Amanda Bickerstaff:
We already have college essays requiring gen AI use and we already have applications for jobs saying AI literacy, ChatGPT, prompt engineering. And so saying that kids can’t use this and it is cheating and is bad only is a real potential detriment to their ability to, like, you know, go ahead, not only, like, have an opportunity to succeed as much as possible, but like, be prepared for college and career.

Matthew Worwood::
Hello everyone. My name is Dr. Matthew Worwood.

Cyndi Burnett:
And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood::
This is the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast.

Cyndi Burnett:
On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the field of education.

Matthew Worwood::
We’ll be talking with scholars, educators, and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and exploring new perspectives of creativity.

Cyndi Burnett:
All with a goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers, administrators, and emerging scholars with the information they need need to infuse creativity into teaching and learning.

Matthew Worwood::
So let’s begin. How can educators harness the power of AI to enhance creativity, personalize learning, and foster deeper engagement in the classroom? If you’re looking for practical strategies to navigate AI’s increasing role in learning, whether you’re excited or skeptical, this conversation with our expert in AI and education technology is packed with insights you won’t want to miss.

Cyndi Burnett:
Today we welcome to the show Amanda Bickerstaff. Amanda is the co founder and CEO of AI for Education. A former high school biology teacher and an EdTech executive with over 20 years of experience in the education sector. She’s a leading voice in AI adoption for schools, working closely with educators to ensure its implementation is ethical, equitable, and creativity driven. Through her workshops, consulting, and thought leadership, she’s helping shape the future of AI in Both K through 12 and higher education. Welcome to the show, Amanda.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
Hi, everyone. It’s Happy Friday, or I hope it’s Friday. For whoever’s listening to this at this.

Cyndi Burnett:
Time, too, it will be Tuesday, but Friday is always something to look forward to. So, Amanda, you have experience as both a high school biology teacher and an ed tech executive. How did those roles shape your perspective on AI in education?

Amanda Bickerstaff:
Well, I mean, I think that to understand any new kind of technological transformation within the context of a field, you have to have done it right. And I think this is something that we’ve seen just in terms of technology and edtech in general, that we know that those that are former educators tend to be better able to build systems for schools that actually tend to not only meet student needs, but also can be implemented in meaningful ways. And so for me, like teaching in the Bronx I mean, I was 22 years old coming out of, I’ve grown up in Georgia and I came to New York City because I wanted to help people and became a science teacher with no, you know, I was a teaching fellow. So six weeks of learning a bit about teaching and doing some student teaching, and then all of a sudden I’m the only, you know, the only young person teaching the only version of biology in the school. And, you know, I learned an enormous amount about what school is and like, but also what school isn’t. So like the idea that like, as a teacher and as an educator, my locus of control was relatively small, especially in a complex environment like the Bronx. And so it really was something that I learned a ton about, like the community aspect of schooling, the need for systems to work together that often do not to support students in meaningful ways. And I also learned that, you know, about myself that, you know, why I didn’t think at that point I really was like a teacher.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
Wasn’t my end goal. Like, I had known when I walked in, I know I wanted to be a teacher, but I also knew that I wanted to like, build systems and I wanted to have a bigger impact. So I think that having that experience and then really working in every field of education, I mean, I’ve done everything between curriculum writing and grants and evaluation of programs, to being an adjunct professor, to starting to run ed tech companies, is that I’ve seen so many different sides of the system. And also not just in the US but also in Australia. I was in Melbourne running a company for three years. And I think that all of those experiences have really made me who I am today and made it possible for me even to think of AI for Education as a company, because it really wasn’t designed to be a company. That’s why it’s called AI for Education. Because it was just like, what kind of like, how can I start sharing best practices and resources? And it was available.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
This is a true story. It was just the most available on the nose URL I could find. And that’s why it’s IO not.com by every by the way. And so, but what I was thinking is the first time I used ChatGPT, even though I hadn’t written a rubric in like 8 years, I knew immediately that a rubric was like the right test. Like, I didn’t like, wait, you know, I didn’t spend hours and hours and hours trying to figure out what could happen with, you know, what the impact could be. But I found it on the first Go. Because I was so familiar with the education ecosystem and that’s what really spurred it. I mean, I, you know, I started a website and you know, we had a prompt library.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
So prompting is the way that you interact with generative AI chatbots and just put it into the world. And I think what was really fascinating is that I’ve seen other people through the last year and a half that have really like, done some great stuff or tried to talk about AI education. It’s just so clear who has the experience to talk about it from like an actual lived experience way. And then those that are thinking, oh, here’s a solution to a problem I don’t understand. And so I think that’s been really helpful. It’s why we hire like all of our people that are facing our, you know, our students and teachers and leaders that we work with are all former educators, many of them leaders. Because I just don’t believe you can really do this work at this time without having that experience.

