On this episode of the Innovative Schools Podcast, Kevin and I sit down with the AI educator Dan Fitzpatrick to talk about AI's challenges, its benefits, and how you can get started with it as an educator. Come on. Let's learn together. Everybody, welcome to the Innovative Schools Podcast. We got Jordan and Kevin today.
Kevin:Hey, Kevin. Kevin's here with you, Jordan.
Jordan:I know. I think everyone you're just like isolated from everyone else.
Kevin:I know that. But I'm not. I love y'all. Yeah. Y'all are great.
Jordan:Yeah. It's great. But, we're here at the Innovative Schools Summit in New York.
Kevin:Yes. We are.
Jordan:Which is
Kevin:Right right on I mean, we're right outside the the walls of Times Square.
Jordan:Times Square is
Dan Fitzpatrick:right there.
Jordan:Broadway, all that stuff. It's great. We've been here before. We come to New York every year. But this time on this podcast, we're talking AI, artificial intelligence
Kevin:Correct. With With the one and only
Jordan:mister Dan Fitzpatrick.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Fitzpatrick. Hopefully, great to be here.
Jordan:This is our first international podcast.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Oh, wow.
Jordan:Is what I'm gonna call it, at least.
Kevin:That's right. We're we're gonna make it the international podcast because he hails from Deep South Texas. Not really. No. So, Dan, tell us tell us a little bit about yourself.
Kevin:Like, where you hail from and and just a little bit about Dan. Who is Dan?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. Absolutely. So, yeah, as people watching or listening can hear, my accent is very different. So I I'm from England. So but I'm from the North Of England.
Dan Fitzpatrick:So I think a lot of people, when they think of an English accent, think of kinda Hugh Grant, what we kinda call the Queen's English. That that's not what's happening here at all. So I'm from the North, from a place called Newcastle, right in the North East Of England. Yeah. And live kind of now about ten minutes from the the Scottish border, so probably as as far north as you can go.
Dan Fitzpatrick:So but I get to travel here to the to The United States regularly. Love coming here. Kind of a just being in New York, it's kind of a childhood dream of mine. I I get to come often, but every time I I get to come, I, like, pinch myself and that I get to walk down Times Square through through Central Park. I suppose as someone from England, this is I kinda saw this as a as a kid on TV, on in movies.
Dan Fitzpatrick:So thank you for inviting me
Kevin:and No. Absolutely. Here. Absolutely.
Jordan:We love it. We know that you have it's it's great to have some, just kinda new perspective, like hearing about things that are going on in education in another country, but also just for us to be able to talk kind of that AI. It's a big buzzword kinda thing for us to get into.
Kevin:And and before we start, though, just gotta know because you mentioned where you're from. So how is Newcastle doing now? I'm a football fan. Right. Okay.
Kevin:Soccer fan. Soccer fan, football fan. So yeah. Yeah. So how is Newcastle doing, Brandon?
Dan Fitzpatrick:We're doing well. We're doing well. Yeah. Yeah. If you follow the Champions League Yes.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. We're doing very well. But, yeah, we like, you know what?
Dan Fitzpatrick:We had a we had decades of of disaster after disaster. So just any any win is is a huge win at the moment.
Kevin:That's right. Any of the Manchester City, you beat them, didn't you?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. When did they beat us?
Kevin:They were there. Sorry. I didn't mean to bring that up.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. That's alright. But yeah. Yeah, But, we're doing well. We're doing well.
Kevin:Very good. Yeah. Well, we got that out of the way. I just need to find that out because I so, Dan, tell me, what got you what got you started? Obviously, maybe you can tell a little bit about your teaching background.
Kevin:But what got you started in in working with AI? And and and, obviously, those things are changing every single day. But what what developed that interest in you, to go that route?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. So so probably just to say from the start, I'm not from a a technical background in technology in the slightest. Kind of always been, like many of us, someone who's really interested in it and kind of looked to see how it would enhance my own life and enhance my own work. When I was training to be a teacher, I I remember every Friday we would have we would have sessions where where another expert in a certain field would come and give us those of us who would train in different sessions and and different topics. And we had we had a session, and it it was it was about cloud technology.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Now that sounds like the most unsexiest thing in the world. But and and I thought that I'd go in thinking, oh, I'll just sit at the back and kinda check some emails. But I I it it kinda blew my mind. And not necessarily what it could do, because I think we're all kinda familiar with that now, but that the fact that we weren't utilizing this and just something very basic that, like, we could have a resource that could be accessed at any time from anywhere on any device, and students could access it in a similar way. It just seemed like a no brainer, and the fact that we were kinda keeping this technology kind of arm's length and way back then was which just kind of really inspired me to go to to wanna tell people more about the technology and help them understand how it could help them.
Dan Fitzpatrick:So there was myself. There was a a couple a couple of guys who were in my my department who were more experienced teachers, but I I kinda got together with them and said, we should we should do this as a department within our faculty and and kind of be an example of how this could work and then just start telling people about it. So we would put we convinced, like, the the catering team to put breakfast on, and we'd get everybody in before school had started. Very grassroots. So my yeah.
Dan Fitzpatrick:My career carried on. I I I very much moved from being a grassroots advocate of how technology could help us to being, I suppose, a leadership advocate from the top town. And then a few years ago, I decided to kind of change education sector. So I was I was always a high school teacher. I kind of felt like I'd got to the end of what I could do there in terms of in in The UK, as as it is in many places here in in The US, budgets are really tight.
Kevin:Mhmm.
Dan Fitzpatrick:There was starting to be a big return back to more very traditional ways of how to set a classroom up and how to teach, and which kind of felt like technology was being edged out more, I felt like it was kind of going backwards a little bit. So I thought to go for a job for a digital strategy lead for a large group of colleges in the Northeast Of England. Moved into there, and then I had to write a strategy then. So I had to so I I really kinda spent about six months really immersing myself in in kind of local industry. I thought, know what?
Dan Fitzpatrick:I'm gonna go out out of the college walls and see what was going on in the the industry, in the sectors where these students were gonna be probably spending the rest of their lives. And so got to know kind of what technology should we maybe bring back into the curriculum, maybe what technology should we prepare them for. And it was while I was doing that, I remember I was working with a business, and they said to me, oh, come and have a look at this. And they described it as a technology, as a bit like a calculator before words. And this really, really kinda excited me.
Dan Fitzpatrick:This was this was pre kinda chat GPT in in November 2022. In fact, was an earlier version of of of of a GPT. And and we start start to look at how do we how do we get this into the hands of our teachers? Our teachers, the the colleges were were very vocational focused, so there was a lot a lot of coursework, a lot of writing for teachers to have to read through regularly, and kind of how do we ease that burden of helping them identify the key bits of information so they could check their students' progress really easily. So we started to experiment with that.
Dan Fitzpatrick:It was while we were doing that, that infamous moment at the November 2022 happened where a company called OpenAI released ChatGPT to the world and just said, here, play with this. Yeah. It's essentially what they did, and and I suppose the world has kinda never felt right since, I guess. So and I remember just in those that first month not really seeing many people on social media talking about it, and but, like, people in marketing were were starting to talk about it and share ideas. And education wasn't saying much, so I thought, well in fact, I remember I was I was at my my mom's house, and I I just decided to go on my phone.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And you know how on an iPhone, you can record your screen. So I Yeah. Just went and record my screen, went to there wasn't even a ChatGBT app then. Went to the browser, opened up ChatGBT, and did something so basic. Like like like everyone now, if they if you've used a tool like this, will see it's so basic.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And and actually probably not the best use of AI right now is I just said, you create a lesson plan for me? And put that onto think it was on Twitter, and I think it it it went viral after a few days, and just started doing more and more of that, really. And and over the next few months, I I suppose I because I sometimes tell people, I've got a business. So and I kinda do, really. We've got a business, but I've never I've never went and sought business.
