Who’s Thinking When AI Answers? | My EdTech Life 376

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Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 0:10

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 of course, all of this wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for our amazing sponsors. So I want to give a big shout out to Comeback Coffee. Thank you so much for keeping us caffeinated and creative all the time. Big shout out to Book Creator, Eduate, and Peelback Education. And today I'm very excited to welcome to the show a wonderful guest, somebody that I have been following for probably a good couple of years now on LinkedIn. And now he's also on a podcast with several of other amazing uh people that I'm following and learning from. So I would love to welcome to the show, Jeff Piantec. Jeff, how are you doing today?

Jeff Piontek 1:04

I'm doing great. There's so much funds. I appreciate it for having me on, and I'm super excited to have a conversation.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 1:10

Excellent. Well, I'm excited that you're here, Jeff. But for all our audience members that are catching the show, whether they're watching it or listening to it, who may not be familiar with your work just yet, Jeff, can you give us a little brief introduction and what your context is within the ed tech space?

Jeff Piontek 1:26

Yeah, I appreciate this. And I try not to talk about myself just because it makes you uncomfortable no matter what when you're talking about yourself as well. But started as a dual-language math and science teacher in South Bronx. I taught math and science in Spanish. Um, from there, worked on IFCF developer and then all the way up through the ranks uh to being the head of science and tech in New York City Department of Ed, different roles, regional instructional supervisor for science, and then the director of instructional informational technology. Um, transitioned from there to the state of Hawaii, whereas the head of science during the NGSS days, and actually bringing that to market there as well for educators in uh Hawaii as well. Uh it was a lot of fun building robotics programs, STEM programs. I've been involved with robotics since 99. So I was that crazy science teacher who was blowing stuff up in the classroom and getting in trouble for my administrators. Uh transitioned out and worked a couple of years for a company called Vantage Labs. Nobody really knows who they are, but they're the company that did the natural language processing on the iPhone. They have more patents on the iPhone than Apple. So you're talking about where how Siri works. It's an NLP that goes behind it, that Vantage Labs helped to develop as well. Uh got a head call for Headhunter, and they said, Hey, you know, we have this amazing job. We're looking for a head of global education for a robotics startup, UbiTech Education. Um, and I actually was uh head of global education for uh UbiTech and built robotics programs, STEM programs. It was a lot, a lot of fun, and then transitioned out, worked for Perfection Learning for a couple of years, and then the last four and a half years I've been working on my own. Um if you don't know Perfection Learning, they actually are a hundred-year-old family-held company out of rural Iowa, and they actually are covercraft, turtleback, uh,

Jeff’s Teaching To Tech Journey

Jeff Piontek 3:10

connections, measuring up, um, and AMSCO. Um, they have 40% of the high schools in the United States and we use their AP books. So, and then I transitioned out because I just wanted to do a lot of different things and kept them as a client, but uh it's been a lot of fun. So I'm a pedagogue by trade. Um, fortunately enough, I like what I do. That's uh I happen to be pretty good at it, I guess people have told me.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 3:32

Hey, I I think so. I mean, based on everything that you just shared, Jeff, and and that's amazing. And I know I had the uh opportunity to uh connect with you at ISTI a couple years back and so on. I was actually watching you do a live demo and all this other stuff. So it was just great to be able to to get to know you from that moment on, and then now to have you on the show and see everything that you've done. And like I mentioned, you know, in the intro, you know, you're definitely somebody that I have been following these last couple of years and very interested in a lot of your takes as far as education and also because I mean, the the level of experience that you just mentioned, you know, working in classrooms, leading schools, leading programs, building programs. And so I want to ask you, you know, to kind of start off our conversation, looking back at those experiences that you've had that you just described, what do you think the ed tech conversation keeps getting wrong about what teachers and students actually need? You know, it's funny.

Jeff Piontek 4:30

Um, if I go back to when the NGSS is being written, you know, I was one of the people that was brought in as a reviewer, but not because of my science content. They had a Nobel laureate and Oakie Lee and Dr. Peter McLaren and, you know, these amazing science educators. I was brought into my technology understanding of how touch points using technology can change outcomes for kids. And that's one of those things that I've been able to see. And I think it goes back to my dad, uh who's a mainframe programmer in RPG with, you know, AS400s and system 36s and 38s with IBM back in the 70s and 80s. So I think that the problem is that people keep putting a tool before the kid and the teacher. And that's something we have to keep now with AI, especially, um, at the forefront of everything we do. A human relationship is where the rubber hits the road. Uh, for lack of a better example, I think that we have to make sure that everything we do is best interest of our kids, especially our black and brown kids who are underserved and underrepresented in our school systems um and don't have a fair speak a lot of times.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 5:30

Absolutely. You know, and you mentioned something, you know, again, that we do hear often, but it just seems like we still keep doing like it's putting that app before the student and the teacher where the application, you know, the platform is the protagonist and the star of the classroom, as opposed to just kind of being on the background and supporting and supplementing what the teacher is already doing. And I think that is something that for myself is, you know, looking in the ed tech space and seeing so many platforms, you know, it's almost like everybody's fighting for attention, not only from districts, but everybody's fighting for that attention from the students and teachers as well. So that's very interesting there as well. So from your experience, I I do want to ask this because I think this is important too, as kind of we build this conversation. But as I was looking at your information here and your bio on the on the webpage, uh, you talked about it talks about a framework. And I would love for you to just really break it down because I think this is something that for me, when I heard it and I saw it, which is the AIEIOU framework.

Stop Putting Tools Before People

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 6:40

Can you tell us a little bit about that and break it down for us and for our listeners? Because I thought that this was something that was fantastic.

