AI Literacy Isn’t “One More Thing” ft. Lindy Hockenbary | My EdTech Life 350

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 0:30

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another great episode of My EdTech Life. Thank you so much for joining us on this wonderful day. And wherever it is that you're joining us from around the world, thank you as always for all of your support. We appreciate all the likes, the shares, the follows. Thank you so much for engaging with our content and sharing our content around social media that really means the world to us. As you know, we do what we do for you to bring you some amazing conversations with amazing guests. So that way we may continue to learn from one another, both professionally and personally as well. And of course, this mission wouldn't be made possible if it weren't for our amazing sponsors. So thank you so much to Book Creator, Eduaid, Yellowdig, and Peelback Education for your support in our mission. And I am excited about today's show, as of course I always am excited about every show because I get to talk to some amazing educators, creators that are out there doing the work, that are out there helping educators and are just everywhere at conferences. And of course, today's guest is pretty much all of those because it seems like she is everywhere. And that is something that is fantastic. I've been following her on LinkedIn for a very long time. And I would love to welcome to the show today Lindy Hawkenberry. Lindy, how are you doing?

Lindy Hockenbary: 1:58

I am great. I'm so excited to be here. I'm a longtime listener of my EdTech Like podcast. And it's great to be on the other side and be on the podcast.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 2:07

Yes. Well, I'm excited that you're here too. And of course, I know we talked a little bit pre-chat, and I know you've got some exciting things too that you are working on, and that really gets me excited too as well. So maybe we'll share a little bit of that later on in the conversation. But before we get started, Lindy, for our audience members, if there are any that are out there that may not be familiar with your work yet or haven't connected with you yet, can you give us a little brief introduction and what your context is within the education space?

Lindy Hockenbary: 2:38

Absolutely. So my name is Lindy Hockenberry. Hawkenberry is a lot. So shorten that down if you think of the Lindy Hop. I am the Lindy Hopp. You can just shorten that down. Everybody's always like, well, do you do the Lindy Hopp? I'm like, no, I don't. So you don't let me to dance. But it is a really good way to remember my name. I have spent my career in education. I started off as a middle school, high school CTE teacher. I taught business and family consumer sciences. And when I taught business, my classroom was a computer lab. And this was in the mid to late 2000s before like laptop currents were a thing, Chromebooks didn't exist. So when I say my classroom was a computer lab, it was literally a computer lab. Like 25 old school desktop computers with the huge towers and the really deep monitors that took up almost my entire classroom in little tiny rural Montana. So using technology as a learning tool always came natural to me because I always had that quote unquote one-to-one environment. I had never heard that term at the time, but um that's now, you know, the term where every kid had a device in my classroom. And in fact, I love this little tidbit. My classroom was the only device access that the seventh through 12th graders had was my classroom. So because the other end of the building was the K6 and they had a computer lab, but the seventh through 12th graders weren't allowed to use the K6 computer lab. So the only computer lab they had was my classroom. So I constantly had the seniors coming in in my class out of my classroom, typing their scholarship applications and their college applications and doing their AP English work and such because that that was the only option that they had. And that then led me into a career in ed tech. I worked as a technology integration specialist. And then for the last 11 years, I've been a K-12 ed tech advisor and strategist, helping schools, educators unpack the effects of emerging technologies on their curriculum and their instruction. So I do a lot of professional development, a lot of thought leadership around the K-12 ed tech space.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 4:50

That's excellent. And you know what? What a great experience from when you first started and just being within a lab the whole time. And I mean, you've seen it all, you've seen everything, you know, and the way that uh, you know, at the rate of change that everything is going, it's just been amazing. And the fact that you were there also helping students or seeing them just, you know, type in their scholarship applications and so on. I mean, a lot has changed now, and I know that you know that for a fact because I know that you are at pretty much almost every major conference and a speaker. And again, if you do not follow Lindy on LinkedIn, please make sure you do so as because she really shares some important things. She shares obviously the work that she's doing at conferences, but also the thought leadership aspect of it, you know, just uh profound questions that are out there that are definitely very engaging. But Lindy, I want to go back a little bit here, you know, and your experience that you mentioned, you know, working, going from classroom to tech integration specialist, and of course, now professional development and being able to help other, you know, other districts, other campuses, and at that conference level. I want to ask you, you know, at what moment or what was one moment in your early classroom days and teaching that kind of shaped the way you think about educational technology?