Dan Fitzpatrick:It's always it's always been just trying to share good practice. Yeah. Sharing things that I know as a teacher, would think this is this would really help me. And and around that time, people start saying, could you do a webinar? Could you could you share more resources?
Dan Fitzpatrick:And kind of things grew from there, really. And I suppose a crazy a crazy part of it was I remember literally starting that process, and within thirty days, so the end the end of the next month, I was being invited onto a television program in The UK called Good Morning Britain. You guys have the equivalent of, obviously, here, with a label under my name on this TV show as as, like, as an AI education expert. And I suppose ever since then, I've been I've been trying to chase that label, really.
Kevin:Just trying to figure out who that guy was. Exactly. I
Jordan:guess you gotta lock
Kevin:in now, really. I'm in, guys. You know, that's all you got.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. So it was and and you know what? I I am I'm so privileged. I get to travel the world, meet meet people like you, come to amazing places like New York City, and spend some some real time with with educators and and help them. First of all, kinda raise awareness.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Look what this could do for you, but then get into all of the, I suppose, the complex detail that we're probably gonna talk about. Yeah. Yeah. Comes from this technology.
Jordan:Yeah. Yeah. So you went from just to kinda recap, you went high school teacher, some college work, and then right in kind of from there went into AI expert. AI expert. Just bang bang bang.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. I mean, it it sounds like it happened fast. It didn't feel like it was Yeah. Happening. But Yeah.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. Yeah. I've kind of always been the type of person, and I'm sure there's probably people listening to this who who would relate that I've always
Kevin:had to have a bit of a side project.
Jordan:Mhmm.
Dan Fitzpatrick:I've always had to have something that kind of feeds my main my main career. And So I suppose when it when things did happen, lot of people say, like, how did you do it so fast? I suppose I'd I'd I'd kinda been teaching myself little bits of marketing, little bits of how to how to resource things and package things together and graphic design kind of on the side for a long time.
Jordan:AI probably helps with a lot of that too.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. Yeah.
Jordan:Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin:I mean,
Jordan:it does now. Yeah.
Dan Fitzpatrick:2022, not so much. But yeah. Yeah.
Kevin:And truthfully, after I mean, when you think about it, we're in 2026. So it's not like it just happened overnight. You you had to invest time and effort and energy and figure out these things, go learn what that device was that you could take to your teachers. And by the way, what was it? What was it that that company showed you?
Kevin:Can you are you allowed to say or?
Dan Fitzpatrick:It was just a very, early open source model.
Kevin:Okay. It was a open GPT. Okay.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin:And what what if for people perhaps like me, that, I mean, I'm learning more about it, but maybe totally off the grid of it, what is GPT? What is what is that rep what is what does that represent?
Dan Fitzpatrick:What is it? Well, I mean, I suppose I'll I'll try not to get technical.
Kevin:In simple terms.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. I I suppose we we've got a it's some it's it's kind of referred to as AI now, I guess. Mhmm. Although it's it's AI is such a wider field than that. It's a very, very, very small subset of artificial intelligence, and as many people will know, AI has been around a long time, and the term AI was coined in the '50s.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And we kind of got to a point, I think, kind of around 2012, where something was starting to take off behind the scenes with what some of these AIs could do. But essentially, in very, very simple terms, some guys got together and thought, well, actually, could this work like the human brain? Could we try and train it a bit like the human brain? And many, many years later of trying this out and progressing this for the last twenty years, they got to a point where actually the information they were inputting into it was sufficient enough, Because essentially, we I mean, you look at the Internet, we've got, like, the world's information. I I used to say the world's wisdom.
Dan Fitzpatrick:It's maybe not maybe not so much,
Jordan:but Good clarification.
Kevin:There's definitely some there's definitely there's
Dan Fitzpatrick:some wisdom in there, but a whole lot of information there. Yeah. That can can kinda be taken and used to train these. Now that I mean, there's there's a whole host of issues around how that's done and and so on, but that's essentially what's happened. They they all of the information from the Internet has been used to train this.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Now that couldn't have happened twenty, thirty years ago because just the Internet wasn't there. Mhmm. So it got to a point where the the dataset was kind of sufficient in order to to really power these. But I suppose just to come down onto a very basic term, we're we're essentially, in a way, talking about a prediction machine. We're dealing with a a machine that works out the probability of either the next word or half word or third of the word Mhmm.
Dan Fitzpatrick:In the sentence When it comes to the text generation, it's just really, really good at it because it's trained on so much information and can see so much pattern within that. A bit like if I were to say to you the cat sat on the chair. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
Dan Fitzpatrick:You wouldn't make a good But
Jordan:Ken could say table.
Kevin:I was gonna say
Jordan:wall, but He needs some
Kevin:more training. Gotta put some more input in me.
Dan Fitzpatrick:But we we have these kinda we have these phrases. We have the words that we just naturally, more often than others, will come after that's that certain word or that phrase, especially then when within a certain context as well. And I think it it kinda shines a light on just probably how predictable human language is to a certain extent. And it kinda makes sense. We're all learning from each other.
Dan Fitzpatrick:We we learned a lot when we were young from our parents. We even at our ages, we're learning from each other. You might say something in a way that maybe just subconsciously sticks with me, and I when I'm keynoting later today, it comes into my vocabulary as well, and then the probability of me saying that word after the after the word before it increases. And Mhmm. And so this is just kind of how how language kinda works in terms of how we communicate it, I suppose.
Dan Fitzpatrick:They figured that out, I guess, and they looked at, well, okay then, so how can we make this more and more accurate through the amount of then sequenced words we can give to it? It can work out the probability. You can look at have access to the context of what these words are being said in. And that's kinda led to where we are now. So if you go if you open up one of the these chatbots and type an answer into it, it will give a very human sounding Mhmm.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Most of the time. I think with some of us are getting a bit more able to to guess whether this is AI or not.
Jordan:Yeah.
Dan Fitzpatrick:I think it's I think a certain amount of that is us kind of wishful thinking because a lot of the studies suggest that, especially when it comes to things like assessments, actually, when we think we know that AI has written it, actually, it's we're not always accurate there. So, yeah, it's it's we get something that sounds human. And I think, well, the the most important thing is, I think, the first time ever, we've got a a technology that communicates back to us in our language, really. Mhmm.
Kevin:Do you do you think that we are losing sorry. I didn't know if had a question there. No. You're good. Are we losing some of our humanization, especially with the younger generation, with new students that are coming up with that.
Kevin:I'm I'm just thinking, like, there's there's a some AI artist that you're looking, oh, that's an awesome song. That's amazing. Who is this person looking? And then you find out it's an AI. It's an AI singing this song, wrote this song.
Kevin:It's the it's an AI generated person that's actually singing the song and, like, are we losing some humanization of who we are as as people Yeah. Through that process?
Dan Fitzpatrick:That's I suppose that is probably the the main question underlying all of this, really. It's it's a huge question. And I I think probably yes and no, which is which is the, I suppose, the easy answer.
Kevin:But Sure.