Jeff Piontek 6:47

Funny, uh, it came up from a conversation I was having uh before I was presenting in in the Middle East. So I actually work in the Middle East a lot as well. I spent probably two months a year in the Middle East uh working with in the UAE and Riyadh as well as um in Saudi as well as a bunch of other countries. I was going out there to speak at TESOL, um, teaches the uh the English of English to his uh learns the second languages. Um and you know, I was looking at it from a point of view of how does AI change outcomes for our kids that are non-English speakers? Um, so it became the point that the future of education is not about us choosing between humans and artificial intelligence, it's about becoming much more intentional about what technology shouldn't should do and what humans must continue to do. And I and I go back to a story that Jean-Claude Brizzard told me, that the CEO of Digital Promise, we've been friends for many, many years. He talks about when he was in charge of all of the high schools in New York City, that they banned calculators, the TI-83, I think it was at that time. Um, and he said the funniest thing was is that there's we're not going to use them. No, we're never doing this. And then what happened was he gets a phone call from the State Department saying that the new regions exam, which is the large-scale exam that the kids in high school take in New York, in New York State, um, mandated that they had to have a graphing calculator. And the rules change the game, and he had to buy, you know, 400,000 graphing calculators very quickly. You know, I see the same thing happening with AI right now and what's going on. And I was talking to someone 15, 16 months ago. Um, we had a Tinder workshop. Um, there's two major providers right now of PD services and training for uh teachers for AI. We were in one of those workshops. And afterwards they pinged me afterwards and said, Hey, you know, we went to this workshop and I was there as a participant because I try to spend as much time as I can already. And they didn't talk about my role, they talked about tools. They talked about what those tools can do, and they didn't talk about me as a teacher, as a pedagogue, and they didn't talk to kids in my classroom. So those two things, getting ready to speak at TSOL and that event that I was at led to the AI, EI, ONU framework. And that's the title of my new book. It's coming out of beyond October. Um, it's actually the title is AI, EI, ONU, preparing educators for an AI-driven world, is what it actually is, the official title. So the AI is easy, it's the artificial intelligence aspect of it. And I talk about generative AI because people don't understand, and that's one aspect of artificial intelligence that we never dive into. And Kip Glazer said it at um Bridges conference in July in New York. She actually defined it. She said, This is what we're all talking about, but everybody keeps on generalizing what AI is. Um AI, we're talking about generative AI. EI is emotional intelligence and the emotional quotient piece of it. So the empathy, self-awareness, relationship, communication, collaboration, all of those different things. People used to call them soft skills. Um, but what they are is human capabilities, and that's exactly what

The AIEIOU Framework For AI

Jeff Piontek 9:55

they are. Always orophonological awareness. If you read anything of what I write, I talk about literacy being a human right. And the reason being is I go back to when I started teaching many, many moons ago. Um, and I had Dolores Esposito, her name is now, but was Ruales, but she's my principal. And she would send me, and I was a math and science teacher, like I said, and she would send me to literacy workshops. And I honestly hate her. I'm like, I don't want to do this, I don't want to have anything to do with this. And she said to me, if kids can't read, can they do science or math? And that resonated with me. And when I wrote my first book back in 09, and that was called Blondes, Wikis, and Podcasts Online, Electronic Media in the Classroom. I actually thanked her because it changed the way I looked at my learner in front of me. And as a teacher, it changed me because the kid can't read. They are limited in outcomes in life, they are limited in opportunities, they are limited in their jobs and everything else they can do. So the O is orophonological awareness. So listening, speaking, um, vocabulary, discourse, all of those aspects. And then it transitions in middle school, high school over to occupations. So it looks at how do you actually use the skills you learn around the A, I, E, I, and O to be able to become provisioning the workforce. And then the U is the learner, the educator remains the center of everything I do. I call it hyperhumanization. Um, and I actually have a framework around the human acronym as well, and talk about how do kids think critically, um, use computational thinking skills to problem solve, and then how do they remain accountable for their learning as time goes on as well? Those are the things that I mean, I think are really, really important. And I don't think we look at them enough. I mean, AI will never be able to replace a teacher. Um, I was speaking at a university, probably uh just about a year ago now, and somebody asked me and I'm and they asked me a question, and I always asked asked them, do you really want me to answer that? And they said, Yes. They asked me the question, will AI replace teachers? And I took a deep breath and I said, Okay. So I said, How many of you in here have written a book that you use in your course? And probably 35 out of the 200 people had written either the content or the materials that they used in their course. I said, How many of you refer to a page number while you're teaching that course? So open up to page 35 in the book that I wrote. And six people, five people raise their hands. I said, one of you will be replaced. I said, because there's nothing I can't train an engine using machine learning on to do what you're doing. You're not teaching people to critically think, you're not teaching them to problem solve, you're not challenging the status quo, and you're not helping them become better people. So one of you five or six people will lose your job to an AI bot in the next year to two years.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 12:44

Yeah. Wow. You know, and I I I want to hit on a lot of things here because I think the way that you broke down the framework is something that is very important. And I think from in my experience, it just seemed like when I first started in education back in 2005, that was there was definitely a lot going on in the classrooms as far as discussion, as far as discourse, being able to challenge students and really just opening up the space to where they can share ideas, they can share, you know, the work that they're doing. And I can see their thought process, hear their thought process. But then as the years progressed and we started implementing maybe just a little bit more tech, it was almost like, no, you got to do the tech, got to do the tech, got to do the tech, and then finding ways of still being able to allow the students to create, to show their uh, well, show their creativity number one, to share that mastery of that knowledge through tech. But then all of a sudden it just felt like it was being, they were being very isolated where they were just on the Chromebooks. And so I think like that discourse component, the communication, to be able to still allow your students to be able to have discussions openly is something that I think is very valuable. And I always tell teachers, you know, as I'm doing trainings, you know, that that discourse allowing student for student voice, having them record themselves, justify their answers, whether it's voice, whether it's video, you know, they're showing you a learning artifact. I think that's something that is very important. But now it just seems because of either depending on the state and state testing, it's like the cadence is go, go, go, go. We don't have enough time for this. And really it's just the tech that we have is put them on those platforms 30 minutes per day, per week, per subject, because we bought it and this is what's going to supplement uh, you know, some of those students and support the students that might need some tier two support and so on. So it just seems like it it's been offloading, you know, some of that to some of these platforms. And I think that in having discussions, you're building up language proficiency, you're learning proper academic vocabulary, you're giving opportunities for students to build confidence, communicate whether in writing and or speaking. And like you mentioned, all of that connects. And I love the way that you connected that to uh once they get to high school and for those CTE courses, those, you know, the just regular life, you know, communication skills, which are so important. And so that's one thing that I really uh love that you shared about your framework. And I said, you know what, I really need you to really break it down for all our audience members to listen to. But now I I could want to ask you now, you know, and for our audience members that heard you your framework and that explanation, but if you could just give us just a little brief glance now that we're talking about your framework, what would a lesson look like where the AI supports the students and allows them to still do the thinking and the talking and the problem solving based on your framework?

