Bill: Well, hello and welcome to the Hillbrook School Podcast. My name is Bill Selleck. He him. I am the director of technology here and we are in season nine of the pod.
Dana: Dana.
Bill: People say the POD if they're cool and young. I am neither. But yet here we are.
Dana: I might be both.
Bill: You are both. You are. That's why I brought you here, Dana. Thank you.
Dana: Who are you?
Bill: Why are you here?
Dana: I am a human. And I'm here because I'm the lead kindergarten teacher here at Hillbrook, going on my 17th year of education, and had the honor of teaching in China for eight years. And now the esteemed pleasure and privilege of working here at Hillbrook School in Los Gatos, California.
Bill: I love it. And you and I are doing something awesome this year. We're doing so many things awesome this year. But the thing we're going to talk about this season is AI in education.
Dana: Yes, AI in education.
Bill: And what is our thing?
Dana: Our thing is bringing AI into the classrooms to make teachers more efficient and more effective in their teaching and learning. And also for the children to explore ways that they can stay up to date and use AI responsively, making sure that it ties into our values, such as being kind when they use it, being risk takers, but also being curious.
Bill: I love it. The way that's actually showing up for you and I, work wise, is we're leading a year long pd. We have what, maybe a dozen teachers and faculty, administrators. Humans.
Dana: Yes.
Bill: And we're leading them through some activities, some projects, some discussions.
Dana: Yeah. And so far the feedback has been really positive. We already have some teachers that are already in their level one certification of school AI. So that's been really good. We also had the of having our head of school, Mark Silver, join us for our first training on that, and he was really surprised and impressed by it as well. So it's looking up.
Bill: Yeah, it's going to be great. And so this year, this season, we can call it a season, right?
Dana: I guess so, yeah.
Bill: That's what they're doing. This is also. Is this to hear it, right? This is your first podcast.
Dana: My first podcast, yep.
Bill: Yeah. I let Dana push the record button. Yeah. Yeah. So look forward to his own podcast at some point down the road. I think I can see it in your eyes. You've got the smile in your eyes. You're hooked. What we're going to do this year is actually take that group of about a dozen people and I'm going to sit down with them and talk with them a little bit about what they're doing what they're curious about, what they're trying, what they might want to try, but are scared to try. But then they're on the podcast and then they're going to actually try all the things. It's going to be exciting. Dana, I want to jump in a little bit. You mentioned our core values. What I love about what we're doing with AI and education, because it's changing. So, so f rather than have a school policy, this is what you can do. You shall never do this. You will get whatever for this, whatever. If you behave this way. Here's the consequence. It's our core values. Be kind, be curious, take risks, be your best. And we're using those as lenses for how we use AI.
Dana: Absolutely.
Bill: So you had that example. Which one of those did you pick? Was it being kind of.
Dana: I think for me, my core value would be being curious. As you said, it's always evolving and changing. And when you're in education, you really have to be curious and stretch yourself, but also bring that excitement and energy into the classroom. And so for me, it's the curious value that reigns supreme right now.
Bill: So I'm going to answer it first and then I'm going to put you on the spot and make you answer it. Also, what's the thing in AI that you're most curious about now? My answer is two very quick things. So sora. So depending on when you're listening to this, either this just came out or this has been around for a while, but the ability to take text and turn it into video is now something I've been able to do for a week. And so far it's been silly and mostly not useful. But it's the idea of how do we play with it, how do we figure out how to make this interesting and useful? And for me, really with all technology is how do we leverage this to get students more excited about learning? How do we do this to deepen the learning? And that's going to come. But also I think just when you get new tools, just playing with the tools and also being mindful that like, wow, knowing what's real and what is not real, that's a real problem now.
Dana: Right? Right.
