Ep19 PatYongprodit Youtube
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Pat Yongprudit: [00:00:00] If, if AI in education was a marathon, we’d be in the first mile, we’d be in the first half mile. AI’s ability to generate human-like content, it introduces risks such as misinformation, disinformation, or manipulation. Right? It is not a fun time to be talking about education and the us. Federal government.
Brett Roer: Welcome everybody to the AmpED to 11 podcast. My name is Brett Roer, co-host and CEO and founder of Amplify and Elevate Innovation. We have an incredible guest here today, Pat Yungprodit the chief Academic officer at Code.org and one of the true leaders in making sure AI innovation and education is accessible for all, especially in the world of Code.
Brett Roer: Pat, it is such an honor and pleasure to have you here today. How are you doing, sir?
Pat Yongprudit: Doing great. It’s a beautiful afternoon in Silver [00:01:00] Spring, Maryland, and I’m excited for this podcast. Thanks, Brett.
Brett Roer: Absolutely. Um, I’m joined by my amazing co-host, Rebecca Bultsma. Rebecca, how are you doing today?
Rebecca Bultsma: I’m doing good.
Rebecca Bultsma: We’re hanging onto those last dredges of summer up here in Canada, so trying to make the most outta that and just happy to be here, having interesting conversations with interesting people as usual.
Brett Roer: Yeah. So we’re gonna let our audience here, listen, learn, hopefully laugh with Pat today. So Pat, for those that have followed your work and have seen how inspiring and passionate you are, you know, you’re really on brand with us.
Brett Roer: You are always amped up to 11, so. Can you share with everybody, like what gives you that energy and urgency right now in the field of education? Can you share with everyone your journey, your why, how you see AI innovation changing the field of education and workforce development today?
Pat Yongprudit: Okay. There’s a lot to cover there.
Pat Yongprudit: I’ll, I’ll try to be brief, but also [00:02:00] be useful for your audience. So folks, I’m gonna tell you, I’m gonna give you some tips that will help you figure out how did a guide like me get to where I’m at and maybe how it might inform your own career and passion trajectory. Uh, so ultimately, Brett, what I’m about is using what I’ve been given.
Pat Yongprudit: To do good for others. It sounds like a platitude, but specifically what I mean is I learned how to code on an Apple two E in fourth or fifth grade. And I got to go to a computer science magnet school in high school and learn some fabulous skills during that time. And then I decided to go into science, into neuroscience for college at McGill, Rebecca in Canada, in Montreal, and, and then I taught for.[00:03:00]
Pat Yongprudit: 13 years. And throughout all of those experiences, I’ve parlayed that into where I’m at now, which is code.org. And so I felt a responsibility to be a computer science teacher and not be a neuroscientist because I wanted to give back to society in a way that reflected what my value add would be, which is I got to learn computer science while a lot of people didn’t.
Pat Yongprudit: So I wanted to make sure that lots of kids. Got to learn it as well. So I became a computer science teacher and I pursued that mission beyond the classroom by writing curriculum, going to conferences, representing big companies like Microsoft and Pearson. And, and that eventually led me to some type of leadership in a, a growing national community of computer science educators, which ultimately led me to code.org 12 years ago now.
Pat Yongprudit: And so a couple [00:04:00] tips for the audience. Number one, if you’re a teacher and you’re looking for more influence, it’s already there. Whether it’s at your school level, just advocating for your program, especially if you’re a computer science teacher. But even if you’re a statistics teacher, you, you know, you should go from one class period to two class periods of statistics.
Pat Yongprudit: So being an advocate that way, writing curriculum for your district, you know. Representing on state task forces, obviously contracting during the summer for companies, small and big. Going to conferences, presenting at conferences, and parlaying that into larger influence, which doesn’t have to go beyond the classroom like as a full-time thing, but at least can go beyond the classroom when you are outside of your classroom.
Pat Yongprudit: Uh, and then lastly, when it comes to. How I got to where I got, I think it’s always been about service, Brett, and, and just not worrying about like, [00:05:00] growing in my career or like attaining any type of role. It’s just like, just understanding, uh, you know, here I am, I’ve been given what I’ve been given and I need to use it to the maximum, and if I use it to the maximum, I will fit naturally where I’m supposed to fit and that’s, that’s all I can ask for myself.
Rebecca Bultsma: I love that. Now, for those of us that don’t live in a coding space and people who might be listening to this, explain it to me like I’m five, a little bit about code.org, what they do and what you do there.
Pat Yongprudit: Okay. Code.org’s mission is to make sure that every student in every school has the opportunity to learn computer science and ai.