Jeff Piontek 15:49

That's a great question. Um, and you know, at the end of each chapter, I actually I pose questions. So they're um priority thinking questions that you can actually utilize, and then there's lesson plans that go along with it. So these supplemental materials for the teacher are coming as well for the professional development and services that come afterwards that go with it. So it's a con not only it's just a book, it's a read-through and you could read it and look at it, but it actually looks at, and you just said it, you know, Fonza, exactly. So who's talking, who's thinking, who is actually then creating, what cognitive work remains with the student? What is technology doing, and what uniquely human capabilities do we actually now are being developed? So I always say to people, you can use AI to iterate and ideate, but ultimately, what did it do for me as a learner and how am I going to apply that learning in the future? So the computational thinking skills. So if you look back at ITEA, which is the international technology education, I don't know what the EEA stands for exactly, but Steve Barbado. We had conversations in 2015, 16 about computational thinking. We talked about it being one of the most important things, and now it's coming about as to how it's really, really important because it's the application of that knowledge and how do you utilize that to um showcase what you're doing. A lot of people are worried about AI and writing, right? And they automatically jump, you know, to kids are gonna cheat. Well, just say you know they were cheating anyway. Don't believe they weren't. Um, you know, if you do you're naive that kids were not cheating. They would they've been cheating since Google was around. You know, and if you look at the science of reading around this as well, and how teach people learn to read and to write, writing is a much more cognitive process than reading. So it's the application of the reading aspect of it, but also a whole bunch of other higher order thinking skills that go into it. So you have Scarborough's reading rope, as everybody knows now, with science of reading. I'm a math and science guy. I've been doing this since day one. It's evidence-based instruction. It's nothing different than what they called it. But they have to look at with AI, how do you now have language acquisition? And as an ELL, you understand this as well. You talked about this off camera a little bit about how you learn to speak English. How do we actually focus on that now? Language acquisition, sociocultural theory, um, dialogic learning, and then the ZPD, the zone approximately development, as kids are going through this. So language practice, conversation feedback, differentiation, accessibility, personalization. So what happens is AI talking to a child then cannot become a substitute for a child talking to another child or an adult. That's where this all comes together, and where the AI piece of it and the O tie together closely. Um, and then you know, our goal is to have globally empathetic 21st century learners. You know, your goal as a parent is to have a good kid who actually treats people with respect. Um, and that's where things, you know, have to go. And I think a lot of people are looking at technology as a crutch. And I think it became increasingly apparent the last couple of years, and I think people are pushing now toward uh um competency or uh based in the uh contracts, you know, or you know, that they have an outcome that is measurable by the vendor and by the district together. But I I try to forewarn people is if it says they use an AI tutor for 20 minutes three times a week, and you're gonna say it didn't work, and they used it once per week, where does the onus of responsibility then stay with that product? And I think that's a scary thing now, as everybody's trying to put

What AI Should Not Replace

Jeff Piontek 19:40

this this uh parameters around it. I think the the uh technology became a crutch. Yeah, I think that we actually did have post-pandemic, everybody had a device. Um and I think that a lot of things were pushed onto those devices that probably shouldn't. You know, it just it became and I think we needed a reset in education. I think it's probably a good thing.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 20:01

Yeah. No, and you know what, it's a very interesting now that you mentioned that with COVID. I remember, you know, being in my district, and when we came back, everybody just put the Chromebooks away. And it was kind of like back to the way we are right now, where now everybody's slowing down, and it's like, okay, let's put the generative AI away, let's put the screens away. And so it kind of reminds me of that feel where it's almost like, okay, we're kind of resetting again. The COVID was, I think for the most part, once everybody came back to brick and mortar, it was like, oh, well, these devices, they just associate that with COVID and virtual learning. And we're like, okay, we're back now. And it was almost like a trauma, kind of like, let me just put that aside. I don't need it. I'm just gonna go back to the way that I was teaching. And then slowly it's like you said, well, we've spent millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and these things are just gonna sit there. It's like, no, no, no. Like you got to go ahead and use them and let's go ahead and bring them out again, and so on. And now it's almost like, okay, let's kind of reset, which kind of it's a great segue into this next question for you. As we know, what we heard, what we've been hearing in the news, and you know, it with the announcements of New York City and LA, uh, L LA Unified also as well, where they're restricting students' uh use of generative AI. I want to ask you through your lens and your experience and what you've seen, what are the districts getting right, maybe by doing this? But also what would you challenge?

