#283 - A Teacher's Perspective - How to Approach AI as an Institution (part 1)

Hello and welcome podcast Rose Ruckin and The integration of artificial Although progress is uneven and not everyone is yet involved. While some schools have jumped at the opportunity to utilise AI for grading, personalised learning plans and more, other institutions remain hesitant. But one thing is abundantly clear. AI is here to stay, and AI is not without risk. And today I'm joined by my wonderful guest.

Emma Darcy, Director of Technology for Learning at Denby High School, and Sarah Buist, Head of Digital Strategy at Royal Grammar School Newcastle. So welcome to our POD studio. It's great to have you here. I'm really, really keen to hear from you about what you're doing with artificial intelligence, how it's working in your schools and to hear a little bit about your roles.

So to start off, can each of you give us a sense of how widely AI is being adopted at your respective institutions and your particular area of focus? So tell us a little bit about what's actually happening. Emma, do you want to kick us off on this one, please? No problem. So uh I'm Emma Darcy, I'm Director of Technology for Learning at Denby High School in Luton. I've been there for the past 11 years.

I have a bit of quite a few multiple roles at the moment. So I also work as a trustee for Apps for Good. I'm a work stream lead for AI in education as well. And I'm also part of a group called the Digital Futures Group. Which is supporting schools and maths with digital strategy. And I think in terms of where we're at with AI at Denby. Probably about 18 months ago, with the advent of ChatGPT, that was the point where we kind of realized that something was coming that was probably going to be

very significant in terms of education, in terms of what was happening in school, in terms of things that we needed to be aware of. And I try and avoid using cliches like game changer and things like that, because I know they're very overused at the moment.

But it was one of those things where I I was very, very lucky. I'm I'm I'm part of a really supportive leadership team where we can have these conversations about what's coming down the track. And it really was something where we were like, right, we need to start having conversations about this. We need to start talking about what the likely

challenges of AI are going to be, we need to start thinking about how can we fit this into our school improvement plan for the year, which we did do. And how can we be one of those schools that, rather than stepping back from this, faces it head head on, goes, Yes, we know this is gonna be challenging, we know this is gonna be difficult, but let's let's really try and own this. So We we've

When I say we've adopted it widely, what I mean is I wouldn't say that, you know, we're we're doing using every AI tool going in the classroom and and and that sort of thing a at all. But what we've done is we've developed a set of sort of Guardrails, policies and procedures. For how we're approaching AI and how we're approaching the development of AI in school. So, like I said, I've already mentioned things like the school improvement plan, embedding it in that.

We've also set up a steering group, both a staff steering group and a student steering group as well. And we were very lucky, and I'll talk a little bit more about this later, that we'd already introduced the idea of a period six.

The timing was perfect then in terms of going actually AI fits really nicely into that because as well as having conversations about what our staff needed to know and what we needed to be thinking about as a leadership team, we also had those conversations about what do we really need to be aware of for our for our students and not just

Are they going to use it to cheat? Because of course they are, because I would have done if I'd had that as a as an option as well. So we we just really sort of started having those, those con sorts of conversations, putting some things in place. And everything that we're doing now is kind of led on from that. That sounds most impressive and I you know I love the sort of guard rails policy procedures, school improvement plan. It's really organised and and integrated into who you are as a school.

What does that mean for a teacher in a classroom in terms of how they engage with AI? What it means for a teacher in a classroom that for starters is this is not something to be afraid of. Um, this is not something where we're going to leave you in the dark about it. This is something where actually we are going to keep you updated as a school about how we are pro how we are approaching this.

and we are going to let you know what's what's coming so one of the things that we did very early on to be honest was do some very simple short training sessions for staff just to update them really about what AI was. You know, just to say this is this is why AI is different now from a few years ago. This is the new features that are now inherent in AI that you're going to need to be aware of because

They have the potential to support you in your role and with workload reduction, but also if you're aware of them, you know full well our students are going to be aware of them and we're going to have to start developing these skills for supporting the children with with their um with their use of it.

And we're also as a school, we're not a school that sort of says, right, we're and as I mentioned earlier, go we're going to adopt every single tool going. But what we we are going to do is give you some guidance to use a few tools really well. but they will be linked to our teaching and learning policy and the way we address teaching in the classroom. So we're not so in the same way that we don't tea we we don't treat technology as a bolt on.

we're not going to treat AI as a bolt-on because it's part of our overall strategy. So as a teacher, you have a very, very clear understanding of of what AI is. of how it's going to support you, of the fact that there are things that we are going to be introducing that we maybe haven't yet. And if you've got queries about it.

or you've got a tool that you'd like us to consider using or you've got you know you've you've got questions, you know exactly where to go to get the to get the answers for for that. But you know it's not a taboo subject. And to begin with, one of the things when I said to teachers, right, so who's who's had a go at using AI, all these guilty hands would go up as if it was something to be really embarrassed about. And so to be honest, that was one of the first things we did.