Pat Yongprudit: Now we’re called code.org, but we’re actually much more from the beginning. We’ve been much more about, we’ve been about much more than just coding. We’ve been about computer science and even in the computer science realm, we’ve been much more about like the larger impacts of computer science as well. [00:06:00] Um, whether it’s economic or social impacts or personal impacts.
Pat Yongprudit: Now with ai, we’ve been doing AI stuff way before chat. GPT got released in November, 2022, but we really ramped it up. We kicked up this initiative in partnership with is ISTE Khan Academy in the World Economic Forum, and this initiative is called Teach ai and it’s brought together 44 state education agencies in the us 30 ministries of education outside the US and over a hundred advisory committee organizations.
Pat Yongprudit: And that really reflects a lot of Code.org’s thought leadership these days, that initiative. And in fact, overall, Rebecca we’re really. Leaning into much more of an AI forward positioning to our organization. And, and, okay. One last thing. We pursue our mission in four different ways. Policy work, awareness work curriculum, and professional learning, which [00:07:00] is, uh, includes like developing tools as well, like the, the learning platform, and then just community building work like the teach AI initiative.
Rebecca Bultsma: Well, it sounds like from what you’ve said, there’s a lot of different things that led you to where you are now and probably a lot of different people I would expect that kind of helped you along the way. And one of the things that Brett started in our podcast in season two is inspired by Amy Poehler’s podcast.
Rebecca Bultsma: He likes to say nice things about people behind their back talk. Nice behind their back. So. Would you mind telling us a little bit about who some of those people who’ve shaped your journey are, and let’s say some nice things behind their back and hope that they hear this, but give them kind of the flowers that you’d like to give them.
Pat Yongprudit: Yeah, I would love to. And you know, it’s interesting. This first person is my high school AP physics teacher. And you know what’s funny about it, Rebecca, is, I actually don’t [00:08:00] remember his last name right now, but I remember his first name. Rick, and, and that goes to show you like how he, how impactful he was.
Pat Yongprudit: Like he was very personable and he really took the time to develop relationships with his students. He was also president. I mean, he also led the ski club and he, you know, he is the person who introduced me to skiing and snowboarding and all that. He took these kids and actually when I became a teacher later, I started the snowboard club and ski club at my high school.
Pat Yongprudit: Um. I remembered the modeling that he did, and I thought, wow, that would just be awesome if I could do the same thing for kids. But he was the first person who basically cemented in my mind like, Hey, teaching can be cool. It can be okay, it can be fun, it could be exciting, it could still be intellectual. Um, he was great and I still can’t remember his last name right now, but anyway, his first name was Rick, so shout out to him.
Pat Yongprudit: I, I connected with him maybe f. Six, 10 years ago now, just to thank him again. And, you [00:09:00] know, and he was still the same guy. He is wonderful. I’m gonna flash forward to now, and I think like you, like you, Rebecca, and, and, and Brett, you guys are, are thought public intellectuals in this space, right? Some, some might call you influencers, which is technically true, but you’re influencing in a way that makes people smarter and think, think.
Pat Yongprudit: Think of new things and have new perspectives, which is wonderful. And so I’d like to shout out, I’d like to shout out to people Philippa Hardman, Dr. Philippa Hardman. I don’t know how Philippa, if you’re listening to this, I, I actually don’t know how influential she is. I don’t know if anyone’s listening to this, knows about her.
Pat Yongprudit: She, it’s, it’s a pretty niche area that she writes about. It’s generative AI and instructional design, and it’s quite amazing. How much you can talk about it and, and continue to [00:10:00] like, bring forth new treasures and, and, and ways to think about instructional design and how generative AI supports the process, but also supports the, the learning science that, that, you know, should be reflected in instructional design.
Pat Yongprudit: And so anyway, I just wanna give her a shout out because. I, I just learned so much from her, her newsletter. And then the second person I wanna give a shout out to is, is my man’s Stefan Bouchard. He is super prolific, and again, he just unearths, he, he just shares lots of new angles and, and ways to think about things.
Pat Yongprudit: And clearly he’s not afraid to express his opinion or, or an idea that’s dissonant with maybe like consensus opinion about AI and education. And I appreciate that and I appreciate everyone who, who are like those two people who go deep into a particular niche area of AI and education and constantly provide value in that [00:11:00] space.
Pat Yongprudit: As well as people who are like Stefan, comments on everything, political to instructional, whatever. And I find it all useful. So those are just two of the very many people. And then there’s obviously Rick who, who just got me into education in the first place.