Matthew Worwood::
Totally agree. And you know, it’s not just about understanding. I mean, with any realistic, any type of technology, many of our technologies aren’t always designed for the classroom as well. I know you have the edtech background, and so therefore you’re constantly thinking about technologies and you’re thinking about the classroom environment. But also our classrooms are influenced and impacted by technologies that aren’t necessarily designed for the classroom as well. And so teachers have always been presented with this challenge of having to adapt to new technologies that is disrupting their environment. And those technologies might actually be technologies that students are interacting with a lot outside the classroom and aren’t always necessarily being to taught how to use inside the classroom. So keeping with that theme, I’m just interested in your overall thoughts because you referenced ChatGPT, a tool that has been identified as being disruptive to education, but wasn’t.

Matthew Worwood::
It’s a general purpose technology wasn’t built necessarily for the purpose of classroom and traditional teaching and learning. Do you have any thoughts about this potential disconnect as you’re seeing students? You know, because we’re seeing mass adoption, mass adoption among teachers as well as mass adoption among teachers. They’re not necessarily adopting it and using it in the same way. Do you. What’s your initial thoughts about that potential disconnect given I’m assuming you’re there to actually bridge that gap that might be growing?

Amanda Bickerstaff:
Yeah, I mean, I think that we need to think about generative AI systems as something that’s called an arrival technology, meaning that this is a technology that’s arrived and it’s something that’s consumer facing. It’s something that has very little time for us to kind of figure out how to adopt because it’s already here. And so I would say that what’s really interesting is that you look at other correlates, right? The Internet, devices, laptops, social media. And what’s happening is it took quite a while, right? Even social media, I think this is what people forget is that, you know, it took 10 years for Facebook to get a hundred million users. It didn’t happen. You know, it wasn’t like Facebook happened And then every 10 year old had Facebook. It was something where it really took quite a bit of time. And realistically we should have had enough time to start recognizing the need for parental controls and support and intentional digital literacy for young people.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
But the difference of today is that that hundred million users happened in five weeks. For ChatGPT, this is by far the most disruptive technology in terms of the speed to which it has started to impact society of anything that’s ever happened before. And so while you can look at, I mean, the only thing we don’t want you to do is think, okay, devices, social media is the same thing as generative AI. What we need to think about generative AI is, is gender. AI will run devices and social media, you know, like it’s going to be underneath and incorporated. So it isn’t something that is going to be separate. Even though we have chatbots and you know, you might use Cloud or ChatGPT or Gemini. And I think that this is where it really gets interesting because we’re asking a lot of our teachers and our leaders and our students.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
I just want to say we always talk about how like, you know, asking a lot of teachers and students, we’re also asking leaders, but we’re also asking a lot of students to also figure out what this thing is and how to use it responsibly. It’s not like they go into every situation, think, I’m going to cheat on this essay. You ask ChatGPT to help me with an essay, it’ll usually write it for you without you having to ask, because that’s what it thinks help it. Like that’s what it’s intentionality of how it’s been designed. And so I think that what we have to recognize is that we are living through an inflection point and it’s something that’s significant. It is not something that is going to, you know, it’s going to take a while, right? There’s Amara’s law, which is that we tend to overestimate the short term impact and underestimate the long term impact of technology. So I think that’s still the case. So the hype cycles of like it’s going to help every kid right now or every teacher is going to save hours and hours of time has not been true.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
But also it’s only been two and a half years, right, like, and, and barely that. And so I think that what we have to recognize is that our system is not designed to be able to take an arrival technology of this speed and capacity and reorient to respond to it. We saw through Covid. I mean I was stuck in Melbourne, shout out to my Melbourne peeps that were stuck with me. And we saw, you know, you saw that ed tech was just taking like courses and putting them on zoom and like kids, instead of desks and rows, they were in little boxes hoping that you don’t know they’re in pajamas and playing games. But what we have here is like, we really are not that our systems are so bureaucratic and like highly structured that we’re finding that at this stage there’s a really big tension on like will the system be able to move enough to be able to respond to the technology in meaningful ways instead of what’s happening now, which is this idea of like, okay, maybe AI literacy for teachers, you know, cheating is bad, so you know, but really not having the opportunity to say okay, our systems have to change in these ways to be able to ensure that students are able to like not just succeed in the world that’s coming, but also like just feel confident and comfortable going into that unknown.