Jeff Piontek 21:33

So I I wrote a post last week um about this. We actually on the bot the boys podcast, we interviewed John Cloud Brizzard. And Jay John Claude was a teacher, administrator, um, district level soup, as well as citywide superintendents of high schools. And, you know, the problem is I think it's gonna become a huge equity issue, which is equity is a dairy word now. Um really, you know, it shouldn't be because there are kids realistically in our public school systems. In our private school system, that don't have access to what other kids do. When you leave school and you don't have access to AI in school when it's ubiquitous anywhere else, there are kids that are going home that are affluent and have access. When kids go home that are underserved and underrepresented, those kids will not have access. Their parents will not be able to help them with it, you know, with learning because the parents are limited in their educational uh attainment as well. So I think that it's going to end up becoming, and I said this last year at uh I was at I was speaking at Sundance and I was on a illiteracy to prison pipeline um panel and talking about that how many people are incarcerated or do not attain a basic reading level at third or fourth grade, where 67% of our kids in fourth grade right now don't pass the state assessment. I said it that you know the problem is that we it's becoming a digital chasm. It's becoming literally the grand canyon for these kids that don't have access at home when you know they had access in school. And the devices now in New York City took the internet off. So kids that used to have access to the internet now do not have access. And Mayor Mamdani chose to cancel it, you know, a $200 million contract, I guess it was over a couple of years, that Mayor Adams had put into place. So it became an equitable issue. Uh, I understand the push to go back, but you know, we're not in horse and buggies. We're still pushing the technology forward in safe and ethical ways. And how we actually uh make sure that we do those things is to put a policy in place. Um, two days before school started. I mean, come on, seriously? It it was the most archaic decision, I think, that New York City has ever made. Um, and John Claude and I re talked at length about it. I talked to people at state level, I talked to a ton of principals. There were principals that bought products that they felt that were vetted and approved by New York City four months earlier, that now cannot be utilized. So, you know, now there's a gap in instructional support that they had found a gap to fill, um, that they now had no fill, nothing filled with because it was an AI product that didn't make it to their, you know, the the five that they chose, which, you know, I've heard conversations around the, you know, uh the water cooler per se, about how those five got chosen. I think that they need to open up and look at other products that show efficacy, that have research, that show they have an impact on student learning, um, and that have, you know, teacher um support as well. Those things. I think it was a very short-sighted, uh knee-jerk reaction. Um, and I hope they they go back and look at it now and say, hey, you know, we did this because we were at a stop and take a pause, and a pause may become something that, you know, becomes a problem in the future. Uh I think I think the better from the perspective of a kid, and I think debate is one of the greatest things that AI is a tool for. So if a kid's in a debate class or a debate program, they can debate with an artificial intelligence chatbot more than they can debate with a partner and get more constructive feedback from that partner because they don't get tired. They can do it as much as they want, they can do it anytime, anywhere. And now we lost that. But now you're going to be competing against places like China, India, the Middle East, that these kids have ubiquitous access to artificial intelligence. And those kids will actually be against you in a boardroom or across the table from a negotiations table that you're actually uh our kids didn't have six or eight years uh of possible use of an artificial intelligence support. So I mean, I tell people I'll get off my soapbox, but it's really is sad that it's gonna stop our our our kids that are underserved and underrepresented more than anything else.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 26:01

Excellent. Yeah. And like you said, it just really took everybody for a loop. And I know that there's a lot of platforms out there that are like, whoa, what just happened? And then of course, as you saw, you know, they they did this, and then now you see other states that are following in that same, you know, situation, that same pattern. So do you think that this is something that is just gonna possibly just be in those two big states markets? Or do you are you seeing or you hearing that there's gonna be, you know, more of this across several states now that this has been done?

Jeff Piontek 26:34

Yeah, I mean there's other states that have actually now started talking about it. Um it it's it's I think it's a problem that New York City did do this right away and you know didn't think it through about how it's gonna affect everyone that sees New York City as a leader uh in this space. So I think that you're gonna have other districts and other states that do it because they figure it's a safer thing to do. I think that superintendents are right now looking for guidance. If you know Matt Winters out of the state of Utah, Matt's phenomenal resource. If anybody doesn't know him, reach out to him. He's great. He'll talk to principals, superintendents, and he talks to companies about where things are going and what it, you know, what happens and what it is right now. You know, the problem is people think that you know we shouldn't redesign education on what artificial intelligence can do. We need to redesign education around what humans need to become in a world with artificial intelligence everywhere. It's you know, somebody the other day asked me, and they do training for large companies around artificial intelligence. And we were sitting together having a cup of coffee. Um, and he said to me, He goes, Well, who do you think is gonna be a purchaser of a company like an anthropic or a chat GPT OpenAI, if those companies don't figure it out? Where does it need to go from there? And and Franz, I'll ask you that question. Where do you think, where would artificial intelligence land if it becomes at a point where those companies that are out there, because eventually it's gonna be two or three companies, that's it. They're gonna consume the other companies, they're gonna other companies will run out of money, or the models will just get better for those companies. So, where do you think that artificial intelligence is gonna land? Not to put you on the spot.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 28:19

Yeah, well, I mean, I that's one of the things that for me worries me the most in that sense of yes, these companies are just gonna go ahead and eat up all the other smaller companies. And maybe we've kind of started seeing a little bit of that too, as well. As we're kind of seeing, you know, that

NYC And LA Restrict AI

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 28:35

maybe a lot of the companies now, you know, the the policy and budgets have caught up to a lot of that hype. So, I mean, for me, it's just yeah, it's a great question.

Jeff Piontek 28:48

So I'll I'll pose, I'll give you what my response to him was. So, what does everyone have in their hand all the time now with them?

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 28:58

Cell phone.