Brett Roer: Amazing. And you know, like you said, you don’t know who’s going to follow up or learn about ’em, but that’s exactly what this is for.
Brett Roer: You know, you’ve just opened up. Our audience, a whole new world of people who are doing great work in this space. So thank you for that. That was amazing. And shout out to all the Ricks out there who truly shape and guide, uh, people.
Pat Yongprudit: Oh, Rick Moats. Rick Moats. M-O-A-T-S, Rick Moats.
Brett Roer: That’s it. There you go, pat.
Brett Roer: Good pull. Um, I also, like, I became a history teacher and my favorite teacher was my 11th grade, AP US history teacher. And that summer I was like working a part-time job and I came home, my dad’s like, Hey, uh, you know, your teacher called? You got a five on the AP exam and I swear I’ve told people this like you guys told me, like the president [00:12:00] called, ’cause this is like not a person who like ever their guard.
Brett Roer: And I was like, I said, I can’t believe I missed this guy’s call. You know, you don’t have phones. It was a pre-cell phone error for me. So it was just like one of those moments where I’m like, the fact that that guy picked up the phone to call has like, I’ll never forget that. And I, it was something I carried forward in public ed myself.
Pat Yongprudit: Brett, you know, it just reminded me, I, I used to do that. What, like, when I would catch, like during my off period randomly, I would just figure out, I, I think about a kid who. Could use some encouragement, call their parent up, and obviously their parent getting a teacher call, they’re like, oh, what did my kid do?
Pat Yongprudit: I’m like, no, no, your kid’s doing awesome. I, I just wanted to share. And they’re like, they were so thankful, like, oh, thank you for letting me know, da da. And, and, and the next day I would see the kid come in, you, you’d see the kid like feeling like extra peppy around you and just kind of like smiling and, and all that.
Pat Yongprudit: And I thought, oh yeah, it just took like two minutes to do that and it was so worthwhile. Uh, so if you’re a teacher. I want you to like pause this [00:13:00] podcast and go do that. And I would say if you’re a teacher who has kids who are in their careers right now, find them on LinkedIn. Tell them how proud you are of like where they landed, wherever they landed.
Brett Roer: I mean, first of all, this is just turned into such an informative, like action oriented way if you’re a teacher to. Expand your impact and have a personal impact on people. Uh, I mean, that’s the OG talking good behind their backs, calling mom and dad or grandma and saying, this is your kid’s. Amazing. Like, there’s really nothing better you can do to make everyone in that house feel like so special.
Brett Roer: That validates all the work of being a parent as well. So, well, well done. Great advice. I hope, uh, everyone listening in, the audience literally pauses right now, does something amazing, then comes back so. Pat, I mean, you’ve shared literally who inspired you on your journey, who’s continued to push your thinking, and the fact that you now have this amazing coalition, uh, at, I believe you said, in 44 states and internationally.
Brett Roer: Could [00:14:00] you share some of the most promising federal or state guidance that you’ve recently seen that could meaningfully shape how AI is adopted in classrooms and what are still areas that are maybe lacking out there that you hope to see in future iterations?
Pat Yongprudit: Mm-hmm. It is not a fun time to be talking about education and the US Federal government.
Pat Yongprudit: When I say fun, it’s not fun, meaning there are lots of things that lots of educators disagree with coming out of our, our federal government. One thing that you all can hopefully feel more positive. About is the stuff coming outta the federal government related to AI education. Um, starting in April, 2025, there was this executive order that came out from the White House.
Pat Yongprudit: And remember, an executive order is an order to the government because the White House controls the government directly as like their, the manager of the government. [00:15:00] And so this executive order commanded the government to do many things, including. Create a task force that brought together the departments of labor, commerce, agriculture, and education.
Pat Yongprudit: Which by the way is a really big deal that an education thing included those other groups at the secretary level. Uh uh ’cause it specified that. Then they created this presidential AI challenge, which R has already gotten launched by the First lady actually. And that presidential AI challenge not only includes students and teachers.
Pat Yongprudit: It has a track that has students actually creating AI technologies themselves. So not just those competitions where kids like, imagine what they might do with AI and write up a PDF or shoot a fake video or, or whatever it, but no, like they actually have to create a, something that actually impacts a community.
Pat Yongprudit: Those are like words from the, the challenge. And [00:16:00] then that executive order also called on the US Department of Ed. To allocate grants to support AI education. And what’s great about that is it’s not just about the use of the tools, it’s about understanding how AI works and the computer science behind it.
