AI Advocates

S3 E2: Pivoting with AI to Support Every Student

• Lisa Dieker • Season 3 • Episode 2

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In this episode of AI Advocates, Lisa Dieker and Maggie Mosher dive into the theme of “pivoting” with AI in education. They talk about how educators can go beyond simply asking why we should change and start actively embracing the shift. With relatable classroom examples and moments of humor, Lisa and Maggie unpack how AI can act like a second brain, offering fresh, personalized solutions to everyday teaching challenges.

Key insights include:

Pivoting with AI: Teachers do not have to wait for the perfect plan to start using AI. Sometimes the best way to adapt is to simply start and adjust as needed.

Using AI for Problem Solving: AI can offer quick, fun, and student-centered responses to problems like disengagement or ineffective instruction, turning small frustrations into exciting opportunities.

Supportive Tool: AI can function as a supportive tool that helps educators think through next steps, brainstorm ideas, and build out new approaches without replacing their work.

Letting Go of Perfection: This episode encourages educators to try, tweak, and learn. Embracing AI does not require perfection, just curiosity and the willingness to pivot.

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Music:

Reclaim your time. Time.

Maggie Mosher:

Welcome to AI Advocates. I'm Maggie Mosher.

Lisa Dieker:

Hi. I'm Lisa Dieker, and we're back.

Maggie Mosher:

We're excited to talk to you today about what does pivoting look like in AI go ahead and start us off.

Lisa Dieker:

Well, so you know, we were talking about why you should change. Now we're like, okay, just change. I mean, I think that's terrible, but that's, that's who we both are. And so I think when you think about pivoting and making that change, our last season, if you didn't listen, was all on, like, the week by week change once you've kind of got your feet wet, then it's like, okay, what's the problem of the week? What's the problem of the day? Is it that the kid sitting in front of me is bored? That's a different problem. Of can you give me some enrichment ideas? Or another great example in a school in a classroom was teachers were teaching the short a sound, and they were like, yeah, it's just not working. And I'm like, oh, let's ask AI. And it's like, oh, let's play the scaredy cat game. And all day long, that day, when they said anything with a short a the kids, I would go ah and again, fun, engaging. And so I like to say that AI right now is my second brain. And when this one is done, I go to that one. So now you just came back from an international conference, what did, what did you?

Maggie Mosher:

Yeah, what I learned mostly when I was at the Digital Education Council is that I was surprised by how much the K-12 teachers we work with, how far ahead they were. For some reason I thought that like Hong Kong and China and they would be so much farther ahead, but our K-12 teachers are farther ahead in really integrating AI in a way that makes sense, and changing the way they teach makes sense. But I was also saddened, because it didn't feel that way when it comes to university. And so the universities over there were much farther ahead in that their publications and their research and what they're getting out seemed like it was much more at a level where they've been doing it for a few years longer than we have. And so there was a structure and there was a process. And then I forget about things like, there are certain AI in Hong Kong that's illegal to use. And so I am i doing something illegal by getting on something I don't know, but it won't even let me get on to certain AI. And so thinking about with the different people in the room, there are people there from the European Union who have laws about AI use, we don't currently in the US. Are we getting some we don't know. Are we will that change things for us? We can't predict that yet. We didn't predict we'd be where we are currently in our society. And so you can't really predict where we're going. So how do we essentially continue to move forward at a pace that really keeps us innovative and effective as US citizens, moving things along and collaborative with a worldwide picture, but also keep kids safe, keep kids secure. Yeah, with the things that are going on in the world, like kids chat chatting with chatbots about mental health stuff and a chatbot that wasn't correct or appropriate for them. So how do we make sure chatbots and AI that our kids are on our FERPA and COPPA compliant are filled with their base knowledge? How do we make sure that base knowledge is actually teacher-created work, and actually you know stuff we know is accurate, like textbooks, who vetted this? Is it peer reviewed? Like, how do I know that that? How do we make sure they're going to those specific, large language models and not others?

Lisa Dieker:

Well and you know, I was watching this morning, and I saw that RoboBlocks now is going to scan your face with AI, similar to what we do on our phone, but it's going to scan you for your age. And if it. Yeah, I was like what about that. I think we'll come out over 18, just so, you know, over 18, but, but if you're under 18, it's going to say, well, you seem to be in the category of 10 to 12. So I'm going to let you meet other 10 to 12 year olds. So we don't have, you know, they've had some lawsuits, as I understand. So I think you and I both at our heart say, teachers use it, use it. Use it in any way you can to get what I think we outdo the rest of the world, in in in scores, is create creative thinking. We we produce more patents. Again, you can argue this all day, but again, that's what teachers are really good at, is creating kids who think differently, because we don't have a robotic method of everybody learns this on this day, at this moment, at this time, and I think that's where we see some some forward thinking, but that's where I think we have to pivot, is not just to creativity, but to keep adding overlays for safety.

