In today's episode of the educational duct tape podcast. Adam Sparks joins me to convince every educator to ditch AI detection tools and focus on what really matters. The writing process. Now, if you're not a writing or English language arts teacher, you may be tempted to skip this episode, but don't, you'll hear things that apply to all classrooms. Plus we discuss alternatives to AI detection like brisk draft back revision, history tracking, and short answer.
And we share actionable strategies to teach writing effectively in the age of AI, from fostering transparency, with students to leveraging powerful tools for formative assessment. This conversation is packed with insights to elevate your reading instruction. If there's one sound that echoes through my house more than anything else, it's the word, mom. Our kids yell from across the house with the most random questions and requests. Where did you put my flannel PJ pants?
Or have you seen my tooth brash? It's like the thing, my wife's a human help desk. I keep telling her she needs a digital system where the kids could submit requests and she could follow up when she's got time. Well, my wife's still waiting for that personal kid request system. Today's sponsor visor. Has you covered when it comes to managing it issues in schools?
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With visor, managing it issues is easier than finding a missing toothbrush. Hey there duct tapers, whether you're a longtime listener or tuning in for the very first time. Welcome to the show. I'm Jake, a personalized learning and ed tech specialist and former middle school teacher from Ohio. And by joining me here today, you are officially a duct taper.
You didn't have to pay to get that licensed or turn into any professional development credits or hours, or go online and create an account with two factor authentication or anything like that. You just tune in and bam. Doc TAVR. That means you are on board with the educational duct tape metaphor. And that means that you see educational technology, not as the end goal, but as a powerful tool, like duct tape use to solve problems, achieve goals and meet learning standards.
Okay. Now that that's out of the way for. Three, two. One ha. Happy new year. It is 2025 and I cannot believe it. I hope you had a happy new year celebration and a joyful holiday season. Filled with laughter relaxation and maybe even a little bit of time to recharge, you sure do deserve it. Speaking of recharging today's episode is packed with so much amazingness that it'll be like recharging your teaching battery. I think you're going to hear me geeking out.
During this episode, I have so much fun. In this interview because it was just fascinating and it was just good education, nerd talk. And my opinion, I really enjoyed it. Um, in fact, Adam, Adam Sparks, today's guest shared so many valuable insights. Like it was so good, so much. And he responded so thoughtfully to so many questions that I asked. I mean, so many, like I was so fascinated and interested, the questions just kept popping up.
So I kept asking him so many questions over the conversation and he responded so thoughtfully to them. That I decided to split this interview into two episodes because there's just so much. Uh, goodness in it. Uh, it's amazing. I think trying to take it all in and process all of the educational implications and goodness, and it would be like eating back-to-back Thanksgiving dinners. Not ideal. Uh, no matter how much you love stuffing and I do love stuffing, so make sure you're subscribed.
So you don't miss out on the second serving of stuffing coming next week. I mean, The second half of today's interview with Adam Sparks. So that is coming up next week. Be subscribed so that you don't miss it. Also, I'm excited to share that in just a few weeks, actually about one week from the time you're hearing this and right around the time that episode with Adam comes out. I will be in Orlando, Florida, sunny, warm, not snowing. Like here in Ohio, Orlando, Florida.
Uh, as a featured speaker at F E T C, the future of educational technology conference. If you are attending, I'd love for you to come say hi. I would be thrilled to meet some fellow duct tapers in person. And I'll probably have some stickers and buttons and other swag available too. So please do stop and say hi for there. And today's guest Adam, as you're gonna hear shortly. Uh, is also going to be there. So I hope you'll say hi to both of us.
Um, but if you're not making the trip, but still want to connect, you can always say hello on blue sky. It has a blue sky in the name. It's not quite the blue skies of Orlando in January, but blue sky is my new favorite social media. And so I hope whether you're going to FETC or not. You will say hi there, because I'd love to hear from you. So a few nights ago, we decided to order takeout. This is almost always. Uh, headache, inducing activity.
So with the wildly unpredictable tastes and befuddling stubbornness of our three kids and two will lesser extent the preferences of my wife and I finding one meal that works for everyone is like finishing the, New York times crossword on a Saturday. That's the hardest day. But this time it was like solving the Saturday, New York times crossword. In pen. Yeah, right. In pen, not pencil, no racing. That's because we had added a new wrinkle. My dad.
His doctor recently told them to cut back on cholesterol and amongst other things. So now I'm not just scrolling through options for my picky kids. I'm filtering out anything that might spike his lipid levels. I gotta be honest. I didn't even know what lipids were last week, but now they're a part of my takeout. Ordering considerations. I should point out. They're not really a part of my dad's takeout, ordering considerations though.
He's like Uber. As many of, you know, at some point we all end up doing a little parenting of our own parents. Anyhow, those cholesterol considerations got me thinking about one of my very favorite episodes of one of my very favorite podcasts. And that podcast is revisionist history. By Malcolm Gladwell. And the episode that I'm referring to is called the basement tapes. It ironically is also a story about a man, his father and cholesterol.
So the father in the story, Dr. Ivan France was thinking about lipid levels, but not to inform his takeout, ordering. You see, he was a cardiologist who spent his life doing research to promote what he believed was a healthier alternative to butter and animal fats. Poly unsaturated oils. His goal. Prevent heart disease by lowering cholesterol, ultimately saving lives. At the time, the thinking was that replacing saturated fats, like delicious butter. With poly unsaturated oils like margarine.
Would lower cholesterol and in turn, prevent heart disease. So France set out to study this hypothesis. But here's the heartbreaking twist. Decades later, his own research revealed that all these healthier oils did reduce cholesterol. They also came with unintended harms. You see the poly unsaturated oils that Dr. France integrated into his test subjects, diets were lower in cholesterol, but were also higher in something called linoleic. acid. I hope I'm pronouncing that, right.
I'm really not sure it was in the podcast. I guess I could go listen and see. Anyhow, at first, this whole replacement that lowered cholesterol seemed okay. After all lowering cholesterol was essentially their goal. But it turned out that consuming too much. Linoleic acid turned out to have its own risks. You see, elevated levels have been linked to inflammation and other health issues, including. An increased risk of heart disease. The very thing that Dr. France was trying to prevent.
In other words, his well-intentioned strategy for heart health. Inadvertently created new problems. Undermining has original goal. And that kind of unintended harm often happens when we focus too narrowly on solving one part of a complex problem, and we lose sight of the bigger picture. At this point, you're probably wondering Jake, why are you talking about takeout and cholesterol and linoleic acid? Well, this story of unintended harms from a well-intentioned person.
Got me thinking about a similarly well-intentioned fix. In education. AI detection tools. You see much like poly unsaturated oils. Those tools initially seemed like a simple solution to a complex problem. But as with linoleic acid, the surface solution might hide deeper unintended harms. At first glance, AI detection tools seem like a simple, straightforward solution to the growing issues of students using AI to generate their work. This honest use of AI is a real concern.
And AI detection seems like an easy fix. Plug in the assignment, run the software and wallah. You've got the cheaters. Problem solved. Right. But just like Dr. Francis polyunsaturated oils, these tools come with hidden costs. And the more we rely on them, the more these unintended harms reveal themselves. Molly clutter. And I discussed those unintended harms in an earlier educational duct tape episode. And I also referenced some powerful points.