Dan Fitzpatrick:I I I I think I mean, there was here here in The United States, there was a country song that was top of the the the charts, wasn't it, of it's an AI generated. Interesting when we when we look at who's using, especially the music generation tools, it is artists who are using them and and and kinda getting the most out of them. And I think you really have to know your stuff already in order to get something of quality or something that's margin a marginal gap beyond where anyone else can get it, if that makes sense. Yeah. So maybe the floor has risen on what anybody can do, but actually those who wanna go even further and beyond and still stand out and still capture imagination still have to know their stuff.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And I think that's one of the the real sticking points around this technology because as we talk about using this technology within school, we're dealing with children here who haven't been able to learn the basics yet, who haven't been able to learn, yeah, I suppose, what we of a certain generation now got to learn. Sure. And to bring AI in, that could be really dangerous, I think. And then and if for for replacement. Interestingly, I I in fact, I was just looking at data this morning that said that from the Oxford University Press in The UK and a large survey they had done with teenagers, that over eighty percent of teenagers had learned a new skill using AI.
Kevin:Wow. Wow.
Dan Fitzpatrick:However, sixty percent, just over 60% felt like it had been detrimental to another skill. So this is such a complex landscape here. And and I think I think we have to we're gonna this any technology that comes along, this happens. Sure. Whether it be the printing press, whether it be agriculture and farming millennia ago, this The Internet itself when
Jordan:it first came.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Well, look, I do do you mourn not having to use a map in a car anymore?
Dan Fitzpatrick:I don't. No.
Kevin:I do. I do.
Dan Fitzpatrick:But I do.
Kevin:Okay. But I'm the older one in this room. I was talking about that just the other day with someone where he mentioned the map. Was like, man, I just some days I miss getting the old map and and paper, having to hold it against the dashboard and figure out where I'm going.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Running over shit.
Kevin:Running over shit. Yeah. So I truthfully do, but, you know, I understand that it is my I mean, it's fun. Enjoy putting don't get me wrong.
Jordan:I think kinda your point is, like, I've never done that. Yeah. So if you handed me a map and said figure out where to go, I don't have that skill to find my way on the map necessarily.
Kevin:Was not sponsored by Randall McNally. You know?
Jordan:But I've benefited from being able to just pull up on my phone and have a nice voice say
Kevin:Absolutely.
Jordan:Turn right in one mile.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. I think it's such a good example because it kinda crosses a few generations at the moment. Sure. Because I think I I don't think I ever did, but I remember holding them up for my dad when he was driving. So I kinda I I remember what it was like.
Dan Fitzpatrick:I I I still have some people who would say to me, oh, we we should be learning map skills. Yeah. And that what happens you know, you I get the the the common quite a bit, what happens when the Internet goes down. In fact, I once thought about getting a T shirt with just what happens when the Internet goes down because it seems to be one of the biggest questions I get. I I honestly think, at the moment, if the Internet goes down, the there's gonna be such bigger issues than reading them out.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And it'll probably be down for, like, three hours, six hours at the most. Have a coffee, chill out. It'll be back on very soon. I I think there are the I think the point behind this, the serious point behind this, is that there are some skills throughout history we've we've let go. We've let go.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Mhmm. And and for good reason, and because we we we didn't need to to carry on. We we are a species that uses tools. That's that's kind of what differentiated us from from from other species for a long time, and and this is the the next set of tools, I guess. Now I suppose the difference with making the comparison with something like agriculture farm and print and press Mhmm.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Is those technologies took a long time to to to establish.
Kevin:Mhmm.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Mainly because we didn't have communication methods like we we do now. We don't the world isn't as as joined and as unified as it as it as it is now. AI is spreading very fast. And we look you say it's 2026. That has been kind of, let's say, four years, but a lot of the change that we're seeing in just four years is is kinda crazy as well.
Dan Fitzpatrick:So I think there's gonna be a lot of unintended negatives, especially when it comes to our young people. And I think we'd be remiss if we didn't actually be honest with ourselves about about that, actually start to address that right now and not kinda did what we did with social media and just kinda go, oh, it'll be okay. Yeah. We'll see what happens. And and now we're we're picking up the pieces really with with some of the damage that social media has done.
Dan Fitzpatrick:I mean, don't get me wrong. It's done amazing things. It's Sure. It's overthrown dictatorships around the world. Yeah.
Dan Fitzpatrick:But it's also done some horrific things for our for our young people. I think right now we need to be on the front foot with this, and we need to act with intent. And something I'll say in the keynote later on is, I might seem like an optimist around this technology, but that's for very good reason. It's a strategic optimism in that I think we need to lead with intent here, and we need to lead with with knowing what we want from this technology, where we want this technology, and not just go not just, like, surrender and go, well, let's just let it infiltrate everywhere. Because I think there will be it it would get worse than social media, I think.
Dan Fitzpatrick:So I yeah. I so I I I think I think there's gonna be benefits to this. There's gonna and already, I'm I'm see I see students. I was talking to a student the other day, high school student who said they use AI before they they find out what the next class is gonna be on. And they go and use AI to to find out about it, to they use AI to help ask questions of their teachers.
Dan Fitzpatrick:So they'll say to the AI, what can I what questions could I ask my teacher so I can understand more about this in the next class?
Kevin:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Dan Fitzpatrick:So I I think some I think there's some really, really cool ways that that students, that teachers can use this, but, obviously, we need to we need to mitigate against the risks there at the same time.
Jordan:Yeah. Well, it sound you said the word tool earlier, and that's how as I've seen that come across. I have two young kids in school of how tools are both for building and destruction, and it's not that either one is either one of those functions is better than the other, but it's being used in the correct way in the right the right way. If I'm trying to build a house, don't wanna necessarily destroy the wall depending on what I'm doing. Maybe I need to take that wall out.
Jordan:Maybe I don't. And so I think this is kind of a little bit of what you're saying is like it it's a tool that can be used for good or a tool that's not so good, and it just depends on how we as a society, but in this conversation specifically educators or schools use it. And you have to know about that tool. You need to you kinda need to know how to use it, what it is, and not just be afraid of it. Similarly, kinda taking the hammer thing a bit further is I may say hammer, and we all have a picture of a hammer in our head, but they're all different hammers.
Jordan:There's different hammers. There's sledgehammer. There's a Yeah. Drywall hammer. There's all these different types of hammers, and it can be overwhelming.
Jordan:You don't know which hammer to use in what situation. But just it sounds like just education about AI and how it can be used and its pitfalls is critically important.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. And I guess knowing that what is wrong for some people is is right for others and right for some people that's wrong for us as well, it's so complex. I'm just was thinking when just to stretch the analogy further, like, you're gonna have to chop some trees down to get that timber, and there's gonna be a big group of people who aren't gonna be happy about that. I it's it's so complex, this this side of things. And I think what we're starting to see because of that, and I think it'll be a good thing, is that we'll start I think we're gonna start seeing, and we're we are starting to see this already, more choice within education.
Dan Fitzpatrick:So so and and this this is this goes from one extreme to another. So from schools that are are completely online that are using Yeah. That are using AI to teach, like, one extreme to the very other extreme. I was talking to a guy in the South Of England a few weeks ago. He was opening schools in forests and and getting back to nature, and there's no technology anywhere near it.
Dan Fitzpatrick:So we got completely different extremes. But and I think sometimes we naturally slip into the argument, well, which one's better? Pick one. Pick one. Which one's better?
Dan Fitzpatrick:What what future do you want? And and I think in the world we live in where we we we just seem to naturally veer to extremes quite easily, we can have very heated debates around this. But I think what what I see in that is actually is is the choice that forms then. Mhmm. So if I'm a parent who I okay.