Pat Yongprudit: So in many ways, that executive order has already followed through on a lot of it’s, you know, a, a lot of what it commanded. And that’s what’s happening at the, at the federal level. And there were probably other things as well. You know, I’m excited to be a part of that and help make sure that it helps students and teachers all over the us.
Rebecca Bultsma: I think there’s, you’re right, there’s a lot of things that are really uncertain that are happening and some really good things. So thanks for pointing out the good things.
Pat Yongprudit: Hey, re, Rebecca. Rebecca, I have a question for you, Rebecca. What’s happening in Canada?
Rebecca Bultsma: Oh, that is a loaded question.
Pat Yongprudit: Is there, is there like any federal government guidance on [00:17:00] ai?
Pat Yongprudit: Um, is it all just provincial? Which province is leading the way?
Rebecca Bultsma: That’s a great question and I do do the majority of my work in the US actually, but in. It’s probably kind of similar, but in Canada, each province is in charge of all things education themselves, and there hasn’t been anything at the provincial level, at least not in Alberta where I live.
Rebecca Bultsma: I haven’t seen a lot of stuff coming out. Most districts I know are just trying to bring in their own people for PD or highlight their champions and just kind of the same things that everybody else is trying to figure out. But. Hasn’t been super far ahead. I’m sure there are people working on things, but I haven’t seen anything spectacular yet at an organization level.
Pat Yongprudit: I, I, I don’t have Canada wide view, but I have been to New Brunswick and I know, and they are part of Teach ai and I know what they’re up to. I can’t compare it to other provinces, but I think. I think what [00:18:00] they are doing is quite positive actually. It’s a mishmash of guidance and teacher professional development and task forces and, and stuff like that.
Pat Yongprudit: Even combining their English and French sides. So it’s really cool.
Rebecca Bultsma: I’ll have to look into that. I have an interesting place to sit because I live in Canada. I do all my research on AI ethics in the uk and then I do a lot of my professional work in the United States, and so I’m, I’m always kind of looking to see what the different mindsets are, the different adoption strategies.
Rebecca Bultsma: It’s, it’s very interesting to pay attention to how everybody’s approaching it differently. Which actually kind of leads into my next question for you, which is kind of about AI ethics, which is my area. We talk. We hear about it a lot, right? The phrase being thrown around about AI ethics or ethical ai, which are used interchangeably, but arguably are not the same thing.
Rebecca Bultsma: But I’m just wondering from an AI ethics standpoint, what do you see as some of the biggest ethical risks facing education in general right now [00:19:00] connected to ai, and do you have any guidance or suggestions or ideas on what some of the best way to tackle some of those things might be?
Pat Yongprudit: Let me start by talking about this AI literacy framework that the European Commission, OECD code.org and, and a variety of global experts have been working on.
Pat Yongprudit: And, and by the way, if anyone listening to this has been a part of any of the reviews we’ve had over like 560 submissions to the review form and over a thousand focus group participants across close to 30. Focus groups over the summer. Um, if any of you are listening, just, just thank you for your input.
Pat Yongprudit: A lot of you all actually talked about ethics and wanting to see ethics in the framework, and lo and behold, there, there’s lots of ethics in the framework, but probably not the way that people would expect it. Meaning if you did a control f find for the word ethics, you might see it. Seven times or something like that, but you’re not gonna see it [00:20:00] 50 times.
Pat Yongprudit: And that’s because we, the way we approached it was to actually melt it. Like, not use the word ethics, to talk about ethics, but actually talk about the ethical actions. Actually, Rebecca probably knows this. There’s a lot of, um, what’s the word? Just like talking about ethics and not a lot. Depth to it. Um, so lemme give you an example.
Pat Yongprudit: This framework of ours has a competence that says, evaluate whether AI outputs should be accepted, revised, or rejected. Something very simple like that, right? And the idea there is that learners would recognize that ai. AI’s ability to generate human-like content. It introduces risks such as misinformation, disinformation, or manipulation, right?
Pat Yongprudit: And so learners must apply critical thinking to execute this competence, to detect misleading outputs, and adopt a responsible [00:21:00] attitude to ensuring AI is used ethically. I only use the word ethics one time right there at the end. Yet all of that is about ethics and all of that is requires an understanding of the ethical risks, misinformation, disformation, and frankly, the thing in the answer to your question, the thing that I think is the greatest ethical risk right now is manipulation.