The today's guest Adam Sparks made in a series of tweets that later became a blog post, but I referenced those in that conversation. You see, first Adam pointed out that these tools are notoriously unreliable. Studies show they have a false positive rate of over 20%. That means for every five students flagged for using AI, one is likely completely innocent. Imagine being a student who spent hours writing an essay only to be accused of cheating.
And while an algorithm may identify the essay as AI generated, it's not the algorithm delivering the accusation. It's your teacher. One of the most important adults in your life. So why are these tools so unreliable? Well it's because they rely on patterns and probabilities and algorithms to detect AI generated text. And that's not a foolproof process. There is no like receipt in the writing that says this was made with chat GPT. They're just looking at the text.
The tool is and saying, what would AI right next? And if that's what's written there, then they're like, I think this was AI. When a human could have written those things. Actually they often misinterpret differences in how students write. Which means that non-native English, speakers and neurodivergent learners. End up being at a higher risk of being falsely flagged.
This all means that instead of fostering a safe, supportive learning environment for our students, especially the ones who need it most. These tools can create a culture of suspicion. And distrust. So that's our first two unintended harms false accusations that undermine fairness and damaged relationships that erode trust, you know, trust is the foundation of any effective classroom. When a student feels like their teacher doesn't trust them. Or worse. Actively assumes they're cheating.
That trust is broken and once it's broken, it's hard to rebuild. Finally an Adams post, he pointed out a third issue. The opportunity cost school budgets are tight and some of the AI detection tools aren't cheap. By investing in AI detection tools. You're taking funds that could have been spent on something else, an initiative or a tool that could actually improve student learning. And you're redirecting those funds towards something that might harm it. These AI detection tools.
So what are those unintended harms again? Number one false accusations and undermine fairness. Number two, damaged relationships that erode trust and number three wasted resources that could be better spent on real learning. In the end, AI detection tools might seem like a quick fix. But there are a lot, like those polyunsaturated oils, they address one issue on the surface while potentially causing harm beneath it. And here's the kicker. The goal isn't even to catch students.
Your goal is not to catch kids cheating. Your goal is to guide them toward meaningful learning and real growth. And that is never as simple as pushing a button. So as Carol Commodore wisely said what we know today. Doesn't make yesterday wrong. It makes tomorrow better. So if you used an AI detection tool yesterday, Uh, or last week or last month or last year? Let's not focus on the wrongness of it. Let's learn to make tomorrow better.
You see, when you used those AI detection tools, you were no more wrong than Dr. France was for believing in a solution to heart disease. He was doing the best he could with the knowledge he had at the time. Just like you were. As you'll find if you listen to that revisionist history episode, which I hope you do, because it's really good. And I've linked it in the show notes for you. But you'll find that the key part came later after Dr. Francis passing. His son, also a doctor.
Help the researchers use his father's work to make tomorrow better. He knew that upholding his father's legacy. Wasn't about defending a flawed hypothesis about polyunsaturated oils or outdated beliefs about margarine. It was about being humble. Humble enough to change. And that's what science is and his father was a scientist. So of course that's what he believed. So now it's our turn to embrace what we've learned. Not cling to what we used to believe. It is clear. The AI detection tools.
Are not the answer. So, how do we do better? Well, I think to prevent cheating, we need to address its root causes. First, we must shift our learners away from performance oriented. Extrinsically motivated goals. When students are focused on completing a task. Or we're getting a grade. Or avoiding punishment. Or pleasing an adult. These are all performance oriented or extrinsically motivated things. When they're focused on that. The temptation of an easy button, like cheating.
Becomes really appealing. Because all they're worried about it's the end result and cheating gets you there faster. And more efficiently. Second, we must help them work within their zone of proximal development. Meaning if the work is too hard. And they don't see a path to success. Or if it's too easy and feels meaningless, cheating. Once again, becomes tempting. Third, we must strive to highlight the relevance and the learning for our students.
If it feels like irrelevant, busy work that has no value beyond grades or compliance, why wouldn't they look for shortcuts? When students see how their work connects to their goals or interests or the real world, the temptation to cheat often fades. Again, to prevent cheating. We need to address its root causes. When we focus on meaningful goals. Appropriate challenges and relevance. We create a learning environment where students are far less tempted to cheat.
And today's episode Adam Sparks is going to share some thoughtful relationship centered strategies that I think will help create the learning environments. We all strive for. And closing a simple statement. Our goal isn't to catch students. It's to guide them toward becoming self-directed learners. Prepared for the future. And that is never as simple as pushing an easy button. Well, Today's guest is Adam Sparks.
Adam taught for seven years before recently finishing his master's in learning design and technology at Stanford. While at Stanford, Adam designed a writing tool called ShortAnswer that he now builds full time. As a part of his work with ShortAnswer, Adam leads PD with schools across the country on adjusting writing instruction in the wake of AI. You could reach Adam on email at Adam at my Short Answer. com on their website at my Short Answer. com or on Twitter slash X at Mr. Sparks tweets.
Or if you're like me and you've transitioned over to blue sky, you can find them at Adam sparks. Dot B S K Y dot social. Those things are all in the show notes, but not in the show. And it's actually here in the podcast is Adam himself. What's up, Adam? How's it going, Jake? I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Of Yeah, I'm glad to have you.
So Adam and I have been talking about doing this interview behind the scenes for a little while, because I became aware of Adam's work a couple of months ago and was really, really excited about it. And I was like, Adam, I need to have you on the podcast. And I am really excited that you said yes, Adam. So thank you for that. course. I'm honored to be here.
Yeah. So some of you might recognize the name because I've referenced him before, and maybe you were part of, Adam becoming kind of a viral sensation on Twitter. I mean, you were, you were pretty, you were pretty hip, right? You were definitely trending. I was the, I was the anti AI detection guy for like a good two to three months there, which was an interesting experience. I'm glad you didn't change your Twitter handle over to at the anti AI detection guy. I guess no, not yet.
But you could have like a theme song. That's kind of like the Bill Nye, the science guy song, but it's the anti AI detection guy. I think I'm more in the bill than, than whatever that would be, but yeah, you know, maybe So I guess some of you are like, wait, what Adam is, is famous on Twitter and is the anti detection guy. So Adam wrote, and we're going to talk about this in a little bit. a series of tweets. It was a thread of tweets.
That I, when I became aware of it was when, Matt Miller from ditch, that textbook shared it out. I think that probably is when it really spread and reached kind of its critical mass. But then it got to the point where you were talking to news outlets and things like that and, edutopia, right. About, about the, about the work that you shared in that, thread of tweets about the problem with AI detection tools.
Yeah. What was, what was the craziest part of that experience, that whole experience of that, of just referenced it. It was like having journalists reach out and be like, we want to talk to you about, you know, the research on AI detection. I'm just like, I'm just a guy on Twitter who, who read the paper. You know what I mean? So the, the, the genesis of it was like, TurnItIn which is the most popular AI detection tool.
put out a white paper of like, here's the research supporting our, our approach. And my wife currently studies education data science at Stanford. And so I hang around with people that know a lot about data science who openly laugh at those types of tools. So I'm like, Hmm, very interested to read this paper, and dug into it and just immediately found a lot of.
