July 10, 2025
Episode 328: Job Christiansen
AI in Schools: Innovation or Illusion? | Ep. 328 with Job Christiansen Is AI making classrooms smarter—or just noisier? In this episode of My EdTech Life, I sit down with Job Christiansen, a fellow cautious advocate, educator, and instructional technology specialist, to ask the hard questions about AI’s role in education. From privacy concerns to the illusion of “safe use,” we unpack what most educators, tech leaders, and decision-makers aren’t being told about the tools flooding our schools....
AI in Schools: Innovation or Illusion? | Ep. 328 with Job Christiansen
Is AI making classrooms smarter—or just noisier?
In this episode of My EdTech Life, I sit down with Job Christiansen, a fellow cautious advocate, educator, and instructional technology specialist, to ask the hard questions about AI’s role in education. From privacy concerns to the illusion of “safe use,” we unpack what most educators, tech leaders, and decision-makers aren’t being told about the tools flooding our schools.
Job doesn’t just read privacy policies, he tests them, creating teacher and student accounts to see what’s really happening behind the interface. This episode dives into why most AI tools may still be stuck in the substitution phase and what it’s going to take to truly shift toward responsible, innovative, human-centered use.
🎧 Whether you're in K–12 or Higher Ed, this one will challenge your thinking.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
02:00 Job’s Journey Into EdTech
06:00 First Reactions to ChatGPT in 2022
10:00 Early Adoption vs. Caution in Schools
13:30 AI's Substitution Trap & SAMR Concerns
19:00 Redefining “Safe” in AI Tools
24:30 What Job Found Testing Student-Facing AI Apps
30:00 Historical Accuracy and the AI “George Washington” Problem
36:00 The Concept of AI Pollution and Knowledge Dilution
43:00 Transparency, Trust, and Teacher Responsibility
47:00 Final Takeaways and Reflective Advice
50:00 Where to Connect with Job
54:00 EdTech Kryptonite, Billboards, and Historical Curiosity
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00:30 - Welcome and Introduction
02:06 - Job's Journey into EdTech
06:49 - First Encounters with ChatGPT
10:59 - Teacher Adoption of AI Tools
19:12 - Safety Concerns with AI in Education
27:53 - Testing AI Guardrails for Students
36:37 - Historical Figures and AI Accuracy
44:35 - AI Pollution and Information Quality
52:36 - Final Thoughts and Closing Questions
WEBVTT
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Hello everybody and welcome to another great episode of my EdTech Life.
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Thank you so much for joining me on this wonderful day and, as always, thank you, as always, for your support.
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We appreciate all the likes, the shares, the follows.
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Thank you so much for your feedback too well, as that is always welcome.
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As you know, we do what we do for you to bring you some amazing conversations that will help us continue to grow within our education space.
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A wonderful guest, somebody that I follow on LinkedIn and somebody that shares a lot of great posts and a lot of great insight about AI in education, so I would love to welcome to the show Job Christensen.
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Job, how are you doing today?
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I'm doing.
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Great Thanks for having me on the show, Fonz.
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Excellent.
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Well, I'm excited to talk to you, job.
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I know after a couple of posts on LinkedIn, I kind of started seeing you know that we do.
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After a couple of posts on LinkedIn, I kind of started seeing you know that we do have a couple of mutual friends and kind of posting within the same post and I was like I really like your insights, I really like what you have to share and, again, the reason that I reached out to you was just because I would really love to just amplify your voice and hear a little bit more about your perspective and experience within the education space and mainly with AI in education.
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So, before we dive into the conversation, can you give us a little brief description about of you know?
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Excuse me, can you give us a little brief bio and what your context is within the education space?
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absolutely so.
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I'm a relative newcomer to the education space.
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My background actually is that I'm I went to school and studied history, I got a bachelor's and master's in history and then I never really could get a strong career started with those degrees.
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So I did a couple different things.
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I worked for some nonprofits and then so three years ago I actually saw a job opening at a school, basically for basic tech support, and especially at one of the nonprofits I'd worked at, I had been hired basically because I had like website skills on my resume.
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Right, it's always those like hard skills that they were looking for at that time.
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This was 10 years ago.