was say, no, this is not a naughty secret. This is something we're going to be talking about and that is we're going to continue to talk about over over the coming years. I think that's so sensible. I think it's really important that you don't have it as a taboo subject. You need to know. It's a bit like

phishing emails. You don't want people not to tell you when they've opened the attachment that they shouldn't have attached. You want them to tell you because you need to know and you need to know who's using AI. And I think you're absolutely right.

you know, to take a very focused approach. It's not about how many tools you can use, is it? It's about how you actually use them to have impact. So just before I move on to Sarah, can you give us a sort of specific example of an AI tool that you're finding really useful? So an example of an AI tool that we're finding really useful at the moment would be something like Canva. And what I love about Canva is the fact that we haven't started to introduce it in school

because it's got AI. We've introduced it in school because it's an incredible design tool. We've got learners who you know come from a range of different backgrounds, have a range of access to technology at home, you know, some have got very limited access.

And what we try and do in general is give them access to device agnostic tools that are free of charge that they can access both in school and and at home and that allow them to do really creative things and engage with their learning in a different in a different way. So the fact that Canva has AI within it.

is just an additional feature that has been really, really positive to to start using and to start engaging with. Because obviously we can teach the children about things like image generation using AI, but in a very

specific way that is linked to a very clear learning objective as opposed to just going, Oh, isn't this cool? Isn't this amazing? You know, we can actually link it to something that they're that they're that they they're specifically having to having to do. And To be honest, that's some of my favourite tools at the moment are those ones where they are really clearly linked.

a'r learning outcome, so that you're not just teaching about the AI, you're teaching about the tool in general and what it can do. And again, one of the things we've done is we've done a whole school adoption of this through our um our enrichment week programme that also involves training all the teachers on how to use it as well, because there's no point obviously with the students knowing how to use it if the teachers don't know how to use it.

So the idea is that every member of staff in school learns how to how to use this as a tool and all the students learn at the same time. So that again, when everyone comes back in September, it's another tool in the toolkit that the students know know how to use to support their um to support their learning. It makes absolute sense. It's a great tool, isn't it? Yeah. And I think that piece about training is really important. I'm going to pick up on that.

in just a moment. But thank you, Emma. Before that, I want to go to Sarah for an intro and a a bit about what's going on in your school using AI. Hi, um yes, no problem. So I'm Sarah Buist, I'm head of digital strategy at the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle and um like Emma I have a very varied role. Um but

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Eighteen months ago, when the generative area of AI became available to everyone, I think it we did take a bit of a sharp draw a breath and went, okay. And I'm really lucky I have got a group of digital leaders and some really sort of enthusiastic um deputy heads and leadership team as well. And we we all sat down and said, right, what's the best course of action? We did some basic training similar to what Emma was talking about, about what AI is to all staff at the end of the last.

academic year. And then by um September, we had put in place very sort of general but fairly sort of pinpointed policies for our students to actually sign at the beginning of the year to say.

Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd first half term I then sort of led assemblies to students about what the basics of AI is.

And um our general approach to what we think the guide rails should be, like why it's so important that you still need to learn. It can't be a shortcut to learning. It's never been more important to know information and be able to. stand back about a and and look at perhaps how information

generated can be biased. It can have um so quite a cautious approach, I would probably say. We are then by sort of the end of the sort of Christmas term had in place quite I hope good guidelines of how staff should be using it appropriately because that was a a worry as well that potentially yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n.

It sounds like I'm being incredibly cautious, but I think we were if you're not cautious, but we're also quite enthusiastic, but we also wanted to see what the opportunities were. Some of my digital leaders, what one of their tasks to do last year was to actually run programs where they use a tech intervention based on some student sort of needs or learning needs within their own departments. So we had a couple of digital leaders actually use some AI products.

ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r hyn. Rather than it's being specifically AI focused, we've actually done a whole school ed tech. mapping survey to find out how Technologies being used in relation to our 12 principles of excellent teaching and learning. So rather than it being a thing on its own, it's just another tool, like Emma was saying, and trying to identify from that.

who's perhaps using AI, but alongside other tools as well. So it's our first step really to try and find out how it's being used. And the results have been really varied. And I've been quite surprised I've had a nearly a hundred percent of return, which is good for a staff survey at the end of the summer term.

By the variety of our staff and some real surprises of who've actually dipped their toes in and used some of our guidance, some of the help, and and using it in amazing ways to support adaptive practice, for example, adapting for our huge range of send. ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl.