Dan Fitzpatrick:I'm I don't want them they have screens at home. They they do things on I I do some AI with my kids. I've got a a five and a six year old at home, and we do bits of AI. Maybe those six hours or five hours they're away from me at school, I don't want them to have any I want them to be I want them to be in nature. I want them to be climbing trees.
Dan Fitzpatrick:I want them to be because I we can't really maybe we live in a city, we can't offer them that in Yeah. At home. And and so the fact that there is that choice, I think, is is amazing. But also the opposite. Maybe I'm somebody who believes that I know AI would is gonna really propel my my child's education, and therefore, I'm gonna go more the other extreme and go, you know, I think this is gonna be really beneficial.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Now I suppose what that does is it could have some negative benefits in terms of a lot of choice when it comes to education is paid for. So I worry about the equity gap there in terms of parents who can choose to send their child to an independent school those who can't, and what maybe in a few years' time the state education looks like if if it's been drained of resources and Mhmm. People, even just with a little bit of money, I suppose, because the more options that arise, the more market forces bring will bring prices down. And so I do worry about that a little bit. I think I think that is ultimately the the direction we're going in.
Dan Fitzpatrick:It might not be as straightforward as I'm I'm as I'm making out, and I'm sure it won't be, but I think we will end up getting more and more choice. Yeah. And I it's it's it's gonna be an interesting time, I think. It's gonna be and I suppose for the teacher in the classroom trying to figure all this out, and we we really need and it's something I talk about a lot at the minute. We need leadership, like like, more than ever right now.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And not just and and I talk about this as someone who's been in school leadership, who and I work with school leaders. I I I mentor school leaders. I work directly with heads of secretaries of state for government departments overseeing education departments. So I'm really invested in leadership, and I think leadership at all level needs to stand up right now. Yeah.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And I think in education and this is a very broad statement. But in education, over the past few decades, we've kind of stuck with the managerial model of leadership and and kinda know how do we keep it going? How do we keep this taken over? How do we how do we keep those incremental gains? I think at the moment, the our times are calling for for more innovative leadership Yeah.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And for more entrepreneurial leadership in a way as well. And I think sometimes when I when I say that to leaders, it it scares them. And when I say that to teachers because I'm talking to teachers here as well, because I think all of us at every level of education have got some sphere of leadership. Mhmm. I think it's scary because, first of all, we think, no.
Dan Fitzpatrick:But but these are children's lives. We can't be like Silicon Valley and kinda run what is it they say? Run fast and break things and Yeah. Kinda see what happens. And I'm not advocating for that, but we can make informed decisions and pivot a day later.
Dan Fitzpatrick:We can we can say to ourselves, right, this is the track we're gonna go on. And and next week, when things don't seem to add up, rethink Mhmm. And and and and change course. And I think we have to realize that making a decision isn't a zero sum game. It's it's we've gotta still steer the ship there.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And and and be be be, I suppose you know that word courage? Essentially, a basic way, it means being able to make decisions when you're not a 100% accurate. Yeah. And I think we have to get more comfortable with that because nobody is ever gonna knock on our school door and say, here are all the answers when it comes to AI, when it comes to what what's happening with this technology. Now I know some some educators will be sat there thinking, this this is technology.
Dan Fitzpatrick:It's the next wave of technology. You talked about cloud technology earlier. This is not the next stage. Why why why so dramatic about this? I think anybody who's really kinda got into using AI and looking at what the where AI is infiltrating at the moment, I think it doesn't take you long to realize this isn't a tech technology issue.
Dan Fitzpatrick:This is this is an issue that involves all areas of our lives. Mhmm. It involves yeah. And it's one of
Kevin:the things
Dan Fitzpatrick:I say at schools is please don't leave this to your IT team. This is not an IT issue. This is not this is not a put it on their desk. They'll sort it out kind of thing. This is this is a real leadership issue because this is gonna this is gonna impact how you're hiring teachers.
Dan Fitzpatrick:It's gonna impact what's going on in the classroom. It's gonna impact human resources. It's it's gonna impact kind of everything, and it kind of already is.
Kevin:Yeah.
Dan Fitzpatrick:But, yeah, I think I think we've got a real leadership job to be done at the moment, and we've gotta come together for that. And I suppose the the danger is there is leadership in silos, and we've really got to make more of a concerted effort, I think, to come together as leaders and not necessarily do that so that we're waiting for one of the other leaders to make a move and we follow them, But actually to actually get together, share ideas, make moves together. Absolutely. Course correct together and do this in a way that's gonna really benefit our kids, our children. Because I think right now, not doing anything is a choice in itself.
Dan Fitzpatrick:It's not a neutral choice.
Kevin:And
Dan Fitzpatrick:from what I'm seeing from working with schools around the world, those who made the choice two years ago already making some great gains there, and it will take maybe some other schools a bit more time to catch up now. So, yeah, I think we've got to we've to come together. We've got we've gotta be brave on our leadership, and we've gotta do this where we're we're mitigating against those risks most importantly.
Kevin:Oh, and I would add add one more word. You said lead with intent. But I think for me, personally, I think it would be important to add lead with intent and integrity.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah.
Kevin:Because sometimes we're so scared of failure and scared of anybody failing, we're gonna make mistakes. Yeah. There's gonna be mistakes that happen, and especially with AI. I mean, both of both of you have younger children. And with those mistake we're gonna make some mistakes.
Kevin:You're gonna make some mistakes. I made lots of mistakes as a parent. But I can't be afraid of the mistake if I'm leading with intent and integrity. I understand that I'm and and that's we gotta have that from our leaders. And if our integrity is right, if our intent is right and the purpose of of what we're trying to do, especially in this in this culture and what we're seeing and and the rapid changes that are taking place every single day with AI, if we're leading with intent and integrity, then I think the mistakes that we make are gonna be minimal.
Kevin:There'll be mistakes, but they won't be as dramatic as if we're just like, hey. Who cares? Kinda kinda thing. So Yeah.
Jordan:Absolutely. Well, both of the things you guys just said is is great, but I think I'm gonna have us put a pin in this conversation for a second. We'll take a quick break for our for our listeners. But when we come back, I wanna talk more about how some get a little bit into the exactly how what tools and things are available in the AI space for educators to lead with intent and integrity for that. So thanks for setting that up, Kevin.
Kevin:Yeah. I'm that's what I'm
Jordan:here for,
Kevin:to set to set that up.
Jordan:Thank you, buddy. But, listeners, hang out. We'll be back in just a couple minutes. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Innovative Schools Podcast.
Jordan:Kevin and Jordan here with the AI educator, Dan Fitzpatrick, all the way from England. I'm absolutely chuffed
Kevin:that you're here. Newcastle.
Jordan:Newcastle. Yeah. My bad. Important. But just chuffed that you're here.
Jordan:Yeah. I was told to use that word because it's a British word or something, but I don't
Dan Fitzpatrick:Chose when you said it though, I was thinking, I thought that was a British word.
Kevin:Okay. But yeah. He's not even served that word. Good job, Jordan. He's chuffed.
Kevin:Take that one back with you.
Jordan:But, anyway, yeah. Just someone's like, hey, we're getting the conversation. So there it is.
Kevin:That was good, though.
Jordan:But anyway, we're talking AI, artificial intelligence in education. We just spent a good long time just kinda I mean, we explored a lot of different areas Yeah. Of AI there for a second. Some personal philosophies, some things that we saw, how you got into the AI, and and along that that road and everything. But here, I I want us to kinda try and bring this down into the classroom for our educator friends that are that are listening.
Jordan:And the thing we kinda left off on was using it with intent and integrity. Right? Yeah. The two things. So I guess the my first question with that to you, Dan, is, kind of around the the the ethics of using like, using AI in the classroom with those two things.
