001reflect on how many things have happened. It feels like I'm training. >> Yes. >> Right. >> Like I look back on my life, I'm like, there's no way I'm that old. >> Oh, wait. I am. >> It's just weird. >> Mhm. >> It's a very odd space to be in. >> Especially as your kids are getting older. Yeah. >> Okay. A lot of adulting. >> All right. It's 7 o'clock on Thursday, October 9th. It's called the Wilton Board of Education regular meeting to were um has everyone had a chance to look at the agenda? >> Yes. >> I would like to ask for a motion to amend the agenda if we can move E2 the AI workshops to um right before comments from the public. That way we can um take care of business first
002and then have the workshop at the end just for emergency services. Is there a motion? So, >> thank you, Lori. Is there a second? Pam, thank you. All in favor? >> I thank you. Comments from the public. Um, the board has set aside time at the beginning and end of regular meetings for public comments for members of the public to share their views on matters involving the Wilton Public Schools and to help inform the board's decisions on such matters. Two minutes will be allotted to each speaker and a maximum of 15 minutes to any one subject. For the record, please also give your name and address. The board considers the views of citizens in its celebrations and welcomes and appreciates public comment. The board listens to public comment thoughtfully and with interest. The board however
003generally does not respond to public comment during the board meetings by offering commentary or asking qu answering questions. The board also invites commentators and the public to contact the board or the superintendent directly with any specific questions or comments. Are there any comments from the public? Seeing none, um, consent agenda. The consent agenda has minutes from the regular meeting of September 18th and the minutes of the policy and communications meeting on September 18th. Are there any um, questions or comments on the consent agenda? Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? So move. >> Thank you, Nicholas. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Pam. All in favor? I motion carries um unanimously. Um we just had a lovely evening of recognizing our PTA presidents and our um PTAs and all the
004wonderful work that they do within our schools and with um families and staff. And so we just would like to um give a general um note of thanks and appreciation and um ask that um all parents, you know, sign yourself up, get involved, volunteer. Um it certainly is a lovely way to give back to your schools and see your kids and the learning environment and um be a part of the community. Um board chairs report. Um, I just want to say good evening and welcome to fall where, uh, school is in full swing and amazing work is going on across the entire district. Um, 10 Wilton High School students were recently named 20 26 National Merit Semi-finalists with National Merit Scholarships awarded in the spring. So just want to say congratulations to Llaya Getner, Ardan
005Hamilton, Ryan Catz, Adrienne Monen, Key Patel, Paulina Papova, Noah Sherik, Meredith Sullivan, Miles Omely, and Abner Wilson Spiro. Congratulations to them and their families. Quite an achievement. Um, also would like to note that this year's theme for the PTA Reflections contest is I belong. Entries of dance, film, literature, and photography are welcome. The deadline is November 21st and the submission guidelines will be released shortly. The range of talent and creativity expressed from our youngest to oldest learners is always inspiring and I personally look forward to this year's entries and I'd like to just thank the PTAs for facilitating this opportunity. Um last week I participated along with uh Dr. Smith in a classroom walkthrough at Miller Driscoll led by TNTP consultant. Miller Driscoll teachers, administrators, coaches, and instructional leaders observed all grade levels during ELA
006instruction under the newly adopted EL program in both the language and knowledge skills and knowledge blocks. Using observation protocols for reading comprehension and foundational skills, the group then came together to discuss and debrief. I had several key takeaways. First, our district is filled with gifted educators. And in my mind, educators include classroom teachers, administrators, curriculum coordinators, and coaches. And they are all dedicating to do what is best for our kids and their learning. Second, what goes in our classrooms is a lot and extraordinary. Not even two months into the year, the rhythms and norms of learning are well established in each classroom and focus and emphasis is on learning and the joy of learning. And three, implementing a new curriculum is hard, especially when the change includes a change of approach and material. Our educators
007are demonstrating every day their commitment to work together to implement the new program in service of its goals. Supporting students in becoming 21st century readers, writers, and critical thinkers, while also remaining flexible and adaptable to student and classroom needs. Discussion around the table afterwards, including some disagreements, left me knowing that our kids are in great hands. Our kids benefit as our educators learn and grow from each other and adapt along the way. Please know that you all have our full respect and support. Finally, what's a board chair's report without a mention of the budget? >> This Tuesday, Laya, Kevin, and I will be welcomed by the board of finance to answer any questions in response to their data and forecasting requests as they embark on budget audits. Similar to last year, I expect this to
008be an informative and collaborative discussion grounded in data and realistic understandings of both educational needs and expectations and budget realities and priorities. Thank you. >> Great. I have a few items for you. Now, we learned, I must say, a week and a half ago that 2025 graduate Courtney Allen, who is currently studying at Dartmouth, was namely a US presidential scholar. Um, so it's it's been a few years since we've had recognized in that way. So, that's exciting. Um typically um presidential scholars are announced in May and I'm just imagining that you know you know all of the upheaval um from the early part of the administration there was just a delay here so we didn't see this month anyway regardless congratulations to Courtney that is absolutely terrific honor um you probably also saw um last
009week um niche.com does its um annual school rankings And um as we have um for years in the past um we performed very very well. So it's nice to um see some external validation for classrooms and so our school district was ranked uh fourth in state and uh I think 8th in the country. So you know 100 more than 10,000 school districts which is impressive. Um, our high school was ranked um, I think seventh and our middle school was ranked three. So, amazing news all the way around. Um, so we'll we'll keep up the good work on that front. You know, Ruth said it and I I'll just underscore it. Um, that the first month of school has been terrific and so, you know, we have um classrooms filled with uh, very happy children. Um,
010I shared with you already. Um, the kindergarters in Mr. John's class informed me that we're one six of the way through Patrick. So, uh, if you are keeping track, one six of the pie spilled in. >> Got it. >> So, the, uh, as you know, it goes fast. Uh, so, uh, it was nice to have our PTA folks here just to slow down for a second and, uh, recognize the work they do. But, um, it's, it's so far so good. Uh, we had a a couple of real highlights last week. um our athletic director, Bobby Rushden, uh pulled together a committee about a year ago to relaunch our um athletics hall of fame. And so this is something he has been working on. He um had a project that was underwritten by the um our
011ball um scholarship fund. And so they um sponsored the creation of an interactive um digital board that's now housed in our fieldhouse um that student go and scroll through and um learn a little bit about our various athletics and um some of our top performers over time. Um you might be interested to know he went and grabbed all of our yearbooks from the very first one, you know, 50 years ago or whenever that was and had all of the um athletics pages digitized and so you can go scroll by year and you know if you want a blast from the past, it's there waiting for you in the fieldhouse. >> Go see some friends from friends from your Yeah. Uh we also want to just say um thank you to um Bob and company. Um
012last week was spirit week at the high school and you know on all counts it was uh tremendous um including you know being capped with a um fine football win over LLO and a fabulous dance that night. Um so thank you. Um you know if you've seen any of the pictures on the high school Instagram page you know that the kids were pretty um widely engaged in the various theme days. So, um, terrific. >> You know, on a on a kind of less, um, optimistic note, um, our annual routine of map testing this year was monumentally frustrating. Um, there is just a gremlin in our system. It's somewhere between, um, our um, access points in the Peterson wing at Middlebrook and NWA. And so, our tech guys have been pulling their hair out trying to
013figure it out. But you know if there's one thing that has not gone well this fall that's it. So um you know we don't have any good answers as we're looking forward to the next round and you know before we start to do the full sale administration again what exactly the problem is. Um and then just the last piece here is um I'm sure everyone's just been watching the daily news and updates about the government shutdown. There have been some questions about, you know, the status of our federal funding and I'm happy to report on that front. Um, all of our funding is imperative in place and so it's not going to be impacted by um what's happening right now with the shutdown. That's all I have for you. >> Thank you. Um, let's move