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So I worked for this nonprofit for three years and over the course of those three years they just continually found, like they figured out, that like, oh, like this is broken, maybe Job can fix it, instead of going to like the contracted IT guys that they had.
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Right, it was a really small nonprofit, like 12 of us, so anytime you can cut costs with just like Job fixing it.
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So I just would tackle things, approach things, start playing with all these different stuff, like it was like Salesforce database and then like the VoIP phone system, just all these different tools.
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I just kind of cut my teeth on and I, I I began.
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I'm not formally trained in technology, I just jumped in and learned it by using it and playing with it, so anyway, so I applied to this school and I think they really they really liked that attitude of like you can just learn by doing and you have that like go get them heart.
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And so I was basic tech support for this school.
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So that was three years ago and it's a K-12 private Christian school.
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So just to give you some of that background too, because that plays into just how I think of things and approach things.
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Think of things and approach things and I think that having that humanities mindset of those history degrees has given me like a unique perspective.
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So now where I am at the school, after the first year the tech director who hired me stepped aside and a new tech director came in, and then this last year, instead of just being tech support, this new tech director saw that I worked really well with teachers and so he kind of moved me over to being what basically is some sort of like a tech coach.
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I'm an instructional technology specialist now, so I work with the teachers to help them use the tools more effectively in their classrooms.
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Use the tools more effectively in their classrooms.
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But through this whole process, I really found that I, even though I was hired for like technology and that's what a lot of the you know like I'm the guy everyone called up for, like hey, my computer's not turning on job, and I was there in five minutes.
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I was, you know, I was like the tech support you really wanted, but that wasn't enough to keep me passionate and going.
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So I've now been pivoting, and some of the stuff that I write about is even it's not so much the technology that excites me, it's really just I view technology as a vehicle.
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But what I really have gotten excited about over the last few years is the learning process, and especially how do we just get better at learning?
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And so I see at times technology can help that and sometimes it can't, and so that's kind of my approach and my brief synopsis of all that.
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Excellent.
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Well, that's good to know and that's good to hear your background too as well, as I think that that will definitely, you know, lend itself to this conversation very well.
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Especially, you know, and talking a little bit about that coaching, with your coaching experience, which you saw in education and especially with AI in education, and being that you are in a private school also as well, it's very interesting just to get those perspectives as well, because one of the things is, you know, in the public school sector, it's very interesting just to get those perspectives as well, because one of the things is, you know, in the public school sector, it's depending on the size of your school, usually the bigger you are, the more platforms you get to have, as opposed to a smaller school, due to funding, you have to be a little bit more just tight with your money and budgets and so on.
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So, you know, getting that experience and, of course, that perspective from private school too, as well as teachers and students, how they are interacting with a lot of platforms.
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I would definitely love to hear that.
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So I want to ask you, joe, just on your own, before getting into education, I would love to hear what your thoughts were.
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November 2022, taking it way back.
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And as soon as you know ChatGPT was out, what were your initial thoughts?
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Were you an early adopter?
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Were you did you?
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Were you kind of a wait and see kind of guy, or did you just really kind of wait it out until you said, okay, let me see what this is all about?
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So I would just love to hear your experience through that.
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Yeah, so I had started at the school that previous August.
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So I've been there I don't know.
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So November was like three months in, right.
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So I'm three months in.
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I was aware it came out.
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I went and made an account at OpenAI ChatGPT.
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I typed one prompt in like not knowing how to prompt, right, and it was something about like create a guidelines or policy for our school.
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I saw it and then I was like kind of cool and then I didn't touch it for a long time.
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My thought was just this was I'm kind of a slow adopter in general with technology in my life.
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I just kind of grew up that way.
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I was kind of behind the curve, so I want to be aware of things, but I don't always use the things.
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And so at the time I was just apprehensive because I didn't know really what AI was and I was worried.
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It was kind of like the way that it's portrayed in media, that it's had like a life of its own, and so it was kind of like skeptical but maybe optimistic.
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Skeptical, but I'm not someone who's just gonna like jump in and use it right out the gate excellent.
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Yeah, then that for me was something very similar, like I'm kind of an early adopter, same thing Just kind of went in and then I just kind of backed off a little bit just to seeing as how things were moving and especially within education and seeing and learning more.