Jordan:What's something that maybe an educator, should definitely be looking at and how to use this to help their students learn, or maybe something that 100% just right now, let's not go down that path. I don't know. Let's just open the conversation on bringing it into the classroom.
Dan Fitzpatrick:I think there are some there are some really easy ways to get started with with AI in the classroom. I think it's gonna depend on the level of education. Sure. I kinda think at the moment, elementary education, we need to be really, really careful with how we the AI we put into students' hands.
Kevin:Mhmm.
Dan Fitzpatrick:I think even if we should put AI in the students' hands at all, really, I think we they certainly should know about it. They should certainly know how it works. They should certainly know some of the dangers, but also the, I suppose, surrounding skills. And they're not new skills, so things like being able to critically think, critically analyse, be able to iterate, be able to evaluate, the core skills that hopefully we're teaching students anyway. If we just slightly shift their focus onto AI, I think might be all we kind of need to do younger students as they develop those skills at the moment.
Dan Fitzpatrick:I think as students get older into middle or high school, we might want to start introducing them to some AI tools, and I know here in The United States there are some great platforms that have been created over the last few years that will allow students to do all sorts really, from create their own AI assistant that will not just tell them the answer, but will kind of in a Socratic way help them talk through the answer. So I know there's some great teachers who are creating their own AI chatbots. A bit like I remember when when I I would would create a unit of work when I was a teacher, and I would then put all those resources onto my Google classroom, and so students could, at any time, could access those resources. What what we're seeing now is teachers also then taking those resources and putting them into an AI bot that then becomes trained on those resources. Correct.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And it's just adding an extra dynamic onto that resource accessibility for students where they Yeah. They don't necessarily have to go into a document and and look through everything, but they can could just have a conversation.
Jordan:Interact. They can ask a little bit more about one thing depending on it it almost makes it a bit more personalized
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah.
Jordan:For that individual student of what they might be interested in or what they might need help with.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. And the I suppose that that context as well, it can a lot of them can deal with the the contextualization of it. So if I was a student and I said something like, I'm into soccer. Could you kinda give me an analogy? Because I just can't I can't get my head around it.
Jordan:You learn parabolas. Give me Can you put kicking a ball into ARC and make me figure them?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. And and and and the capabilities will will be there. I mean, to varying degrees, depends on the tool. But think probably one of the most important things here is, and it probably comes down to what you said about integrity, is that we how we're choosing those tools is so important as well, not just for capability, although that's gonna be really important, but also for trust of the company. Are they where does where does the data go here?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Where where does the data get held? So I think once once you the tool, once you trust the company, and you've kind of ticked all those boxes, the then capability of what that tool could do for you as a teacher is going to be incredible. And we're seeing stats come out where teachers are saving a lot of time, or we're seeing stats come out where teachers are saying they're being more creative than ever because not just because they're saving time and can spend a bit more time on creativity, but they're using AI a bit of a thinking partner. And I think that's probably really crucial to kind of explore a little bit as well that how we use the AI is vital here. It's not just, I'm going to use AI like it's some kind of vending machine, and we go, right, I'm going do type in my code in the vending machine for this task or this activity
Jordan:Write me this paper.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Out. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's a conversation, really. And it and kinda going back to what we said earlier about this is this is kind of the first time a technology has ever spoke our language.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Mhmm. That brings with it a whole complexity of we now need to use our communication skills, not just with the humans in our lives, but with the AI in our life as well. And and that's gonna take conversation. It's gonna take techniques that I think teachers already have already. So things like I sometimes say to to teachers, when was the last time you modeled an answer for a student?
Dan Fitzpatrick:I remember we used to do a technique where it was I do, we do, you do, you apply that to an AI, and you train in an AI really well, because you're saying, right, okay, we're gonna I want you to help me create a resource. This is the type of resource I normally create. This is the type of language I normally use with with my students. And then you create with it. And then at some point, the it might be able to do a really good job for you where it's never gonna do a 100%.
Dan Fitzpatrick:It's never gonna because, I mean, that's when we start to worry, I suppose. If it's if it
Kevin:can do it at a
Dan Fitzpatrick:100%, then what am I doing? You know? But I we still need to inject our professionalism, our subject knowledge, our our knowledge of students. We know the context of where this resource will be used. So I think, in a sense, pick your tool.
Dan Fitzpatrick:There are kind of two categories of tools for teachers at the moment, two main categories. The first category being just a chatbot. So you might if your school uses Google Gemini Google, you might use Gemini. Microsoft Copilot. You you're gonna get there a general purpose chatbot that you can talk to about anything, absolutely anything.
Dan Fitzpatrick:So it's gonna take a little bit of time to get a really to specifically focus on exactly something that might be a bit technical, maybe a bit pedagogical, that you need to direct it there. Then there are kind of, I suppose, what I would call third party tools, so tools that use that technology but have built their own platforms around it. So am I allowed to name specific names? No surprise to anyone, suppose, The United States at the moment, Magic School, School Brisk are kind of the the the top three, or at least the top three that I hear educators talking about a lot. So with with Magic School, I suppose one of their great great abilities is to break down AI use in really simple ways.
Dan Fitzpatrick:So instead of me sitting at a chatbot thinking, I wonder what AI can do for me today, it kind of creates a toolbox for you. And so you click a button where it says, I don't know, let's say there's one there's a tool that I I really like actually. Apply this apply a topic to a a real life scenario, something like that, where you you know you're gonna be teaching that day. It's gonna be quite dry, the the topic. How do you really motivate them?
Dan Fitzpatrick:How do you link it back to their lives? And there's a great there's a great little tool. You click on it. You say what you're gonna be teaching, and then within a split second, all these applications of
Jordan:of
Dan Fitzpatrick:this knowledge, of this theme. Now you can do that with Chateaubiti. You can do that with Gemini. You can do that with all these other tools. But I think the great thing about a tool like Magic School is I might not have thought of that.
Dan Fitzpatrick:I might not have. Sure. I might not have, you know, before I had my coffee at 07:30 that morning when I'm thinking, right, I really need to apply this lesson today. They I might not think to ask an AI. So I think it's really help a tool like that really helps as a bit of a bridge into becoming quite proficient at at AI and coming up with good ideas.
Dan Fitzpatrick:You got tools like School AI who are really good at creating chatbots where you can train a chatbot on your subject knowledge, on maybe, in fact, I recommend teachers do when it comes to that is just pick like a small unit of work, and you may have your lessons planned out in documents, you'll have your resources, you'll have your assessment material, whatever it might be, your quiz. Put it into the chatbot, and then you can even give it a personality. So let's say you're teaching ancient Egypt. You might say, okay. I want you to act as a as a mummy.
Jordan:Yeah. Or Cleopatra or something
Dan Fitzpatrick:like that. Yeah. Tour guide mummy who takes students around the Pyramids and and and doesn't answer their questions directly, but helps them to come to the answer and understand. You can do that really easily. Then you get a nice link, you put it into your Google Classroom or wherever you store your resources, And then you get a nice overview as a teacher, so you're able to see the conversation students are having.
Dan Fitzpatrick:There's some AI in there that flags maybe inappropriate use, which is gonna happen from students, of course it is, pauses the conversation, alerts the teacher. There's there's some great tools that will that will just help bring, I suppose, resource into a more in in in a more dynamic way. Creates goes from that worksheet into something that becomes conversational, more dynamic.
Kevin:I heard a great one yesterday. I never heard of it. Notebook LM? Yes. Yeah.