Not, not direct lying, but, but lying by omission, which to me is lying, and sort of like obscuring the research, to, to benefit, you know, the tool that they're selling to schools and that rubbed me the wrong way. So I just put out this. This Twitter thread of like, you know, here's the, here's what it actually says. Here's the research they're citing that actually doesn't support the claims that they're making. And, and no one read it. Like I put it out. I don't know.
I don't, I don't even remember the date, but put it out. And then, yeah, like a month later, something, a couple of people that were very influential, I think Matt Miller then Holly Clark retweeted it. And all of a sudden it exploded. And yeah, edutopia is reaching out for interviews and, TurnItIn, took a keen interest as you might expect. And I ended up talking to the head of AI at TurnItIn and, and it turned into this formalized blog post that I've shared out with the world.
And it was a guest blog post with Matt Miller's, ditch that blog. so yeah, it was a weird, surreal experience to be caught up in a viral Twitter thread. Well, I was, it was so good. And that what was fascinating about the Twitter thread. And for those of you that are like, Tell me about, tell me about why, And like, you're saying that like they're doing the lying by omission kind of thing in there, which I agree with you. then they want to know more.
I'll put a link to the blog post, in the show notes and, and also we'll, we'll talk about it a little bit more too in a, in a couple minutes. But, what I think was fascinating about the whole thing was exactly what you said, where they were citing a study. that wasn't super favorable to them and no, none of us read it, right? Every, we all just trusted it. And like, you're like, you're not a data science science guy. You, you were just a guy who read it.
Like you were a guy who thought deeply about it, but just read it. And like, like I, what I love about both the blog posts and the Twitter thread. Is you were just like, I felt like I was along for the ride with you as you were like reading it and going like, wait, what didn't know it's like, like you're like, you were like live streaming your reaction, like, you know, those YouTube videos where somebody watches something and they're reacting and on the spot. Right.
Then that was your, that was your thread of you reacting to this article. Yeah, I mean, literally it was that it literally was just like a real time sort of reaction to like, my goodness, this is, you know, this is just overt lying. so, yeah, it was a surreal experience for sure. I'm happy to dive into any of it specifically if you would like to. But, Yeah. Yeah. We'll get to it. We'll get to them. And we had, we had some fun stuff first, but we'll, we'll definitely get to that in a minute.
Yeah. Like I said, it'll be in the show notes for everybody to check out. It really fascinating stuff that you, you, dug into there. And I think you don't give yourself enough credit in saying you're not a data scientist because maybe that's good. You were, you were reading it as an educator, and a person who cares about. education and about writing and about teachers and about schools and about school funding and about a lot of things.
and so I think you were the perfect person to be reading it because of the way that you read it. You know what I mean? Like you took the time to read it, but also you had, a perspective that brought about some really, valuable takes on what you were reading there. Well, I hope so.
And I, I hope it moves the needle in, in, in discouraging folks from using those types of tools and instead sort of orienting themselves towards more holistic approaches to adjusting writing instruction, that need to be made, which I'm excited to talk with you about today. Yeah, for sure. For sure. So, before we get into that, Adam, I'm excited that a few weeks after this episode drops, you and I are going to get to meet in person at FETC, right?
Yes. And a much warmer location than rural Nebraska, which is where I'm currently located. So I'm excited for that. and I'm in Ohio So yeah, we are both excited to be in Orlando for sure. That, that is the one thing I'm most excited to be at FETC for. Um, yeah. For the listeners who have never heard of FETC, it's the future of education technology conference. I'd say it's my favorite education conference. Have you been to it before, Adam? I praise. No, I haven't. I've heard really great things.
So this will be our first time going. I'm excited. I'm Nice. So they are, it's, it's like mini ISTE and ISTE is good. but ISTE is, is ginormous and you feel like an ant in a big city or something. I don't even know. whereas FETC is just big enough to have You could see anything and hear about anything you want to hear about, but yet feel a little bit more like a, like a community. So I, I like SD too, but FETC is really great.
and, very carefully curated, by former educators and led by Jen Womble, who loves education and is very involved in educational technology and just has a great mind for this. I was actually on, a webinar for all the presenters, and, and just like listening to her. I was like, this is, this is a person who gets teachers, gets the audience and gets what good presenting is and she, Talked about pedagogy and andragogy, you know, thinking about the adult learners and like this person gets it.
So FETC is a really good conference. I'll put some links for anybody interested in joining us in Orlando. If you can convince your school to send you to Orlando, I've got a discount code. I'll put in the show notes for everybody. but are you guys, so will you guys have a booth there and presentations, what are you doing there? Yeah, we'll have a booth. And then we were encouraged by some friends to do the, the pitch contest. So we're going to be up on the stage.
just talking about Short Answer and trying to convince people to join us and, and making some of the adjustments to writing instruction that we're going to talk about today. so I'm getting, I'm rapidly preparing my, my little three minutes feel, for, for Orlando. So I'm excited for it, but I've heard so many people say a lot of what you just said. it's like, yeah. Yes, Steve, but smaller, and a lot more personalized and, and curated. So I'm, I'm super excited for it.
Yeah, it's, it'll be a very good time. I'm excited to meet you in person there. I hope anybody that, is there will come up and find me and say hi and come find Adam and say hi and stop by Short Answers booth and go to Adam's, pitch. I can't believe it's only three minutes, Adam. We've already been talking for three pitches of time. It's like a shark tank thing, I think. So, we'll see, but, I'm excited for it. Yeah, great. Well, I hope I can make it to it. I hope my schedule allows that.
so yeah, so, FETC, are you doing ISTE? Are you doing any other big conferences in You are, you know, this is the first time, you know, last year we're, we're basically a bootstrapped organization, which is very different from a lot of the ed techs. And so I have to be a little bit more targeted in our outreach, but, this year we've kind of expanded the footprint. So, so we're at GATC in Atlanta, a couple of weeks ago, which was fantastic, really great conference.
we're going to be down at FETC after that it's TCEA, which is another great conference in Texas. It's in Austin this year. we're English specific, so we're also going to go down to TCT ELA, which is a much smaller conference. But as you like English specific, and then we'll be at ISTE for the first time. And for those that don't know, ISTE is combining with ASCD, which is a major. Curriculum and instruction organization. So very curious to see this here, like how they handle that.
Cause that's going to be a bajillion people in downtown San Antonio. So, but I've never been to ISTE and have always wanted to both as a former educator, but now, especially as an ed tech creator, like. Kind of a bucket list thing. So I'm excited for it. Yeah. Good time. So anybody, if you're at any of those things, reach out to Adam, make sure you say hi. And if you're organizing a different conference that he didn't just name, maybe you should reach out to him about that as well.
so Adam, you mentioned as a former teacher before you were in the ed tech space, what did you teach for those years? So I taught English and social studies, but mostly social studies, for seven years in the most varied context imaginable. It's almost like hilariously different places. So rural Nebraska, which is where I'm from, urban China for a year, in the Southern part of China and then on the West side of Chicago for a couple of years. So very different contexts.
Wow. Which, which probably really enables you to have a really cool like background in the way you think about classrooms and about teaching and about learning and stuff like that. Right? definitely, um, definitely, drove home the idea that like in education, everything works somewhere and nothing works everywhere. So you gotta cater it. I'm stealling... I'm stealing that quote from Dr Dylan William. By the way, I want to give credit where it's due.