Lindy Hockenbary: 6:14

Oh, I love that question. I have when I'm teaching business. Business education in the US can be very business, it can be businessy, like marketing and accounting, or it can be very tech heavy. It can be a mix of both. Mine was very tech heavy, hence the computer lab being my classroom. And this was at the time where, you know, smartphones were just starting to become a thing. Like I remember my kids had their hands in their pocket, like texting on their flip phones using the old T9 text method, you know, during this time. And I just remember looking at them, and my accounting class was a great example of this. We were doing the old school pull out the paperwork books and do the t-charts and follow the textbook. And I looked at this group of kids from rural Montana and I went, you know what? No, they need to learn QuickBooks because several of them, and several of them are going to to this day, like run, they're gonna run their family ranch, right? And they need to understand QuickBooks. So I literally I bought QuickBooks, so I had to put like sticky notes on the computers that had QuickBooks on it, and I just totally changed like mid, might even be quarter of the way through the school year. I was like, nope, we're changing gears, we're gonna learn QuickBooks because this is what you guys need. And that to me was like a moment where I was like, these kids, and honestly, I was really young when I started teaching. I was only four or five years older than some of my students that were seniors in high school, right? So we I went in the elder millennial group, they were solid millennials. So I had experienced that huge shift of like in high school, I was taught how to use a card catalog in the library. And then when I got to college, I was expected to know how to do a Google search and use Google Scholar and use these online databases to find research. And I had never been taught that when I was in school. And it's nobody's fault. It's just the sign of the times and the change. And I looked at them and I was like, you know what? They are in the exact same position. Let's throw these work paper workbooks out the window and let's give them a 21st century whatever, use some jargon there, right? Like learning experience. Um, and that was just a key moment for me as a teacher to be like, nope, you know what? The world is changing. This is no longer relevant. We have to change and switch. And that has really guided my education and ed tech career ever since then.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 8:54

Nice. And that is great to hear, you know, especially that you know that transition and your story of going into college and learning how to use, of course, the computer, uh, you know, Google Scholar, and then of course, databases and everything. And for myself, I mean, I'm gonna age myself too, in the sense that, you know, getting out of high school, you know, we were using card catalog. And then when I got into university, you know, we did have access to the databases and things of that sort uh there at their university. But I was still, you know, for some courses, I was still using um the microfiche machine. And for a lot of you may hear microfiche, you're like, what is that? It's really essentially like film uh that you're putting in into this projector and you're still seeing like articles from magazines or newspapers and things of that sort. And that was more for my history class and courses and so on. So definitely, like you said, a sign of the times as far as how much has changed from even now, you know, being out of university for a while now, everything is changing continually. And I think uh, you know, the fact that you looked at this in that lens, you know, I I don't I must commend you on that because I think sometimes, you know, we we can get so busy with our pedagogy and what we're doing and the curriculum that we just kind of stick to that. And we really sometimes educators may not look forward to what is coming or what is already there, and that our students might need just a little bit of change in the way that they're receiving those learning experiences.

Lindy Hockenbary: 10:29

And uh yeah, we're going through that right now. We're going through like it that exact scenario, and actually, I use this example. I have a training idea that's all about how AI is changing research, right? And I use that exact same example of I tell them my experience as a high school and college student and how I would I didn't go into college prepared, and it wasn't my high school teachers' fault. They and I went to school in rural Montana, I taught in rural Montana. If you didn't get the hint, I live in Montana. Um I and you know, my rural Montana teachers, they didn't have the resources for somebody to teach to tell them and teach them that research was changing. And in fact, I literally full circle, another full circle in my education career this summer. I was able to do some sessions at the Montana after school summit. And so it was all Montana teachers that run these after school programs. And one of the sessions I did at their summit was all about how research skills are changing in the age of AI. And so uh the one of the very first questions I asked is I'm like, who is using perplexity? I think maybe one hand of 35, 40 teachers in the room went up. And I said, Who has never even heard of perplexity? Almost every single hand in the room went up. And I said, that that's that pivotal shift. We're literally living through that right now. If you're a high school teacher and you're not even talking, even if you don't have access to the technology, talking and having the conversations with your high school kids about how research is changing and how to use tools like perplexity and illicit for research, you're not preparing them for it doesn't matter if they don't go to college. You're not preparing them for whatever path they take when they leave your classroom.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 12:42

Which right now, this is a nice segue, and you kind of hit a little bit because this is the next question that I did want to ask is I know you and I, uh like for me, my my philosophy has always been the KISS philosophy. Keep it simple and streamlined. I know some people put something else on that last S, but for me, for another version of Yeah, there's another version out there that's floating around, but that's not mine. I have always been one of those that I want to keep it simple and streamlined for all my educators. And so I want to ask you, you know, with that example in mind that you gave, and I know you kind of hit on it a little bit, but in your experience, you know, we know, at least for us that are out there and doing the research and, you know, always trying to stay at least 10 steps ahead, 15 steps ahead of everything that is happening. We know that essentially the technology is supposed to help us make things at least a little bit more streamlined, a lot easier. But sometimes in some ways, it's still making things a little bit harder for educators, and mainly because there might be some educators still that may feel like, okay, this is something else that I got to guard against. This is just another thing added to my plate. So I want to ask you, you know, in your experience when you go talk to educators and to conferences and so on, how do you flip it on them to it kind of maybe help them change that mindset?