Are using it to create interview questions and interview tasks to try and reduce the amount of workload there, which is really interesting. One of our set um supports staff were using uh magic. Yeah, the magic school AI app to produce

stories for individual students that they support who are really anxious about going away on a year seven um residential camp only two weeks ago. And she say, oh yeah, so the way that I I um I sort of support the students, I make up stories to try and illustrate that This might happen. So there might be a scenario, but within the story, this is how this student managed to cope with a really I know going away from home, perhaps missing their routines and things like that.

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And hopefully we're going to be focusing more on AI specifically next year. That's our plan. We kind of eased people into it. And our main focus is bringing in parents, because I feel that we've done quite a bit for staff. We've sort of done stuff for students. But parents was we've kind of put out one

kind of statement at the beginning of the year going, This is our approach, we've this is what we're doing in school and that's kind of it. So we we're really wanting to involve our parents in this as well because I know we'll get on to it later, but the wellbeing and the issues of using AI on their own personal devices and things like that is something that we're really seeing the effect of, but want to make sure that our parents are on the same page as us.

Absolutely. I I love the fact that you've sort of started off with this planning and done a survey, sort of bookended it, which is really and getting a hundred percent survey response, that's just amazing. Um I think that's brilliant. I think cautious enthusiasm sounds absolutely perfect. And yeah, I'd love to hear a couple of examples of the sort of specific you talked about magic school, but maybe a couple of other examples of how the AI is helping you to achieve something.

that's really valuable. Well, I th I think it what's interesting is the year nines computing students. So one of our digital leads a computing teacher. And she was really interested to see whether or not our students could use it as a an a an aid, as some uh like an assistant, a really productive assistant. It can do all the donkey work. and allow the students to really grow. And so she did two kind of studies, one with her A-level group, who were looking at a pre-release paper that they had.

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I then sat in the feedback session that they presented at. And what was really interesting was that the most able of students. found the right way, perhaps the right way, I've say in inverted comments, you can't see that I'm doing that, but the right way to use the chat bot to kind of accelerate their research.

But it meant that I could rule out lots of different avenues Rydyn ni'n fwyafodd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd mewn gwirionedd And he was a very able pupil, is expected to get some of the top marks. And you just think, yeah, you're going to just you've flown with that.

What was interesting was the students who perhaps were not as able, and this was not discussed obviously in front of them, but they found it oh, it's a lot of work to get this chatbot to do what I want it to do. It keeps giving me stuff I don't think that's right. And I'm not sure if and and so they found it actually more confusing.

And then further down with the year nines, when they were using it for a similar sty style task, and it was quite structured the year nines, they also found that without unless they had quite a bit of Input and direction with their prompts to the chat, but they actually found it quite hard work to use it to debug because of the

the inaccuracies sometimes of what they what was generated and so on. So that's quite specific for computing and coding and so on, but it's an interesting kind of comparison between two different age groups.

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their abilities and open opportunities that they hadn't thought of before and be that amazing little assistant that does a lot of the grunt work, which means that they can look at other opportunities.

If that makes sense. It's a great example and I think seeing the AI as an assistant is is a really good way of looking at it. But I think there are challenges there too, because you need to know what that assistant is capable of doing. And that I think is a challenge for a lot of people because not everybody, I guess, is as lucky as the teachers in Your school and Emma's school.

Rwy'n cydweithasol y cydweithasol, mae'r cydweithasol wedi cael ei wneud, mae'r cydweithasol wedi cael ei wneud, mae'r cydweithasol wedi cael ei wneud. Said that they had leadership or a group that's dedicated to coordinating the use of AI. And I think we need to contextualise that in the fact that probably most of the people responding to the benchmarking survey are at least AI aware because they're aware of of the self-evaluation survey.

Which is actually quite low. And as I say, when you bear in mind that our respondents are probably amongst the more AI aware, I think it makes it clear that not everybody's quite As fortunate as the teachers are in your school. And I'm just wondering, you know, if we take that in context and if we take into account the fact that even the people building these generative AI models don't actually know how they work. How confident can we be about the risk?

being mitigated in a way that we feel comfortable with? And how do you go about that? And what maybe there are other challenges that you're seeing, but I'm particularly interested in that safeguarding risk mitigation space. But feel free to bring in any other challenges that you're facing. Emma, over to you.

In terms of how the the challenges, I think the biggest one that's out there really in uh outside of education, but in general, and it was it was a quote of yours, Rose, that I actually picked up on LinkedIn, which was the one about

the fact that it's business driving the development of AI. The fact it's not schools, it's not education. We're not in that situation where we're we're driving that. We're we're on board because we need to be on board with it and we need to pay keep pace with it, or at least some some schools are But that's the biggest challenge is the drivers behind the scenes of this and the fact that we have to be really aware of that as schools is that what these

you know, there are a lot of companies that are sort of, you know, ev every product is, oh yes, is now AI integrated and this sort of thing'cause it's a wonderful sales tech, you know, and and don't get me wrong, there are some fantastic products out there.