Um, but it's very true education and what works in education is very contextual. So now, as someone who's building a tool at scale, it's helpful to have that perspective, I think. Wow. Nothing works everywhere and everything works somewhere. Is that what, did I say that right? That's education research in a nutshell. So I'm stealing that too. And if it came from Dylan William, you know, it's, you know, it's good stuff. yeah, exactly. Yes, that's for sure. All right.
So I'm already having fun chatting with you, Adam, but we're going to play a game cause we have to, it's, it's part of the educational duct tape rule book that a game be played during the interview. Like it's, it's right there. It's clause five. and so we're going to play a game. Of two truths and one lie. So you're going to read me three statements. I'm going to do a horrible job of guessing which one's the lie. I'll get confused about how the game works. Cause that's what normally happens.
I may or may not realize what the lie is. And you'll have to tell me like, wait, Jake, you never figured out the lie. The people who listen, no, this game goes. but first what are your three statements, Adam? Yeah, I've got them right here. I'm very excited. So the first one, I'm a huge college sports fan. So graduated from Creighton university, small school in Omaha, but we just upset the number one team in the country, by the way, in basketball. So just a heads up there, go Jays.
but so diehard Creighton basketball fan, but controversially being from Nebraska, also a diehard Iowa Hawkeyes football fan. So that's, that's, uh, you know, Item number one. Item number two. Um, I once slow danced with Chicago Cubs legend Ernie Banks Okay. in bullet point three. I road tripped across all the lower 48 states in one summer. Those are my three. Okay. think of the three most absurd ones I could think of. Those were, those were pretty absurd.
Well, the first one wasn't that absurd, but the other ones were absurd. Um, the funny thing is I, when I thought about Creighton, I was like, the only thing I know about Creighton is they are regularly in the NCAA tournament. Um, as a, as a relatively low seed, but, uh, but whoa, whoa, whoa. whoa. We almost made the final four, like a weren't they a low seed? No, no, no. We were like, Ooh, I don't even remember. I think we were four or five seed that year. Okay. All right.
Yeah. But I was going to say the next part I was going to say was they always are, they always play impressively in it. I'm not a big college hoops fan, but I always do kind of, kind of follow along with like the, once they get to the final four and stuff like that. Um, and Iowa Hawkeyes football, I did not see that coming. Um, and then the Ernie Banks thing that got me what position that Ernie Banks play.
He's an, Ooh, he was Is he a middle I'm actually not a diehard Cubs fan at all, but, uh, he, I think he was an outfielder, Okay. I believe you. statues outside the stadium. He's a big deal in Chicago. Yeah, I can, and you slow danced with, let me say, I'm, that's the lie. No, that's real. That's a real one. I know. That's like the most absurd thing I could think of. That's very absurd. So just, you know, for the listeners, the lie was the Iowa Hawkeyes thing.
I'm literally hiding my Nebraska court Huskers I was getting, I was wondering about that one too, because I was like, wait a minute. Like I can understand you're not a Creighton football fan or like big Creighton football fan, but Iowa, not Nebraska. never, never a Hawks fan. No, I'm, I'm, I'm a Cornhuskers fan. Like die hard when it comes to football. Um, but no, so Omaha, um, is home of, uh, baseball legend, Bob Gibson.
And so every year he would host this thing called the Bob Gibson all star classic, and my mom would take me up and it was at somebody golf tournament. But afterwards they put on like a banquet where they have like a dance and you could pay for tables and sit next to like, you know, legendary baseball players. And so. Um, my mom did it cause she, and she took my grandpa who's a huge baseball fan.
And, um, and yeah, we were at a table with Ernie Banks and, and, and I was like, and I was in like kindergarten at this point, I was very young, but, uh, went out and danced on his shoes. It was like a surreal experience, um, and a really cool random claim to fame. So yeah, that one's real. You have pictures of you dancing with Ernie Banks. We have framed pictures in this house. I'm in my parents house right now. So yeah, yeah, it was a big deal.
Wow, Ernie Banks and Danza shoes Pretty cool experience. Well, fan thing because I am a Buckeyes fan here in Ohio. So we'll no comment on that. Yeah, right. we're not feeling super happy about our fandom right now. after a couple of weeks ago, there, there is a certain university that's roughly halfway between Ohio state and where you're at in Nebraska that we're not happy with right now. So we won't discuss that one at I won't. I won't touch on that. I know it's a sore subject.
Thank you for that. what was the other, what was the other thing? What was the third thing? I did a road trip across all the lower 48 states. Actually, when I was still teaching and I video blogged it with my kids and we did this like, like trivia thing where I made videos and they had to guess where I was at. And that was after my first year of teaching at Louisville. And I, you know, Basically, I desperately wanted to be Anthony Bourdain at that point in my life.
So this is my attempt to like create a little travel show with my kids. It was awesome. so basically just road tripped all summer and visited all 48 States, all the lower floors, you know? And then were you like blocking it on the, like YouTube or something? Is that where you put it? And then, And then your students were commenting and watching and stuff like that. Yeah. It was awesome. Like did all sorts of cool stuff.
Like stopped in Montgomery, Alabama and interviewed Martin Luther King's barber and talked about the civil rights movement and then like went What? I know, I know it's crazy. That's actually a pretty good idea for a YouTube channel. Like I think maybe like if Short Answer doesn't work out, which I think it's going to work out, but if Short Answer doesn't work out, uh, I think maybe, I think maybe the show should come back. Well, that was part of the original, I think, conceit.
I was a young person and, you know, kind of secretly wanted to be maybe YouTube famous too Right. and, and, and do some educational stuff with my kids and have an excuse to travel. So, no, that was a really cool experience. That is really cool.
Yeah. And so the other, the part of the reason your students were watching is you were 23 or whatever and you were the hip guy teacher that they had and that's at least I thought I was, I don't know if I actually was, but Well, to them, you were at that time, like, but like, if I 44 year old Jake Miller did this, like none of my former students are tuning in to that optional content, but my first year, they'd be like, Oh, Mr. Miller, you're visiting somewhere random in Ohio.
Like, yes, I will watch that even though I live in that state, but that's because you're the first year teacher and you're cool then. Yeah, we'll take it.
Okay. Adam. Let's talk about some educational technology now, instead of goofing around about this stuff, so in the educational duct tape podcast, Adam, and for people who may be tuning in for the first time, we think about educational technology as a tool to solve teacher problems or meet teacher goals, sometimes educational technology is not the only route. Sometimes it's, just a strategy we use. There's something we do. It doesn't have to be something digital.
It could be something analog, but in general, we're thinking of these practices and these tools as that. Tools that help us do things. so I always start with a teacher question. And now I've got a big one that is on a lot of people's minds. And I know you've done a lot of work in this space. And so you're very well qualified to answer this question for us. And that question is how should teachers teach and assess writing? In the age of AI.
So now that our landscape has totally shifted because of AI, I think the classroom that's most impacted by it is the writing classroom. They're all impacted by it. We can't stick our heads in the sand. We have to, we have to embrace it in a way, because it's part of our world. So we have to admit it's there. So what do we do when we're teaching writing? How do we change how we teach?