Lindy Hockenbary: 14:05

I love that. The the I call it the one more thing mentality is really ingrained in education and for good reason. Educators are filled to the brim. I use the analogy of a jar of marbles, and education is like a jar of marbles that is overflowing, and we keep throwing marbles in, and then they're just falling out and rolling all over the floor, and people are tripping over them and stepping on them and falling and breaking their legs, and we just keep throwing more marbles at it. Right. So, like there's very much this mentality of not one more thing, not one more marble. Don't throw one more marble at me. So, literally, like that is my one of my main missions in the work that I do is to help educators and get them to see and give them strategies and tools and templates and toolkits that help them make it so it isn't one more thing. One of my big initiatives right now is this idea. I'm working a lot in AI and education, as you can imagine, a big focus around AI literacy and the importance of AI literacy. Well, of course, when you go to a teacher and they're like, hey, guess what? You got to teach AI literacy now. One more thing. When I don't have the time when I do it. So my perspective is this idea that AI literacy isn't extra, it's core. And what I mean by that is technology does not exist outside of core curriculum. Humans create technology because they went to school and they learned and they understand core curriculum. They know math, they know science, they know English, they know social studies, music, the arts, right? Like on and on and on and on. CTE, of course, all of them. It's because they know and understand these things, they're able to take that knowledge and create these really amazing technologies. But then what do we do in school? We take and we pull that completely out of our curriculum and don't embed it, right? Where so let's use the example of AI literacy. AI, when you boil it down to the basics, is literally math. It's pattern recognition. AI is looking for patterns, it does it very, very quickly, way faster than human brains, right? In order to make predictions based upon its training data set. That's math. So I show teachers how you can actually take and embed AI literacy concepts within the standards and learning goals that you're already teaching. Does that make sense? So it doesn't have to be one more thing. It doesn't have to be an add-on, it doesn't have to be its own class. You don't have to have an AI literacy class now that we know how important it is to teach AI literacy, right? Which is typically what we've done with the concept of digital citizenship. It's pull it out. I have a whole nother initiative about that, but I I won't go there right now.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 16:58

Yeah. And I but I agree with you. Sometimes it just feels like we silo all of these things. And that's why it just feels so overwhelming and overbearing on teachers that it's one more thing. But if we give like yourself being an awesome bridge from the world of tech into the classroom and showing how and bridging that tech and those initiatives and the generative AI and digital literacy and all that good stuff, and you're that bridge to show them how this is already or can be embedded into their core content is something that is fantastic. And I think sometimes we do miss the mark. And I'm talking as far as at the district level, because I think it's the this is the way we've always done it. Any new initiative is just an add-on, but why not let it be something that is built in or that they can see that it is already something that's built in and that you're just uh, like I always say, sprinkling a little extra to what they are already doing great. It's already sprinkled in there. You can, you know, build off of that. So I really like that that you're sharing that with us because I think oftentimes what we hear and what I see on LinkedIn, and you and I are very active on social media, it's like we see like initiative, you know, through initiative, and then you see, for example, this organization has got, you know, digital, digital literacy, um, you know, AI literacy. Then this other uh, you know, foundation has, you know, AI literacy. And I remember your question on LinkedIn, it's like it's like almost like saying AI literacy first that many times it kind of loses its meaning, and we really don't end up not knowing what it is because everybody has a different definition of it. But I love the way that you are framing this for the teachers, that it doesn't have to feel like an add-on. It's already something that you're doing, but you're making that connection. That's fantastic, which kind of leads me again to my next question. This is fantastic the way it's working out. But a full disclaimer, I did not send her any questions, but it's just working out great as far as you know our conversation. But you know, uh Lindy, you have done, and again, and again, I I sing your praises because you have been doing so many great things. And I know once people connect with you on LinkedIn and we share all your links, they're gonna see you know your experience and and the wealth of knowledge and the wealth of work that you're putting out there. But I know that you do help teachers and and in schools trying to make um, I guess, learning real and and especially with technology. So I want to ask you, you know, what does real learning now in 2025 look like, especially with generative AI in the mix?

Lindy Hockenbary: 19:51

I love that question. I if you follow me, you know, one of the things I love to talk about is assessment and redesigning assessment. I've been talking about this for years, and then now generative AI, especially, and agentic AI really is forcing us to really have to redesign assessment. And let's not lie, like, we've needed to redesign assessment for a long time in K 12 education. Of course, I'm very much generalizing and stereotyping a bit, but in general, there's pockets of success out there. But in general, we really need to rethink assessment. So, in terms of like, how do we make Learning real in the age of AI. I think there is a huge reason that we need to move from focusing on products to focusing on process, right? How how much more do we make learning real than going through the whole assessing the whole process of learning rather than just that final test or essay that is written? So that's number one. And then part of that too is adding in the authentic student experience is voice reflection, is huge. I like to call it X-ray vision for teachers. Because think about it. When you hear a student explain something, what do you understand about photosynthesis or mitosis or um I just watched the new Frankenstein movie on Netflix? What are the the undercurrents of the Frankenstein uh book, or whatever it is, whatever topic you're teaching, right? What better way to know if a student is truly understanding the learning outcome, the standard, than to hear them explain it? Right? And there's no way that you can ex you can fake or use AI to inauthentically or somehow copy and paste a voice reflection. Like a true rifted voice reflection, right? So I actually created this framework, I call it the assessment puzzle. I created it in the last year or two of this idea that one way, and I want to stress that, that this is not by far not the only way to redesign and rethink about assessment in the age of AI, but one method, one strategy that you can do is this idea of thinking about different puzzle pieces. So I have a puzzle piece that is text. Text is still very important. There's a puzzle piece that is um video, there's a puzzle piece that's voice reflections, there's a puzzle piece that's collaborations with AI, annotations is a big one, right? And the whole idea of the framework is you take, you need at least three puzzle pieces to make a puzzle. Like two pieces, like that's not a puzzle. It requires no critical thinking about how to put those pieces together, right? But once you add a third piece in, you now have a puzzle. So you need at least three pieces of a puzzle, of these different puzzle pieces, and put them together to create this assessment. And it have to include voice reflection, but I won't lie that I feel like what there's some puzzle pieces that have more oop than other puzzle pieces, and voice reflection is one of them. And again, like what better way to make learning real than to talk through and explain your learning process?