But it's difficult I think for schools and educators, for starters to sort of see the wood for the trees almost in terms of where the you know, where where there are some really good solid products that they can engage with and where their um and where the challenges are.

I think the other thing in terms of challenges that we've seen is that and again I think you're right, in in schools like we work here where you've got people who get this and understand this and prioritize this, you can have those sorts of conversations and you can move things on really fast. Because of the pace of change with AI, everything is moving on so fast all the time and in if you're in a school where you haven't got that kind of leadership.

a lle mae pobl sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n. there's a real challenge around people going, Well, actually do you know what we haven't got the capacity to engage with this now. You know, we don't have um we don't have the time, we don't have the skills, we don't have the expertise. And as a result, I I've seen a real trends towards some schools and organisations almost making treat wanting to treat AO like another technology fad.

Oh this is like this is like interactive whiteboards, this is like handheld voting devices. If we you know sit back for long enough this is going to go away the same as those did and and of course it's not and it's not the same kind of kind of a tool. So I think it's I I really love what Sarah was saying about cautious adoption because I felt that we've actually been very cautious in a lot of ways, but that's been important because

Whenever I'm talking to our staff about AI, I always talk about the negatives first before I talk about the positives. Because as soon as you start talking about the positives and you say what can be done with it,

Everyone gets so excited about that. They don't want to hear about the negatives. They don't want to hear about the well, you shouldn't put lots of confidential data into it. And you shouldn't you you need to question the output that that comes out of it. And in terms of how we're engaging with that. with both staff and students is coming back to this idea of really understanding what AI actually is.

but also understanding how our staff and our students and our parents are currently viewing it. So again, it was really interesting to hear Sarah say about the surveys because we we've done some surveys recently as well, just to go, okay, well, where actually are we at with our with our our sort of stakeholders and everything. And there's still a lack of knowledge among staff about what AI actually is and how it could be relevant to to them. So it's those real those real key examples.

And with students, what students are finding, and again I'm I'm I'm I'm echoing what Sarah said is that What they find AI most useful for is like coaching and guidance. If there's something that they've not understood properly, maybe in a lesson, or something they want to learn more about, they're going to go to AI and ask them because for them it's a more elaborate version of Google. It, you know, it has those answers.

I said to someone the other day, the the thing with AI which makes it I think so appealing to our young people is the AI never gets tired period five on a Friday afternoon. The AI never doesn't have time to answer your question because there's twenty nine other children in the in the class all asking different questions. You know, the AI is always going to be there and it's always going to adapt itself.

to sound like your best friend and to explain everything to you as as as you need it to. And in that way, you're not gonna then challenge the information that is coming out of it. So it's it for me it's a rewind back to

teaching staff and teaching students, which is what we're trying to do, what AI is, how it can be used safely, but also how you can challenge what comes out of it. And one of the things that we've done in school is very much link our teaching for Students about AR to our this idea of digital character and our school values because the children understand what our school values are, and there's things like sort of you know.

confidence and independence and resilience and that sort of thing. And they can talk about them in a normal school context, but we're trying to move them to a point where they can also talk about them in terms of using the online world. and using AI. So confidence is the confidence to challenge something that AI gives you. You know, when you ask AI to generate for you a picture of a director of technology for learning,

chances are you're going to get a picture of a man. And, you know, and it's probably not going to be a particularly ethnically diverse picture either. But again, using things like that. And again, Sarah was saying about this with with the age group she works with. We are You can't do it. Teach children about AI without exposing them to AI, but you've got to be so conscious of the age range that you're working with. And obviously, with the younger ones,

How do you do that safely? So in terms of of how we do it is to to to demonstrate AI and what AA does, but in a facilitated by an adult kind of a kind of a context because then you can you can highlight some of the the biases, you can highlight some of the inaccuracies, and you can actually make that an activity in itself in terms of right, so we're asking the AI to do this for us. This is the output that we get. What's wrong with this?

Where's where's the problem with this? What would you have done differently? Or even being deliberately provocative and ask the AI to sort of create something for you that you know is going to give like, you know, one side of a debate or something that the students can then engage with and and and challenge. But for us, like I say, it's it's

I'm not gonna say we're not concerned about students using it to do their work for them because of course that's always that's always a concern, but it's really just trying to support students and support staff with the idea that you do need to question what AI tells you because you need to understand how AI is built and what is driving the data set behind it and what it is producing for you.

and why. And I think again it goes back to this idea of teaching that prompt craft really carefully so that students and staff know how to challenge the outputs that they that they get from that. Because I I've seen lots of people who will say, right, well, I went onto Chat GPT, I typed in a sentence, I didn't get back what I wanted. And it's like it's not Google. You have to engage with it in a more sophisticated way. But again, that's around being able to

trained staff and students on that. And of course the problem that schools have got, the biggest challenge that schools have got, that's lovely if you've got someone who can do that. If you haven't got someone who can do that and you don't even have, say, for example, a digital strategy in place, where on earth are you going to get this from? And how are you going to jump on that AI train that you can see just receding into the into the distance at the moment?