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Because before and I kind of wanted to it kind of goes to a post that you kind of put up recently where I honestly thought, oh my gosh, like this is really magical, you know, and I was like, oh my goodness, this is great and this is going to go ahead and do a lot of transformation, and so then, kind of seeing the way things were going and understanding a little bit more about how LLMs really work and so on, and following other people from both sides Obviously I want to hear, you know, from the, I guess, for AI crowd or, you know, the early adopters.
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And then, of course, we've got sort of the cautious advocates that are kind of in the middle just kind of seeing things through, and then you've got, you know, some of us that may just kind of hang back a little bit more, but it was very interesting where I just kind of said you know what?
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Let me kind of slow things down and understand more that.
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You know, not everything has to be AI, but the way that the perception was is like, oh my gosh, this is going to save me time, this is going to save me from burnout, this is going to save me from, you know, this situation and so on.
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Just, I guess, creating work, or having something ready lesson plans, of course, or get rid of the Sunday scaries, as a lot of platforms kind of you know, they prey on those things and saying like, oh, this is the way we're going to sell.
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And I'm going to go back to Micah Shippey, who was on the show a couple of months back saying, you know, fear, uncertainty and doubt are what sells, and that's really what they kind of do, you know.
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And coming back from Misty, there are many platforms that are out there and you're kind of starting to see kind of like the top five that are really kind of getting out in the forefront and kind of being, I guess you would say, the educator favorites.
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But I want to get your thoughts on that as far as when you started seeing it, you know, with your teachers or you know, were your teachers early adopters too, and as you were kind of going through and helping them out.
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Were you seeing some of the things that they were working on and what were your thoughts on that?
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I'd say we had a handful of early adopters, but in general, it's just a lot of like caution, and so I think actually where I've really started to see it like creep in or just appear is not with the tools that are built as-specific, but in the tools we're already using.
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I started to notice there'd just be AI features start to appear, and that's when I started to become a lot more conscientious of this is going to be in here whether or not we are actively choosing to sign on.
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We're using AI.
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It's just appearing in the tools we're already using, and so, unless we're just going to get rid of all the tools, we need to figure out how to use it.
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Okay.
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Excellent.
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So now your teachers, as far as being able to use it, and were they using it?
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How were they using it?
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Was it mainly just for, like you know, worksheet creation, was it?
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You know what were the initial, you know ways that they started adopting the technology yeah, I think, I think especially that first year we kind of put out a like.
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It was kind of like banned.
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It was basically, um, I think especially like no students, um, but if teachers want to, they can.
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And then the second year it was more okay.
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Here's kind of like some rough guidelines.
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I, I don't know, it's kind of foggy in my mind um, um, I would say the teachers that use it I know the one that was a really early adopter and now is kind of like one of the main people in the building I go to if I want to have a discussion about AI.
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She generally, I think, uses it to help create like lesson plans and things.
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She's not someone who uses worksheets, so it's not like that doesn't appeal to her.
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It's all about like lesson plans, rubrics, helping to revise or come up with new projects.
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Think of more like using Add a Thought Partner is how that teacher especially is using it.
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I'm trying to think about the other teacher, but generally those teachers are specifically a lot more tech savvy, and so I don't actually get a lot of interaction with them because they don't need me.
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They don't need to ask me for questions or even to necessarily fix their equipment.
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Um, they just can pick up something and run with it, and so, um, they just were given the freedom to do that on their own excellent.
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so, as the kind of uh, you know, of course, the progression of ai from 2022 and its initial stages, like you said, you know, uh, thinking of it as a thought partner and, of course, the progression of AI from 2022 and its initial stages, like you said, you know thinking of it as a thought partner and, of course, we have so many names for it too as well, that, you know, kind of letting people know, like this is not going to or should not be your tool to just offload everything, but it's just supposed to be that tool to help supplement or help improve, you know, the learning process or maybe within the lesson plans and so on.
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So I want to ask you, you know, now that you've seen this kind of shift and now that you're more familiar with a lot of the platforms out there, what are your initial thoughts now that you're seeing, you know?
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Now, it's basically maybe about five platforms that are really, you know, kind of garnering everybody's attentions and everything, as I saw at ISTE.
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Usually it's about those five that are there, that are kind of, you know, weeding themselves out and coming up to the forefront.