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 23:12

I love that. I love especially that framework, you know, really it just the fact that you have four and then you know, using three out of the four to assess, you know, I think that's fantastic. And I do agree with you, you know, uh all of those are all great. And but like you said, you know, sometimes there's some that have a little more oomph to them. And for me, I'm with you on the voice. I am a big proponent, and even while I was in the classroom, is just using like students having the record their voices, uh, record their presentations, you know, doing voiceovers, and just getting their thought process. There's just something so genuine about it, and it's very true the way that you describe it, as far as being that x-ray. Because one thing is for them to, and again, nothing against writing. Uh, you know, that writing is an important component too, you know, they can go ahead and write, and but there's just something about them when even you hear their inflections when they speak, their their facial expressions. It they're still conveying a message there. And again, like you said, you know, being able to tell, you know, what their thought process is. And even though they may do some research and they may um, you know, get generative AI to help with an outline or anything like that. But when they present it to you in such a way, I think that that's something that is so valuable there. And that's why for me, just podcasting in the classroom is something that has been great. And little micro podcasts that are like 90 seconds where I would say, okay, here's what you need. This is what I need you to explain. Here's the topic: World War II. Uh, so that's the main I need a main idea. I need you to describe to me or tell me uh what started World War II, who the main characters were, and how did everything end. And you have 90 seconds to do that, and you have to do it in the third person, you know, and so I would give them and and implement different ways of them to be able to do these uh podcasts. But the fact that now they have to think about the process, they have to do the research, now they're writing, now they have to trim the fat and keep it lean so it's within that 90 seconds and make sure that it hits all of those expectations there that were in the rubric. And it was just amazing what they were able to produce. That I what one of the gains that I did see is that my emergent bilingual students were acquiring proper vocabulary and also just the English language was a lot more fluent. That from beginning of the year to the end of the year, you saw a noticeable difference. And the fact of the matter is that now, as teachers, and I always tell them that, you have a digital learning artifact that if you ever need to go into a 504 IEP ARD and whatever other alphabet suit meeting you need to go into, you have evidence of learning from you have evidence of where the child started to where they're at now, maybe mid-year at the end of the year, and there's documentation there rather than just showing up and saying, well, they're they're getting 70s, they're getting 60s. Well, what can the student do? Well, study more. Well, no, I mean, look at what I have. I have them, look at how they're speaking, look at the growth. We need to work on this. This is how they're gonna improve. And now you have a plan of action that you can share. And so those are some of the things, too, that I mean, uh that I always say that with what you're doing, those are wonderful artifacts that can be uh set aside in a folder and portfolio that they can continue to take along with them as they move on from year to year and show that progress, but also evidence of learning. And I think that's so powerful. I mean, and even in my dissertation courses, I had talking about principals, I had assistant soups in some of those courses. And I remember my professor saying, Okay, guys, this is what we're gonna do for this uh semester. You have a choice board, you get to choose how you want these 22 contact hours. You can either read a book or do a book study, uh, you can go ahead and write an essay, you do uh whatever way or combination thereof, and just the look on the adults' faces when they're like, like, what do you mean? And I was so excited. I was like, this is amazing because this is what I do with my kids. And I was, I was like, this is this is my gem. Like, I'm totally gonna ace this class. And of course, there's me raising my hand saying, uh, Professor Jewett, uh, can I do a podcast? Sure, go ahead. I was like, that's it, I'm done. I got an A, I'm good. But everybody else in there, that what shocked me was it was more of just tell me what to do so I can mimic what you're giving me to get the A. And so I love your framework that it just it's not about mimicry, it's about actually putting thoughtful effort into the learning and showing the real learning. So, man, that's great. That is great, Lindy.