How do we change how we assess and I guess my first question I'm gonna lead with this one is can we just keep doing it the same way? And tell kids not to use AI and use AI detection tools to see if they're using AI. So that's my first question is, can we, I'm really setting this up as an easy one for you. Can we just act like nothing's changed and just tell them not to use it? No, thoughts on that? Short Answer. No pun intended. No. Right. Please elaborate. yeah, no, we cannot.
And I mean, there's, there's, there's a larger reason for this that has nothing to do with AI. Like, if you want to stand back for a second, even larger and just think, well, why should we assess writing in a world where machines can now write for kids? yeah. Our kids can't write already. So if you look at NAEP scores, NAEP is like the national, you know, the nation's score, what do they call it? The nation's report card, so to speak. 75 percent of 8th And, I want to get this right.
I think 10th grade, don't quote me on that. But at the high school level, 75 percent of kids are not proficient in writing. That's based on 2022 NAEP scores. So our kids already can't write. So what we're doing already is not working. And so regardless of AI or not, we need to make changes to how we approach writing instruction and assessment. But especially because of AI, we need to rethink. writing instruction and assessment.
And it's because we just mentioned like, machines can now write for humans for the first time in human history. it's, it's a really important, practical challenge just as much as in philosophical challenge for schools. so so no, we can't just keep doing what we always have done and, and sort of like turn to AI detection buttons as like the easy button of like, well, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, tell kids not to use AI.
And then if I suspect them of using it, I'll just run it through, you know, pick your, pick your AI detection tool. and then that'll be my way of dealing with it. That's my policy. Here we go. that. Which I've seen, unfortunately, a lot of schools and teachers doing like that's not going to cut it. Unfortunately, it's going to take larger, more fundamental changes. So, I have a 5 point plan for you today on on on, you know, sort of 1st steps. We can take it and changes that that need to happen.
I think to K 12 writing instruction and assessment Yeah, I'm eager to eager to hear that I apologize for interrupting the episode, but I've got a quick confession to make. I'm a bit of an out loud thinker, you know, the type. I need to talk things through to make sense of my own ideas. My wife, well, let's just say she's a very patient listener, but I'm 99% sure. She doesn't always enjoy being my sounding board.
That's why I'm so excited about this segment's sponsor swivel and their new tool mirror talk.ai. I'm thinking that mirror talk might just free my wife up from listening to all of my processing and reflecting. You see mirror talk, lets you or your students reflect out loud. Literally just talk it out. And gives you instant AI powered insights. On how you're thinking and where you can improve. It provides honest objective feedback that helps develop reflective and metacognitive skills.
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Yeah, I'm eager to eager to hear that and eager to share that. I think one thing I want to point out, and I think you, you will, I don't want to speak for you, but I'm confident, very confident that you're gonna agree with me here. I love teachers. my, I, I don't know any profession that works harder, cares more and Deals with issues of distrust and doubt and lack of respect as consistently as teachers do So I understand it's a very hard job. There's not a lot of time to do it.
A lot of educators put unpaid time into their work. So when we see a new challenge. It's really hard for them to say like, well, I'll just change the way I do everything. Um, because we understand like, like you're already working really hard and you're already putting a lot of time and making a change is hard. It's hard to embrace it. It changes the fabric of what you know to be teaching. And teaching writing and writing, especially and assessing, it changes the fabric of all that.
And that's hard. That's a tough pill to swallow. It requires a lot of work. And so when a teacher wants to use something that is an easy button, so to speak, I understand where that comes from and I understand why they want to do that. I understand why it's so enticing. The problem is, as you alluded to earlier, that Some ed tech companies are very willing to sell their things as those tools. because that's how I, society that is a capitalist society works. Like that's what we do. Right.
and so I understand it all right. And I agree with you that we can't do that. Can you. Before we chart the path forward, I'm going to, I'm going to put the, I'm going to put the link to your, your blog post about AI detection tools in the, in the show notes so everybody can see it. Um, but will you give us like the one minute overview of, of why not? Why not Adam? but simply because these tools don't work.
So, if you talk to any data science person, I talked to a lot of them right now, because my wife's a grad student studying data science. they laugh at these tools that they don't work. So researchers have done independent third party studies on these things. The one that I cite in the, blog post is from Dr. Laura Weber-Wulff was at the university of applied sciences in Berlin. They looked at all the major. popular AI detection tools.
And this is, this is the study that was actually cited by TurnItIn and their white paper. and yes, TurnItIn as the best in that study, but then you look at it and you find out that it's wrong over 20 percent of the time still, uh, in the text that it's labeling. And a direct quote from that study is, This is in the findings. These tools should not be used in academic settings.
That's coming directly from third party researchers who I trust over a for profit company who's trying to make money off of schools. so that, you know, that, that's, that's the Weber-Wulff study.
I, I cite another study a lot, which is the university of Maryland's computer science department did a study where basically if you just change the words around of AI outputs, it changes the statistical Probability like it changes the, uh, well, we don't need to get into the nitty gritty of it, it's fine, but it changes the efficacy of these things where it drops it to like by 90%.
Um, so, so if, if you don't trust third party researchers, which I just cited open AI wrote a blog post a while back where they basically gave up on, on developing AI detection software. And they directly address educators in it. And they say, we know this creates challenges where you're not going to know what was AI generated and what's not. But. Just as much of a challenge is putting a tool into your hands that doesn't work and saying that it does. So we're not going to develop this tool.
and interestingly, since then, open AI has come out. Well, they haven't released it, but they have supposedly they have a watermarking system. That's like 99 percent effective, but they haven't released. So we'll see. Maybe, maybe down the road there will be AI detection stuff.
But, so yeah, Cause that's the thing I tell a lot of teachers is the AI detection tool can't find some kind of, I've never said the word watermark, but there's not like a piece of code in the text that an AI detector goes like, ah, here it is, it's a, it's AI. There's, there's nothing inherently about the text that tells somebody it came from AI, unless something like that watermarking feature becomes available in the future. But they're looking for patterns. So go ahead.
yeah, no, it's looking for patterns. You just, you just got what I was going to say, which is large language model powered AI tools like chat, GPT or clod or pick your poison. They're just stringing together words based on statistical probabilities. So what these AI detection tools do is look for what you would expect. Those statistical patterns that you would see in text that's been strung together. based on probabilities. But again, the immediate problem with that is change.
A few words of brown, you break up those probabilities and all of a sudden the efficacy drops by 90%. So, and even when you don't, you know, even when you copy paste directly from ChatGPT 20 percent chance, it's still going to be wrong. So the efficacy is just not high enough to be used in an academic setting. And it's certainly not high enough to be giving a kid a zero or you know, making it your policy for your classroom, you know, at all.
So I would strongly encourage your listeners to not use these tools and instead take more holistic approaches to changing how they approach, things like, you know, academic integrity and, and, and that sort of thing. Yeah, I think the main the main part there is don't use them because they don't actually work. And that, that, that's, that should be enough. But if it's, if it's not enough, you've got to think about what, what happens if you still choose to use them.
I hear a lot of teachers say like, well, it's just be one tool in my toolbox, or it could be the first thing that I use to look at, it could be a conversation starter, and you mentioned some of these things in your article, but. You've got to think about, okay, well, then, well, then what happens, right?