Cyndi Burnett:
So Amanda, when schools come to you and say we want to bring this into their school or we want to start having conversations about this, what would you recommend to them?

Amanda Bickerstaff:
I think the most important thing is building AI literacy. So like, you know, we talked to Matt, talked about this idea of students like awareness, like digital native does not equal digital literate. Like it just doesn’t. Like, I mean just because kids grew up with like devices does not mean they’re good at devices. Like let’s like they’re good at using them in the sense of a lot of use. But they fall for Internet scams more than people over 65. Like it’s mental health and well being has been social isolation. So the idea that there’s like, you can’t just let this technology, like this idea that this technology will be pervasive and so people know how to use it because not Only is that not the case, but also generative AI does not work like any technology that came before it.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
And without intentional AI literacy work that focuses on learning about the fundamentals, learning about how to, we call it the C framework, learn how to use it safely, ethically and effectively. But you can’t really learn about generative AI without using generative AI, especially when you get to developmentally appropriate ages with students. So what we suggest very strongly is if you want to think about becoming an AI ready school, you need to have a plan in place for AI literacy across your entire organization. And I mean that all the way down to your teachers, your teacher’s aides, students, community members. Often we start with leaders to teachers and then to students. It’s slow going. I will say we would prefer to have it be something maybe we’re learning together a little bit more. But because of the ethical kind of questions around it, we have to convince teachers and leaders first before they’re really open to having these conversations with students.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
So I think that that’s the most important thing. And then we also suggest having responsible guidelines. And I don’t mean it needs to be a 25 page piece. Like, you can go to our website, we have a really nice decision tree. We’ve got a couple of examples of short policies, but something that gives some structure to what is appropriate. Because this kind of wild wild west unknown is very hard for people to work within. Because what’s happening is kids are either A hiding use or B avoiding use. And so what we see is that like, what’s it’s causing this, like friction not just with teachers, but with students.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
And I’ll give you an anecdote. We were doing a training on Friday with parents and one of the parents said my kid thinks it’s cheating and refuses to even learn about it. He just won’t even touch ChatGPT because he thinks it’s cheating. And so like, while that you’re like, oh, okay, maybe that kid’s just being very responsible. We already have college essays requiring gen AI use and we already have applications for jobs saying AI literacy, ChatGPT, prompt engineering. And so saying that kids can’t use this and it is cheating and is bad only is a real potential detriment to their ability to like, you know, go ahead, not only like have an opportunity to succeed as much as possible, but like be prepared for college and career.

Matthew Worwood::
You know, there’s so many things I want to follow up and it’s really hard.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
I like to make it difficult for.

Matthew Worwood::
Podcast hosts no, no, no, listen. No, no. What makes it hard is our time short. So I think I’ll go with a nice easy question. You referenced the word you suggested age from with your expertise and you said cognitive development. We have social media as 13, right? By default. But that’s not associated with the appropriate age of cognitive development. But nevertheless, that’s the.

Matthew Worwood::
We let kids go on social media. What is your response in terms of what is the most appropriate age or grade to introduce this? And I’m going to throw in a little bit of my second question, given the fact that we don’t actually know the impact of cognitive development as we begin to offload potentially certain aspects of the construction of knowledge, shall I say, to this platform?