Lindy Hockenbary: 28:06

Yeah, that's your example of a podcast, is literally one of the examples I have in my assessment puzzle toolkit that expands on this framework. Is so one of the ELA examples is record a podcast and formally reviewing a book, include a visual cover image for the episode too. So again, that's bringing in those different puzzle pieces, right? We've got the visuals, that's important, but not just the visuals. There's text layer there, but then adding that audio, that voice reflection over the top of it, like perfect. And you you said it, it's genuine, it's genuine. And what's the conversation around AI right now? Not just AI and education, but AI in general. AI slob, right? Is the new, if you haven't heard this, actually named the title of my assessment puzzle toolkit is Tired of Student AI Slot, solve it with the assessment puzzle toolkit. Because the new there's literally, it's such an issue both in education and the workforce right now that we've come up with this pop culture term to describe this inauthentic, this non-genuine production of information that you can now do with mostly generative AI, right? Voice reflections, annotations. That's genuine, that's authentic, that's real learning.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 30:12

I love it. I love it. That is fantastic. All right, so here's my next question to you, Lindy, because I'm always curious too, and especially with somebody like you that gets to visit so many schools there in your area, but also I'm obviously presenting many times, and you have different teachers that come in. So, from your vantage point, what might still be some of the biggest misconceptions that are out there that teachers are holding on to about AI?

Lindy Hockenbary: 30:41

Oh my gosh, where do I start? The amount of misinformation and misconceptions out there is is huge. We're chipping away at it slowly. Uh culture doesn't help, pop culture doesn't help, social media doesn't help right in like furthering that that those misinformation, those misconceptions. Um, I think one of the big things I'm trying to get across is that we lump and I'm guilty of it because it's easy, right? We say AI in education. And that's a lot that encompasses a lot. There's so many different branches. So one of the things I'm working on right now is trying to pull those branches out and be like, okay, we have this I we're we're in AI and education, we're both teaching with and about AI. We're also learning with and about AI and defining what those mean, right? So when we say AI literacy, we're talking about we're learning about AI. We understand how the technology works so that we have foundational knowledge to be able to critically evaluate the outputs of this technology and the goods and bads of the technology. But then you have like this idea of teaching with AI, and that's where teachers can use it to save time, produce greater, faster, better instructional materials, right? Um, then you have the idea of like using AI as a learning tool, like leveraging the power of AI to be a learning tool. That is where the most misconceptions, well, I shouldn't say that because there's a lot of AI literacy misconceptions out there, which then trickle down, right? When you don't have that foundational knowledge, whenever I have school administrators contact me and like, hey, I want you to come do a training with our teachers on AI, my number one question is do they have foundational knowledge? And I have an infographic I send them that has four sections that outline the things that they need to understand compliance, basics, right? Data privacy that's kind of under the compliance part, how to critically evaluate and why it's so important to critically evaluate. And I tell them, I'm like, if your teachers don't have this, then we can't move forward and do any like teaching with AI or learning with AI until they have that foundational knowledge. So that's number one. But then the misconceptions when you get into the using AI as a learning tool, it's huge. Um, there's the misconception that if we're gonna do that, then that means that students are staring at screens all day and we're just getting rid of every other pedagogical best practice out there. And that's not the case at all. In fact, one of the trainings I do is I model to teach it. I'm big on modeling and putting teachers in the student shoes. And I actually have them experience a lesson where we we don't start with AI at all. We actually start by looking at a Google Arts and Culture gallery and a piece of paper and them writing good old pen and paper, them writing down the things that they see in the Google Arts and Culture collection. Then we do collaborations with humans. We talk to each other. What were your observations? Oh, I didn't notice that you're right, though. I did notice you, oh yeah, and we and they edit, right? Then we go into like the collaborations with AI. Like, hey, now that you've had this initial information, this is an optional piece that can exp, it's not necessary, you don't have to do it, but guess what? It can further expand your learning to go have this one-on-one conversation with an AI chatbot, right? To be able to translate it into Spanish if you're a multilingual learner or, you know, right? Like take your prior knowledge as well as the collaborations and reflections that you've just written on your paper and build on that. But then again, we don't stop there. Then from that point on, then we evaluate. They go through and they fact-check everything because they have to fact-check what they saw, they have to fact-check the conversations they had with their fellow learners, they have to fact-check the outputs from the AI, right? So, really, this model AI lesson I'm doing, a teen little piece of it is actually using AI. And then one more thing, there's a lengthy, you, you, you open Pandora's box for me, is you're not just using any tool as a teacher, right? Like we're not going to ChatGPT. We're not, we're using a tool that is school approved, that's compliant. And two more really important factors there in choosing a tool to use AI as a learning tool. That's a huge misconception, is you need a tool that is guardrailed and that has a teacher dashboard. So the teacher can see. So the guardrails make sure that that AI isn't letting going off the rails or giving outputs that are deemed not school appropriate or giving misinformation, right? Like it has those the the guardrails around it, and then the teacher dashboard allows the teacher complete control and visibility into everything that's going on with the students having those interactions.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 36:07