Then what happens when you talk to a kid and make it either clear directly or maybe kind of the kid can tell in your tone that you're suggesting that maybe, possibly they might have, you suspect that they used AI and what does that do with your relationship with that kid? Whether or not they used it. so there, there are some interpersonal things that are, Immensely probable, not probable, problematic and probable, I guess, if we choose, if we choose to use these things.
so not only are they not effective, but they, they can cause a lot of problems. And so, yeah, not a good I just don't think the risk is worth the reward. That's the biggest explanation I hear is like, well, this is just a conversation starter for me.
My response to that is you're starting a conversation with, with a baseless accusation, which is a really troublesome way to, like, build a relationship with a kid, which is arguably the most important factor in what you're going to be able to get out of a student in your classroom. So anything that gets in the way or potentially gets in the way of building a meaningful relationship with the kid. Right.
I think we need to be skeptical of, so I don't, yeah, I would discourage against these tools Yeah, I don't have a study to cite.
I don't know where it falls on on Hattie's meta analysis, but but the the trust between a teacher and a kid, especially between the kid and the teacher is has got to be one of the biggest influencers of student success and doing these kinds of things shows a lack of trust from the teacher of the student and then creates a lack of trust from the student with the teacher.
And. So you're, you're trying to use these things for good cause, which is to improve student learning because you don't want cheating to happen. But instead what you're doing is a detriment to student learning. So, yeah, there are free alternatives that work better.
So, I mean, I'm not saying don't try to, you know, if you set the expectation with your kids and in a writing assignment that they're not supposed to use AI and you suspect that they did, there are free tools that include like a DraftBack Chrome extension or a. revision history or a tool that I've become, I really like is BriskAI, which I know you've talked a lot about on this podcast and it's, it's an awesome tool, but they have a revision history tool that I think is super powerful.
If you suspect a student of using AI, you can go back and and see how many edits the kids made and over how long of a course of time. And if there's any big copy pasting moments that happened in the, in the, in the version history of that document. So there are tools that can do this. I do think brisk has AI detection too. That'll kick out like a percentage score. I wouldn't recommend using that, but I really like their, their revision history tooling.
So there are tools to help you monitor this stuff. It's just, I wouldn't use, you know, the TurnItins in the, GPT zeros of the world. I think there's better alternatives. Yeah. Oh, and I think what's good about those alternatives is there, what they're looking at is the process, the learner went through while they wrote, not the product that came out of the writing. And that's really what we need to do.
I think that's going to lead into the other stuff that I'm going to let you share here in a second. You're like, I know you're itching to share that stuff, but, um, that's, what we need to work on is the process, not the product. Uh, these AI detectors are looking at just the product. Things like revision history, uh, which will show when the kid worked on the document, how long, how many edits, what they typed, what day, and draft back. That'll show it as a process.
and brisk that'll also do that. Those tools let you see. And then if you, like, as you said, if you see a big chunk of text come in all of a sudden, then maybe they did copy it over from chat GPT. That's a more effective way to do that. Then just throwing into those different tools. Um, and I, and you allude to this in the article, such great metacognitive things for writers to be doing.
Anyhow, looking back at what their writing process and writing journey was like, to see ways they can be better or what kinds of writing they're good at, where their skills are, what their strengths are. So it's not just a tool that will help us notice when AI is there. It's a tool that will help us grow good writers. I think. 100%. I was just going to say that, like, we don't need to just view these tools as like punitive and like to enforce our anti AI policies.
It's like there's tremendous formative assessment value here in getting kids to be owners of their own learning and reflect on their process. and yeah, like, like I could literally imagine assignment where it's like, make me a screencast where you walk me through, um, you know, your process editing this document explaining step by step the changes that you made to this document over time. Like, there's tremendous formative assessment value on that.
So, so, yeah, there's, there's a lot of learning potential that can come out of this as well. Yeah, I worked, back in the day with my friend, Dr. William Kist, who, at the time was with Kent State University here in Ohio. now he's, he's no longer with the university, but he still does work in the, English and language arts space and writing and we did work with a group of teachers.
It was called writing ourselves was the project and we were, we were focused on high school writing classes, primarily a little bit middle school too. And the kids made digital portfolios of their writing, not just of they're finished products, but of the process. So in the portfolio was, A brainstorming document was the first draft was the feedback on the first draft was the second draft because that's what we, they really cared about.
They were saying what's important in writing is the process, not always just the product. and in it we use draft back. To record a video. So we would take a screencast of draft back, feeding back the writing process, I think is what we did. it's been a long time ago and put that in their digital portfolio, which I think was a really, really cool way to do it. And, and then it has this added benefit of helping us see this.
So I think that, I think that's, that's kind of a first step of, of how we could teach and assess writing in the age of AI, which is to not use AI detection tools instead to use some of these alternatives that let us look at what the process was like. Not what the product is like. what, what's your other, what's your five point plan, Adam?
Yeah, I mean, that leads right into the first point of the plan here, which is like you need to have clear classroom policies and clear school policies around and really conversations up front with kids about what are your expectations with AI use, what does it mean to act with academic integrity on a specific writing assignment that you're assigning? and then being really intentional to make sure that your kids know those expectations and can follow those expectations.
and so the best system that I've seen for this ... there are now various varieties of it. I really like, and a lot of people don't. So I'd encourage you to challenge me on it. But like a simple red, yellow, green labeling system of if I label this writing assignment red, you can't use AI. If you do, you're violating my academic integrity expectations and you can be held accountable. If I label it yellow, you can use some AI with specific constraints.
And if you go beyond those constraints again, you're going to be held accountable. And a green labeled assignment is not only can use AI, The learning construct of this assignment is I want you to learn how to use AI effectively in your writing. So that's what I'm measuring. And so a part of the goal of this assignment is to teach you how to use AI effectively. So I want you to use it.
I like the simplicity of that system, but I think the core insight is really just thinking about writing assessment through this lens of a tiered layer of influence. And so we, we actually did a webinar with Short Answer with, Dr. Mike Perkins and Leon Furze who are doing some research around this. They're calling it the AI assessment scale. And maybe this is something we can link in the show notes. For sure, yeah. Um, and so they have a instead of a red yellow green, three level system.
They have a five point system. I've seen other people that are doing 5 to 7 point systems around like specific. It's almost like a rubric. And within each one, we've got a description of what I use looks like. I think this is another example of one of those moments where it's like everything works somewhere. Nothing works everywhere. Teachers need to find what's going to work best for their context.
But, um, Yeah. Just sort of practically accepting that if and when writing leaves the classroom, there's a pretty good chance, especially at the middle and high school level that A. I. Is probably going to have an influence on that writing once it leaves the classroom. and and we just need to adjust accordingly and take a practical lens on this.
And I think the assessment scale that that Leon Furze and Dr Perkins have promoted and has now been interpreted in many different ways, I think, is maybe an effective first step and then pairing that with the tooling that we just talked about, which is like, revision history tracking and being up front with kids about, Hey, I am going to track your revision history here.
cause there's been some really meaningful conversations on social media I've seen recently on like, you know, is it a little bit surveillancy to be To not let a kid have their like, you know, private process of writing, because I can think of a million different things that I might put into a blog post in the first, you know, when I'm just kind of like word vomiting words onto a page that I wouldn't necessarily want seen by other a good point. Yeah. And, you know, so I want to plug real quick.