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What has changed as far as your perception of the use of AI in education?
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the use of AI in education.
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I think, like widespread there's.
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I guess it's like you said, that they, that educators, are recognizing that it can help save time.
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It's hard for me to kind of.
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This is partly why I'm on LinkedIn a lot and I'm interacting with people, because I want to get that outside perspective, because otherwise I'm going to end up in my own little private school bubble, right, and I don't want to just stay there.
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I want to know what's happening at other places and where this field of education is shifting.
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It's hard to get that sense, though, on LinkedIn and even in other places, because it's all.
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It feels like it's all over the place.
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I feel like there are people that are creating all their lesson plans and using it as thought partners and using it in innovative ways with students, and then there are people way over here that are just like we're not even touching it yet, right, like it's not even allowed in our classrooms or schools, and so it's all over the place.
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So the people that are picking it up and running with it, my impression, I guess I would say, is that they are a little I don't want to say like overly optimistic, but in general, I think they see the benefits of it.
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But where I get a little cautious is on, like, the safety and the data privacy side.
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So I think that's where that shift happened and especially I don't even know if most people recognize this but where I get a little.
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I'm less enthusiastic about the big tools that are well-known now in the like, you keep mentioning the big five, which I probably could name at least three, and they're just wrappers for the LLMs and so it's just like prepackaged prompts for educators to use.
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And once I put two and two together and figured that out, I'm like, oh, this is less exciting.
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I thought they actually built a brand new.
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They call it tools, right.
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You go into one of the big five, right, and there's like 150 tools specifically for educators, right, and they call them tools.
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And I'm just like the tool is just a pre-programmed prompt that's talking an API back to the LLM.
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So if you know what you're doing which some of the teachers I interact with do they don't even go to the big tools, they just go to the LLM, because they can actually get what they want faster than trying to work through a prepackaged prompt If you don't know what you're doing, and I think that's where the shift has kind of come.
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Educators don't have a lot of them don't have the time.
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I refuse to believe they don't have the skill.
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I think we are capable of learning and picking up new things, but I think a lot of them just don't have the time to go to ChatGPT and learn how to prompt the way they can get what they want.
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So they pick up one of the big five tools and someone like Charlotte shares with them hey, I can get you like a rubric and a lesson plan in 10 minutes.
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And I think to themselves oh wow, like I only had 10 minutes today and I couldn't get done what I wanted to do, I'm going to try this and so that's where that shift is happening.
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But I still think it's like if you're using one of those big five tools instead of like an LLM or actually learning all the background, I feel like you're stopping yourself short of actually using it in a creative and innovative way and it just becomes another tool.
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Like it just becomes another tool and the big thing is that it's a substitution.
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I think I hinted at this in one of my recent posts I was talking about like AI.
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We're still at the level of substitution, and we're not.
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It's.
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I have not seen much that's at the level of modification and reinvention, which what I'm talking about is the SAMR model for using ed tech in schools, and this year I've started.
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I have a newsletter at my school that I started and I've started actually educating the people in my district about like the SAMR model, cause I think this is actually kind of not I don't know how many teachers actually know about it, right, and so everything that I'm seeing from most of these big tools are, like you said, like you can just make a worksheet.
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That's the same as what they had before.
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We're just making worksheets faster.
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So we're just doing the same thing we did before, but we're doing it faster.
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But are we actually doing it better?
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And what I care about, my guiding light is now how do we learn better?
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So if worksheets were working before, why do we actually need AI?
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We can just keep doing what we were doing before.
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You know what I mean.
00:20:06.721 --> 00:20:08.715
Yeah, no, and that makes perfect sense.
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You know, and there's a lot of things that I want to unpack there.
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So one of the things that we'll kind of go back to is the safety issue, because I know you mentioned it right now, you know during this answer, and I know that you've pointed out that safe isn't really a neutral term in that sense.
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So I want to ask you, you know, in your opinion, and I know you did post about this on LinkedIn how should school leaders you know with your experience and what you have seen, define and communicate what is safe use, or actually what safe use means in that practical and developmental terms.
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This is a really big question.
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So, partly this year, just to give you some historical context because, like I said, I come from a history background, so I approach everything from context.
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Figure out the context.
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First, we put together an AI task force and I was on that to come up with a formal policy.