014to Middle Brook facilities plan proposal. >> Great. Do you have a a colorcoded map in your this board? So, we've been talking about the work that went on this summer over in the um Cheryl Peterson wing. So, we replaced the chiller and all of the um the piping uh in the ceiling. As part of that project, we ripped out the ceilings, all of the lights, replaced all of the flooring, and um painted the entire wing. If you haven't been over there, please find 10 minutes to take a walk through. You won't recognize it from the last time you visited it. It is absolutely um the contractors that were doing the flooring and the lighting did really well this summer and so there's there's some momentum to keep going. So, working with Jory, working um in
015consultation with um Jeff Partardo, thanks Marie Leo, we want to continue and try to get as much done as possible. We have um currently approved bond funds for flooring, lighting, and ceiling tiles. Um we have um operating capital funds to cover the painting. So, I asked Jose to work with Jeff to come up with a plan so we can continue to do the work over the course of the school year. So, the map you have in front of you details what we're proposing. Um, everything here in red, um, this is the Peterson wing. This is, um, the work that's been done, um, to date. Beginning in December, we want to move into the six green wing. So, that's on the um, you know, kind of eastern side of the building and work through a couple
016classes at a time. Jose's got a proposed schedule that uses weekends and some of the holiday periods. And so what we would like to do um over the course of this early winter is come through, replace all of the flooring and do the painting in this wing. Um lights and ceiling tiles we will do next summer. So this would be December here. Everything that's green. Once that's complete, we would move down the hallway into the seven green wing and try to knock out those six classrooms in the corridor as well as the corridor that leads into the gymnasia. Um and then you know butts up against the um the eight green wing. So from there once we finish that we want to tackle everything in orange. So all of the eight green wings. So this
017is um a a bigger chunk but we're thinking April break that time frame. Again um and just kind of you know roll through in sequence and just get as far as we can. So you can see would be the entire a green wing um all of the um the culinary classroom, the STEM classrooms in the back of the building, the health classroom, the band and orchestra room we did 2 years ago. So that room's all set. And then we would change out the flooring that leads in that corridor that leads into the auditorium. Um and then the final phase here um which we would propose for summer 2026 is everything you see in yellow. So, cafeteria, media center, um main office wing, guidance wing, um we have a separate RFP for the our rooms and
018then we would tackle the music rooms as well. So, that's kind of the um schematic um what we would propose. So, we have bond funds available that I think is going to cover um you know all of the flooring, all of the ceiling tiles, all of the lighting, um the painting um as I said already inhabitable, but thinking about the next bond and the way I'd like to kind of put this together, what we'd like to do is really do a more complete renovation. And so in addition to the items I just described, take the opportunity to update the electrical and replace all of the furniture, the fixtures, the equipment, and so, you know, make that come on package. Um, we do that, then the interior and the bathrooms, excuse me. So, the only thing
019we didn't touch um here in these wings are the bathrooms. And so, the bathrooms would need some updates. So again, it's flooring replacement, lighting, ceiling, house painting, and then um you know, where necessary, the partitions. If we get through all of that, the interior of that space is, you know, 99% complete, refreshed, updated. Um a couple of the other pieces that we have to plan for are the exterior. And so if you walk the exterior of that building, you can see um pretty much along the entire backside from about you know the first 3 ft from the ground level, the pointing is all deteriorating. And so there are a variety of reasons why that's happening, but that's got to be done. And then all of the exterior doors and windows need to be replaced as
020well. And so we need to map out how best and when to do that, but that would be next on the list. If we get that done, then that building, you know, except for the remaining um roofing projects that are just continuing to unfold over the next couple years, that building's pretty much ready to go and then we can move on to the next building. Um we've been in touch with um both Frank and Jeff. Um they think this is a a feasible plan. Um, we have swing space available using the media center. So, you know, kids wouldn't be out of their classroom for extended periods of time because we'll be rolling, you know, a couple classes at a time as we work through each of these sections. So, um, as of right now, we
021think it's a plan that can work. Um, we need to finalize numbers. We need to make sure that the um, town folks are fully on board and that we have the appropriate authorization to access the bond funds. And then we'll need the select men um to vote to approve um and then also vote to approve the use of the capital operating funds. Once we put those pieces in place, we're ready to go. So, but then I hear also got some other questions or comments. Um but that's what we're thinking for um for this building for this year. Did I miss anything? Um the auditorium is it's going to be a standalone budget. Um there's a lot involved. We have to add restrooms, address the ratings, uh dressing rooms, um AC. So that's why we haven't
022identified anything yet because we're going to propose that as a standalone project. >> Yeah. Did everybody hear that? So the way we think that this is this is one project, the entire interior, but we want to build new bathroom on the side and then put an air conditioning unit up top of the area. rebuilt bathrooms and then space that can be used year round. Um the only other piece we really didn't talk about is the flooring in the gymnasia and so I think the wood flooring I think is fine. And the rubber flooring is one that we need to look at and probably >> to kind of just summarize I guess a little bit by the end of next summer we are hopeful to be in a place where for the most part the interior
023of this building is taken care of. >> It is all according to >> current thinking >> to to current um thinking. So the interior of the building would be in place and then the um the next things to look at for that building is the exterior doors and windows um and then that the stand the auditorium correct >> as you know separate types of um projects. I think that's pretty fantastic. >> Me too. >> Definitely seems so needed. Um cuz I mean just walking through that building and just seeing what has happened in the Peterson wing. >> Yeah. >> I just the changing the flooring, the painting, the lighting, this the the new lighting like that whole building it feels just like a new >> Yeah. It's night and day. >> New place to be
024and a place that's like welcoming and kind of worthy of the people who spend their their time in it. So I think that is really um fantastic. I think I I'm sure um Jory and his staff are probably, you know, the ones who haven't had their rooms yet are probably like, you know, itching to get theirs done, too. But I would also just want to make sure that, you know, it doesn't it's done. It's manageable in a way that teachers and staff and everybody feels that it's a a feasible thing to do throughout throughout the year. And I know that I'm sure plans wouldn't be made without taking that into appropriate and proper um consideration. Um >> yeah, and we had some experience when we did the first floors of the Peterson wing >> two
025year was it two years ago? >> Um when we had the moisture concerns of, you know, moving folks in and out of these classrooms, you know, while they were occupied. And so I think, you know, we've learned a little bit since then. So I I think um we've got some ideas about how to make it work as seamlessly as possible. >> Yeah, it's um No, I think the building the layout itself, the fun, the way it functions as a as a middle school is really is still the right model. It just needs the >> PLC. Yeah. And the the changing environment. >> Yeah. It's really it's the it's the green wing that's kind of, you know, out of sync with, you know, what we'd want today because I think we lack any common spaces. >>
026Yeah. So, is the work being done by our people on staff? >> It's going to be >> Okay. And is there is there are we paying a premium for having them work on the weekend? >> I don't So, so right now there would not be any weekend work. Um the way that we laid it out, um it would take 3 weeks to do the green wing. Um, and then during the Christmas break is where we're going to address the corridors because obviously we can't do the corridors while the students are there. So there's no weekend. >> So you're just going to use swing space in the media center. >> So we have the media center. We also have four classrooms in the Cheryl and Peterson wing that we could utilize. Room 101, 120, I mean
0272011, 120, and 220. So we have the swing space which is what impact our students. But right now, this work that we're um presenting will be able to get done um during the regular work hours. >> And so the money from that's already bonded, does that cover the green stuff or are we asking for? >> We we think it should cover everything because there was 1.64 um million approved. We've expended about $400,000 to completely do the Peterson Lane. And so I think that one of the quotes I saw was about 140 for this section. >> Yeah. So I think we should be okay. >> And a few years ago there was water coming in under the general and Peterson one. Do we know that's all remediated now? >> I think in the plan for this