Amanda Bickerstaff:
Well, it’s a very prescient question considering we just had a little bit of a wind session in our slack about a company selling ChatGPT courses for fourth to eighth graders. And so, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re highly not comfortable with releasing a bot to a young person under the age of 13. And the reason why we’re right now cautious about the age. I think you’re right, Matt. We don’t know. But it at least is aligning with the terms of service of like ChatGPT, the new version of Gemini. I think that knowing that these tools will be so embedded into our lives going forward, being able to teach AI literacy with the tools is going to be very, very important. Especially since like, genuinely the skill set required to use ChatGPT at its ultimate, like, you know, opportunity are skill sets our kids do not have.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
Questioning technique, resilience, reframing, evaluation, critical thinking. Like, if you’re really going to use ChatGPT, well, you have to have those durable skills. And it’s what we really focus on when we do our trainings. So I think that what we’re hopeful for is that at least we’re not waiting. So Instagram did not have a parental control until last year. Like, can we just say like a teen account? Like they for like that. That to me is like still one of the craziest things I’ve ever heard. Right.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
But something like character AI, which is very popular with young people. There has been some issues around suicidal ideation and actual harm that has come from young people using these tools have already responded by at least putting some projections in place. Like, not that they are robust enough, but I do hope at least that the conversation about social media has led us to being more cautious today. I will say that learning about AI and modeling with AI is something that we believe should start happening very young, especially since Alexa Siri teddy bears potentially will have AI systems within them that go beyond machine learning into generative. So to be able to know that this is not something real on their side, that it makes mistakes, it could have bias that, you know, forming relationships with that bot is going to be something that can be quite difficult because it isn’t real, is going to be important. It’s really interesting. So we do a lot of things, but one of the things that we’ve just launched is a train the trainer around generative AI literacy because we want to help our organizations build capacity. And we’re doing our module right now on student AI literacy.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
And we are kind of stumped and a little bit surprised at how little curricular material there is around safety. With AI so ethical and with more because academic integrity, effectiveness, there’s some prompt engineering, but actual safety, there’s almost nothing. And so I think that this is a place in which we’d love to see more researchers, we’d love to see more people doing this work, building these, these supports. We will, I mean it wasn’t our plan, but we’ll start building it because we see that there’s a gap. But I do think that that area is, is very under baked, even though like some of these curricula have existed for 7, 8 years because of like AI systems being a part of our life for so long.

Cyndi Burnett:
So, Amanda, one of the challenges that teachers often talk to me about is they’re afraid of not being replaced, but that their role isn’t going to be as prominent or it’s going to be different. So how do you see AI enhancing rather than replacing the role of educators in the classroom?

Amanda Bickerstaff:
And I think that the first thing is that the human component of teaching and education is so much bigger. It’s why we talk about the art versus the skill set of teaching. And the reason why is that it takes us years to get to a place where we can be proactive in emotionally tense situations and complex situations, as well as building our pedagogical content knowledge. And so I think that like being a teacher, it’s really interesting. We worked with a group of kids, we asked the question, will teachers be replaced? And the response is teachers might be replaced because they’re just giving us knowledge, but educators can’t because educators care about us. They push us when we need to be pushed. They take a step back when they take a step back. And I think that while it is semantic for them, it is like interesting to Think that like while some of the actions of teaching will change, right? We were going to see, you know, there are going to be, I think really great opportunities for early reading and early math.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
I think that we’re going to start to see opportunities for like pairing. Like there’s a tutor study from Stanford, it talked about pairing a bot with like, with different tutors that kind of reminded them about best practice and you know, take a step back, ask higher thinking skills, give them wait time. They actually found that though small, the effect was like most positive with like early and low skilled tutors. And so the idea of like pairing with a bot to help us be our best selves in those moments, I think the same way that a mentor teacher pulls you aside and says, okay, take a breath, like let’s reframe. So I think that there are some real opportunities for, you know, just being, you know, enjoying your job more, like focusing and being able to like have some of those administrative burden being released. But I do think that, you know, the only way we get there is if we take away the fear that jobs will be replaced. And I think that that’s where it is. Just we’ve been talking about replacing teachers since I was a teacher as two decades, the Internet was going to replace me.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
And I make that joke when I walk into a room like, you’re all still here. The work that you do because it is so strongly durable skills and relational, that is one of the places that is most AI resistant, consistent. Will it mean that like school will look the same or your jobs will look the same and. Or will there be less teachers over time? The answer is probably yes. But is there a real opportunity to co construct what that looks like? Because everyone is actually doing the same thinking, learning and innovating right now. The answer is also yes, if we really lean into the agency of that moment. So I mean, but I would just, just caution anyone if you think that AI systems right now can come in and replace a teacher’s work. Like what’s happening in some of like you see it every once in a while someone says an AI teacher, head teacher, or this, you do not understand generative systems, they are just not reliable enough.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
They are not going to be pedagogical. Like there are like 9,000 things. They are not. So if you’re thinking about, oh, this is what my opportunity is as a leader, or are you thinking, oh my gosh, this was happening to me as a teacher, that is not going to be the case for a while, but it is going to be Something that you’re going, like, every job in the world pretty much will change. And so being open to that change is going to be really, really important. And also, I know that we’re going to kind of shift into, like, the creativity piece, but, like, those people that can think creatively about what that change is and can be will create such worth, like, such, like, actual, like, value to their communities that that is going to be so radically important going forward.