Jeff Piontek 28:59

So it's gonna end up being a Verizon or an ATT. You know, know why? Because AI is gonna become ubiquitous where it's a part of your life, so you have to have it because it's embedded into everything you're doing. So it's gonna be a Verizon or an ATT that ends up buying one of these companies, or they are the other way around, they have a merger uh because it's gonna be your cell phone that's your access to information and the world that you live in. Um and if you think about it from the aspect of where things were, people didn't realize there was AI being used for years in things like Waze and your Google Maps and Apple Maps, your banking. Um, they give you a report that says, hey, your spending is this. That was already there. There's a bunch of AI being used behind the scenes, but it was purpose-driven AI. But now it's gonna be where it's, you know, uh everything you do. So it's gonna be used in your career and your work. And what happens is your cell phone bill is gonna go up. It's gonna become part of that you're paying for it through your cell phone bill because it's gonna be something that everybody uses around them. Um, that's that's the reality, the way I see it, at least. I can't see it not being that way with the world we live in right now. Um, and working in the Middle East is cool because I get to see the models from Asia. So I get to play with them there on people's laptops to see what's going on. I won't install one of them on my laptop here just because of security risks right now at this point. And working for a company in China, I do understand, you know, what data means to them versus what data means to us in the US and then with GDPR and the in the European Union. Um, I think it's gonna be something that is is gonna change the way we look at things big picture um going forward as well.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 30:35

Yes, for sure. You know, and that's very interesting insight. And you know, I think now that you kind of mentioned that, you know, the more that I see this and every time I'm seeing, obviously following the news and following videos, obviously with uh the the news that we just saw recently too about um anthropic and now of course, you know, who's gonna govern, who's gonna make sure that everything is in line. But it just like you said, it there's these big companies. And right now that you mentioned that, I was like, yeah, it it only makes sense that you know, before it won't be that long before, like you said, you know, these big companies, now we're just gonna be paying that access through them. And and what are we gonna do about it? I mean, that's the only way that we're gonna get that access. And so that is a very interesting take. And that right now just really got me thinking and uh, you know, just kind of ideating of wow, how are we gonna prepare, you know, even for this change too as well, you know, and especially our learners right now that are early on already, they are experiencing generative AI in the classroom, you know, kindergartners of obviously there's districts that will say, no, we're not doing anything K through five, but maybe six through eight, and then or you know, nine through twelve and trying to do that. But I want to ask you something here, since kind of going back to your experience in the ed tech space, obviously, in the um being an educator yourself too, and talking about your framework, you know, we talked a little bit about how your framework leaves open the you know, or leaves room for that emotional intelligence, obviously also that oral language, very important. But I want to ask you in your experience now, from what you're seeing, because you're you're definitely very well connected, you you see a lot of what's happening. I mean, your water cooler talk extends, you know, network is huge. But I want to ask you, how should how should that shape, or maybe using that part of the framework, help us shape the way that districts or those district leaders, like we mentioned, that right now are confused, that are lost, that need support. But how can that help them shape the way that they evaluate the tools that are promising that personalized learning? You know, so can you tell me a little bit about that?

Jeff Piontek 32:58

Within, within it's a great question. Um, just because you know everybody's claiming that their product is the best product out there, it does amazing things. Um, you know, efficacy studies, RCTs, randomized controlled trials, uh, subgroups looking at how to those apply to those kids. I'm a critic of Jonathan Heit's book, if you guys know it, The Anxious Generation. And the reason I'm a critic of it is because uh when you start looking at the data behind it, that he references, you know, the end score, that end number of actually what he's looking at is some of the groups are 200 kids. How can you make an assumption about how an impact, something that had an impact on social media had an impact on them, that you're using a sample size of 200 kids? It should be 2,000 kids, 20,000 kids. Um, one of the companies I work with is a company called Goblins Math. They just finished a an efficacy study uh with 5,500 kids in the district over a span of six months, looked at it against other products and things like that. They came out in SR2 certification. That's what you want. You want a program that shows they have an income, they have uh an outcome that is actually directly geared towards student learning and actually is measurable over times with a subscroup as well. Um I talked to Ann Cunningham out of you know uh UC Berkeley about this, and Ann's a legend in the literacy space about where things are going and what's happening in the in the world we live in. And we're, you know, people that are that are researchers are scared. Um, the current administration cut budgets dramatically around research. So a lot of the research is gone. Finally, they just put the SBIR money back in for a lot of these companies uh through IES, um, that they those grants will actually come back now to actually do some innovation as well. Uh speaking to people in in DC recently about that as well. Uh it's kind of scary that people don't see the the fact that would you buy a car without having the research to go behind it, even if you're thumbing through, looking at a car and driver magazine or you know, uh consumer reports or things like that. But you know, Franz, I wanted to go back and just touch one thing. I didn't touch it before. When you asked the question about the lesson, within my architecture of the four pillars that I call them within the book, um, I actually designed what's some that's called human and the AUMAN, and each one of the letters has an acronym. And within that, it's it's the H stands for what is a human competency, understanding and capacity, but as the lesson that the lesson develops. So not you're thinking about not students who write an essay or complete an essay, but students will develop and defend an evidence-based argument about a local issue that matters to them, because the specificity around that then needs to determine that legitimacy that comes with the conversation of the Socratic dialogue when they actually pitch that to the teacher about what they learned and what they did. So that's the piece around the H. The AU is actually what unique contribution there is. So, what will students contribute that AI cannot? So lived experiences. If you ever talk to Ken Shelton, yeah, the legend in the space, and Ken's a close friend. He lives close to me. We actually sit together and talk on a regular basis, and we're very, very honest with each other. My first master's degree is in urban multicultural education. Um, you know, all of my kids are biracial. So it's it's it's looking at it from the perspective of where the kids, you know, their lived experience is different than mine. I'm a white guy. I grew up in a working class, you know, neighborhood. Um, my parents, you know, neither one of them graduated from college. So the you becomes the ethical conviction that kids have draw from personal history, um, and that that disciplinary reasoning that comes from working through a problem and that cognitive challenge that they have to have, you know, and then we have to define the machine drawing. Where does the AI fit? Is it draft generation? Is it feedback? Is it the learning process? Is it a research starting point? Um, I talk to principals all the time, they're worried about their ELA teachers. And I tell them, you know what? Have the kids ideate using AI, put it into Google Docs, and now you can see what they've done from that point on and whether or not they actually cut and pasted a bunch of other things, but have them stand up and defend all of their edits. You know, um, it's you know, it's AI can be used anywhere. It's not the machine's role. You know, we have to make sure we don't abdicate design in that role as well. Accountability, accountability around everything. Somebody asked me yesterday on the phone, I was having a conversation with somebody from another country, and they said to me, you know, why do kids not like school? And I was like, Do you really want to know in my opinion? And they said, Yeah. I said, because at third grade, life changes. The teacher becomes more stressed, the kid becomes more stressed, and and state assessments matter. It matters for funding. We have to have some kind of baseline to show whether or not kids learn something. But we have to figure out a better way to keep kids loving learning and loving play and making learning more fun. You know, that's the problem we look at as well. Um, students need to own their own learning. You know, we talk, I talk about oral phonological prompt-to-speech protocols, accountability structures, um, teacher conferences, you know, is a product out there that actually measures the amount of time a salesperson talks during a conversation with a potential um client. Um, and it should be 80-20, where the client should be talking 80% of the time, and you should be talking 20% of the time if you're selling. 90% of the time is the other way around. People are pitching product, pitching, pitching, pitching. It's just throwing information out to you. You know, teacher conferences are the same way. They should ask the kids, what do you think you did well? What do you think you could have done better? And then have the kids present in public. I am a huge, huge advocate of kids speaking in front of other kids and talking about what they learned, what they did to apply their learning while using AI, uh, because it becomes a genuine engagement with the cont with the content. And the last is the end. What's a non-negotiable?