028section there is plans to put a moisture barrier. Is that true also for seven? >> Yeah, Cheryl Peterson as well. We we rounded the floor and put in epoxy down. So, yeah, it's sealed. >> Thank you. >> This is great. >> Mhm. >> Well, let's hope we can move it along. So, >> yeah. So, we'll we've got a, you know, a couple of steps and then get some. >> So, whatever you need from us to kind of, you know, move along at this point. So once I make sure those things are all in place, I'll probably come back to you with this plan for, you know, a vote. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So, um let's move down to um WPS goals and priorities. So hopefully everybody had a chance to
029review these. Uh I'm going to ask the board uh to make a motion to approve and feed through the budget. Um I know that in general um some of the I I look at these we look at these every year and um some of them are kind of static and I think that that's almost like that's a healthy sign of a like well functioning system that um you know that like we our student achievement goal is high and we you know you look over the the course of the years we're getting closer and closer and Um I think that um is also a sign of strength and stability over time. Um I always you know the second one after student achievement is always kind of that whole child and that and that um wellness piece
030and um I think that that kind of shows where our both priorities um live and meet each other. Um and um I think that um from the board perspective um um you know we'll talk about the AI um workshops that we're proposing over the year but I think that that's a um a new and and um welcome addition that's something that um the board is taking around the table and bringing um to um the community. So, um I don't know if any I wasn't at the first meeting where they came out, but if anybody has any um questions or um you anything else they want to um add or talk about um NASA [Music] and then I will ask for um a motion to approve the WPS goals and priorities. um for 2526 as um
031currently drafted. [Music] >> Oh, thank you, Nicola. I saw Lori raise her hand. I'll take her as a second. All in favor? >> I motion carries unanimous. Congratulations. Great. >> Make it happen. >> Moving forward. This next one policy is 51412 challenging behavior prevention. We took this upon as a first half of the September meeting. The policy is statutoily required. Um the language um was drafted primarily for um we went back and did some cleanup um really with the intent of making sure that this policy fully aligned with school policy. So um there were some weird features in the in the K draft that um carved out bullying and harassment from challenging behavior. And so we just to better align. So you have the um statement of purpose there, you have definitions and then you
032know the last two pieces are the calls. Um most forward to direct the administration to develop um prevention strategies and then to collect and maintain data regarding challenging behavior that um we will be reporting to you um per state statute um again later this year. Um, thank you. Thank you for doing some of that um that clean up work just to make it um a little bit easier to read and understand and how it all um looks together. Um are there any um questions or comments on um the challenging behavior um policy? Um can I have a motion please to um adopt um challenging behavior prevention restorative practices with response um response and student discipline um 5144.12. Thank you Heather. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you Pam. All in favor? Motion carries
033unanimously. Thank you. [Music] And now we can circle back up to the annual workshop. >> Thank you. >> Thanks everyone. Um, so I'm very cognizant of the fact that I'm closing tonight. So I promise you I have seven slides. It's going to be very concise, but there's a lot of information in it. So uh, please stop me if I go too fast. That is a habit of mine. Um anyway, uh so Kevin had asked me back in September if we could do this and you know it worked its way into um some of the goal setting for the year and it's a really exciting opportunity. I know we had a few conversations last year um and we were able to do the typical philosophizing that tends to accompany the introduction to any AI discussion. Um
034and um what I wanted to do was spend some time building from that. So today will be a little bit more of an intro and I'll actually get you hands-on with uh school AI which is something that the students have been using uh throughout last year's pilot and into this school year. Um and then um I'll have a little bit of a book talk based on uh co-intelligence which uh you know we all can uh we can all approximate a good conversation or have a real good conversation. We can do it any way you want but it'll be it'll be good. And then um what we'll do is I I realized I should try to show you the agenda. um we'll um talk about the book and the four principles of AI that are in
035there and some other stuff and then we'll also talk about some of the other items that I was hoping to go through during the series. Um each session I wanted to have kind of like a focus or a challenge in an essential question. So one thing that I've identified since I've been here and I don't think this is any different in any other school district is that as a whole um you know we could become a little bit more aware of the promise of AI and its uses for education. Um, obviously with caveats knowing that it, you know, it definitely has its drawbacks too, but uh we'll probably be a little bit more half glass full or glass half full as we go through uh some of our conversations this year. Uh, but definitely talk
036about some of the um kind of scale of AI use and where it's appropriate, where it's not appropriate to use with our students and as as our with our educators as well. Um, so the essential question for tonight is how can AI be seen as a co-intelligence inside and outside the classroom? Sound good so far? All right, you guys with me? All right, cool. Um, so, uh, just a few updates since we last met, just some of the trends and things that are going on regarding education. Um, I've gone to a few conference conferences just last week and, you know, obviously u been in touch with other uh, educators and done some my own research and I think these are probably the things that we should talk about first is um, you know, some of
037you in your professional personal capacities might have already, you know, gotten into this, but uh, there's a bit of a rise of agentic AI. That's kind of the next step I think that a lot of us are going to be experiencing if we haven't already. Um what I mean by that is um AI as an agent, as a helper, something that can act on your behalf. So um I'll give you a few examples um that are more in tune with education. Uh but I think professionally people are using it for research. Um there a lot of programmers are using agents to do work on the side and then they'll get they'll get their programming done and then the agent which is essentially you know um like an assistant will complete some other coding task which
038they can import into their main program etc. Um I ordered a pizza with it. Um I stopped myself cuz it was Domino's and I didn't want a stomach ache and I also didn't want to uh give my credit card information to chat GPT at that point in time. But um it was really interesting because um it called up its own browser window. It was a a remote machine or a virtual machine and it went on to the Domino's website and fired up the the the different prompts that it needed to get the pizza set up. And then, you know, it asked me at the end, you know, can I have your credit card information, which which was a little bit too Nigerian prints for my liking. So, I let that go. Uh but, you know,
039if I had a Domino's account, I think I probably would have been comfortable with it placing the order. Um I just didn't happen to have one. I didn't want to set one up at the time. So, it was really interesting. So, I just want to show you an example of what uh you might see if you were to do this. Um can't find my mouse. Let's just try this way. Is anyone else seeing the mouse? >> Sometimes it's >> once I took it off the mouse pad, right? Um there >> it works when I take it off of the surface, which is the exact opposite way a mouse is supposed to work. But um the first thing I'll show you is um this uh young woman, she is uh talking about how to use it
040to more as an entrepreneur. Um and I think this is just interesting. Um I'm going to skip to the fourth example, so just bear with me while I find it. Maybe um right from the back right near the thing. There we go. >> Just get through the creative. >> Do you mind um clicking skip for me? >> And then can you just pause it for one moment? >> Sorry about that. Um, I'm trying some different Oh, there we go. Okay. Uh, could you just skip ahead till you find the fourth? Someone if you don't mind. Oops. Yeah. So, if you just slide ahead, there should there should be like an uh a fourth. Yeah, just go ahead just drag it across. It goes a long way. You can go more mostly to the end. So,
041case one, case two. >> You can be pretty aggressive with the slider. >> Where am I going? >> Uh, just to case four. and then I'll turn up the volume a smooch. Thank you, by the way, everybody in the back there. >> There we go. So, um let's just go through case four. She talks about um starting uh like a fall fashion line B and letting AI do it for us. So, um if you don't mind, just push and play. Thank you. >> This next one is probably my favorite because it creates something you can actually see. Let's say you want to launch a clothing line, but you have no idea what designs are actually selling well. Instead of spending hours scrolling through different sites for inspiration on designs, let's see if we can use