Matthew Worwood::
Do you want to bring more creative and critical thinking into your school? Look no further than our podcast sponsor, Curiosity to Create.

Cyndi Burnett:
Curiosity to Create is a nonprofit organization dedicated to engaging professional development for school districts and empowering educators through online courses and personal coaching.

Matthew Worwood::
And if you’re craving a community of creative educators who love new ideas, don’t miss out on their creative thinking network. Get access to monthly webinars, creative lesson plans, and a supportive community, all focused on fostering creativity in the classroom.

Cyndi Burnett:
To learn more, check out curiositytocrereate.org or check out the links in the show notes for this episode. All right, so Amanda, you did mention creativity. So I want to talk about the relationship that you see between creativity and generative AI.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
So I think that, you know, durable skills are going to be the most important thing. The World Economic Forum came out with their new jobs report, which is fascinating to read and really leaning into the idea of these durable skills. So the four Cs, I mean, it’s so funny. Can we just pick one name? So critical skills, Durable skills. Skills of the future, four Cs, soft.

Matthew Worwood::
Skills, 21st century skills.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
Let’s just pick one.

Matthew Worwood::
I’m writing a chapter at the moment, and I literally said, matt, you could have to pick one. I had a whole paragraph of all the different names. I know.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
I like the idea of durable over soft because soft makes it seem like it’s not important. Durable means it’s going to last. And so I think that, like, creativity is one of those durable skills. And the idea that I’m going to take it from two places. There are people that have felt like their lack of, like, traditional creative ability whether. And I will talk about myself. I used to hate drawing on the board as a science teacher because I cannot draw and I have terrible handwriting and blah, blah, blah. But, you know, at the same time, I can make a great.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
Like, I can, like, I know what design looks good. You know, I can, you know, when. Especially when it comes to, like, a website or, you know, something along those lines. So I have some of those things, but I was never able to access them. But the idea of being able to now access those through image generation and through, like, all these opportunities to be creative in ways in which I haven’t been before is an unlocker for me. And so one of the things that we like to do, and if you’re an educator out here and you want to think about or a leader, one of the things we do is we’ll give everyone an image generator. And what we say is like, give them the same prompt. The prompt that we give them is, how are you feeling about generative AI? After we did an hour and a half together, and it’s the same prompt and it’s the same image generator, and then we do a gallery walk, the only thing they have to do is pick one, one image, and it’s only 15 minutes.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
And it is pretty wild just how different a the approaches are. Some are existential, some are funny, some are hyper realistic. The curation of them, the like, who picks what and. And it’s part of. Because these tools are probability machines that they are random. They are. They are designed to be essentially creative. You can start to do something really interesting because if I had asked people to draw that, like, no, no way would they do that, right? Like, some of the people that were like, I have a great jar would have been like, beautiful, and everyone else would have been like, here are my stick figures and can we do something else? But the idea that everyone’s into it, they’re laughing, they’re engaged.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