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So we're discussing safety, formal policy so like what we're discussing like safety, and so some of the things we looked at other policies from other schools and what we kind of ended up on safe use really kind of relates to like ethical use.
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So the way that we're thinking about AI tools is it's kind of the same way we've been approaching other edtech tools and so safe use has to do with not using it to inflict harm on others not.
00:21:53.230 --> 00:22:18.869
I don't want to just use not phrases, but especially where it gets tricky with AI, it is a lot more convoluted than other or previous ed tech tools, so I guess I want to approach it from like okay, let's talk about just like the teacher side.
00:22:18.869 --> 00:22:22.381
So what would safe use for teachers look like?
00:22:22.381 --> 00:22:46.959
Teachers are still responsible for any output, anything that they create with it, but, as anyone who's used AI knows, ai is not necessarily always going to give you verifiable or authentic not authentic their word is escaping me but sometimes the output's just going to be wrong.
00:22:46.959 --> 00:22:55.019
And so safe use is actually putting on your thinking cap and actually vetting what you're getting.
00:22:55.019 --> 00:23:10.878
Where I see some really big flags and some shocking stories from educators is when they put information into an AI tool that contains private information about students.
00:23:10.878 --> 00:23:22.006
That contains private information about students, and so the tools on the back end we don't know where that data is going.
00:23:22.006 --> 00:23:24.728
So that is an unsafe use, right?
00:23:24.728 --> 00:23:28.699
That's like buying a billboard and just posting that student's information on there.
00:23:28.699 --> 00:23:33.456
You don't know who's driving by that billboard now and taking down that student's information.
00:23:33.456 --> 00:23:37.940
So on the teacher side, that's definitely like unsafe use.
00:23:37.940 --> 00:23:52.002
On the student side, it's all kind of the similar things Like don't put your private information in there, but where I would actually almost think of safe use as a misnomer.
00:23:52.002 --> 00:24:05.531
I don't know that there is a genuine, real safe use in the sense that if you think something's safe, you can use it freely without any harm coming to you or to others.
00:24:05.531 --> 00:24:24.113
And I don't know if AI has actually I'm hesitant to say AI has actually reached that level or especially even the ways that these companies are trying to put these protections and guardrails around the package and the wrapper that they're pulling from the big LLMs.
00:24:24.113 --> 00:24:32.700
I'm not sure I haven't really seen good guardrails and so in that sense I'm hesitant to actually say it's safe.
00:24:32.700 --> 00:24:43.462
If we want to actually jump into what do I think some of the issues are, I actually, when I test out an AI tool, I don't just read their privacy policy.
00:24:43.970 --> 00:24:57.118
I create a teacher account and then, especially if it has like a student facing side, I have a dummy student account and so I'll make assignments from the teacher and then I'll send it to my student account and interact with it as a student would.
00:24:57.118 --> 00:25:15.438
And so where I really don't see these tools as being safe are the things that I test and sometimes it puts me in a dark mood, but I, from my background working in tech support, I would actually see sometimes what students type in Google, right?
00:25:15.438 --> 00:25:39.532
So if you just take how a student uses Google, how they might approach using an AI tool, they're probably going to start using it the same way as they used Google and so students might start typing in things that are giving social, emotional cues, things like I don't feel safe, I might be depressed.
00:25:39.532 --> 00:25:40.694
I've tested.
00:25:40.694 --> 00:25:48.698
I've literally typed into an AI tool like I didn't explicitly say I was running away, but I was typing in questions as if like how?
00:25:48.718 --> 00:25:51.352
do I buy a plane ticket to meet up with my friend, right?
00:25:51.352 --> 00:25:54.076
And I wanted to see if the AI tool would pick up on.
00:25:54.076 --> 00:25:57.844
Does it actually know that the student wants to run away?
00:25:57.844 --> 00:26:06.221
Because an adult would pick up on that and they would intervene, and so some of the tools did, okay.
00:26:06.221 --> 00:26:32.634
And then where I get hesitant, though, is it just says, like I sense you're in distress, please talk to an adult, but then it might just move on and the student can just keep typing in and it would just move on as if nothing happened, whereas an actual adult would recognize that and intervene and need to have a conversation like there's something's going on with the student, and so, in that sense, none of the AI tools that I've used played with.