You know, not everybody is lucky enough to have somebody who does have an AI understanding to take them on that journey. So I think, you know, you're you're very wise to highlight that. I also think Mae'r hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hynny'n hyn. I also think this point about How the tools like the generative AI chatbots are always there to help you. 24-7, never get tired, like we do.

And they're so eager to help, aren't they? And I think that is a real challenge. On the one hand, it's great for students to have, you know, a coach, an assistant who can be available whenever they need them. But on the other hand, they need to recognise the limitations of that coach and that it's not always going to give them accurate information or correct information. So it's a complex. situation I think we're in. On the one hand, we've got tools that can be really, really useful.

But on the other hand, they're also problematic. So it's a huge challenge.

Thank you. That that's going to be incredibly useful, I'm sure, for people listening to this podcast. Sarah, over to you now. How do you perceive this challenge that we're facing with respect to AI? Emma and I have talked a little about Some of the challenges. What are the challenges that you're seeing and some of the risks as well? I think time is something that kind of

overarches a lot of the challenges. First for the training, um, getting people to have headspace to even think about it from an infrastructure point of view, because that's part of my role as well. We feel that from a filtering, monitoring, trying we we pro provide devices to students, it is a bit of a nightmare. And we find that we are constantly playing whack-a-mole with the big organizations who are pushing out this technology

from a business point of view. And I uh sat very recently with co-pilots. developers who were telling me, oh, but you can guess um the co-pilot now, can summarize all your emails, it can do all these things. I was like, well, that's great if you're a busy professional person. You've built a product for professionals who have been through a whole school system where they've learned those skills of being able to come over the challenge of a blank piece of paper. And

I you've created something that's not appropriate for young minds that are still developing their ability to learn and to understand what it means to come up with an original idea. And even though co-pilot, chat, whatever it might be, could potentially help with that. yw'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn o'r hyn

Which by the way have admitted there is no regulation on this. And so it's a down almost, I feel quite strongly about this, that's down to schools yet again to start mitigating what is a huge situation, a huge problem. And I'm not even sure where we begin with that. But um what also struck me on an infrastructure side, we've had to make quite a few configuration changes to stop students even having access to Copilot because they just released a new bar on the Edge browser.

And I'm sticking there are hundreds, if not thousands, hundreds of thousands of IT professionals working in education establishments for different age groups around the world, all clicking the different configuration changes, creating new scripts to stop this.

Because they don't want it. Why are we doing this? Why does the source not change it? So that's the big challenge for us. And and I've kind of come at it from a big point of view, but I think Yn ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud. Felly mae'n ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r hyn.

in terms of the infrastructure. But as I alluded to earlier in that point. I think the biggest challenge is to the learning process of students. And as a geographer, I'm a geography teacher, I have seen over the 20 years of my experience. yw'n ymwneud â'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol a'r cymdeithasol.

in all of that. And I just think we've got to be really careful what we offload to that to any technology. And unfortunately our generation alpha students just natively go, oh look, there's a tool. I will use it, not through with any sort of malice. Or we've got great students. And one of my colleagues just the other day said, I've set them away on a three page reading task. I wanted them to read this article. And he watched on our classroom management software.

Three students copy and paste it without even thinking into a bot of some description and you can't block everything, so they're there. And he went, Hang on a minute, what are you doing? to think, oh hang on a minute, why have I been set this task? So we've got a bit of education on the task setting and how we um frame our learning experiences for sure. And that's what schools have always had to do. but also for the for the students to realise like, oh hang on a minute, why am I doing this?

What am I getting out of this? So to go back to what I was saying before, I think we really need to focus on educating our students on the on how to learn and what learning is and what what what you've written extensively about, what human intelligence is about, because That's what we really need to be great at if we're gonna get that balance right. Yeah. So that there are two big challenges which encompass lots of things probably. Music to my ears.

But I agree, the consumerisation of artificial intelligence is not doing education any favours and it's not going to get better and somehow we have to get more of a voice for educators to try and help. so that we can kind of call these big developers to account and and and show exactly the kind of thing you're talking about where look this doesn't work for us.

It's not been designed for us and it doesn't work for us and here's why. Also that point about cognitive offloading is, as you know, a huge worry of mine. So I think they are two big risks.