Kevin:What I thought was cool about that is that if I understand correctly, you can correct me because, you're the expert. But what I understand you have to yeah. That's right. That's what entitled said. That's what they told you back then when you were on that show.
Kevin:Down here. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Is that you have to input your own resources, though.
Kevin:It's just not gonna you have to input what you already know and your own files into it. And then as a result of that, then the information starts coming based on what you already put into that. And there's like a pod you can do a podcast with it, which I Yeah. And interact with the podcast. I thought it was a really it was really unique, but something that stood out is that you're you're implementing what you already know into that system, and then it's regurgitating other things.
Jordan:Yeah. What what I'm hearing a lot of what you're saying here, and and I love that we've talked about specific things. I I I always, on the podcast, want teachers to be able to walk away with, oh, I can look this thing up. I can go and look at that. But I I feel like a bit of the philosophy, and correct me if I'm wrong, that I'm hearing from you is that and we've established that AI AI is a tool, but you're not talking about using AI to replace the learning, but it's just an added enhancement.
Jordan:I think back to when I was in school, how much I might have been able to benefit from having something that could slightly personalize some content for me, stuff that maybe I wasn't super interested in or I didn't I didn't understand the situation that they provided, and I just needed a little bit more context or something that was a little bit more personal to me. And so from kinda, like, backing up in the kinda in the more general sense of the way that schools and educators can use AI is to deepen the learning, to not replace the learning, but to deepen it. And I think about I talked to somebody a while ago of what they would do is I don't know which one they I don't know what AI thing they used, but they would put their lesson plan into it and it would create a fifteen minute podcast based off of that that they could share with their students and their students could listen again. And when he played it for me, I said, this isn't real people talking? And he's like, no.
Jordan:This is all just straight AI. But I think to when I was in school, if I could have some of those resources, being able to dig a little bit deeper in, oh, I have this question, I have that question, And it respond back and say, oh, let me explain that a little bit better for you or try a different way or put it into I I played baseball growing up. So going back to the kinda the soccer or football of you're teaching arcs or, you know, how to calculate the math for that. I don't care about soccer as much. But if you tell me, okay, you hit the ball at this angle at this velocity, work it out that way, and I know it's baseball, that would have done a lot for me to have it a bit personalized there.
Jordan:I feel like I kinda said a lot there. But in general, I feel like it's it's enhancing learn it's it's adding, allowing them to go deeper. It's not
Dan Fitzpatrick:replacing all it all all of this comes down to and and the the more I I kind of think about this, the more I realize all of education comes down to accessibility. Yeah. How are we helping our kids to access And that accessibility is gonna be different for every single student, and especially students who might have ADHD, dyslexia as well. But I think the key here is how do we help them access the learning? Because you know what it's like from being a school yourself when when you have those moments where you just can't access it.
Dan Fitzpatrick:I remember for me, it used to be, like, kind of around eighth grade math, and I was I just didn't have a clue. And and the the the the major fault with that with that class was all the answers were in the back of the textbook.
Kevin:Oh, yeah.
Jordan:Yeah. So the Talk about human learning for someone.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Of course. Like, I first of all, I don't understand it. I don't feel like I'm getting any help to understand it, and the answers are already there. Yeah. And and I I suppose I I was lucky because I know I I know people who who went through the whole entirety of their school life like that Mhmm.
Dan Fitzpatrick:With pretty much every subject. And it kind of pains me to think that in this day and age, especially now that we've got technology, that can really open up learning in individual ways as well for where that student is at, their context, their interests, like you're saying. That it's it's almost an we talk about the ethics of AI. Mhmm. I feel like it's almost an ethical imperative to To you.
Dan Fitzpatrick:To using. Obviously, in a safe, risky way. We're not saying go gung ho with this, but we need to really we need to see what the benefits are and capitalize on that. Because I I the fact that this exists, and maybe we we there could still be that student out there who given Notebook LM, and and Notebook LM is in Google Classroom now. Yeah.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And Google are working on an experimental version of the same technology that goes into Google's into notebook LM, in in kind of a a new wrapper of a of an interactive textbook.
Jordan:Mhmm.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And it and it's really cool. It's really I think when they release it, it's gonna be really impactful. As a student, you just you type in what you're interested in. You type it it takes on the content of that that class, and then it creates an interactive learning experience. So with the podcast in there, with a video, with assessment questions.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And I think we we really need to explore these. Now I think one one of the biggest pain points is, and probably teachers listening to this will think, where am I gonna get the time? Like, okay, we get people to say things like this the whole time. You need to be doing this. And not just about technology, about all areas of Yeah, school sure.
Dan Fitzpatrick:I remember when I was on a senior leadership team, a school, we were all responsible for different areas, and it would be a fight between the leadership team of who was gonna get the faculty meetings, and so because they everyone thought they had something really important to say to to staff. And everything was important. It's just there wasn't enough time, and then also enough time for for teachers to take that away and actually process it and implement it. I think we really need to figure out, coming back to leadership again, really, we allow our teachers or our educators to play with these with this technology? Because I think and you know yourself, like, when somebody showed you no book l m or someone showed you that podcast, it's not until you can actually sit in front of it and experience it Yeah.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. That your mind is gonna blow and go, woah, this is this is amazing. Yeah. And so just talking about this technology is kinda yeah. Okay.
Dan Fitzpatrick:But I've got five classes now I've gotta go teach, and and then I've gotta get home to my own family. So I think just having that bit of space to play with one of these tools. And I and I focused on School AI, Magic School Brisk earlier because I think they're kind of the safest tools, especially in The United States at the moment anyway, around data and so on. But like you rightfully said about tools like Nobu KLM, there are there are so much more going on. Like, I I use a lot of the minute something called Claude Cowork, And Claude Cowork is I mean, you probably wouldn't even recognize it from some of the tools that we're using right now.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And it it only came out about three weeks ago, but you you teach it skills. So you saw for example, if you say, right. I I this this is how I always create my unit of work. So my got got my unit of work coming up. I need to create.
Dan Fitzpatrick:I do a I do a bit of a debrief from last time I taught this unit of work, I tweak it and all that kind of thing. You explain it all to Claude Cowork, and what it would do, it would create a skill that it has taught itself. And then you were able to go and ask it questions, and it will pull on that skill in the most incredible way in the most incredible way. Like, I, you know, I talk about my business. I I think Claude Coworker is probably doing the job of about five people in my business a while.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Wow. And allowing us to because we we wanna keep we we try to keep our business small and and allowing us to do that at such a small level because of what it could do. By the way, can also access my computer when I want. So if I say to it some software on my computer for video editing, I've I've just recorded this raw footage on my phone. It's in this file on my computer.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Could you open the video editor up, and could you do x, y, and zed?
Jordan:Wow.
Dan Fitzpatrick:It and then I watch it on my computer screen, go open up the video editor and start to edit the video for me.
Jordan:This may sound very terrifying to some people. Yeah.
Dan Fitzpatrick:But I I wanna I wanna get the point across there that that this is there's AI, but and then there's AI that came out last week. Yeah. Yeah. And and we're in that world at the moment where this is progressing really, really fast. And it and and I I suppose the main point I'm trying to make is when we're using this in classroom, when we're using this with our students, when we're using this within our organization, we we can only use what's safe.