But also what we’ve done is we’ve taken something internal and made it external. Which think of how important that is around, like metacognition, around actually, like having like this ability to share how we’re feeling, and that’s with adults and think about doing that with students and in safe and productive ways. So that’s on one side. On the other side, your limit is your creativity. Right now, no one even knows how these tools work fully. Like, you know, the people that are the best prompt engineers are often people that are just willing to kind of keep asking the same question in different ways and like trying new things and pushing on these areas. And I think that that is a real gift because I think what we’re going to start to see is that I think of the 10,000 reps that Malcolm Galvo talks about, you know, and I think what’s going to end up happening is we’re going to have a lot of focus in the first 500. The ideation, the like setting.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
Setting an AI system on a task, right? That’s fully thought out and like creatively designed. And then like the middle 500 where we’re giving like developmental editing, like where we’re going through. So Matt, you’re talking about your book like someone actually helping you like push and pull and help you pick whichever term you’re going to use. And then that last evaluation piece at the end, right where like, is this really fit for purpose? Is this meaningful? Does this feel like it is going to provide value? Those things are going to be really, really important. And it’s quite interesting because the only way we’re going to get to that last 10,000 step is if we still do all 10,000. And so we’re going to have to do some work around convincing young people and adults that all those steps are still important because AI systems are going to be so capable of them. So I think that by leaning into the idea that like voice and creativity and humanity, right, our humanity, what makes us truly special is going to be like the most important thing we can teach young people. And when we talk to you, we had this really interesting last week.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
It’s very funny. My first job after teaching was at a nonprofit that works with these kids in the Bronx going into like to get them prepared for college. Fifteen years later I’m in there hanging out with. This is our second session we did and we were talking about college and career readiness and we were just talking about like how do you like all those things that kids, we tell them not to do and especially in low income marginalized areas. Like we actually want to create space in these after school programs where they do those things, do those creative off the wall personal voice, you know, I’m going to be the best shoe designer that ever shoe designed, you know, or I’m going to create, you know, I’m like whatever. I’m going to be the tiktoker of tiktokers. Although that’s hard for people right now. But I think that that’s where we want the world to go more.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
But the only way we’re going to do that is AI literacy Now and.

Matthew Worwood::
Obviously within AI literacy we’re thinking about the capacity to create content and to your point, being able to problem find and ultimately select solutions from that process as well. And from that hopefully we get great outcomes. And you’d reference TikTok for a moment and it just made me think a little bit about the digital divide. So I wanted to just shift a little bit in terms of the equity piece because some of the best platforms I think at the moment are still behind Paid firewalls. Right. So we’ve already got a little bit of the has and has nots emerging. But what I’m particularly interested is that within the digital divide, it’s not always sometimes about access, sometimes it’s about the outcomes to which you can obtain from interacting, interacting with the technology. So even if you engage in the same behavior, you might not necessarily get the same outcome.

Matthew Worwood::
And I think it’s probably going to come back down to AI literacy. But do you have any concerns from it, from a digital equity piece, particularly in terms of the. Let’s just think the short term, over the next five years as we’re kind of like grappling with this, you’ve got some students that are perhaps developing these AI literacy skills and the ability to think and be creative with these tools, while others perhaps are using it in the wrong way and therefore maybe even going backwards.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
I mean, I think that it’s really. There’s not one, like, you’ve said a lot of stuff there, which is great.