Who Controls AI Access Next

Jeff Piontek 38:55

You know, um, what stays as AI free to be to prefer preserve that cognitive load that kids have and they don't offload it to the AI? Um, you know, is the initial idea that student has to generate their initial prompt that they're doing this with? Or, you know, is the evidence can be that the student driven after the AI is driven after was after the student did that, you know. Um revisions, no matter what, have to be on the student and writing process, you know. Um, but every, in my opinion, at least every conversation and selection that comes after that must be student driven. And the teacher is the one that actually is doing this. And these are non-negotiables at this point. So it's not a formula, it's a it's a it's a framework. It's a set of questions that I think our our um a thoughtful teacher would normally ask. Great instruction is great instruction. Um, you know that when you walked into a classroom as an administrator, if someone was doing a lesson and they were on and they were doing phenomenal work, you could just as soon as you walk in. Those they were pointed, their intentional intentionality. Um you know, now those same people are actually, you know, using AI to make their lessons even better because they can actually do that. But now we need caps of people, um, you know, for lack of a better term, by not being able to use it uh in with their kids and get insights into their student. Um, you know, it's a challenge in that way, you know. We can't default to AI use without asking questions of why and how and things like that as well. I mean that was a long-winded answer, but I think that, you know, people have to understand that within the book, I think I I it's very, very intentional of how I did it. It took a very long time, it took me a year to write it. I probably could have been done in three, four months because I knew what I wanted to say. But as AI started to develop, I started looking at counter-arguments, multilingual students, um, and things like that, where AI can be used anywhere. Um, it's not a machine role, you know, it's what we have to do with people and human element. This is a dramatically different person than I was 20 years ago, by the way. I was a typical, you know, New Yorker, punch them in the throat before you ask questions type of guy. Now it's like, you know, I'm I'm more of an empathetic person that understands that humans need these things and kids need them because that person in the classroom in front of them is not just teaching them content, it's teaching them how to be a good person, how to engage in them, um, to teach executive function, to teach them to actually, you know, not be that guy or that girl that people don't want to interact with and talk to. And that's this that's the way we have to do it in society. We'd be better for.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 41:43

I love that, Jeff. I mean, everything that you explained, and I'm definitely excited about your new book and the release and uh, you know, reading it, because I think this is something that's definitely very helpful. And like you say, you with your level of experience, years of experience, and really taking the time that you just didn't just put something out, you know, for that moment in time, but you said, Oh, okay, things are kind of changing and taking your time and you know, just the way that you described your human framework, I think that is something that is so beneficial. And that many teachers, believe it or not, are probably don't know that they are already doing that, you know, because they didn't have that name for the framework. But like you mentioned, there are a lot of teachers now based on these changes. Like you mentioned, you know, they were kneecapped. And now it's like, okay, like now what can I do? What now what have you limited me to it to doing, and how can I improve on that now? Not that they can't because a great teacher is gonna find a way to do it, but you know, to be able to do it, you know, efficiently, use it effectively, and really have the tools to even adapt, improvise, and overcome, you know, maybe some of the learning obstacles that may come that they didn't expect that they would have in that year, you know, for this year in that classroom, or to be able to provide support for students as well. So that's something that, you know, a lot lot of things to think about there as well. But Jeff, as I wrap up, I want to ask you my last question here, you know, and then uh, you know, I'll let you kind of connect uh with our audience and letting them know how they can go ahead and connect with you. And uh, but I want to ask you when today's students look back on how we handled AI in schools, all right. What do you hope they'll say that we got right?