042agent mode to research top selling designs for us and to create a professional mood board based on those designs. For example, let's say we wanted to create some fall sweatshirt designs. I'm giving it this detailed prompt to research winning designs. Search for fall sweatshirt or autumn sweatshirt designs on Amazon that have over 50 sales or reviews and were released within the last 12 months. Collect 30 images of winning top selling sweatshirts showing layouts, fonts, and colors. If Amazon is unavailable, use backup platforms like Etsy, Redbubble, Target, etc. Build downloadable PDF reward. Again, I'm giving it a backup option because we know these sites often block access. I'm also being specific on what successful designs mean. Over 50 sales or reviews. So, first it tries Etsy but runs into access restrictions again. So, this is becoming
043a pattern, right? But watch how it adapts. And now it focuses on Etsy instead, which has more accessible listings. Now it's systematically searching across Etsy for fall and autumn sweatshirt designs that meet our criteria, over 50 sales, and launched within the past 12 months. So you can see it's identifying popular designs with themes like pumpkin spice, autumn leaves, in my era, phrases, bucket lists, etc. It's not just collecting random designs. It's analyzing which ones have actually had strong sales records and which ones are trending and current. I actually used to have an Etsy store and this type of research would take me hours to do. Now, here's where I had to step in. Initially, after working for 12 minutes, it created this table right here with all the design information, but I wanted actual visual
044mock-ups. So, instead of giving up completely on this, what I did was I actually gave it a follow-up prompt, inserted the table that it gave me of all of the different designs, and said, "Turn this into a mood board with actual image mockups for each design listed." And for this, I just turned off the agent mode and used the regular GPT5 model. And after giving it that follow-up prompt, here's what it actually delivered. A complete visual mood board with uniform sweatshirt mock-ups showing all the top selling design trends. I'm actually pretty impressed. You've got vintage fonts, minimalist line. So, I I I agree. I'm pretty impressed, too. The fact that, you know, if you're an Etsy shop owner, so you're probably, you know, it's a side hustle for you and you're a one man or
045one woman show. um you could come up with all these ideas in a matter of minutes rather than spending maybe a whole weekend on trying to get this store launch or this new fashion line launch. So um I think it's a really impressive capability and I just want to show you uh very quickly what it might look like in the classroom. Um, so this is a maybe a not and again I said this will mostly be an optimistic series on AI, but just I I also want to, you know, kind of set up an impetus to for bigger conversations about what this is going to look like moving forward, what what we need to do to change what we're doing with our students um based on some of the trends. So uh here's a not
046so good example of AI. Um this is something I learned about just last week. It's called Comet Browser. And uh this is an AI powered browser that acts as an agent. And I don't I won't show you the whole video. I'll just show you a minute. You'll get the gist of it. >> Hey, I am going to try and uh use a comment browser here to uh take the module five, excuse me, module 4 finalist assessment for data ethics. Normally, you'd have to use lockown browser for this, but I just wanted to see what would happen if I tried this. So, I'm going to just tell it uh please answer all the questions during this um the browser. So, uh right now it's uh yeah, I hope you answer the the questions. So, let me
047start by answering this. Okay, perfect. So, it's going to just kind of go through my test for me and start answering the questions. This is great. [Music] >> Everybody kind of get the idea here and answering things for me. >> And by the end, by the end, this guy's actually college professor. By the end, he's like, I I I'm doing this in my own class on my own test. And if you're giving, you know, uh, assessments outside that aren't protocols do it, too. I was just using Gemini on a test that I took this morning. That's besides the point. So, um, I think that you get the gist of it. And this is one of these things that, you know, are it is going to have an impact about what we're doing in and out
048of the classroom. So, I just want to share that with you momentarily. And if there are any kids watching, I doubt it. Just don't get any bright ideas. Um, all right. So, let's get back to here. Um, those are just a couple examples of agentic AI. Again, one of the trends that's moving up. Um, some things that I think that we would use in our teaching learning scenarios. Um, Chat GBT and Gemini both came out with study study agents. They're not they're not agents, they're not agentic, but study uh guided learning, study um study skills type of things. Um, I won't bother showing the chat GBT one because it's not something that we support as a district, although it is pretty good. Uh, but if you look at the Gemini guided learning, um, it's actually
049pretty neat. And, uh, this gentleman here, um, >> introducing grammar like you've never seen before. >> That's just Gramly, but again, a AI tools, right? Um, Eric Kurts, I saw him speak a few years ago. Um, he's, uh, really like a one of the front runners and talking about some of this stuff. And, um, he'll go through some of the, uh, ways that you can use Gemini as a study guide. And this is something that we could enable and teach students how to do. So he talks about one math example um and one English example. I'll just do the math one really quick. Um again, we won't watch the whole thing. We'll just watch a fragment of it. Assuming no deposits are with encourage them to think critically. Let's take a look at how this
050works. So let's say we have the following homework problem. Grace invested $5,200 in an account paying an interest rate of 4.6% 6% compounded daily. Assuming no deposits or withdrawals are made, how much money to the nearest dollar would be in the account after 11 years. Now, let's put this question into Gemini twice. First, we're going to do it uh without guided learning and then a second time with guided learning. So, to begin with, I'm not going to use guided learning the first time and we'll just go ahead and submit that question to Gemini. Now, without using guided learning, we basically get the answer. Jim and I tells us that it would be $8,625 and goes through and explains how all of that works. Now, sometimes that is exactly what we want. If we have a
051question and we just need the answer, it's it's good to know that Gemini will give it to us. However, if we're trying to learn the content and to increase our critical thinking skills, this is not the right option. So, instead, let's try the exact same prompt again, but this time, we're going to click the guided learning option, and let's go ahead and submit that. Now rather than just solving the problem, Gemini is reviewing some of the basics uh going through the formula and then it's asking me to say okay can I say what the values should be for P R N T etc based on this problem that we're working on. So I might put in something like I think P is supposed to be the principal. So, that would be the $5,200 that she
052had to start with. And I'll submit that. And so, now I'm getting confirmation on that. And it's moving on. You know, what about R, the interest rate? Uh, remember that needs to be in a decimal form. So, now I would work that out. So, maybe I say, well, the the rate R is 4.6%. And then I potentially made an error here. I'll say, so that would be 46 as a decimal. And I'll go ahead and submit that. And we're getting a response saying, "Hey, we're on the right track. We're converting the percentage to a decimal, but h we moved the decimal one too many places." It's talking about, you know, dividing it by 100 to go from a percentage to a decimal. Uh so let's let's try that. Let's do two decimal places. And what
053would that become? Now, just to save a little time, I actually did do this whole problem earlier. And basically what you'll see is uh all along the whole thing it keeps asking me questions having me work out each piece uh explaining all the different parts of the equation plugging in the values myself uh using order of operations myself to work out each piece of that until eventually I get to the final answer and it gives me confirmation on that. So, I think that's pretty neat. And I'm not ashamed to admit that, you know, I helped my eighth grader, my son, with some math homework using something like this, and it was pre-alggebra, but that's besides the point. I mean, I'm not a numbers guy that in that way. But, um, you know, it's definitely a
054really great study tool, um, that they built into Gemini and Chad GPT. Um, and and I think it's only going to grow from here. Uh, there's actually also, uh, another app that we have here in district, uh, Notebook LM. as part of our pilot last year. And um I think that we talked about it at one point last year, but essentially um it is a tool where you can use it for studying as well. And um you could also it really it does a great job of bringing like finding trends and data and you can have it report back to you uh verbally through a podcast mode or through um like a notebook and it'll give you some of its own insights. And obviously there's some really good uses for that um at professionally. But