Bill: The second thing that I'm super, super excited about and really curious about is OpenAI release codecs macOS terminal, where you type in all the super nerdy commands. You can install codecs on that instead of having to do the super pseudo JAMF recon terminal commands. This is my hacker voice. I guess it just gives you a Rectangular bar. And you just type in normal English, which you don't do in terminal, but you can give it access to a folder or directory if you're being in terminal command. And it can edit code for you. So it's no longer the back and forth coding. And so we're recording this podcast. I have my own personal podcast. And I was like, is there a way that it can actually just speed up that workflow? Like auto, add the intro and outro? Can it upload to my website? Can it help me with the blog post? And the answer is yes, you can do all of that, but it takes a while. It's like 10 minutes of coding. And so I'll be like, add upload to FTP, go, and then back to email for 10 minutes and then check on it. It worked. Let's see. Oh, it didn't work. Fix the bugs. 10 minutes later it worked. That's amazing. I can now add my intro music for my own podcast, upload it, and it's done all in that app. So being able to play with actually using codecs as a way to write kind of custom apps is I think, what's really, really interesting. Because for so long it was about like, what's your idea for an app or for a website or for a company? That's a cool idea. Give me three slides. And that's as far as we got. And we're at the point now, I'd say really starting in like sixth grade maybe, where a student could have access to this interface and legitimately build a working app within like a quarter or like a class. Not a class period, but like in a unit, people actually knock out like an actual app.
Dana: Yeah.
Bill: And that, like, that could change everything about learning, right?
Dana: Yeah, it could. And then for me, more so from a teacher in the classroom, teacher facing perspective, it's how we kind of create our lessons and how we can add the elevated aspect of differentiation to our lessons. So if you have kids or who are very into fairy tales, like Elsa or Frozen or dragons, things like that, that you may not find, like graded readers for, you can have AI generate a piece of piece of work for them to read that interests them. And it's not just see spot, run, you know, but it's actually, you know, a subject or a topic that they're interested in. And then you can say, you know, create, you know, five different levels of, you know, readers for kids who are interested in this. This to extend their learners who are above and to kind of support those who are needing a little Bit more support. I know the fear is that people think AI will take care, take the teacher's role and the place of a teacher. But I don't think that will ever happen because you still need that social element. Because the kids at this age, they still need social emotional learning. And I think that's where it's really important to have that human element. Well, but that's also. That's what school is exactly.
Bill: It's learning with. This is why we come together in a place. Exactly right. And that will always need to be a thing. This is how humans learn. Yeah, I love it.
Dana: So that's what I use it for also to kind of help with. If you have 25, 30 students and you're writing progress reports, you can help it. The AI can help you kind of write those reports for you. So you're not spending hours and hours writing different reports and comments. So that's one thing. Another thing actually that I find extremely helpful in the classroom.
Bill: I love it. I love the idea. Scott Bedley calls it hyper personalizing. He's a fifth grade teacher down in Irvine. It's not just let me kind of individualize instruction, which we know all good teachers do. But like that's hard, that's time consuming, that's exhausting. So to actually get some support with that, to do some of the heavy lifting and then you can take that resource and tweak it and take your expertise and really make it that, that hyper individualizing. I love that idea.
Dana: In addition to that too. It's become really helpful trying when we part with the parents. If parents are like, oh what can I do at home? Or what can I do to help my child in this and things. The kind of like the support or the advice we would give them years ago has changed because the learning profile has changed. So we can use.
Bill: So give me like the old version. What would you have said five years ago?
Dana: You know, have them practice writing their letters or you know, their numbers or their high frequency words five times and you know, copyright and try to do it again without, you know, all that kind of outdated. But now you can ask ChatGPT or other AI. So, oh, you know, a parent is struggling or want to help their child in this area. Can you give them five examples or five resources on how they can help at home. So I know with shapes and stuff they can do like a shape scavenger hunt around the house and sort and things like that. So I think it really kind of goes beyond what we as teacher normally would supply for our Families, but now giving them an elevated resource portfolio.
Bill: Well, I mean, it's almost the same answer that you already gave. Hyper personalizing, but it's for parent relationships.
Dana: Exactly.
Bill: Yeah. I love that so much. And it's also like what I'm hearing is it's not things you wouldn't do or things you don't know. It's not like you're sitting here as like a brand new teacher that has no idea what to do or a veteran teacher that has no idea what to do. Right. Like there's plenty of those. Like you have this deep expertise, but it's just like supercharging you. So I can't imagine being able to teach kindergarten and having 20 of those conversations with 20 parents and come up with all those resources. But then, right. It gets you up and running, it does the heavy lifting and then you can tweak it for that and be like, ah, that one's not good. But this, this and that. Oh, and that reminds me of this and that, you know, so something that would have taken me like an hour to do to send an email to a parent. You know, you can get those ideas very, very quickly, customize it, take your expertise to polish it, Keep the good, toss the bad, polish good, and then you're off to the races.