Mae'n rhywbeth yw'n ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r amser. you know, filtering and monitoring. So what's your perspective on how we manage to get the wellbeing piece right? I have a huge worry that if we're not careful, we're going to see AI becoming

something of the same ilk as social media. You know, social media has not done young people favours. And I worry that AI is going in the same direction. So how do we tackle that well-being piece? Wow, that's a a huge question and I agree. That is a huge question. I apologize. I don't expect you to answer it all, but I'm I think I do think about it. I have two teenage daughters myself, so I'm very much in that world.

Rwy'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod. what the impact will be. And it's now just supercharged with AI. And what really I suppose to sort of dig a bit deeper into the worries is that

unable to differentiate when they're using AI and when they're not using AI. It is automatically built into Snapchat. Apple announced last week it's going to be built into all of their products. We can now from Microsoft only get an AI. Keyboard now with a co-putton by co-pilot button put onto it. They're reje releasing their devices that have AI built in.

Rydyn ni'n ffocussio ar ein pidd, gwneud hynny'n ffocussio ar ein pidd, gwneud hynny'n ffocussio ar ein ffocussio ar ein pidd, gwneud hynny'n ffocussio ar ein ffocussio ar ein pidd. More efficiently. Perhaps a bit better, but actually that's just work. Outside of work, there's a whole world out there of things that you should be doing that don't involve a screen.

Rydyn ni wedi'n gweithio gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud gwneud. I run a knitting and crochet group every week to try and get away from this idea that gaming is something you should be doing.

As your main hobby. And I think that's where we are, and similar to what Emma was talking about earlier in terms of skills. Yes, there's digital skills that we need to embark, but I'm so keen on embarking like

human skills of talking to each other, presenting to a group of people, being able to have an intelligent conversation with someone that you've never met before is an an enormous skill. And if we're not careful, And and actually if we go back to the well-being, you get a huge amount from that.

People from an old people's home that you've gone to go and sing to and then have a bit of tea and cake with afterwards, which are the experiences I had when I was at school and have been invaluable and valuable. I remember them, they're happy memories. And that, you know, those are the sorts of things we need to promote in school alongside the education of AI.

But I think access as well. We're grown ups, we're the adults, we can say, No, we're not gonna use that. You're not gonna go on your computers at lunchtime or immediately after school. And I think that's where Really involving parents in this is so essential because unfortunately with such busy households. Tehnologies, screens, it's not a new thing, it's only going to get worse if again there's not a voice to be able to share some of these concerns.

Absolutely. Um thank you, Sarah. You know, I think your point about there's no regulation is true. And as I said earlier, the really worrying thing is there's no regulation. And even the people building the technology don't really know everything about how it works, as we're seeing in multiple research papers coming out now. And that's a worrying situation, isn't it? That we have this.

technology out there for everybody to use. It's not regulated and we don't really thoroughly understand how it works. I think it's interesting that we've ended up in this situation and and we need to make sure that we do something to

ameliorate the situation as as fast as we can because there are tremendous benefits that these technologies can bring. So we want to try and get the good. I love the knitting and crochet. I think that's absolutely brilliant. And We need to do more of those things, not just sit and and you know, and wouldn't the dream be that if we got the AI piece right? That's exactly what we could do.

That we would be very efficient, effective, perhaps efficient's the wrong word, but we would use the technology optimally. in order to make sure that we had more time to be away from it. Yeah. No, that's my dream. That could be a great outcome, couldn't it? Emma, on the subject of well-being, you've heard what Sarah and I have been chatting about. Where do you stand on this? How do you help? your students tackle difficulties here.

I think one of the things that we could all be better at actually is understanding our students' relationship with technology in general. Because I mean I I've got a 16 year old son.

I watched him obviously go through the pandemic and on di online learning. I saw that real shift change in him where an awful lot of his socialization moved online with his friends through gaming and this sort of thing. And how Although we're a few years down the line now from that, it hasn't shifted back in the same way.

And I think sometimes as adults we can be a little bit judgmental and we talk about screen time as opposed to screen usage and really knowing and understanding what our what our young people are doing when they're when they're online. And I also think as well, sometimes we're really bad at modelling it ourselves. So we tell our children they should have less screen time whilst we're sat there on our phones checking our own social media accounts and not it's a kind of do as I

uh do as I say, not as I do sort of thing. But I think it absolutely goes back to what you know what Sarah's saying about sort of, you know, a a healthy relationship with technology. And obviously what what we try and do is to start it with make it part of the conversation. So you know, w when we were talking about things like

safeguarding and things like deep fakes and that sort of thing. Really thinking about okay, giving student empowering students so that they feel able to if so if they see something that they don't like or they're involved in something that makes them uncomfortable, that they know how to to report that and speak to to staff about that. Um with regards to the star.