055for students they've built in other things too like mind maps and Q&A audio overviews interactive mode where you can actually talk to the podcast of the data you put into it. It's a really great um way to uh work on research and then also now work on studying. So these are some new features they've added in. Um I actually was talking with uh Kadina who works here in the LLC and with his podcasting class they completed a Padlet and he demonstrated with his students. He took took the information out of the Padlet which was a reflection on the assignment they did and he put it into notebook LM and then developed this graphic with using the app and um it was helping to show students uh what they thought about uh their storytelling assignment. So
056you know if you zoom in and study this you can see a little bit more about what they worked on the feedback on audio effects and voice modulation their storytelling and it came up with this mind map to help guide them through some of their thinkings and also to highlight the trends. So, I thought that was a really neat demonstration of that. [Music] So, that that's kind of what's trending and what's interesting right now. Um, we also have this presidential AI challenge. Um, and um, you know, Kevin had mentioned the shutdown earlier, but I think this is something that's going to continue as well. In fact, we have um, one of our teachers, Danielle Binger, is going to have her coding students in the middle school participate in it. And um, it's really exciting. It's
057really meant and if you were to click on the image it would or the the link it would give more information. Uh but it's really meant to get students to try to solve real world problems using AI and it's open to all grade levels and they're going to have judges um uh at the state and the local level and then going to more of a national level. And another neat thing is you can actually find a mentor um from other public zones or private industry that can help to you know help the students uh work out their problem using AI. So, uh, it's a pretty neat program and obviously this is the first time doing it. We're not sure how to navigate it all just yet and it's a very short time frame because, um,
058they announced it over the summer and then it takes place in January. So, it's really a one semester kind of thing right now, but I hope that it has some success and we're able to then maybe do it again if they if they run it again. So, I'll give you some more updates on that as we go along. I will share this with everybody, too, so you can uh come back and look at some of these things. Any questions so far? Sorry, I'm turning my back to you folks, too. I apologize. All right. Um, so as I mentioned, these are our primary AI tools. School AI, Gemini, Notebook LM, and um, they're used in lots of different capacities. School AI, for example, uh, is being used by teachers and students. It was we kind of
059had um a competition between Magic School and School AI and our original pilot last year and school AI won about 6040 um, teachers who provided feedback said they liked it better. So that was the one we uh, we went with. Um it's used by students in classes too which is something I hope to demonstrate a little bit tonight. Um and teachers can use it too to they have um different bots built into it and they can use it to come up with uh you know uh lesson plans and study guides and uh things like that. Uh Gemini as you know is the Chad GPT competitor and teachers are using that in district as well. Notebook I talked about um I would say teachers are using it and uh I know for a fact that there
060are students using it too and again not for illicit means necessarily but more to help with their research and help with their studying. um but they're not using it through Wilton accounts at this point. We don't have any of that turned on at this point. We just have school AI. So that's something we want to discuss and talk more about. Um I was also uh working with uh Chuck and his folks in the springtime and uh we we're working on it at the beginning of this year coming up with uh some refinements and some examples. But uh in terms of just what we're thinking about with students and teachers is a AI scale of use. So times when students shouldn't use it, times when there could be some limited or targeted use, and then times
061when there could be some exploratory or extensive use and uh there's also a curriculum guide that we hope to get in the hands of curriculum writers uh moving forward that essentially has the same scale uh but then provides some more guidance guiding questions um and this is all stuff that we hope to pilot this year as well um kind of coupled with the tools that we have and at our disposal. So I can provide more information on that a little bit later during this series. Um in March we'll have Matt MVvis here who's really become like one of the thought leaders in New England and I say further reach than that. Um and he and the other folks at Advance talk a lot about curriculum. So we'll get more into that in March. All right.
062Uh so those are the tools curriculum updates um general stuff. Uh given that we're moving toward 8 o'clock, um I did want to have you participate in in school AI activity and you're certainly welcome to and I would love for you to all do that at some point. Um what it basically would be was um you you would scan the QR code or you can click here and I would say it would probably take 10 to 15 minutes to get through. But what I'll do is I'll just provide a basic introduction to it if you haven't seen it before. And um then uh we will uh maybe circle back to it and talk about it more another time cuz I don't want to take up too much of the evening, but I'll just show you
063what it looks like. Um so you you would be invited to the class. You type in your name. We probably encourage students to use their full name. Uh >> is the keyboard not connected? They probably fell asleep because I haven't used them a little while. There we go. Uh, that could be my name for now. Close enough. And this is what the student would see. So, the teacher would set this up on the back end. And the student would actually, it's a little bit hard to read from here. Um, the student would say, "Welcome AI task force. I did use this with the task force, but you're in a very similar position in terms of some of the information I provided." So, it would actually give you um an agenda of it would offer you
064a refresher on the book if you'd like it. So, it could give you a summary of some of the main points of the book, and then it would guide you through talking about your personal takeaways, um, brainstorm some next steps based on what you might have read in the book or in the summary, and then a review of some common themes. Uh, so you could type ready to begin, and they've kind of revamped school AI over the summer. Um, there's now this, you guys remember Clippy from Microsoft Office? I said some disparaging, I said some disparaging things during the AI task force meeting about Clippy and I was put my place. So, I'm not going to say anything mean about Clippy. There are some Clippy fans out there. I also didn't realize that Clippy is
065becoming like a mascot for people who want to push back against social media and other forms of surveillance capitalism. So, I didn't even know that Clip Clippy was that that kind of thing. Uh, so again, Clippy, we love you. Uh, but um this app now has something called Dot, which is like Clippy, but it it's got that same Clippy vibe, but it's a small little blue dot. So anyway, you that's you can kind of see dot down there and you could speak with dot if you didn't want to type, but you could also type or ask another question. But I'm just going to put ready maybe wake up keyboard. What's that? Oh, >> I got to lose some weight or something. Jeez. Um there we go. All right. So maybe I typed right. Hopefully it'll
066fix the spelling. And then it gets you into here. So, it could offer you the quick refresher on co-intelligence. Um, and it would link it would you could ask us some questions and go from there. Um, Whoops. Okay. Sorry about that. Here we go. So, as I scroll down, it would give me some information on co- intelligence. I'm just going to say that I know enough about the book considering I've read it twice. Um, so I'm going to say yes. So it would give me it would think about my answer for a moment. Could be I mean dot is going to give me a response here and then it gives you some conversation starters. You know, one insight I had about the book was or one challenge I see is or big opportunity for Wilson
067could be. So it it's it's a really nice activity in this instance to use with students if it was based on a reactivity because it could it could kind of take the place of like a a notetaker kind of worksheet or something. It's much more interactive. Um so again I encourage you guys to try this and by the end um you know sometimes um because these tools are based on maximizing engagement sometimes it won't know when to stop and I always try to program it to say don't ask more than three questions or don't ask more than five questions. So sometimes I remind students and even educators like just tell it you're done. You know say hey we've had a good conversation said till next time. Um in this case this one's been behaving pretty
068well but it would guide you through a few more questions then you could wrap it up. So if I were using this in class or in a a session with the board of ed I would say go through it enjoy have a good conversation get your thoughts going and then um let's talk about the actual book. So, if you guys want, we can spend a little time uh maybe just talking about some of your thoughts and takeaways about the book or just AI in general if we're not quite ready to talk about the book at this time. Um here are some ideas that I had from the book that I thought were interesting, but that's just for conversation starters. Um I I was just thought maybe spend 5 10 minutes just talking if you want.