You know, one of the things that I want to go back to is just the way that you describe this, and and I think for a lot of teachers, they really need obviously they they need to hear this podcast and they need to hear the way that you describe the work and the work that goes into it, that it's not just putting them in front of the screen, they get on AI or generative AI platform and just like you mentioned, you know, getting the slop and just submitting that. But the fact that not only are you having them let's say visit a website, like you said, the arts and culture, they're getting some information, they're writing this down, they're having that, you know, thought partner or peer, peer-to-peer discussion. There's discourse, there's all all of that going on, even before you're even using a an AI tool or a generative AI tool. I think that that is something fantastic because I think honestly, some of the biggest uh misunderstandings that are out there, I think, is just that teachers just say, Well, I mean, we don't want to use AI because they're just gonna get on the screen, get whatever's on Chat GPT. But the way that you modeled this and explained it, and going back even to when you were we were talking about AI literacy, like some of these components, some of these things are already embedded within that content as far as the way we do things that can tie into the technology. And so I am I was really taken back and just like this is this is amazing, and and people a lot more people need to hear this. So I know that that's definitely gonna be a great sound bite for me to share about this because it it's just fantastic. So now one of the things too that I did like is that you said, you know, it's not just any tool that you're gonna use, but that you do provide in that um I guess the the major suggestions of what using a tool that obviously there is compliance, there are guardrails, something that would have a teacher dashboard just to be able to see those things. So I want to ask you now, as you know that Chat GPT now is available to educators, uh, and it's supposedly just not gonna be training on any of your data at all whatsoever. Um, I did go and sign up and just to see, you know, uh and what happened is I was prompted, it said, okay, you know, your email works, check, it's it's uh education email. Then of course I was prompted to uh would you like to connect your Google Drive? Would you like to connect this? Would you like to connect that? And that's where I got a little iffy. Where I was like, I know you're telling me that you're not gonna be training on my data, but why would I want to connect? Or you're asking me, like, for a better workflow, connect this and connect this and connect this. And I don't know, I just got really iffy about it because I know that they're also saying this is gonna be free through 2027 for teachers. What do you think that this is gonna look like once we get into 2027? Do you think that now you know Chat GPT has entered that market already within education where now the teachers won't be able to live without it? And so, what are your thoughts on that?

Lindy Hockenbary: 39:14

Oh, I love that question. I so I shared out the announcement was last week. I shared it out in my Vember newsletter that hey, this is brand new. This is huge, in my opinion. One of I have been preaching for by the way, this week is the third anniversary of ChatGPT. Or of 2022 is when it came out. So three years I've been preaching that teachers, in order to teach AI literacy to their kids, have to have AI literacy. And an important part of that is having access to frontier models that have the capability, the full capabilities. Because oftentimes the tools that are compliant are not those frontier models. They're older models for many, many reasons. A lot of it has to do with costs, it has to do with integration, like so many things. I won't go down the technical rabbit hole there. But when you as a teacher don't have access to those models that are sometimes significant improvements, you can't see the full capability of the technology. So then you don't fully understand. One of the things I do in my um my assessment puzzle conference session when we're talking about redesigning assessment in the age of AI, is I give them a preview about where the technology is. And most of the time I have gasps and big wide eyes and jaws dropping to the floor because most people have no idea because what's available at the consumer level and then is limited compared to what's available at the enterprise level. And then what's usually available at for schools and teachers that's compliant is usually a step below what's available at the consumer level, right? So if you haven't seen what this technology is capable of and how fast it's moving and changing, you might not, as an educator, fully understand and embrace that reason and why you have to change and you have to learn yourself. And you can't just Just fan in the block and ignore the technology. Does that make sense? Yes. So in terms of that, that's where I was like, oh, this chat GPT for teachers is huge, right? Like this is this could potentially be huge to give educators unlimited access to the frontier models. And that's that was the key difference for me. So up until last week, you had to pay $20 a month for Chat GPT to get not limited access to the frontier models. And the free version of Chat GPT, and that's another thing. If you only ever worked in the free version of Chat GPT, you don't even understand that you're limited or what a frontier model is because there's no way to toggle between different large language models in the free version of Chat GPT. So from that basic AI literacy perspective, I was like, oh wow, this is huge. But I made sure to say in my newsletter, this is brand new. I'm still exploring it. They're saying they're compliant, but this has to be checked. So one of the things that I do not love that they did that ChatGPT, or I should say OpenAI did with ChatGPT for teachers, is they made it so that any person from a school can go sign up and verify and basically like claim that school's domain, right? Where really it should be required that like a tech director or someone from the school is doing that and is going through those compliance checks and then adding teachers from the school in with their school email addresses because that's a huge potential compliance breach that's now out of the school's control. So I really don't like that part of that. Um, I am digging into like, all right, they're saying they're compliant, but what level, like what are their privacy policies actually saying? Are they actually FERPA compliant? Um, that's really, really tricky to determine, and it takes diving in to and actually looking at their privacy policies to determine that. So, moral of the story is I think it's a huge potential win, but still a lot of unanswered questions only being a week into the release. Yeah. Does that answer your question? Yes, absolutely.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 43:32

Yeah, I mean, great answer. And again, like to me, it just seemed like well, when they're encouraging you to, oh, go ahead and uh, you know, connect your Google Drive to this and connect this right there. I was like, I just really don't feel comfortable with that, you know. Yes, exactly. You know, it's for teachers, it's not gonna train on my data. And so for any teacher, it's like, well, it says it's not gonna train on anything. Sure, let me go ahead and and just go ahead and add my Google Drive to it, where I was like, well, wait a minute, you know, do you own that Google Drive? That really belongs to the district too as well, you know, because it's part of their domain. And like you said, there are other things out there that we may not know about, and how maybe there might be some data that is still being used. So again, just proceed with caution. That's what Lindy and I say. So just make sure that um, you know, do a research and do your thorough research at yourself too before using and just to make sure that everything is good. Now, Lindy, as we kind of start wrapping up a little bit, I did have a couple of questions here as far as uh I know you did mention, you know, you are coming from Montana, so I know that probably there's a lot of rural school districts that are out there in those areas. So I want to ask you, because I mean, obviously, I live in a different demographic here than in a rural area, but what is it that you see that are some unique challenges for the rural communities, the educated educator communities? Uh, what is what are some things that they face as far as adopting AI, uh, maybe beyond the budget, things of that sort? Where do they stand? What do you see?