Her name's Anna Mills. I follow her and she's a great follow on on blue sky and on Twitter and, just around these dialogue, this dialogue on writing instruction and assessment. I looked at her work a lot. so, So, yeah, I think so. So point one of the plan is just we got to have clear classroom policies, and oftentimes that means having conversations up front with kids about what effective use looks like.
And there's a whole larger conversation there around academic integrity and, I don't know if we want to go down that rabbit hole or not, but really, I think we need to also reframe in schools how we approach academic integrity. It can't just be a policy. It needs to be an expressed learning outcome that we're explicitly teaching to kids.
Like, this is what it means to act with academic integrity in my ELA class or my social studies or math or whatever your, your content area is, and explicitly teach it rather than what we currently do, which is like, Basically define it by what's what it's not and assume kids know what that means where it's like academic integrity is not copy pasting off of ChatGPT and it's not, you know, stealing from your classmate, whatever they wrote, or it's like we tell kids what it's not.
And we often don't actually teach them what it is. And I think that's a transition that needs to happen too. But that's a whole larger conversation. Yeah, you got me on that one. I never, never really thought about academic integrity that way. Um, I have a couple of follow up points I want to make on that. I wholeheartedly agree with this plan of having clear classroom policies in place.
I think something like that AI assessment scale, whether it's the red, yellow, green one, or the one you shared about, I think. Number one, from a classroom culture point of view, you know, making things clear to kids is really effective, especially if we can involve them in those discussions and help them craft what that policy is. I think that might not be something that all teachers are comfortable with. I'm okay. If you're not, I think it'll increase buy in.
if you talk to the kids about what things can we do, what things can we not do, what should yellow look like? What should green look like? What should red look like? Even when it's green, what are the limitations we should have? not only talking to kids about those things, which I think is, is almost a necessity. You have to talk to them about your policies, but I think I would also encourage you to have an open discussion, where it's co right. It's both of you.
It's you and the learners, not just you telling them, what the policy is, which is the bare minimum we need to do. We also need to involve them in that. I think you're making a really important point, which is like kids need to understand the why behind you know, why are you doing what you're doing? Because I can understand where a kid, especially a high school kid who may not want to do your writing assignment and who may question the value of why should I have to do this?
If the machine can do it for me, you need to be explicit with that kid about here's why, and be intentional about that. So, So, yeah, that dialogue is super important. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think also It's that trust issue that we were alluding to earlier, right? The kid trusts you because you're being upfront, and, transparent with them. And it also creates that situation where the kid goes like, Oh, right now we're on red.
If that's the scale you ended up using as that traffic light scale, that's a bummer, I really wanted to use my AI tools, but the kid is hopefully like, Yeah, but he lets me be on green when he thinks it's appropriate. Right.
And so there's, there's an understanding there that go with any rules, policies, expectations in a classroom where if you're flexible, like if you're saying like, like, like talking about group work, right, right now you get to choose who your partner is, but this other time I'm choosing for you, right.
The kids are more likely in that kind of classroom when you choose for them to go like, yeah, But he let me choose myself yesterday and today there's a reason and he was transparent about what the reason is and so kids can then understand and respect those decisions you're imposing them, because they know that you're flexible and have their best interests in mind.
I think that's the other important part I want to make before we move on to part two, is That we need to be clear that the goal of school is the learning, right? And so all of these things that we're doing are in interest of them learning to be really good writers. So every decision we make when we're, when we put it on red, it's not because. that will create a flaw in the assessment and then I won't have an accurate grade for you because the grade is not the priority.
The priority is the learning, right? And so we have the expectations and the policies and the procedures and things like that in interest of learning because that's what our goal is, is learning, Exactly. And it's funny you say that because we did a webinar with Dr. Dylan William, who's an advisor to us. And for my money, like a godfather of modern K 12 assessment. And he talked about that because I brought up this red, yellow, green system. And he was like, red, yellow, green, fine, use it.
But what's really interesting about this is like, just to what extent is AI serve the learning construct of whatever you're trying to teach. And if it doesn't, why are you using? Why are we even worrying about AI? Like um, so, what I like about the system and it allows you to cater your policy kind of to your point, it's breathable. You can have conversations with kids. You can Sort of pick and choose how you want to use AI specific.
It's not just like a blanket, like absolutely no AI ever, because in some cases it might be useful and in some cases it may not, it just depends on what the assessment construct of your assignment is. So I like it as a system for that reason. Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. Okay. So I I'm guessing I may or may not have had a peek at what you want to talk about today.
that, the topic of Mr. Dylan William, who is one of my education heroes, may connect to your next topic here because it may be about something that a lot of his writing is related to. So go ahead. Mm yeah, it kind of is. It's so, so point one is like, I have clear classroom policies and conversations with kids. But then point two is okay.
If you are nervous about AI and you are still working on like the core scale of just kids putting words into sentences into paragraphs and you don't want them to use AI because you want that you're still developing those foundational skills. And I think you're going to need to bring more writing back into the classroom.
So, so point two is just more short formative targeted in class writing instruction that is that is based around Dylan Williams, you know, sort of he has a five point plan actually around formative assessment that's actualizing those best practices and formative assessment and really getting kids to think critically about about writing instruction about writing skills.
and that's I mean, this is not a vendor session here, so I'm not going to sit here and plug Short Answer too much, but that's specifically why we're building Short Answer is. It is for that in class, short form, meaningful conversations and social interaction around writing instruction. So, you know, that's the tool we're building. I'm happy to talk more about it, but you don't have to use Short Answer to do this.
You can do really cool paper, pencil stuff to with in class, you know, short form writing experiences as well that I'm happy to talk about. Yeah. I want to jump in on that one. and, and point out like there are certain times when ed tech companies, which Short Answer is, I don't know if that feels crazy for you to have an ed tech company, like, right. Um, there's, there's ones that I feel differently about and there are certain ed tech companies that I really root for.
Because they are coming from a place of trying to do something good for in the classroom. there's plenty of them out there, but for example, in the most recent episode of the podcast, I talked to Dan Stitzel and Dan was talking about when he saw Josh. I don't know how to pronounce Josh's last name. Uh, but the, the founder and originator of Gimkit, when he saw him speak years ago, Josh as a high schooler.
Yeah. Realized that he really liked gamified learning experiences and was really interested in coding and in a high school class developed a tool that later led to him creating GimKit, which is a gamified classroom thing. And so it's easy to cheer for GimKit because it's this guy who wanted like a certain thing to exist in the classroom, right? It wasn't. It wasn't a, like a money grab. And so Short Answer.
Similarly, you have this thing that you're trying to work towards, which is finding a way to make this short formative targeted in class writing happen and be digestible and be fun for kids. Um, and Dylan William, I know you've done a webinar with him too, correct? Is that right? Yeah, we have. Yeah. And I'm happy to link it in the show notes Yeah, for sure. Um, and so Dylan William talks a lot in his work about formative assessment and about the power of formative assessment.
And I think that's a huge first step we can make in all classrooms in the age of AI. We should have made before the age of AI, but also in writing classrooms is moving more of it to be formative and doing less summative. Because if we don't see the writing process and we don't see the little bits and pieces, it's easy to be tricked, and to let AI sneak in.