069I know Pam I know Pam had some ideas. I asked her if she liked the book and she said no. I was taken back a little bit. Can you elaborate a little bit? I think I know where you're going to go with this. But >> the l So when they talked about the lang um there's so many tech words that I didn't understand. So there's the language the large language >> model. Yeah. >> Model. >> So what exactly is that? >> It's essentially a large language model is uh what you take the you take a transformer which is what part of what chat GBT means and you train it on the large language uh model. So, uh, basically it's the most of the internet at this point. They're taking a server farm with like 10,000
070GPUs, which is like really powerful graphics cards that you would use in a gaming computer. And what that does is it processes all this text and images that it finds in the internet. And it basically teaches the AI what it's going to say when you ask it a question. So, when you when you prompt the AI and I ask it, hey, can you help me study for this? It's probably going to pull data from vast sources. It could be an open MIT course that might have taught, you know, some of those mathematical concepts and it also could be something on Khan Academy and I would say those are great sources could be really useful for a student but it also might pull something from a homework cheat site or Reddit or whatever and then at
071that point that's why we always have to kind of evaluate you know whether AI is leading you in the right direction or not so much but that's what an LLM or large language model is. It's basically chat GBT um or Gemini etc. searching for other answers that that and then pull it together and then that's what they give you. >> Wow. Yeah. Yeah. >> Wow. >> It's a predictive algorithm, right? So it's, you know, mathematically guessing what it thinks is the likely response to your prompt. >> It's like a super version of autocomplete. >> So it can't actually think its way through a problem. All it can do is use the the the mathematical algorithm to predict what the right right answer might be. So, if I said, um, I asked Chat GPT the other
072day to help me find a new haircut. Looks a lot like my old haircut. And somehow it predict maybe it predicted that I would just want to have the same haircut. And actually, it was, you know, I'm not sure what poor person had to, you know, work on that programming at some point to put in pictures of haircuts or whatever. But, uh, it's, um, you know, trying to please me. So, you know, if I had said, you know, what would I look like with a shaved head? It would say, great. what would I look like with um you know pink hair? It would say great. Like it's always going to kind of agree. Oh, but that's how the autocomplete is trained. So, you have to you have to be aware of that as well. >>
073No one said nice haircut by the way. >> It looks different. Yeah, it doesn't. >> I didn't really hate the book. >> No, I understand. >> Well, the it doesn't end on the >> isn't in my wheelhouse. It's a huge leap for me to kind of go there, but it's fascinating to me. just honestly the possibilities are just unbelievable. Unbelievable. >> Yeah. And those last few chapters um where it's kind of talking about what the AI future might be, uh some of them leave you a little bit cold. Um but some of them are promising, you know. So >> yeah. >> I think that fourth sub bullet of assume this is the worst AI you'll ever use. To be clear, I think what they're what they're implying is it is the uh lowest quality AI,
074not the most maniacal or darkest version. >> Uh the internet was read only when it started. You could just read the internet. You couldn't actually publish or write anything. Uh and that seemed pretty cool 25 years ago. So uh this we are we are working with the most like rudimentary version of the underlying models which is very abstracted away but like the tools that are built on top are very elementary. 5 months ago you could just type text in and get a written answer back and now it's very interactive. It's just speech only. like so it's only going to get better from a user experience and I think a lot of people feel distance cuz it's just not an intuitive tool that you're using in your everyday lives but that will change. Um and I
075also think that no one in the industry has done a great job of explaining how how not different it actually is from some of the tools you use today. like you sit around and we all query Google or some search engine all day long. Uh this is not that different in terms of a lot of the ways that people use AI today. It's an an ask and receive. It's a prompt and response interaction model which is very similar. It's just highly more efficient and much more much smarter than what we're used to using today. So, some of my perceptions and some of the things I liked about uh I have not read to page 180 yet, candidly, but >> that's okay. >> I did like that that and talking through just it seems like this
076big scary thing cuz people don't no one's done a great job I feel like of just saying like it's not that far away from what you're used to doing today. It's it's just delivered in a much more userfriendly and smarter way, but it's enabling a lot of the same activities. >> Yeah. You know, I I like how you mentioned it's going to it it's a it's a matter of the way you work with it. So, that whole concept of centaurs versus cyborgs, um I thought that was pretty interesting. Uh because a centaur would be somebody he explains it more in the book, but be somebody who delegates to AI. Um hey AI, do this for me. AI do that for me. Whereas a cyborg is somebody who kind of integrates with it. Um so uh
077for example I think um Ken Dina's uh work with his class um he didn't just dump something into uh notebook LM and say hey give me give me the you know the trends from the student responses from Padlet he brought it up and analyzed it and talked about with his students and integrated into his thinking in his lesson which I which I thought was more of a cyborg way of doing it. Uh but sometimes um you know for example I was putting together some materials for a professional learning session I'm going to give next week and I just dumped it in and got it out and I wasn't really collaborating with the AI you know it was just something I needed to put together in a nice package and I didn't go out of my
078way to you know interact with it. So I think that is really cool that you mentioned that Patrick that's a good example in that and until people kind of decide where they are in that centaur cyborg continuum which does sound very sci-fi now that I'm saying it out loud maybe that makes it more intimidating. Uh, I mean, but I guess it varies on task, too. Like certain tasks you might want to be one or the other, but kind of interesting. So, I mean, as I really um haven't the book yet, um I'm just kind of I feel like our kids are probably in a different place with all of this than kind of a lot of educators are in terms of their comfort with it, their use of it, their adaptability to it. And I
079also think that like it's something that all of our kids are living with and are going to increase in living with over time. And so I also it needs to be something I think that like our our kids all get to experience and use in a productive positive way. And all of them do, not just maybe the teach, you know, because they have the teacher who's more comfortable with it or like what Ken is doing with his students. And so that's like the shared the shared experience and learning behind it and understanding of it and to some extent do we think that kind of you know how you were talking about the scale of use like do you think that that scale of use or those ideas are going to change as AI becomes iteratively
080more um I guess better or more efficient. So is it something to be said that like that as a basic kind of you know we have like a general digital citizenship type curriculum or understanding is that like a basic platform for like all our kids to start with kind of like that scale of user understanding and then making sure that everybody gets kind of exposure. >> Yeah I think I think so. Yeah I I think the the main place it would start would be with the LLC's. In fact, uh we it was just decided we're going to do a curriculum review for the LLC um department this year into next year. So, obviously we're going to be writing lessons and finding curriculum that fits in uh to expose students to AI and make sure they
081have that baseline understanding. And then I think that scale of use will grow and adapt as we move forward, but it'll definitely uh be integrated in throughout the throughout the district in all different subject areas, different different grade levels as well. And I think again it's a continuum. So, um, as you kind of alluded to, certain things will fit on the, you know, high end of AI use and exploratory use and other things, especially when we're trying to help students develop basic skills. And, uh, you know, there's one part of this book where, um, the building expertise in the age of AI, uh, Ethan Muller talks about how you almost have you have more expertise to work with AI effectively rather than less in the end because you have to be able to move it