Maggie Mosher:

Council too, is most of the people there were actually business and industry and not necessarily education. And what was helpful in that business and industry was knowing what they want from us as educators, but also telling them what we want from them like, okay, if you're going to have my kids on your chatbot, this is what I want your chatbot to make sure to do. I don't want these kids to have you asking them to put their picture in and that going somewhere. I don't want my kids ideas stolen and no longer theirs, like you know, I want, I want them to be safe. And so it was good to be able to talk to the people creating the software and the people who are creating these jobs, and saying, you want this from us. You want critical thinkers. You want kids who can communicate. You want people who are hard working great. I want from you, safety. I want from you, security. I want from you, accuracy, I want from you. All these other pieces.

Lisa Dieker:

And I know we've talked about this before, but give me the top two for you, and I'll share the ones for me that you're like, yeah, pick these two if you want kid use, teacher use where you're like, figure out. You're an adult. You know, don't do anything crazy. Don't put kids identification in there, but as an adult, you can make those choices. And we should know better. We know HIPAA FEREPA too, but what do you think is best protection for kids?

Maggie Mosher:

So for me, it depends on the age level. So what I will say is equally Magic School AI, School AI and Brisk AI, depending on your age level. For K-12 kids, that's my favorite, and BoodleBox are my favorite for secondary, for graduate and undergraduate. Why do I choose those? Because they're all FERPA and COPPA compliant. I like Magic Achool, School AI and Brisk because they essentially will show me everything the students said with the chatbot, and so I can see every conversation they had. I can see the answers that were given. I can then talk to them later about it. Did you think that AI was right when it said this? Why did you question that? I can. it flags them for me. So if they use a word, like, I used the word music, beat, and it flagged me for saying beat. It was like, oh, okay, so it'll flag them, and that's helpful. It'll also tell me how interacted they are. Are they are they moderately interacting? Are they really bored? Are they really interacting? I like that. The reason I love BoodleBox is for a totally different reason. I can create a chatbot there with just my content, and I can put just my students in it, and again, it's FERPA COPPA compliance, so it doesn't leave my computer if it goes to this server in my school. It is already encrypted, but my students can talk to the same chatbot, and so they can collaborate in a way, because I don't want AI to take away from collaboration and communication. So they can talk and they can hear what each other are asking the chatbot and see what the responses are. And I like that.

Lisa Dieker:

So my two again, I liked everything you said, too. But I I'm really big into the Notebook, Google NotebookLM, when it's especially within the edu unit. So do make sure you're not using it, you know, as a general but in the edu world, with your edu account, it's protected. And so I've actually got my college syllabus in there, and it's funny, because I'm using, I'm just wrapping up the semester, and I'm using the questions a student ask, to ask other AI tools that are not for compliant to tell me how to improve my syllabus next semester, so maybe those questions don't have to be asked. So again, it's an example for a high school teacher. If the bot asked you 400 times about an assignment and they got asked for it, maybe it's your assignment. That's what I'm learning. I have one assignment I'm pretty sure I'm changing my second that I know you equally like, and we believe is, you know, for the good of society too, is Khanmigo. And again, I like it too, because it does have an underlying a little stronger in STEM, whereas I feel like some of the others are a little more language arts focused. And it really does STEM better with discourse. So for my STEM friends, I would probably go there first.

Maggie Mosher:

And all of the ones we mentioned, what I think

Lisa Dieker:

I was gonna say. It's very accessible. is really cool about it is we mentioned all that have over 40 languages that they translate to. Which is nice too. So you've got all these different language different languages, and every

Maggie Mosher:

I love that I can say, keep my vocabulary at an one of those will let you change readability level. eighth grade level, but put my readability as third grade level. That is all really important for our students. And then I love that you said the two others that are my favorite. Because one thing that's interesting about NotebookLM lately is it will let me choose when I'm looking at the podcast or the video. It lets me choose if I want it to be a debate partner when they talk to them, or if I want it to be a comprehensive person. And we found that students actually feel safer talking sometimes to a bot, than they do asking us the same question, because they think sometimes.

Lisa Dieker:

Maybe because we talk too fast.

Maggie Mosher:

Or they think we'll think that they don't know what they're talking about, or they'll think, oh, was I not paying attention? He already told me that I don't want to be that person. So I do think it's got a lot of things.

Lisa Dieker:

Yes, my last thought is that I think it's interesting that as we move into these agents world, to to think about things like, as you mentioned in NotebookLM, like that. My syllabus can have a video, and it can have a chatbot, and it can have a mind map, and it can have, you know, it can have flash cards. So I may actually, next semester, have quizzes, but one of the things I'm dreaming about and pivoting is maybe my students having their own personal agents that are talking to the other agents in the class for because I don't find they all want to chat equally. So I don't know, but that's kind of where I'm pivoting in my brain. And who knows, but that's what thought.

Maggie Mosher:

Yeah, my last thought would be, what I liked about the teachers I was working with the other day is that they wanted to make bots that actually sound back and forth like pirates or characters. And you know, there are only so many voices, but if you put in really specific prompts, you can still get it with that voice to sound like a pirate, or to sound like a English chef. Yes, or to… So what was nice about that is it let them kind of be creative and fun, and they didn't have to worry as much about okay, is this going to take me 20 hours to create this creative fun thing, or could my students create it and stay safe and create it themselves? I think that was really fun and exciting when you kind of looked at the whole picture. So I'm excited about what it means going forward.

Lisa Dieker:

I think there's two lessons then in this one, pivoting can be fun and it can save you time. So thanks for joining us. You.