Matthew Worwood::
That’s what I do when I ask questions. I can’t help it. I try.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
Yeah, we unpick it slightly. I think that there’s a digital equity question. I think there is a like actual use question in terms of who’s using it with quality and who is not. And so I want to kind of unpick them for the digital equity issue, like. Absolutely. I mean, there’s already research put out, research recently that kids from lower income backgrounds have the least knowledge of ChatGPT and other technologies in generative AI space. It does find though, that like, students that are from minority communities are actually using these tools more. If they know about them, they’re using them more than their white counterparts.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
So there are some really interesting things happening and potentially that is because of a lack of resources around them to help them, which is what generative AI can be like. Which leads us to the second point, which is the idea that like, you know, are they using it effectively? If that kid is using it to lean into those missing resources, like tutoring and giving them feedback on demand and helping them do the work they need to do, studying, et cetera, then you start to see some really fascinating opportunities that actually go against the digital divide. But there is a need for pretty significant deep work at all levels. Like, you know, if I was, you know, in thinking about what we’d love to see more over the next school year is we want to see much more community AI literacy. Like give parents the opportunity to learn how to use these tools to be able to support their young people. Because those people that already have the most resources, most likely already using these tools at the paid version in their own careers. And so they’re going to be like, they’re giving their, you know, they’re doing, you know, their five year olds are getting to create bespoke bedtime stories with ChatGPT, you know, like they’re, they’re things that are happening. Right? So I do think that there is a need for us to like really have foundational AI literacy.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
And what, what I was talking to, we were talking to some people that do some funding and I’m like, why? Why hasn’t anyone said from one of these big funders in education that AI literacy for everyone is an absolute non negotiable and we haven’t seen it yet. I will continue screaming into the void, everybody. I will. I’ve been screaming into the void for a year and a half and luckily I like more and more. And that’s not that I was the only one, but like, you know, we were very, very loud about it. But what we’re hoping though is if we can get to more of a, of a groundswell of actually knowing these tools are and aren’t how to use them effectively and how to use them in ways that you actually know what’s going to potentially help you and not just replace you or like, because like if you’re giving away all that thinking, then you are not going to be replaced by AI, you are replacing your thinking with AI. Like no one’s doing that to you, you’re doing that to yourself. And I’m saying that like in a very glib way.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
We have to teach kids though how to know that that is true because there is like an enormous amount of like, no longer are we ever going to be able to say because you need to do this homework, because you need to like, you know, because whatever. No, it has to be like, you have to like we have to do this in a way because if you do this, then you will not have the skills requisite going forward. And it might seem like a siren song, but like you’re already replacing your thinking, which makes you, I hate to say this, but it makes you more replaceable in the workforce. Like, and like not only, and hopefully, hopefully there’s intrinsic motivation around learning and a lot, you know, like all those things. But we know that kids are becoming more and more disengagement is on the rise and has been on the rise, right? And so having like really real talk conversations, especially with our high school students about what is going to happen, I think is going to be really important. Also. I don’t want anybody to be replaced. I’m just going to say that, like, I don’t want anyone to be replaced.

Cyndi Burnett:
All right, Amanda. Well, you’ve given me so much to think about today. Before we go, I would like to know from you, what was your most creative educational experience, either formal or informal, and why was it your most creative educational experience?

Amanda Bickerstaff:
That’s a good question. I don’t know. I think what was my most creative? I mean, I grew up in a little town in Georgia where I don’t think that creativity was really what we focused on. I do remember being the only girl in my physics class and when we got to Rube Goldberg machines, that just being, like, the most fun. And, like, I was definitely not gonna, like, you know, I. When I taught, I didn’t teach physics, and. But I just remember, like, this opportunity to, like, really, like, get to think through these strategies and try things out. And I think one of the reasons why.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
And maybe this is kind of a funny thing, but we always do a think aloud in our trainings that’s like a egg drop challenge, like, how to do that. And one of the things I think I like about that is because it is something that is really creative. And I think that being in STEM and like, solutioning and engineering design, like, those things are really great. I don’t know. I think that, like, I also. I’m just gonna say straight up, like, I wasn’t, like, I was, like, a good student, but I was, like, not made for school. And so that might be a part of it, too, where I was kind of just. Just going through the motions and trying to, like, get to the next step.

Amanda Bickerstaff:
So maybe that was why. I don’t remember that many.

Matthew Worwood::
Well, as we know, AI in education at the moment and as we should expect it to be and continue to be, is a really big topic. So if you’re listening to this episode and you think that there are appropriate groups or colleagues in your school that you should be sharing this episode with, perhaps to help them with best practices or potentially learn more about AI and education as a company that can assist you in your school, then we encourage you to share this episode and. And, of course, rate it on your favorite podcasting platform. My name is Dr. Matthew Worwood.

Cyndi Burnett:
And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett. You’ve been listening to the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast, hosted by Matthew Warwood and Cindy Burnett. Our creative producer is Kathryn Fu. Our editor is Sam Atkins. And this episode was made possible thanks to our sponsor, Curiosity.