082forward and get it to do what you want to do and know what you can trust and what you can't trust. Um so I think we need to express that to students and build those skills too especially with the younger students. Uh and then moving forward you can move up the scale of use so to speak and find places where students can use it to solve real world problems like in the AI challenge and things like that. So 100%. So that I mean that's you know we always talk about like having the short experiences and I just you know just think about you know how this is entering you know our lives and you know I have you know an eighth grader who wanted to convince me to do something so she put a you
083know a chat DPG you know presentation together and tried to you know convince me >> she didn't spend a lot of money >> yeah like why like she should you know like why we should do this and didn't work >> um no it you know, she's an eighth grade. I'm still a little bit you >> not much, but you know, um, but I told her to have another go at it. Maybe think about what your inputs were on that. >> Well, it becomes a teachable moment, right? >> No, but it does. that I'm saying, but also just the fact that, you know, they they're already pushing what they can do with it, you know, and so, um, and I kind of don't want it, you know, you think about like a learning environment and you
084don't always want it to be as though like you're trying to stay ahead of the kids out of like fear for something, you know, so like how do you kind of grow in it? Um, >> he gives pretty good advice though, you know, because I went on chat GPT about the book >> and it said that it probably a lot of it is already dated. >> This was 2023, I think. So, >> it said that, but it, you know, it talks about not fully trusting it, always being careful. Use multiple passes. I understand what that meant. >> Multiple what again? I'm sorry. >> Passes. >> Oh, um, maybe. >> Oh, keep prompting it. >> Yeah, maybe. >> Keep human judgment central and always invite AI in and use it, >> right? But then be careful,
085not fully ever trust it. >> At least that's, you know, and I thought that that was pretty good advice about what we where we are now. Obviously, it's going to get better and better and better and probably eventually outthink us. >> Looks like it's I mean, if the billionaires in Silicon Valley have their way, that's probably where we're headed. >> Yeah, >> take it take that however you want, but that's that's where we tend to be leaning right now. So, >> I just want to be clear, AI can't think yet. >> It's true. You're trying to get it to think, but it's a question whether it will ever be able to think. >> Yeah. It's sim it's simulated thinking. >> Yeah. Which is, you know, always keep that in mind. >> We're just mimicking what
086they see on the internet, right? And >> but I think eventually it's going to think >> I have looking at some cognitive models now, but we our our understanding of thinking is so primitive. I'm not so sure it would be >> even know how we think yet. >> Yeah. Right. >> Yeah. But uh but you know regardless of thinking on thinking it's certainly going to be an important tool uh that we're all going to be >> how are we integrating into professional development right now? >> Um right now um we are going to be doing a lot of work with the the tech aisles and I have been collaborating on that and uh they're going to try to get into faculty meetings and into IET meetings and things like that to work with uh small
087groups. Um and then I'm hoping you know when we have a full learning day next year um we can have almost like an AI summit or something. I I was at um uh Ed Advance uh last week and uh Milford talked about how they did that and everything they explained um feels like the exact same conversation we're having right now. Um but they might have been a little bit ahead of us on the professional learning side of things. They they had some thought leaders in and that they kind of started to form some of the same documents that I share with you and uh you know they had some coaches doing their thing, but then they were able to get a couple good learning days put together and teachers felt like they had a decent
088foundation. Um, so I think that's probably what we're leading up to. Um, but you know, in the meanwhile, uh, we'll definitely be having, uh, kind of doing it in smaller groups. Um, the IELS and I last year launched the pilot. We went to faculty meetings and, uh, try to get teachers hands-on and show them the tools. And this year is a continuation of that. So, >> yeah, I think we need to accelerate the education of the staff as much as we can and the and the educators because natural tendency is you're not going to talk about things you're not comfortable talking about. And if we it's I think it's too easy right now to fall into the vilify ai. It's just easier because that's the common talking point and position. And kids will run two
089things that we tell them not to go use. Uh, and so I think I'm I'm very focused on how we can bring a really optimistic point of view on how this can be used in the right way in these in the classroom and making sure that our teachers and staff feel as empowered as anybody to have that conversation with our with our students. >> I think we're getting past the fear when you know I say last year there was a lot of fear. I think we're now at a stage where they're starting to explore and get used to it >> from the staff. Yeah. Once once they start to see what it can do for their professional work, um then they start to feel more comfortable and say, "Okay, well, I'll try out a lesson
090using um school AI or I'll try out, you know, like the thing that Ken did with notebook, etc." So, um I I don't think we're behind. Um I think we're probably ahead of a lot of other places, but there's obviously a lot of room to grow. >> Yeah. And sorry, when I met I meant like society large fear, like there's just a lot of >> There's that, too. Yeah. very negative connotation half the time you get into a conversation about AI. So anyway, I'm glad to know that we're taking such a positive and proactive approach. Bob and I were in an English class over at the high school and the teacher was using school AI that thesis statement and so they were using school AI to help refine their thesis statements. It was a really
091constructive use of a powerful tool and even the way that school AI was feeding questions back to students. I think this has been one of the fundamental concerns or fears is that kids are going to sacrifice their own capacity to think critically um by taking the easy way out. And so, you know, the first manifestation is the defensive reaction to shut down, get it out of here, you know, go analog. And so, I do I agree with Chuck. I think, you know, while that is absolutely a concern we must address and work our way through um across the district, I'm seeing and hearing more stories of of um you know, organic experimentation and you know, just about every digital tool at this point has some kind of AI feature. So, it's just also, you know,
092more present than it was even a year ago. So I I think the the challenge for us is to help teachers to understand that we don't want our AI to assume the thinking that we're trying to develop with kids, right? Because that that's going to defeat the purpose, right? We want kids to think and that's why we had that continuum. We're not going to use AI if it's going to replace the thinking that we're trying to teach to kids. there may be tasks where you know some of the thinking could be could done to AI but not all of it and then we'll get to the point where I think actually AI can support the thinking and and extend it. >> So that's the challenge for teachers right now. I'm not getting the sense they're
093afraid of it. They just need to learn how to use it in an appropriate way that doesn't undermine what we're trying to do with kids. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. How are the teachers at the elementary school, you know, are you using it in any particular are your teachers using it in any particular way? Good. >> Well, sometimes to develop newsletters, sometimes to respond to emails, sometimes to write comments or report cards. And again, they're putting in a lot of information using it using it in that way. >> Using it with kids too much. That's what I was going to say. For their own professional work, they're using it for some things, but not really with kids yet. >> Yeah. And that to Chuck's point, that's exactly where I think we should be. >>
094You know, outside of maybe, you know, having a kid experiment with something, but I wouldn't make it part of the core learning for sure. Yeah. So, >> um there was Can I speak about Katie Durkin? >> Sure. Um so um one of the teachers at Middlebrook um Katie Derk and she she had an article that was published and it was featured in the Marshall memo recently where she was talking about how she really transformed a writer's workshop um using school AI um and how it became a thought partner for kids much like a co-intelligence but again it wasn't doing the work you know uh it would help um I I can't speak exactly to all the details that she she did but I've done something similar one uh as well in some things and it