And if we do these short formative assessment things, number one, it's harder to be tricked, and number two, it shows kids that our focus is on the process. Our focus is on them as writers. Our focus is on helping them grow. Our focus is not on catching them cheating. Our focus is not on grading, right? Our focus is on what's happening during the thing. So, so that's my roundabout and long way to say, please do tell us about Short Answer.
I, I know that it feels awkward because you're, you, you don't wanna feel like you're selling here, but I think people need to hear about it. Pe everybody comes on this show and talks about tools that they love. Short Answer is a tool that I, I love. It's a tool that you love, you love it for extra reasons, , but tell us about it. Go for it. Yeah. I mean, it's so context. I was a teacher for seven years. It grew out of that experience. It started as my master's capstone project at Stanford.
We got some grant funding and launched a year ago. So it's very new. It's only been around around about about a year. The fastest way to get it across is just think like Kahoot for writing like kids sign in with a code. You send out writing prompts to students or questions. And Students respond. It's all constructed response. They can type their text or attach pictures. They rate their confidence in their submission, which I think is an important point and submit it.
And then once the teachers got all those responses, they push him back to the class. The really important part of this is, it's all based around peer to peer interaction and creating social experiences for kids. I think that's really important and I want to come back to it. But so teacher pushes responses back to the class, and then in a variety of gamified activities, the kids will see each other's responses, Uh, I hate to leave you with a cliffhanger, but this is a to be continued situation.
Folks. I'm really sorry, but we will pick up where we left off with Adam. In next week's episode, he's got more to tell us about the functionality of short answer, which I am super excited about. As well as the rest of his tips for teaching writing in the age of AI. You are not going to want to miss the rest of the conversation. There is so much goodness in it. So make sure you're subscribed so that you don't miss it again.
It's coming next week, but just whatever app you're in right now, Spotify, YouTube, uh, Apple podcasts, whatever you're in, make sure you're subscribed or following the show. So that'll come right into your feed. As soon as that episode drops. Uh, next week and so that you don't miss it also, before we jump into the next part, before you go, I do want to point out short answer has been a sponsor on the show before and will be a sponsor in the future.
I intentionally didn't include them as a sponsor today because I thought it was kind of a conflict of interest for them sponsoring the episode that Adam was in. Those are two completely different, , ventures, them sponsoring the show and Adam being on the show. He's on the show as an educator. And when I have a company like short answer response to the show, or like mirror talk from swivel today. Uh, or visor today. These are companies that I believe in.
So that's why short answer is also a sponsor. Um, certainly I'm not going to turn away a great sponsor that helps fund the making of this show. Uh, they're a great tool. They're not a sponsor for today, but they'll be back as a sponsor in the future. Uh, before you go, before we wrap up the show, let's take a quick look at some education news that has caught my attention. First up an update from one of my very favorite tools, pear deck. So we know that many tools.
Now let teachers generate activities. And lessons with AI, but those tools don't have the awesome lesson delivery features that pear deck does. And now their users have access to AI powered instant Paradex, as you'd guess you just enter a topic, a standard, a link, or even a file. And bam, a full lesson is ready to go right inside a pear deck as always we know pedagogy and our content better than an AI tool does. So if you try it, make sure you proofread. Read it.
And then afterwards, Please tell me, did it do a good job? Did it hit the, hit the standard? Well, did it ask good questions? Was it easy to use? I want to hear about it. So reach out preferably on blue sky or via email or the speak pipe for the show or something like that. And let me know, did it work well?
Um, if you'd like to see this in action before trying it out, I will put a link to a video from my good friend, Stacy Roshaun, and the show notes where she, uh, did a tutorial on a demo of this feature. And some other new paradigm features. Next up Canva added a new feature called dream lab that lets teachers generate curriculum aligned visuals in seconds. So detailed plant cells, historical timelines, whatever you need, just type it in dream lab makes it for you.
It could be a game changer for making abstract concepts more accessible and engaging. I know there were times in my classroom, whether it was when I was teaching math or when I was teaching a science or when I was teaching stem. Where I'd spend, like my whole planning period. She's trying to make a visual for the next lesson. And it really was such a small facet of the lesson, but it was such a big thing in terms of my students' understanding. If that makes sense. Like. So important.
It seemed, it seemed like such a small thing to spend a lot of time on, but so important that a value deserve that much time. Now with something like dream lab, we could potentially have it made automatically. Now I haven't tried it out in depth and tried it a bunch of things with it. So if you do try out dream lab and Canva. Again, reach out. Let me know what you think of it. Yeah, hit me up on blue sky, uh, or the SpeakPipe for the show or something like that. And tell us how to work.
Next up a Google-y update. They have added a new way to manage who can respond to forms for most of us, it's just a new interface to have to learn. And the buttons that we're used to clicking are no longer in the same places. For those of us who create tutorials, uh, it means you have to rerecord your Google forms, videos. Sorry about that. Uh, but it does have some benefits. I think this is actually a good change for some of us.
It's just gonna be a pain, but for teachers in particular, if you're using this in your classroom, Uh, I think there's going to be a benefit. So previously you could choose to let anyone who has the link respond to a Google form. Which was the kind of the default, or you could restrict it to people in your domain. That was your only option. You could either say limit it to my domain. Or you could say anybody who has a link can respond, right. And you just wouldn't give the link to everybody.
But technically if Joe Schmo and who knows where got the link, they could respond to your form or everybody in your domain. Now the problem would be. What if you limited it to everybody in your domain and it's something for your first period class, and you don't want your second period class to respond, somehow they get the link and they respond, right. There's nothing stopping them from that. So now this new feature does stop that.
So now you can set your form so that only specific students or classes or groups can respond. So you could say just these users or just this Google classroom. Um, Group these, this roster, or just as group of email addresses can respond. So you could designate who the form works for. It won't work for anybody else. And what you could do then. Is at, in that second period class later when you're ready for them to be able to respond.
So the link could be there and you're just not open it up kind of a nice way. If you're using Google forms for assessments, you could post it in, you know, say cool classroom or whatever, and then make that change later. There's better ways to do it, but you could say, you know, the links there, but it's not going to work until I put your email address in. So those are three new updates. Um, AI generated instant Paradex Canva dream lab, and new new restrictions to who can access a Google form.
So I'm curious, which one of those three updates are you most excited about? Again, let me know. On blue sky, use the hashtag EDU duct tape. Tell me all about it. If you want to let me know on a different, um, social media. That's totally fine too. I'm on all of them, but blue skies currently, the one I'm most excited about, there's also a SpeakPipe for the show where you can record that feedback. Uh, and otherwise you reach out and you're certainly welcome to reach out via email, to.
Well, just like how my wife eventually helps my kids find their flannel PJ pants or their toothbrush. It's time to find the end of this episode. She's still waiting for that magical kid request system. But luckily today's sponsor visor makes managing it issues in schools, easy with features like a self service portal and automated tasks. Students never need to yell Turk purser. For a special pricing and some awesome swag head over to visor.cloud/jake that's V I Z O r.cloud/jake.
Trust me, visor makes managing Chromebooks look easier than my wife makes managing our kids' stuff. Look. And thanks divisor and thanks also to today's other sponsor swivel and their new tool. Mira talk AI, have a great day, everybody.