One of the things I've said on a number of occasions is we all take safeguarding as a whole school responsibility. You know, if if a child comes and tells you something, doesn't matter who you are, you're going to take the correct next steps off the back of that.

And AI is no different. If a child comes and says something to you and says, Oh, I've done this because AI told me to, you're not gonna say, Well, I can't listen to that and I'm not gonna support you because I don't know anything about AI. So I think we need to shift our mindset into into that sort of area as well, in terms of How AI fits into things. We we've tried to incorporate it into things like our behaviour policies and have those conversations as well. Going forward.

Do we have some something in our policies? That actually reflects what happens when perhaps a child creates an inappropriate image with AI and puts it online. How is that different to them? drawing a picture and putting that online or taking a photo and putting that online. And again, it doesn't mean changing your policies completely, but actually just Having those conversations with those key people in schools and just slotting those elements into your policy so that it's reflects in that.

giving the children some guidance as well about how they can and can't use AI because again we say as adults we're You know, we uh a you've got a lot of teachers and it's so interesting what you're saying about your survey, Rose, about, you know, so many educators saying I'm I'm flailing around with this, there isn't the guidance out there, there isn't the support.

I think the students feel the same in a lot of cases. It's like, you know, so am I allowed to use AI? Am I not allowed to use AI? When can I use it? In what way? So again, I think we need to move towards developing those sort of that those

policies and those processes in in school, that that guidance for our children really, rather than just saying the temptation is to always say block, ban, no, no one can use it. And of course that's that's not going to be helpful at all. But what we're also trying to do as well is is uh focus on developing this healthy relationship with technology. So yes, you may use technology to support you to do something, but then it links to a different outcome. So I mean I mean I mentioned earlier we do

Things like the Apps for Good program, because what the children will do is they will work together in teams to create an app that solves a real world problem. We have lots of disc conversations this year about how AI could support that, or what apps may be AI enabled. But the app they're creating is a climate change app.

So what they need to do is get outside. What they need to do is understand what's happening in the environment about them. What they need to do is identify a problem in their local area that they can they can address. And what they need to do is put the technology down.

and go somewhere else and be present and be in that situation where they are talking to people. They need to be in that situation where as students, when they've developed an idea, they then have the chance to present that idea to someone and to talk about it and to answer questions. And The idea itself has been created with technology and maybe with with AI, but it leads to so many other the development of so many other skills.

And this idea of really trying to support students with knowing and understanding what being present in a situation actually means. Because and again, I go back to how sometimes we're the we're the world's worst. You know, might be sat at home watching a television programme with the phone out as well. What are we giving our full attention to? And that actually we've got to be a bit more honest with ourselves about this.

And then be really clear about what we're saying to our children. We we want you to support you to do this. and modelling that for them and then guiding them through it because we're the adults, we should know better. They're the students, they're the ones who are looking to learn from from us. And I and I'm I'm not saying it's a there's any easy answers out there, but I think that This idea about just unpicking a bit more how our young people use technology and why.

Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i

how those students are using the technology in the in the first place. Because the the element that worries me is has always been and and one of the reasons why I started to sort of spend more time looking at AI and looking into AI was because the the idea of

The child that can't go home and talk to their parents and can't have a conversation in the family environment that goes to AI and doesn't understand what AI is or how it works, but what they have got is an incredibly sympathetic ear that will then give them advice and guidance on something that is troubling them. Outside of school, outside of schoolwork or homework or anything like that.

That's the bit that really concerns me. That's the area where I think we could, in terms of mental health and our young people, we could have some real challenges coming down the line. Because when you've got that person that is always going to be much more sympathetic to you perhaps than than at home, who who are you going to end up talking to? Who are you going to end up spending more time and in in a space with? Well

It the d the danger is it ends up being the the AI. Because it's there and it's there to listen and it will always respond. I agree. It's scary, isn't it? Um but I think some very wise words there. And I think you've also brought out something else. very important. And that is the idea of human collaboration. So actually the conversations around these things are supremely important because it's us working together to try and sort them out.

Because I think there's a worry that these technologies can make us quite individualized or individualistic. What's the correct word there? Anyway, let's go for individualistic. You know, we cut become quite focused on us and our device. And we want to break people out of that and say, no, look, there's other people here, we need to work on this together, I think is a is a is a really important aspect that can easily get lost when it comes to technology.

Uh brilliant. Thank you. Eva, I'm going to come back to you in just a moment for your top tip, but I'm going to go to Sarah first. Well, I've kind of got four points I'm going to put into one because you've asked for one top tip. So it's like four into one. So first of all, like we mentioned right at the beginning, find out what AI is.

read as much as you can. Find somebody in your organisation who is interested. If it's not you because you're not particularly tech minded, ask. There will be somebody in a school body who does know something about it. put together guidelines, find out what the risks are and educate to engage staff and find out where your boundaries are. And that's to students as well, both of those things. And so these apply to both.