00:26:32.634 --> 00:26:48.940
That sense, none of the AI tools that I've used played with and now I have a list of over 20, 25 of them, I think have sufficient guardrails to actually say these are safe for use.
00:26:48.940 --> 00:26:50.506
You can trust your kid using it without any intervention, right?
00:26:50.506 --> 00:26:51.789
Because to me that's what safe means is.
00:26:51.789 --> 00:26:54.737
They can just go on there.
00:26:54.737 --> 00:26:56.842
No one ever needs to read the logs.
00:26:56.842 --> 00:26:59.358
It's going to alert us if something happens.
00:27:00.211 --> 00:27:05.096
None of the tools properly alert Like I don't know what other schools are doing, I just know what our school does.
00:27:05.770 --> 00:27:24.259
But if there's signs that a student might be in emotional distress or is thinking of harm to themselves or others for other things like Google search engines we have tools to help be alerted to that, and none of the AI tools that I've played with are actually alerting us of that nature.
00:27:25.451 --> 00:27:46.094
So that's why I'm kind of flabbergasted that people are excited to put AI in the hands of students, when a student can just type in there that I'm depressed and no adult at the school is going to be alerted and so, and now we don't know what the AI tool is even going to like give them for advice, wise.
00:27:46.094 --> 00:27:47.637
Now I've played out that scenario.
00:27:47.637 --> 00:27:53.541
None of the scenarios does the AI tool suggest the student like continues with that train of thought.
00:27:53.541 --> 00:27:56.094
Like they do recommend talking to someone.
00:27:56.094 --> 00:28:00.362
Sometimes they even might provide some names or phone numbers.
00:28:00.362 --> 00:28:18.955
I'm not sure if they actually gave contact info because that's like regionally specific, right, but um, I just felt like they're not doing their due diligence and especially when you get into the situation of teachers and adults at schools are mandated reporters.
00:28:18.955 --> 00:28:24.539
None of the AI tools are really taking the place of that mandated reporting.
00:28:24.539 --> 00:28:26.800
They don't have the proper.
00:28:26.800 --> 00:28:37.387
I mean, there's a legal issue there, and so that's where I land on safe and unsafe with students.
00:28:38.590 --> 00:28:39.615
That was a great answer.
00:28:39.615 --> 00:28:40.156
I loved it.
00:28:40.156 --> 00:28:44.074
I mean everything that you described and just covering there.
00:28:44.074 --> 00:29:03.893
You know, oftentimes, like I said, as educators sometimes we get overtaken by the excitement of getting shiny stickers or fluorescent shirts or getting invited to a party, you know, for a particular app, and we're just there and we think like, oh, okay, they're pretty cool, cool people.
00:29:03.893 --> 00:29:11.513
And sometimes we tend to overlook the fact of you know, once I use this app, is it doing what it should do?
00:29:11.513 --> 00:29:19.615
Is it, does it have the proper guardrails there for student safety and is there anything that is going to warn or alert a teacher?
00:29:20.559 --> 00:29:36.375
If there is an issue like you talked about and you're absolutely right in thinking about that you know, usually I'll go look in the terms of services too as well, and I'm just there looking at details and, you know, looking very closely, and for the most part it always says like you know, no, we don't.
00:29:36.375 --> 00:29:38.078
You know we don't keep your information.
00:29:38.078 --> 00:29:44.521
But as you keep going and keep going, then they'll say, oh yeah, by the way, we would use your information for third parties and so on.
00:29:44.521 --> 00:30:01.160
So it's almost like we're going to give you what you like here in this first page, but we know you're not going to continue reading, but in this next page, that's where we're going to go ahead and put in that is, should anything happen, you can't come up against us and we will only, um, you know the?
00:30:01.160 --> 00:30:08.972
I think it said something like if you are, you know, pursuing something, there's only a short, you know little fee, uh, that they would have to pay on their part, or actually.
00:30:08.972 --> 00:30:14.395
No, they said like they're not responsible for anything at all and they think you would have to go to against their third parties.
00:30:14.395 --> 00:30:16.559
You know, should there be, there be any litigation.
00:30:16.619 --> 00:30:20.897
And I'm thinking, I'm always thinking to myself it's like something happens in a school district.