Dan Fitzpatrick:We can only use what we're we we know our data is protected. And so we we kinda have to rely on that quiz and tool or that platform. But there are there are there are other things coming down the line that we will get into more school packaged platforms in the next few months, few years that are really gonna really gonna benefit us, I think, in a in a huge way. And and we'll probably be back having the same conversations
Jordan:We're gonna have time Is
Kevin:this for tomorrow? We can have this again. So what are for those for those teachers that are kinda freaked out in in that situation, I gotta go teach six classes today and got my kids at home, gotta take care of this. What are some practical, maybe three or four practical things that they can do to begin to teach themselves to learn more so they're not afraid of it?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. I would say the first tool I always show teachers is NotebookLM. So I would say type into Google NotebookLM, so the word notebook followed by the letters LM. It'll be the top result on there. You will need a Gmail account or a school Google account to log in, which pretty much everybody in the world has.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Once you're in there, it will ask you to upload some source material. I would take maybe some of the content from your last class you taught or some of the some of the resources that you have, or maybe maybe you're thinking, you know what? I'm gonna create a unit of work in a few weeks' time. Here's some stuff I already have. It will allow you to put YouTube videos in there, PDFs, sound files.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Put a bunch of stuff in there, and then see what it does. That that first bit is gonna probably take you a few minutes, so it's not gonna be too much time. Then you're gonna be presented with a panel to be able to to converse with all of the source material you've just put in, ask it questions, Ask it to do some some things, like maybe plan out five lessons for me, an overview. I think that if you've not done anything like that before, that enough will make you think there's something in this technology. And then you go to the the the panel on the right hand side, which is called the studio, and you click create a podcast.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And within about three minutes, you will have a, like you said, a a full conversation normally between a male and a female having a relaxed, informal conversation, a bit like this, about the about the source material you just uploaded. And that, even just to for us to learn, for educators to learn is incredible. Yeah. I was in fact, I was lead I was doing a session with a group of principals in in the Northwest Of England just before Christmas. And I remember showing them, and literally all of them started creating a podcast out or something so that as soon as they got into their car on the way home, they could listen to it on the way home.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Because all of us have documents. We have policies come to us. We have it's Friday. We're just about to go home, and the principal or the superintendent or the state has just emailed some new document we now we we know we need to read. Put it into an notebook alarm.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Click create podcast. By the time you get to your car and your phone is then hooked up to your sound system, you'll be to press play. You will listen to it in in the next ten, fifteen minutes. And then when you return to that document don't ignore the document, obviously. This is not about replacement.
Dan Fitzpatrick:But when you return to that document, you will know what it's about. You would have broken the ice on it. So maybe some of the technical jargon you will be able to understand, and you will be able to tackle that, whatever you need to do with that, in in such a more efficient way. And I think it's just, at the minute, just being clever with things like that for ourselves. And I think once then we start to realize how this is impacting our learning, then we can go start thinking about how this could really help our students and how we could do this probably in a more dynamic way for our students, because our students need a bit more dynamism when it comes learn, but then it puts us in a real place of knowing how it works, how it can benefit, and then we apply everything we know from from pedagogy, from the real life students in front of us.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And I think the mix of those of those elements is really gonna set you in in a good standing. Yeah. But I I suppose even just to boil that down further is go you gotta try it. You can't just read about it. You can't just hear about it.
Dan Fitzpatrick:You've gotta use a tool like and and try it to see for yourself.
Kevin:And for the administrator that, is in the role of trying to figure out how deep do I want our system to go with this, how far do I want our schools to be, you know, engaged with AI, our students to be engaged, What's something that you would tell district leaders, school administrators to encourage them that they don't have to fear? Yeah. But what is something that you could that you would tell them to say, hey, embrace embrace it with intent and integrity Yeah. But embrace it.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Two things. First thing, when I was young, my dad used to tell me used to say something to me. And, and I did you ever have your parents say things to you? And then when you grew up, you would, like, say them out loud to other people who weren't in your family and realized they weren't a thing, and you're like 100%. I sound really strange there.
Kevin:Yeah. So
Dan Fitzpatrick:this is one of those things. So so my dad whenever I would come up against a challenge, my dad would sit me down. He'd say, you've gotta throw your hat over the wall. And he would use this phrase, you gotta throw your hat over the wall. And and what he was saying was, when you come up against a challenge like a brick wall in front of you, if you want to get over it, you the first thing you do before you think about how big the wall is, how wide the wall is, how difficult this is gonna be, you've got to throw your hat over the wall.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Because then if you want your hat back, you've gotta get over the wall. Yeah. You've got no choice. Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And I think at the minute, as as administrators, as leaders in education, we are looking at the wall, and we are thinking this is big. Yeah. This is a big wall, and there could be a lot of failure trying to get over this wall. We we're gonna we're gonna fall. We're gonna scratch our face.
Dan Fitzpatrick:We're gonna bruise. And and I think that's what's leading to this decision paralysis at the moment. What I say to leaders is throw your heart over the wall, and that's it's just something as simple as going, doing a little bit of research around this AI thing. Not much. Maybe spend an hour or two looking at what the what the CEOs of the big companies are saying.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Don't take all that for granted because some of that will be some hype. What some of the universities are saying, stick it in a notebook LM, get it to summarize it, be a great deal podcast for you, listen to it on the way home. And then think in that world, what do our students look like? What do our faculty look like? What do our administrators look like in five years'
Jordan:time in
Dan Fitzpatrick:that world? If they're gonna be thriving, if they're gonna be successful, what do they look like? And then once you've got your hat over that wall, once you've once you've said this is where we wanna be, then start thinking, well, what's that first step? The next thing I say to leaders is think of the four virtues. What are they?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Prudence, courage, justice, and temperance. Alright? We're we're not gonna we'll take them out of a religious context here, but think of those four four virtues. Those are the virtues of a leader as well. Prudence.
Dan Fitzpatrick:You need wisdom. You need experience. That might not necessarily be your own wisdom or experience. It might be the wisdom of a Google search. It might be the experience of your fellow superintendent who who you catch up with.
Dan Fitzpatrick:The community you've got, that is so important, that that that prudence. Secondly is the courage. Do like I said before, do not think that you're gonna get a 100% certainty on this. You're not. I love something Barack Obama used to say.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Used to say he would wait for 51% certainty. I think when they they got Bin Laden, they had no idea he was in there, really. They'd had they had some intel. They didn't they didn't have eyes on him at all. But it got to a point where Barack Obama said in an interview once, he said it got to the point where soon as the certainty tipped to 51%, he he would act.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Now did he get things wrong? Sometimes, of course, he did. But no one remembers him for the things he got wrong, really. I mean, well, maybe some people. I forgot I'm in The United States.
Kevin:That's right. So yeah. Remember where you are now. But
Dan Fitzpatrick:he he's his I suppose his legacy goes down for the things he he got right. And and he's, I think, objectively, for many people around the world, Barack Obama was quite a strong leader in that. I'm wishing I didn't get into politics now a few seconds ago. I'm just I'm trying
Kevin:make it. Okay. You're good. Well, because because out of that, I mean, hey, We're all the same way. I mean Yeah.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Exactly. Yeah. And and I like the idea. I'm not saying you I'm not saying school leaders just get to 51% certainty. Some things you will, especially when it comes to keeping our children safe.
Dan Fitzpatrick:You you're gonna want a 100% certainty. It's kinda not what I'm talking about here, though. I'm talking about direction. Yeah. I'm talking about the direction, the strategic directions we we decide to go in.
Dan Fitzpatrick:The the the fourth one is justice. Are we are we making sure that all of our people are being treated fairly? Is the direction we're going in supporting our most vulnerable students as well as our most able students? Our less experienced faculty to most experienced faculty, more younger faculty to older faculty. Are we bringing everyone together?