Jeff Piontek 43:32

Um, well, you know, I think that a lot of students, especially high-end students, are gonna be disappointed because they didn't have the opportunity to engage with the content in a meaningful way using artificial intelligence. Because it's just different of how you can do things. And I'll give you a perfect example, in my opinion. You know, for students that are that are um special needs learners, so no reverse learners. Students with physical or mental disability. But AI is a is a game changer. And by New York and LAUSD doing what they did, it's gonna take those students now. So think about the experience that a kid would have had where they would have had access to a tool that would have helped them engage in a more meaningful way that they couldn't have with the AI because they took it away from them. You know. Like I said earlier, it's you know, it's the I think that the future is not about choosing between humans and AI, it's about you know becoming intentional. What technology should and and what humans must continue to do. Uh is movies that are out there now, and I travel a ton, uh, work globally, and I watch movies on a plane. And is one how to it's

Evidence Based Buying And Non Negotiables

Jeff Piontek 44:50

I don't know if you see it, it's called How to Be an AI AI Um Apocalypto Optimist. Yes, and it's actually really good because he has access to all of the leaders of these companies talking about why and how they develop the artificial intelligence, you know, and it's kind of scary when you start thinking about what anthropic came out this past week. And now a student looking at I'm in a school, I'm not allowed to use AI. Um my peers can in private schools and in other schools and in school districts. So New York City you can't, but non-public schools in New York you can't. Or in you know, yeshivas in private schools, you can't. Westchester County, right above New York City, you can't. And now those kids are the ones that you're competing with, you know, for jobs, theoretically, you even though the world is flat for you and taught us years ago, and you're competing in the global marketplace, but realistically, you're still competing with the people that live in that geographic area. Uh what's gonna happen now when you don't have access to that technology, you don't have access to those tools, and you know, you've been limited in what you've been able to see and do with those, with those uh materials. Teachers, I I think you're gonna have teachers that are that are looking at how they use intel artificial intelligence to drive instructional change and outcomes for kids. So I think you're still gonna have teachers that use it to design their lesson plans and to modify and help their lesson plans. Um and I think that instruction is gonna change over the next 18 months dramatically as models get better and as materials get more in-depth with how it understands a learner as well. Um, you know, you you becoming, you know, learning to speak English. Um imagine if you had the ability to practice, you know, speaking to it to an AI chatbot whenever you wanted to, as opposed to watching TV shows. You know, one of my friends, his his mom learned to watch uh to speak English. Uh she came from Germany, uh, watching I Love Lucy. And it's funny because she actually spoke with alert an accent like Lucy. Because people pick up the intonations and the language of what they're watching because that's what you hear, because they what you hear is how you speak uh as well. And that's you know one of those things. But you know, language learning is going to change as well, dramatic. And I think it's gonna be interesting to see where things go. Countries like UAE and like Saudi Arabia, you know, 70% of the people have access, I think 100% of people have access, 70% they're using it in their daily lives to improve themselves. So the you part of this is you know, where I say about improving yourself. That's gonna be something that people are able to do. I mean, I'm in I'm on LinkedIn learning on a regular basis where I'm taking three or four courses, where I'm listening to them, going through the tests and assessments and learning all the time because I'm just that's who I am as a as a person. But I think that with AI, now you can advance those things so much quicker. Imagine having the ability to practice, learn, talk through ideas and things like that as well where you don't have it. So I think that's gonna be a challenge for our kids when they think about it, is that they stifle their learning in those larger districts, um, you know, places that are taking it literally and saying this is something we want to do, put it in a walled garden, keep our kids safe, and utilize, you know, in a safe and ethical way, I think is going to be um the ones that end up farther and farther ahead. Now, mind you, birth to five, I don't think you need an artificial intelligence engine or tool um or device, um, especially one with a screen around a kid. One of my biggest pet peeves, and I talk about this all the time, is walking into a restaurant and seeing four people sitting at the table, two parents and two kids, and they're all on their devices and nobody is talking. What kind of relationship do you think those kids are going to have their parents as they get older and they really don't have anything to talk about? You know, and it and it goes back to the funny thing is is I heard an interview with Cardi B, and you know, I I listened to it and I laughed because she said she wanted to have a bunch of kids. And the reason she wanted to have a bunch of kids is because she wanted one of them to be able to put her in her house as she got older and take care of her and not throwing a nursing home. Now, technology's driving that wedge between our parents and our kids. Um, and I'm guilty of it, just like everybody else is. You know, uh, you know, you get the doom scrolling piece of it. But I think our kids are going to be really disappointed uh with a lot of the decisions that are made by leaders that didn't allow them to use AI in a safe and ethical way. Um Governor Newsom, I don't know if you know last week, um it was Thursday, Friday. I was on with Merv Lapis from Common Sense Media when they signed the bills. And he got a notification from somebody that was working with that told him. And I'm like, it's about time. It's about time somebody made people accountable. But you know what? The amount of money that they find them is a joke. They should have fined them like they did back in the day with AT ⁇ T and Verizon when they were actually having antitrust lawsuits that made it real that these companies, you know, it it affected them. Because then they would have started really thinking about this and how it affects our kids, our future, not their bottom line for their shareholders. You know, that's the sad part. Uh I think it's a challenge that we're gonna have, you know, with kids. K to limited use, of course, um AI for AI's use. And I think technology is an amazing tool. It's a great thing, but with a purpose, with a focus, and limited use. Not that you throw a kid on an iPad and just let them go, like some of the districts were doing 45 minutes of you know um direct intervention that had no outcomes and didn't couldn't be measured. So I I think there's a huge gap in what was happening and what was so the reset now I think is a good thing for you know a lot of things, but I think it's gonna cause a lot of equitable issues as well for kids that don't have. So I think it's gonna be a challenge as well. And here.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 50:47

Awesome, Jeff. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to be here with me, sharing your insights and sharing your knowledge. And it's always great for me. Like I always tell people that listen to the show, this is my personal PD that I get, but that I share with everybody. So this is something that is amazing. So thank you so much, Jeff, for just being so great, sharing your knowledge, sharing your experience that I know is going to be beneficial to all our audience members that are listening or watching the show. But before we wrap up, Jeff, I want to uh give you a chance. Can you please tell our audience members after listening to you that are interested? Because by the time the show airs, it's probably gonna be very close to your book being released too as well. So it's almost like perfect timing. But how can they find you? Uh, how can they connect with you? And when is your book going to be released too as well?