00:30:20.897 --> 00:30:34.103
You can't come, you know, after the application, but now you have to go to that third party which, like you said, for the most part their APIs they're connecting to either open AI or cloud or anything else that is out there.
00:30:34.103 --> 00:30:39.617
So now you know, a school district can't go up against somebody that big or a big entity.
00:30:39.617 --> 00:30:41.304
It's almost like oh wow.
00:30:41.304 --> 00:30:55.238
So it kind of goes with accountability too and I know that's something that you stress also in some of the you know posts that I saw too as far as that AI has no accountability and no consequences for errors or hallucinations.
00:30:55.238 --> 00:31:02.882
So I want to get your thought process on that in this question being that you have, you know, a history background.
00:31:03.423 --> 00:31:50.404
One of my biggest concerns is always applications where they say hey, you can go ahead and talk to George Washington, you can go ahead and talk to Martin Luther King, or you know Amelia Earhart or you know anybody else, and to me, like Rob Nelson said a couple of episodes back, it's like that digital necromancy what the history that they're getting is, because, since these applications are scraping everything, you know whose history are they getting and is it in line with what that particular state is seeking, and so what answers are they getting?
00:31:50.404 --> 00:31:51.608
So those are my concerns.
00:31:51.608 --> 00:32:04.125
There Now for yourself, having that history background, what are your thoughts on applications that are student-facing, where they can go ahead and talk to, you know, a historical figure?
00:32:19.950 --> 00:32:27.393
regard because initially, even though I'm a little bullish on like AI for students, I did think that if you're going to use AI with students doing some sort of interactive chat like this would actually be really beneficial.
00:32:27.393 --> 00:32:42.619
So, with my experience with some of the ones I tested out, with some of the ones I tested out, the best ones are the ones that aren't just relying on how the model was trained, basically.
00:32:43.250 --> 00:33:07.618
So if you're going to do that as a teacher, you should be having some sort of a not a script but, like I think, you can like attach files or be very clear in how you want that historical figure to respond, so you're not just trusting AI to come up with oh, the historical figure had acted in this way and had this background and this history.
00:33:07.618 --> 00:33:14.817
If I was going to do that, I would say, okay, I want to create a chat activity about George Washington, like your example.
00:33:14.817 --> 00:33:22.439
As the teacher, then I should go in and provide AI with these are the characteristics of George Washington.
00:33:22.439 --> 00:33:31.392
These are some of the famous historical events I want you to touch on and reinforce for the student's learning, and then you can tie that learning back to the standards you tell it to.
00:33:31.392 --> 00:33:34.690
Okay, we want to make sure the student understands like.
00:33:34.690 --> 00:33:36.855
These are the main points I want them to get across.
00:33:36.855 --> 00:33:41.044
That's how the educator can stay in control of that learning process.
00:33:41.044 --> 00:33:44.297
It sounds fun and flashy to just.
00:33:44.297 --> 00:33:54.029
You can whip it up and literally create an account and from not having an account to making this activity for students, you can do that in less than a minute.
00:33:54.029 --> 00:34:01.677
You can make an account, create that activity of just a plain George Washington and share that with your students without any extra information.
00:34:01.677 --> 00:34:06.479
But is that actually what's going to help the learning process and outcomes best for students.
00:34:06.589 --> 00:34:07.915
Again, that's what I keep coming back to.
00:34:07.915 --> 00:34:12.635
No, you need to provide more as the teacher, and sometimes that might be.
00:34:12.635 --> 00:34:17.141
Hey, I pulled these historical web links and I put them in as links.
00:34:17.141 --> 00:34:22.142
So now that AI chat tool is going to be pulling from there.
00:34:22.142 --> 00:34:25.454
So it's almost like the student is interacting with.
00:34:25.454 --> 00:34:31.425
Like what if you could type and ask this historical article about George Washington?
00:34:31.425 --> 00:34:34.759
That's a little bit more appropriate, I would think.
00:34:34.759 --> 00:34:40.852
That's where I feel about it.
00:34:40.872 --> 00:34:44.559
I haven't necessarily like the exercises, like the, the tests that I did.
00:34:44.559 --> 00:34:50.140
My go-to because this is my background is in like ancient history and especially archaeology.
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