Dana: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I think there was something that you and I talked about in our staff is using staff development with the AI, is creating choice boards, right. Using the UDL design and having kids, you know, the earlier finishers or those who need extension, having a choice boarding, having AI create that in addition with the students, having them put their input into as things that they would like to do when they're done with their work.
Bill: Yeah, I love that. And that's, that's again like a similar thread of like someone really loves Frozen the movie. Yeah, right. You might be able to find a reader. Right. But you're not. You have to track it down and buy it. Right. So like at some point that budget is going to go away.
Dana: Right.
Bill: And then beyond that, you're stuck at whatever reading level it is and those types of books, it's like it's a level two.
Dana: Right.
Bill: What is, what does level two mean?
Dana: Right.
Bill: What does this even mean?
Dana: Right.
Bill: So to be able to say like, you know, whatever, like you're using to rate books in whatever school you are at, take that and be like, you know, they're at like a level C reader. Give me a level C. You know, this is the Lexile we're using. Paste it in Right. Teach the chat what that level means. Give an example, like, give me it at this level on this topic again, it's that hyper personalizing in a way that you never could have imagined previously. It's so exciting.
Dana: Yeah. Very exciting.
Bill: Yeah. So we're gonna be asking everybody over the course of this season, like the big kind of reflective prompt, if you will. I feel like I'm in very, like, teacher mode right now. Our reflective prompt for the season. What I'm asking everybody is, what do you hope AI will make possible for students? And so I'm asking Dana, you this now, and then you, the person listening to us right now, like, what is the hope for what AI can make possible for students? Thinking time.
Dana: Yeah, that's a great question.
Bill: Yeah.
Dana: And I mean, it's so difficult for like a five year old to kind of come up with that. But I think the one thing here at Hillbrook that I love is for our Scott center is like, you know, who we are matter and what we do in the world matters. So teaching the kids at a very young age that, you know, what they. They matter as human beings, but also their impact on society. So teaching them how to be responsible users and consumers of AI and how they can use that for good. So I think that's kind of what I hope is possible for them, that they always try to find the good when they use AI.
Bill: Well, I love that. That's actually a much more elegant answer than what I had said previously around the. Like, let the kids code an app. Right. So the Scott center for Social Entrepreneurship at our school asks two questions. What matters to you? And what are you doing about it? And so everyone can answer that first one, what matters to you?
Dana: Yeah.
Bill: I found some people, adults get caught off guard with that because they're not used to being asked that question.
Dana: Yeah.
Bill: Which is really interesting. But it's a beautiful question. And then that what are you going to do about it? And what I think AI enables in education is that kind of supercharging and that deep scaffolding for what people can do about it.
Dana: Correct. Correct. Yeah. And I think to that point, it's one of the things you always hear growing up. Right. Is what do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to be when you grow up? But if we reframe the question to not what do you want to be when you grow up, but what problem do you want to solve in the world and what tools do you need to do that and what community or what partnerships will you need in the world to make that happen. And I think maybe AI would kind of help prompt those and help get those cultivating ideas to reality.
Bill: Yeah. That's so beautiful. And that's so exciting that we can actually have those really, really big conversations with students and then actually give them some support to be able to actually make a dent in that and not just have it be. If I could, I would do this thing. Okay, well, so do it.
Dana: Yeah, exactly.
Bill: Get on it.
Dana: Yeah.
Bill: Yeah. That's amazing. Dana, what's the next thing you're going to look at personally? Put your teacher hat on. We were just talking about students. What are you most excited about right now? What are you most curious about for.
Dana: For AI or in general?
Bill: Well, both. Either. And we're talking only AI in education. Come on.
Dana: Yeah, I think. I think I'm curious on how. Because it's becoming so, like, real and very difficult to detect. I'm most curious about how we're going to detect the fake from the authentic AI. I mean, now you see a lot of it going around in the political realm and things like that. So I'm just really curious to see if there's going to be an app or an AI program to detect fake AI. That's kind of what I'm curious about.