095was really meant to um you know you conference with the kid and then AI helps fill in some of the gaps and you know AI might do help with some brainstorming or might actually uh help with some proof reading or that thesis idea that Kevin and Bob was talking about but but in the end it freed her up to conference with the kids more and actually be more hands-on with the kids rather than less because I I use this example all the time you know if I were working uh with with Eric and the rest of you guys are waiting for me or a par profofessional or a co-teer to come help you with your essay Hey, what are you going to do? You know, you're going to go off task or get stuck or
096whatever. But if you have some school AI to interact with, then it keeps you on task and keeps you thinking about the assignment rather than just being idle. So, um it's a really use case that I think she highlighted in that particular article. So, um I think that uh we need to encourage and learn more about that 100%. >> Did anyone else have anything they want to share and principal thing? I could share a number of stories where different IETs are are working with and saying, you know, it's it's all within that that vein of what Chuck was saying. We want to make sure that we're not removing the thinking from the kids, that they're still doing the thinking. Uh I think about our seventh grade social slaves department who's helping uh the students on
097how school AI can help them write a better inquiry question and helps them through some of their thinking about is this too broad, is this too limited, might you consider? But it's never uh as you showed earlier, it's never giving an answer. It's challenging the thinking. And what's really nice about it, it's a um script for the teacher to review to see exactly what that interaction has been and how it's changed the students thinking or adjusted their thinking or what they've done to. So >> yeah, you can actually go in and see what the interaction was between the student and the chatbot, which is pretty neat. And um you can even use that as you know a monitoring or a formative assessment of itself to see where they are in the conversation. So, >> I
098think the other thing it's done is um allowed teachers to um know in an instant who are those students I need to check in with today, who are the students that don't necessarily need to check in today with perhaps a writing or research piece that they're doing. And it allows just that really quick check gives them that opportunity to be able to have a a written back and forth with that student as well. And I think that goes back to some of that kind of like building the expertise with it and just how we like I think there's the way the professional way that teachers build their expertise but also how are we teaching our kids to build that expertise >> within it as well because that being able to use it to the best
099of your advantage or your ability is also a skill within itself. And so even just finding space for that amongst all the other things that we need to um you know find spa find space for and how is that how that lives alongside with you know the thinking that we want to make sure that it's not interfering with um >> definitely >> big questions. >> Yeah. And if we had some of the answers we'd be writing books about all this too. >> Maybe we will write a book about an experience. proceeds could then how much fun would that be? >> Get that Jory's reservation done a lot faster, right? Yeah. >> Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, so Ethan's book is 2 years old and it's stale. >> I was just reading >> really funny how
100just and I think that's the other Patrick I think you were alluding to that this landscape is shifting so rapidly, >> right? I mean, we we want to really focus on big picture structures and thinking and not commit to anyone tool, anyone methodology because, you know, tomorrow it's going to be different. >> Yeah. He actually just had a post on uh a Substack where he was talking about how um now he's calling it like the AI agents are like wizards and they do come in and do something magical and you can't figure out what it is they did and or how they did it. and he had put in some of his own research and it drew insights that he liked better than the ones he came up with years ago and he had no
101idea how it happened or couldn't verify it but it sounded good and he's obviously a leader in his field and entrepreneurship and AI and um it was really interesting so yeah he even added like if there'll probably be a second edition of this book and a third and a fourth like you have been saying so quite a bit going on >> so I think that gets back to your point though like how to identify like the larger picture and the structures that you kind of need to facilitate this regardless of the changes that happen within it, you know, and that um >> yeah, it's good. Chuck's been curating articles and I'll share them with the board when I get back in front of my computer. Um and that, you know, the good news is there
102are a lot of really um good thinkers thinking and writing about this topic cross sector. And so, um, you know, a lot of folks, um, are weighing in in in ways that are helpful to, I think, to inform our thinking. >> Definitely. >> Final thoughts before we move on. >> It it sounds like it could be great for engagement and great for great for learning. I'm just not so sure how great it is for the job market. >> Yeah, I mean, that's a bigger bigger problem, bigger question. And there's a lot of people providing funy on that as well. And um the truth is we're not quite sure where it's going to go yet. And that's that's something to keep in mind too. >> Uh in the near term, I think as many of us
103had mentioned, kids need the skills um at least a baseline so they're not lost. Yeah, for sure. Um >> it also goes back to that idea that from that workshop where we talked about making sure we're building good, you know, good humans, good people, >> right? >> Because that's all said that >> Yeah. That's the thing we don't want to Yeah. So, uh, so I'm glad you mentioned engagement because that's actually the next uh one in the series. Um, so I was hoping I I'll hand every I'll hand out another reading assignment on the way out. Again, do with it what you will, but we will talk about um the disengaged teen and some of the concepts from that book in our next one. And we'll talk more about student engagement in December. AI and
104digital citizenship which we touched on tonight as well and that'll be based on another book raising humans in digital world which is actually the foundation for our cyics cyber civics curriculum that we're using. So I'm excited to talk about that with you. I already mentioned uh we'll do a little bit more discussion about curriculum and teaching and learning uh and Matt MVIS will be the guest uh host for that one. And then um I didn't see 49 on the on the document that came out but I think that was a date that we had. Um so that would be kind of a review and next steps discussion. Sound good so far for everybody? >> Great. I really appreciate the time tonight. >> No, thank you. Pleasure. Thank you for teaching us. >> Yeah, my pleasure.
105Um, it's a lot of fun and uh, you know, mentioning the the key skills in demand from the World Economic Forum. Um, I can't zoom in on this too easily right now, but again, I'll I'll make sure you all have this presentation. Um, you can take a look at that and it's everything we talked about tonight. So, I think we're we're all our hearts in the right place, our minds in the right d going in the right direction. I think that we're doing the right stuff. So, we'll just have to keep collaborating and working on this. Um and you can click on here for overview of the year and get more detail on that too. >> Great. Thanks everyone. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. >> Yeah. Lots of fun. >> Yeah. My pleasure.
106>> That takes us back to um comments from the public. Any comments from the public? >> Um seeing um none. Um under future business um we have um just for everybody's information, it was posted and provided to you tonight. There's just a listing of um the committees of the board and special meeting dates. Um Thursday, October 23rd. um note the um change time. We will start at um 8:00 at night in order to facilitate um our ability to be at the um where you belong fash fashion show. Right. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. And then um we'll have a regular 7:00 Thursday um meeting on November 6th. Uh November 20th um we'll start at 6:30 and we'll be um hosting a two topic meeting, parent engagement and community conversation about the budget. I can't
107see if that's coming up already. And again, um Tuesday night we will be um the DOF will be having its um budget guidance um discuss beginning discussion. So um >> this Tuesday um so with that um 8:20 meeting adjourned. Thank you very much.