Lindy Hockenbary: 45:09

Oh my gosh, where do I start? This is this is my life. This is how I got into ed tech. Well, not exactly, but kind of. I got into the work I'm doing right now with ed tech was to support those small rural schools. Because I was there. I was a teacher in a rural school, and I knew how it's sometimes impossible to even get technical help, let alone instructional help. Um, so there's that. But for B, the biggest thing with the small rural schools is they don't have the manpower to work through things like compliance. That that I mean, honestly, that's number one problem right there is compliance. So then you've got teachers that are like, hey, I want to do these things and I, but I have to have access to technology tools, and they're going, well, you know, either we don't have the staff to review them and determine if they're compliant, and or we don't have the budget for them. And then the teacher feels like their hands are tied, right? And then that kind of leads to burnout. When you as a teacher feel like, hey, I'm not doing right by my students, I'm not preparing them to their future for their future. And like I know that, but I feel like my hands are tied, that's a really hard place to be as a teacher. So, so that honestly, that's for me number one. Um, I also think the misinformation and the fear mongering is another one. And don't get me wrong, like I am very anti-fear mongering. I think that fear mongering is very not productive, but sometimes people take that to mean that I am just pro-tech everything and pro-AI everything. And I tend to take the cheerleader perspective because that's my job. I want teachers to feel like we were talking at the beginning of like tech isn't one more thing. It can be easy, it can be seamless, right? We can do this and we have to do this for the sake of our kids. But that does not mean that I'm still not making sure that I am recommending tools that are compliant, that are safe, that are secure, that are guardrailed, right? That have teacher dashboards, etc. Um, and that's the part where again, when you don't have the resources, manpower and budget being the two, right? Time and money, the two big resource, major resource limitations in education, then you don't even have the ability to touch the technology and interact with it or do it. And then you've got this misinformation and fear-mongering, and there's nobody there to help push against and be like, actually, no, actually that's not true, or actually that's not how this tech works, or you know what I mean? Or push not only push back, but go, oh no, you're right, that is a legitimate concern because there's a lot of legitimate concerns that we need to discuss when it comes to AI in particular and tech in particular.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 48:07

Excellent. All right, great answer. Well, Lindy, it has been an amazing pleasure to have you on the show and just talk all things at tech generative AI with you. And I definitely learned so much, and I know that our audience members listening to this show will definitely take a lot of great gems that you shared uh with them today. And of course, I encourage all our listeners to please make sure that you click on the links in the show notes so that way you can follow Lindy and you can visit her webpage also as well. But Lindy, let us know for our audience members that are wanting to connect with you, or maybe there are some school district leaders that are listening and say, hey, you know what? We we need Lindy to come and really work with us and help our teachers. How what might be the easiest way for them to get a hold of you?

Lindy Hockenbary: 48:56

Yes, my website. My website is the key to everything, lindyhawk.com. So that's l-i-n-dy-h-o-c dot com. That will give you access to all of my social channels, my blog posts. I do a lot of events and webinars and podcasts are all linked from there. I have a lot of really great resources in my blog. You can also get my assessment puzzle toolkit. It's 20 pages, it's a free download. It's on the website as well. Um, yeah, you can reach out to me, you can contact me. I'm active on socials. That is the key.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 49:31

Lindyhawk.com. All right, excellent. So we'll definitely make sure we link that. And you heard it here, guys. Make sure you go to that website so you can connect with Lindy. And please make sure that you do connect with her on all socials. You do not want to miss out on all the great things that she puts out, and then that way you'll also know where it is that she'll be. She may be in a city near you, and maybe hey, you can go ahead and stop by that conference and you know, see, catch her presentations. All right, Lindy. But before we wrap up, I always love to end the show with these last three questions. But because you are a very special guest, I'm throwing in a bonus question that wasn't shared with you. So hopefully you're ready for that one. But let's go ahead and do the ones that we are for sure familiar with. And so, as we know, Lindy, every superhero has a pain point or a weakness. And for Superman, kryptonite was his weakness. So I want to ask you, Lindy, in the current state of education, or a and this encompasses uh AI in education too as well, what would you say that you would consider to be your current edu kryptonite?