Dan Fitzpatrick:It is just being served here. And the last one is temperance. Now temperance, essentially, the ability to know when to stop, the ability to go right. Maybe we should rethink this. And and and I think if you keep those in your mind as you're trying to get your hat back from over the wall, I don't think you can go wrong because you're relying on the the collective wisdom.
Dan Fitzpatrick:You're you're making courageous decisions, but you're making those decisions in a way where you're you're continually sense checking, is everybody coming along with us? Is everybody being treated fairly? And do we need to pivot? And I think I think as a leader, if we're keeping those in our heads, that framework, then we and we we don't just ask of it of ourselves. We ask of it of our leadership teams.
Dan Fitzpatrick:We ask of it of our of our innovation groups, our AI task force, whatever you whatever you've created in your district or your school. But we need to move. We need to move because you're not gonna get the hut back unless you start climbing. Okay. You might you might not get over the wall until the twentieth attempt.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. But if you don't even make the first attempt, then you're you're not gonna get there. So I think I think it it's interesting because I I think the most practical thing you can do now is actually move to that strategic five year level. Because if you just start going, right, we're gonna have a we're gonna have an AI policy. Let's get a group of people together.
Dan Fitzpatrick:In a few weeks, I wanna document. If that's not grounded in in that five year strategy, it's not gonna mean much, really. Mhmm. If if anything, it's just probably gonna keep you where you are. I'm not saying don't have a policy, but I'm saying do the policy the week after you've your kind of strategic aim.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Because then then the policy is gonna be written in a way where you are facilitating that journey to happen. You are keeping people safe, yes, but you're making sure people have got the right outlets, the the everything they need, the training they need in order to keep moving.
Kevin:Figure out why you want the policy, why you need the policy, why the policy is important.
Jordan:You're gonna need another tool before you start making need it.
Kevin:Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Fitzpatrick:But it sounds so obvious, but it it's not. No.
Kevin:I know. It's not. It's not. And
Dan Fitzpatrick:I think sometimes the amount of times I think it's just checkbook exercises. Okay. We've got the PDF policy on the website. Anyone can check it when they want to. We've done that.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Now what's next? So I think I think as as as administrators, I think if we haven't done that already, we probably need to look
Kevin:at that.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah.
Kevin:Throw your hat over the wall.
Jordan:Throw your hat over.
Kevin:I like that. I'm gonna start using that.
Jordan:Throw your hat over wall. Always said, I wanna land the plane on this. We we probably could just keep talking for
Kevin:I do have one more question. But no. You go ahead. No. Oh, okay.
Kevin:You're gonna land.
Jordan:Question, and I'll land it when So you're
Kevin:I always like to try and throw out a a question on on mine. So my question to you is looking back over your life and looking forward, especially with what you were with what you're doing, if if someone gave you the chance to put a billboard up and you could say anything you wanted on that billboard, what would you say I would for the world to see?
Dan Fitzpatrick:About artificial intelligence.
Kevin:About artificial intel about whatever. Okay. I mean, what is what is that one thought that, you want the world to know about, Dan Patrick, about artificial intelligence, whatever that is? What
Dan Fitzpatrick:I in my first book, The AI Classroom, I wrote a chapter called outsource your doing, not your thinking. And I think right now, I'd probably put that on a billboard because it's so easy to to start giving away little bits of thinking to AI. And it and it kinda makes sense when you when you realize how capable this is. You're like, actually, you could do this better than me. I would I would say to everybody, resist that.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Resist that. Get AI to do things for you, of course. Get it to to come up with ideas, but you still be the person who chooses the idea. You still be the person who who takes the idea and adapts it for what's needed. I think in a world where where that we're kind of already in, we're head definitely heading in that direction where AI will be ubiquitous, I think what's gonna make you stand out as a person is your own thinking.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Mhmm. Because like we said before, if that if that bar is now raised or that the sea has now rise to everybody can have amazing ideas Yeah. Everybody can do amazing things with AI, that becomes the normal. What what makes you stand out on top of that normal still? And I think it will always be your own thinking, your own ideas, your own creativity.
Kevin:Mhmm.
Dan Fitzpatrick:So, yeah, outsource the doing, but but don't outsource the thinking.
Kevin:It's good.
Jordan:I really like that. So my dad used to say to me every day before I'd leave for school, he'd say, be a thermostat, not a thermometer. Took me a long time to figure out what he meant by that. And I have a point here is he was saying when you're in a situation, when you're in an environment, don't just read the temperature of the room, but control it because that's what a thermostat does and not a thermometer. And I just wanna say thank you for being a thermostat in this crazy environment of AI Absolutely.
Jordan:Right And leading and championing and helping educators and all of us understand more of how it can help us outsource, doing and not thinking. And so just to kinda land the plan on our conversation and everything, just wanna thank you, Dan, for spending time with us here and for your work around the world. Mhmm. Not just in The US, not just in in in The UK, but around the world. And just I I've loved this conversation.
Jordan:We really couldn't talk for another six hours and
Kevin:Well, I don't know how long we've gone, but thank yeah. Truly, truly, thank you, your inspiration and, to what you're doing, and thank you for making a difference in the lives of educators, teachers, administrators, world leaders that you're doing. Thank you.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Thank you. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Jordan:Yeah. For sure. If someone wants to you have a couple books. You mentioned one of your books, but if someone wants to maybe talk to you a little bit more or get you to because you go to schools and stuff and talk to different people. What would they need to do to
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. So the our website is the aieducator.io. Okay. So everything's on there. Yeah.
Dan Fitzpatrick:And if you you just wanna pick a book up and and read about kind of all of this, the I suppose a lot of the themes we've covered today can found in a book called oh my goodness. It's just gone out my head.
Jordan:Did you forget the name of
Dan Fitzpatrick:your book?
Kevin:Forgot where it is.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Infinite Education.
Jordan:Got it. Infinite Education.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Even as I said that, I'm like, that is right, isn't it? Check on this conversation. Yeah. So Infinite Education is is very much the first half of the book is very much kind of building the case of why we need to think differently in education and Mhmm. Why we need to do that strategic throwing our heart over the wall.
Dan Fitzpatrick:The second half of the book is literally a practical guide of, right, how do you pull a team together? Who should you get on that team? Here's some practical activities you can do to to based on design thinking and other techniques to get people thinking about about the AI you wanna use, and then even get to the point of how do you experiment with it? How do you Yeah. How do you do it so it's not negatively impacting the school?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Essentially, how do you fail in a school and learn lessons within a school? How how to be entrepreneurial within a school, really? So, yeah, it's it's quite practical. I I've had a a lot of school leaders come back and say that they literally follow it and and are using it. And so it's amazing to hear that.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Check them out.
Jordan:We'll put links to all of that in the description. Thank Facebook, Twitter,
Kevin:or any of those?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah. My my main platform, I think, is LinkedIn. Okay. So, yeah, just search me on LinkedIn, and I'm sure you'll find me.
Jordan:That's great.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Thank you. Awesome.
Jordan:Well, thanks for joining us again. Thanks to all of our viewers and listeners for joining us on this episode. As I always say, educating is difficult. There's challenges that come with it, and we just hope to provide more tools with you. And I know that on this one, you learned a couple new things.
Jordan:Hopefully, we made you a little more comfortable with with AI and how it might be able to help you educate your students so that they can go into the world and be the best versions of themselves. So one more time. Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Kevin, for being here with us.
Kevin:Thank you, Jordan. Yeah. It was good.
Jordan:Thanks. Good job, man. Sweet. We'll see you guys on the next one.