Bill: Yeah, well, I mean, we're seeing English teachers already battling that. They have been for three, four years now. You know, today I write this.
Dana: Right, Right, right, right, right, right. So.
Bill: But that's gonna be a problem with photos and video now. In a way. Yes. And what you're naming is Media Literacy education. Yes. Right. So quick, shout out to namely the national association of Media Literacy Education. I'm a board member, so I gotta like, okay, sure, check out that. Everyone should join. It's free. Be a member. Okay, right, but plug. But of all. Big plug. Come on, come on. Now, of all the times to really double down on media literacy education. I don't know that it's ever been kind of a theoretical thing.
Dana: Right.
Bill: But I feel like in the K12 space, there's been less of a pressing need for it. You're like, sure, that's great, but I teach kindergarten. Why does that matter? Yeah, but now, like, I would not be surprised when you go back to your classroom in 10 minutes if a student's like, I saw this video last night where a blah, blah, blah, you know? And you're like, what? Yeah, you know, even silly things. Like, I was watching this cartoon where A little baby kiwi cartoon. Have you seen this one? It's the Most adorable little baby Kiwi. Like a cartoon Kiwi, the fruit eating kiwi fruit. And it makes, like, the most adorable little sounds. And so, like, my middle schoolers are watching this at home and clearly, like, it wasn't, is this real or fake? But, like, just the idea that you can, like, conjure up the idea of a tiny. Why do we even call it a tiny Huey? Yeah. Toddler baby.
Dana: I guess so.
Bill: A cartoon kiwi baby eating kiwi fruit.
Dana: Yeah.
Bill: And then see a video of that. Like, that now exists. Right. You're not putting that back in the bag.
Dana: Right, right, right.
Bill: So then how do we have those conversations starting in kindergarten? How do we have richer, deeper conversations around those topics in middle school and in high school, and then what do we do about it?
Dana: Yeah, good point. Excellent.
Bill: Yeah. It's silly, it's fun, but it also can be kind of scary.
Dana: Yeah. Right. And then also when you think about the resources that it takes for AI. Right. The water and all these things. So it's really being a conscious consumer of it. Yeah.
Bill: Being more intentional about it.
Dana: Exactly.
Bill: I love that. Awesome. I'm looking forward to this season.
Dana: Yeah, same here.
Bill: It's going to be exciting.
Dana: Yeah.
Bill: We're going to have you back on at some point.
Dana: All right. Thank you for that.
Bill: Deep into who you are. I know you already answered. You're a human.
Dana: Yeah.
Bill: I love that answer so much.
Dana: From planet Earth.
Bill: Yes. I appreciate you clarifying that. I was going to ask, like, off mic, which. Which planet are you human from? Yeah. We're going to dive a little bit deeper into what you're thinking about, what you're trying out with students, what you're working on on your own. It's going to be good. We're going to ask other folks that. Yeah. So stay tuned. Season nine.
Dana: Yeah.
Bill: We're almost to double digits, Dana.
Dana: Yeah, we are. I'm so happy and honored to be here to share the. The podcast, not the stage. I don't know what it's called when you're in, but the podcast.
Bill: Share the mic.
Dana: Share the mic.
Bill: You know, see, you're the younger one that's supposed to be cooler and, you know, all the things.
Dana: Share the space.
Bill: There we go.
Dana: But, yeah, I appreciate this time and this opportunity. And, yeah, guys, you leave some, you know, questions in the comments. If there is a comment section. I don't know. On a podcast, if we have comments. But, you know, call in, dial in. I don't know.
Bill: I don't know that we can do. Call in. I'd have to like, we need to have our phones and front of us. And I'll just like, oh, this is me holding my phone right up against the microphone.
Dana: It's not a radio station. Dana, calm down.
Bill: We can pull that off. You're just. You're making more work for me, Dana. Okay, you know, this is out of control.
Dana: You know, I'm here to. I'm here to stretch and challenge you.
Bill: I love it. Awesome. Well, Dana, thank you for joining us.
Dana: Thanks for having me.
Bill: Yeah. We're gonna have a good time this season.
Dana: Yeah, we will. And to all. Good night.
Bill: Sam.