Lindy Hockenbary: 50:37

Oh, definitely the act like it doesn't exist culture in education when it comes to technology, like pulling the wool over your eyes, acting like outside these classroom models, the world isn't changing and that technology doesn't exist. And I'll tell you why. It's because it removes you from the conversation. And in order to shape the future of technology and make sure it goes down the good path and not the bad path, you have to be a part of the conversation. And you means everyone in the school, your teachers, your leadership, your staff, and of course, your students all have to be part of that conversation.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 51:15

Fantastic answer. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that one. All right, question number two if you could have a billboard with anything on it, what would it be and why?

Lindy Hockenbary: 51:28

Oh, so this is I I told you I kind of got into this early, and I was like, I won't go there now. But one of my initiatives is this idea of that we have need to reboot civics. So my billboard would say, reboot civics, there's no such thing as digital citizenship, it's just citizenship because AI is pushing us into this realm where it it's not just digital and the mix of being a good citizen and digital citizenship is getting very intertwined. And think about it like the way that you interact with AI is so much grounded in your values and how you consider your civic responsibility as a member of society.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 52:07

Fantastic. That is a great billboard. Love it. All right. Next question: if you can trade places with a single person for a day, who would that be and why?

Lindy Hockenbary: 52:20

Oh, I love that. My husband and I actually talk about this fairly often. It would be a someone in a philanthropic position, especially like a philanthropic woman. And the reason is is one, I just want to be able to like know what it feels like to be able to just give, right? And two, I would use that day if I had a day to switch places to give to kids. I would give to schools, I would give to kids, I'd give to makers, but all the things I would give to kids.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 52:53

Nice, love it, love it. All right, and here's my last question for you, and I think that this is something that's very fitting, you know, based on the conversation that we just had. So I want to ask you if you had the opportunity, or actually I should say the power to give every teacher in America one tech superpower that they don't currently have, but I'm not talking about a tool, I'm talking more maybe like a mindset or skill. What would that be and why?

Lindy Hockenbary: 53:26

Oh, it would totally be what I was talking about at the beginning of the episode of being able to take technology and everything, and the idea of algorithm, social media, and social media algorithms, and and how AI works and embed that into what we're teaching because it fits so perfectly and it's so relevant to all of our lives, but especially Gen Z and Gen Alpha, which are all K-12 kids or either Gen Z or Gen Alpha right now, right? And it would add so much more relevance to learning. And we are really, and again, generalizing there's pockets of success, but overall, K-12 education is lacking relevance, and I think that has a trickle effect to so many of the other challenges we have in K-12 education. So adding relevance and teaching those information literacy concepts as part of the core curriculum and the standards that we're already teaching. To summarize that in one second.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 54:28

Love it. Great, thank you so much, Lindy. I really appreciate you being here today and being just an amazing guest. I had a wonderful time here learning more about you, learning more about the work that you're doing. So I definitely wish you the best in the remainder of this year and wish you a successful 2026, you know, as you make it out there, travel and getting going to conferences and all that great stuff. So, and as always, once you are a guest of Maya Tech Life, you always have an open invite. So whenever you got your next book, whenever you've got your next big project or anything, or oh, we didn't even mention this. Uh, or I don't even know if we should or not, but I know that you are working on something that you know should be coming up.

Lindy Hockenbary: 55:09

But I don't know. Yeah, we can we can talk about it.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 55:11

Okay, yeah. So let's add that little segment here. Because I was gonna say, you know, or maybe when you start your now I can officially say it, your podcast, then you know, you you can definitely come back. So I'm really excited. So, but before we wrap up, tell us a little bit more about that project, Lindy.

Lindy Hockenbary: 55:29

Yes, I'm super excited. I've been working on this for a long time. I am starting a podcast. It's called Make EdTech 100. If you follow me, that's kind of my my tagline is this idea of let's make ed tech real. Let's talk about real strategies, let's talk about what's happening in real classrooms, real stories from educators. So, yeah, if you go to my website, lindyhawk.com, it'll it's not up there right now, depending on when you're listening to this. This is Thanksgiving week, November 2025, but soon. Like I should have it up there in December by the end of 2025 for sure. You'll be able to see my uh make a tech 100, and it'll be on all of the podcast platforms too. So you can always search there.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 56:12

Love it, love it. You heard it here first.

Lindy Hockenbary: 56:15

You're you're already on tap to be on there, so I'm gonna get to interview you. We're gonna switch positions.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza: 56:22

All right. I love it, I love it. Well, you heard it here, guys. I mean, there is there really anything that Lindy can't do, you know. So this is fantastic. So thank you, Lindy. I really appreciate it. And again, for all our audience members, please make sure you click on those show notes. Make sure that you go to lindyhawk.com, make sure that you follow Lindy on all social media. I promise you, you're gonna definitely enjoy all the content that gets put out there, and you're gonna definitely learn from it and engage with it. So, again, she is fantastic. And again, for our audience members also, please visit our website, myatech.life, where you can check out this amazing episode and the other 340 plus episodes, where I promise you you will get a little golden nugget from that you can already sprinkle into what you are already doing. Great. And again, this wouldn't all be possible if it weren't for our sponsors. Thank you, Book Creator, Eduate, Yellow Dig, and Peel Back Education for your support. And until next time, my friends, don't forget, stay techie.