tired of talking to bots and agents. I'm really tired. I had a really long weekend with my son. Actually got sold a double blacklisted cell phone, and I still laugh. I wish somebody could have seen me, because I'm doing this podcast. On the seventh time I called and the bot wouldn't send me to the right place, I am yelling at it, and I'm going, I know you don't care, but I'm done. So I think in the next five years, we'll be we'll be quicker to find a way to human connect and maybe get some of this, whatever it is, you can call it social media. It's all AI. And I think we'll have less of that garbage and maybe more human connections.

Maggie Mosher: 1:53

I sure hope so. I'll also say I do think one thing's going to stay the same, and that is that kids will always be smarter at technology than we are, because they grow in the age of it. So no matter what age we are, I think I'm grateful that I'm an expert in it now, but I know that the kids coming up are going to be much more efficient and effective in training people on technology, because I don't think that's going to change. I think that is one prediction that is going to stay constant through time.

Lisa Dieker: 2:21

Yeah, I pretty sure I won't be cool anymore. Right now, I'm kind of cool. I'm just going to tell you, like, and I say that with humility. You know me well, I'm confident, but humble. But like, my undergrads think I'm cool because I do so much with AI, I'm pretty sure in the next five years, they'll be cool and I won't be because I'm not sure I can keep up with them, except that it is my passion. But I do think adults need to recognize that in the future, we're going to be talking about AI at the table like we used to talk about, did you see on the news, or did you see the weather? I think AI will have a conversation at the table like the weather and the news about, hey, I tried these glasses, and it speaks a foreign language. I mean, that's one of the first things you and I talk about is like, what's the new cool tool? But at the same time, I think we'll be past that, and we'll start to just have conversations about, oh, did you do your homework? And did the bot help you like you wanted it to? Or do I need to give you some extra support? I think we'll find that blending being natural.

Maggie Mosher: 3:23

I think so too. I'm a little worried. The one thing I am worried about is that we're going to become like cell phones with computers, where we constantly have to upgrade because the technology goes so quickly that it's going to burn out our computers faster. So I am a little concerned about how many computers I'm going to be going through in the next I don't know 50 years, but I do think that there are some things though, that I'm excited about, and one of them is, I think the skills in which we're going to really train people to be good at are now the skills they're going to have the rest of their life. Like, I think we did a lot of training on kids, on how to take tests for the ACT, SAT, state assessments. I hated that. I think now we're going to be helping them to be better collaborators, helping them to be better really coordinating in their time and schedules and use, and helping them to be more creative in what they do. Because essentially, AI can do the basics. So how do I make myself more noticeable or more achieve more than the AI bot could do for me. How do I stand out? So I think some of that is going to be some really great creative thinking and problem solving that maybe we've kind of forgotten. I don't feel like we've taught our kids to solve problems really well, like in the playground or in real life in the last few decades. And I think we're going to go back to some of that is, how can I problem solve? Because AI can find answers, but I need to know, not the answers. I need to I need to know if the answers are right. I need to know how I find out if the answers are right. I need to know where the answers are coming from, like, to really make them better problem solvers.

Lisa Dieker: 4:53

I can see it now. How do I get Maggie not to push me off the slide? And AI gives me a suggestion, like, push her down the slide? No, that's. So again, I think there's going to need in the next five years, I think we'll have better filters, but I also think we have to really worry. And I beg of K-12 teachers, you know, you and I both grew up very rural, very, you know, at a poverty level, with wonderful families. So again, we're not belittling that, but at the same time, it's teachers that gave us access, and I, in having done a lot of work in urban environments at UW Milwaukee, that was my platform. I've always been in urban and rural settings. I do worry in the next five years there could be haves and have nots, and so I'm just really asking you, as we think about this future forecast, be the person that makes sure there's access. Because if you aren't educated as a teacher in a rural school, our next podcast is going to talk about where you go for free learning. We hope you'll learn because that's the population that may not be able to get the same job as someone else. We used to talk about college pathways. I now think AI pathways are going to be the difference in future income generation too.

Maggie Mosher: 6:05

Yeah, I actually think back, and I think that my as much as I didn't like it in elementary school, ish Middle School, when the teacher sent me away to a computer room to learn computers, it's where I met Alice, my first AI, and as a result, I was using AI before many people that I know back in 2K times. And so I do, I credit that to my teachers, who didn't know what to do, but we're like here, figure this out. But I do think that there's a piece of access that if I hadn't had access to that, I would not be where I am today. And so making sure that, not just like you had said that, that we make sure that those people are kind of marginalized on the outsides in sections, that we make sure that they have a voice and are getting the same technology and the same access to things that we are, but also people with specific disabilities. I love some of the AI that is helping people get access. I think that is one thing. Like, I think of Be My Eyes, and in the next five years, I think that we won't need certain like, I have a friend who had a seeing eye dog, and the dog died, and now she uses Be My Eyes and Meta glasses. And essentially, Be My Eyes is another person on the other end that tells you everything you're looking at, and it's free. And so she uses her meta glasses, and that person sees everything she's looking at and helps her groceries now and helps her get around. And that was a game changer, because she lost her best friend like that dog died and she couldn't get another one. She just was so sad about it that the person on the other end would be my eyes ended up helping her through that process. And I think that so there's, there's potential that AI could really be a game changer for people with disabilities, if they have access.

Lisa Dieker: 7:40

Yeah, and I think the last one I'm going to share is actually what I already believe should be happening in classrooms anyway, but I believe kids will be better at this than us, and our job will be to coach them to use it safely, soundly, environmentally friendly, for the good of the world, for their mental health, for all those things we're worried about right now, we should start to be the coach. And if it goes the way, it should remember, you know, I'm gonna go. We're at KU. We have a really good basketball team, you know, and and yet, we got a really good coach, Bill Self. But Bill Self doesn't go out and play basketball better than his players, he coaches them. And I really think AI gives us that pathway for kids to be much better in the next generation of creative thinkers and problem solvers and, you know, find the cure for cancer and environmental pollution and all those things we worry about, because they will have an additional brain to count on, but I think we as adults have to help coach them to do that safely and soundly and, as you said, mentally healthy. But

Maggie Mosher: 8:50

that last thought, and I'm only going to that's my last thought. add to that too as we're coaching them and training them to be mentally healthy and to use this tool, I think little tips that we give them, that we model for them, like I often will put my lesson or my PDF into Copilot and say, am I using any language that might be offensive to another culture of any kind, and it'll pull out. Have you considered this word? Maybe you should look at this word instead. And so even having AI just make us better people, better human beings, like to be aware of what we do, what we say, what we wear that might be offensive, that we're not even aware of having some of those and modeling that for your students. And I think that just makes us better people who better human beings, to just know what what is effective in our environments and what's harmful.

Lisa Dieker: 9:37

So I think this podcast theme is is save time and sanity and be a coach. So thank you for joining us for this session.