Jeff Piontek 51:36

They thanks so much. Um, I appreciate the opportunity. And it's great to talk to you. I mean, I hope we get to spend more time together. Um, not just the conferences, spending a little time here and there uh that we end up at events or actually end up in on panels together. I mean, I think that people forget, you know, I prefaced my book and I started off by I consider myself what's called a TOSA. Uh I just happen to be working on the other side of the fence right now, working with companies and with agencies like ministries of education and state agencies as well as venture capital and tribe and equity firms to make things better for kids. So I'm a teacher on special assignment. I always see everything through the teacher lens, or at least I try to. Um my biggest thing is I actually work with teachers on a regular basis. I talk to teachers, I spend time in classrooms. I would love to visit your school. Um, JeffPyantech.com is my website. You can find me on LinkedIn. It's Jeff Piantec as well. Uh, I I don't, I have an Instagram page I probably post twice a year. I got a phone the other day from one of the kids I coached in baseball. He's like, hey, he goes, you know, you posted on an Instagram about an issue with United Airlines. I said I got delayed for 12 hours with my 83-year-old mom. Um, and basically, you know, they just left us and then our bags didn't make it. So, you know, I was I was very upset. And that's when I posted, you know, when something that really just drives me to do something like that. But otherwise, I mean, LinkedIn is an easy way. Um, you know, the social media stuff, Twitter I'm on as well, but jeffpiante.com, you can reach out. I mean, I, you know, you want to have a conversation? I'll be more than happy to have a conversation. I meet with three to five founders a week of new companies. I met three people today that I'll probably never work with, but I'll probably have conversations with about making their products better over the next couple of months as well. Um, and you know, I speak extensively. Um, 23rd, I'm speaking at Lights, which is the Long Island Technology Symposium. Uh 28th and to the 3rd of October of uh the 3rd of October, I'm actually in uh Dominican Republic speaking at the Tri-Association Conference. Uh the 2nd of November, I'm speaking at the National Council of Teachers of English. Uh, 24th of October, just off the top of my head, I'm speaking at the Council of School Administrators in New York City, EdTech Week, the 14th and 15th, I'm in New York City. Um, and then we do the podcast as well. So the boys of EdTech and um I I speak on a regular basis at schools. If you want to bring me in to speak with me, I'd be more than happy to have a conversation with you. Um, one thing I tell people is I don't do drive-by PD. If I'm doing professional development, I'm going into your school, your school district, minimum four to five times a year, working your teachers, your administrators, and I love working with parents because they're the ones that are scary. They don't know what's going on and nobody gives them information and they see headlines and they don't know what to make of it. Um, so I work with schools in New York City, a phenomenal principal named Tim Sigerson and Sam McKell. They brought me in to work with their staff. First session was an overview. Then I worked with content area, and then I worked with their parents and I worked with the parents and the kids talking about what AI is, how it can change the outcomes for them, what jobs might and might not exist for them as well. And that's an underserved, underrepresented community. 56% of his kids are actually ELLs in his school at the college academy. So it's kind of a lot of fun when I can do things like that because I know I'm having a measurable impact on those kids' outcomes. So I really appreciate it. And von thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate it. Um, and it's been a great, great uh you know, time spending with you.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 55:01

Love it, love it. Hey, but the book, you didn't tell me when when is it being released?

Jeff Piontek 55:04

Oh, it'll be released uh a week of October 2nd. The timeline is October 2nd. That's provided I get all of the endorsements, the forward, um, and you know, we get that stuff done. Um, final edits are done right now, and I've gotten endorsements. John Claude Brizzard wrote the forward for the book. I've gotten endorsements from a ton of different people that work in the space, as well as people that are actually um administrative, as well as uh, you know, on the other side with fence with companies and you know, running agencies. So Vic Rivero from EdTech Digest, Jen Womble from FETC, uh, people from ISTE as well, uh, just because it's it's different and it's a timely book. It is coming out saying, you know, we're looking at the human piece. How do we make sure people stay as good people? How do we make sure that the teacher stays the focus, the architect of Atlas Ru, and you know, and moving there? My next book will be out probably six months from now. Um, it's already three chapters in the can uh and that's for the artificial generation. It's talking about a world in education where AI is actually surrounding everything we do, and data is um, you know, around everything we do is in your hands at your fingertips of everything you're doing. So it's it's it's you know, um a little bit of uh humanistic looking

Book Release Links And Closing

Jeff Piontek 56:20

where we're going in the future and possibly synergistic with you know where uh Kurtz File tickets we're gonna go with, you know, the singularity. But it actually is gonna be the world we live in in the next you know couple of years, that's for sure.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 56:32

Absolutely. Well, Jeff, thank you so much. And we'll make sure that we put in all those links in the show notes and definitely uh, like I said, by the time the episode comes out, it'll probably be like the time that your book gets released. Hopefully, if the timeline is down, we'll definitely pop that link in there too, as well. So all our audience members can also go and purchase their own copy of the book too, as well, and get to learn from you and get to learn from your amazing frameworks and just from your heart. Because I know, like you know, in speaking with you, you definitely have are at that teacher at heart, and I absolutely love it, you know. And so that passion really comes out. And I thank you for your time and just sharing your knowledge. And again, just you're always welcome back here at any time. So six months from now, when the new book comes out, you can come back and you can go ahead and we'll continue the conversation. But thank you so much for your time, your friendship, and uh, you know, just making that connection with you. And for all our audience members, please make sure you visit our website, myedtech.life, where you can check out this amazing episode and the other 274 episodes where I promise you you will get actually not 274, it's 374. My bad. Oh my gosh, what a huge slip because we're almost close to episode 400, guys. So the other 374, 75 episodes where you will find some knowledge nuggets that you can sprinkle on to what you are already doing great. So thank you so much for all of your support. And my friends, until next time, don't forget, stay techie.