Rydyn ni'n ymwneud â'r hynny'n ymwneud â'r hynny'n ymwneud â'r hynny'n ymwneud â'r hynny'n ymwneud â'r hynny'n ymwneud â'r hynny'n ymwneud â'r hynny'n ymwneud â'r hynny'n ymwneud â'r hyn. Do some trials, do some testing, you know, find out. It might it might not work, but that's fine. And it's really good to do that. And then lastly,

try and break out into the outside world. I have a an issue that schools can become silos and And if they're if their reason for the being is to just get X number of students through X number of exams. They will should put the blinkers on and not realize that stuff is going on out there. And I found that with technology anyway, that some schools, if they're not got anyone who's interested in the leadership team.

They're still working like I trained it 20, 20 odd years ago. Nothing really has changed. And you're not doing the students any good, and that's not great. So break out, find examples from the real world about how AI is being used at universities. How are they approaching it with their students? What about in the real world? What did what do employers want now? It's really important that they know that you're reacting to their needs.

Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hyn. you know, you can get places. And I think if you can empower anybody in an organization to do that, then it's not It is hard. You've got to be interested, but it's not hard if you speak loud enough. Great.

Great tips. Thank you, Sarah. Emma, back to you. So my advice would be, I mean, firstly, don't be scared of it. Don't be scared of it. Don't be intimidated by it. It's very easy to see everything that's in the media, that's in the press and and think, Oh my goodness is just too huge for me to get my head around. I don't have time. I I've I've missed the boat with this, you know, you you haven't at all. It's an evolving situation all the time.

And one of the things I often do is I just show staff how simple the Chat GPT interface page is because people assume if they've never looked at it, it's gonna be something incredibly complicated. And of course it's not. I would say be outward facing. Sometimes when you're you're in a school or you're in a trust or in an organization, there's so many other priorities on your time that it's very easy to go, I can't make space for this.

Um but if you believe that it's something that's going to be important and you need to know more about. then find ways to be outward facing. One of the things I would say is become something like a LinkedIn lurker or a Twitter lurker or something like that where you sorry, I know it's X, no, I still call it Twitter. But where you actually go online, you don't need to be posting anything, you don't need to be trying to lead thought leadership, but actually just go, there are so many.

interesting people out there at the moment with with different with different views, with different perspectives, with different experiences around AI, and just setting aside a little bit of time each week. to update yourself in that way, you can actually take in quite a lot of information over a short space of time. And that will obviously then inform you in terms of well,

what do you do what do you want to do with AI? How is it going to be useful for you? Because I mean a lot of staff say to me sometimes, well, yeah, I know it's important. I know I should be engaging with it, but I'm I'm not sure how it's going to be relevant to to me. So then my final thing would be don't be afraid to try it out.

Don't be afraid to sort of when you're l looking at some of these examples online, give something a go. You know, have a go at an example of someone who's done a ready-made prompt or whatever. See what you what you get. You know, you you know you can start by being cautious.

But try it out because again, you know, if you're if you're working with young people, if you're working with learners, you know that they're doing the same thing. And actually some of the best ways to learn is to try test it out yourself.

So you know that what works and what doesn't work. And so you can see yourself some of the challenges that are in there. But that would be the thing is to just don't don't be intimidated by it. Don't think it's too big of a issue to even start to engage with and just kind of take those those first.

steps because they can be smaller steps to begin with. Absolutely. Take those first steps. It is about eating the elephant one chunk at a time, as they say, isn't it? It can seem huge and it is, but doesn't mean you can't get started and you haven't missed the boat. I think that's absolutely true. I agree, learning about it is so important. And we've got loads of resources on our website, educateventures.com.

You have both of you, I'd say to listeners, go and have a look at Emma and Sarah's social media, LinkedIn, you will find things that are useful and try and learn. I think that's super important and try it. And you can really minimize the risks when you're trying out a chatbot by just not putting any personal information in it, making sure you don't put anything

that can identify you or or anyone else and and and just very gently getting engaged. So brilliant. Thank you both for coming on the podcast. I know that this is going to be extremely useful. to listeners, particularly those who haven't yet been able to engage with AI. But I actually think also for people who are starting to engage with AI, because you've given some great tips about approaching it as an institution.

uh as well as an as an individual. So thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. If you want more information on the series and our wonderful guests, visit the EdTech Podcast website at theedtechpodcast.com and connect with us via social media. To see how Educate Ventures Research uses AI ethically to make education and training better for schools, organisations and individuals, go to educateventures.com or join the conversation on LinkedIn.

There are abundant resources available that you can download, read, and get up to speed with what's happening with artificial intelligence. You've been listening to the EdTech podcast presented by Professor Rose Lucky. Have a great week.