Pat Yongprudit: Especially in the form of limiting people’s perspectives or, or especially like validating people in a way that is not healthy. And I’m talking about AI companions honestly, when I’m, when I’m talking about that. And so luckily there are, there is legislation addressing some of the ethical concerns I just mentioned Texas passed Colorado.
Pat Yongprudit: And Texas and the US have passed EU a ACT style bills at the state level. They, they, they’ve banned certain uses of [00:22:00] AI and they’re making sure that AI can’t be used to discriminate against folks and, and things like that.
Rebecca Bultsma: Very interesting. So. I think the way that I kind of think about it, and I could be off, I think about sort of the big AI ethics, grand principles, right?
Rebecca Bultsma: Transparency, human autonomy, and then like you’ve mentioned, those ethical AI actions underneath them, and there’s some of those that individuals can be taking. There’s some of those that organizations should be taking for individual teachers out there, what do you think the most important. Ethical AI action they can take on an individual level might be the next best thing for a teacher to do.
Rebecca Bultsma: In terms of an ethical AI step,
Pat Yongprudit: I’m gonna take one of the things that you said, transparency. So when we talk about ethical AI design in the framework, we talk about fairness, transparency, explainability, accountability, respect for privacy and legal compliance when it comes to transparency and ethical [00:23:00] AI design.
Pat Yongprudit: That’s. That leans a little more technical and, and all that. What I think teachers can do is be transparent about their use and know enough about AI such that they can explain what they’re doing with AI and how AI is doing things for them in a way that doesn’t anthropomorphize ai. So it’s both transparency and accuracy in communicating how AI works and what it’s doing for you.
Pat Yongprudit: If they can do that, they’re opening up, they’re being open and transparent and, and showcasing to their kids like, Hey, they, you know, AI’s not magic and it’s okay to use it, but hey, there are positives and negatives, pros and cons, trade-offs, et cetera.
Rebecca Bultsma: I think that’s a great point that modeling ethical AI use I think is so important.
Rebecca Bultsma: ’cause we’ve seen some of that discrepancy come up where, you know, the [00:24:00] kids aren’t allowed to use it in university and then they get upset and they find out teachers are using it and they have the outrage connected to that. So I think, I think that’s a great answer. I think I
Pat Yongprudit: love that outrage, Rebecca. I cannot wait to be in front of a bunch of kids and they, someone raises their hand and says, how’s it fair that teachers can use ai?
Pat Yongprudit: And we can’t because. I, I love, I love questions like that because on the surface it sounds like something to get like mad about, but kid. A teacher’s role and a teacher’s place and responsibilities is vastly different than yours. All right? So like, AI is not a use it, not use it kind of situation. It’s a very contextual thing, right?
Pat Yongprudit: And even the teacher, it’s not like they should just use it for everything. There are certain things they, they should use it for and certain things they shouldn’t use it for in the same way that applies to you. So it it, it helps us get beyond like this, like these very hmm. Non nuanced blanket kind of [00:25:00] conversations of ai, bad ai, good.
Pat Yongprudit: Or use it, don’t use it. And, and so like, and I love, obviously as a former teacher, I love, I love correcting kids, so I, I wait, can’t wait till a kid tries to pull that on me.
Rebecca Bultsma: Yeah. There’s so much nuance to it, right? Because a lot of those kids probably. Throwing those accusations are ones who, from day one were told it’s cheating, don’t use it.
Rebecca Bultsma: And there was none of the nuance involved in the conversation that started them on the path, which is why they have a binary mindset about it, which is then why they feel that it could be unfair. Anyway, I’ll toss it over to Brett. I could talk about this all day, but doesn’t make her always an engaging, interesting.
Brett Roer: No, it, I, I disagree as someone who. Has heard Rebecca get to speak with really some of the leading minds in AI and ethics. This is my favorite part. Like, where else in history are you gonna get a chance to see this in, uh, innovation and technology happening in real time? And then listening to great minds talk about it.
Brett Roer: Like, I think if people are nerding out, that’s why they come [00:26:00] here. I hope this is it. Like this is the, this is the, the secret sauce, pat, you know. You’ve given really great advice to teachers and you know, as a former leader and as a former teacher, one of the biggest challenges is it doesn’t matter, like 20 years ago to today, teachers never feel prepared for their first day in the classroom.
Brett Roer: Now they’re in the age of AI and it’s even more feeling like you’re not ready for your students, the challenges, right? So with all the work you’re leading and all these coalitions that you have, uh, you’re building. What should teacher prep programs and PD evolve to like right now? So educators are ready to teach with ai.
Brett Roer: Um, they feel empowered, and again, they have that nuance and gray area, um, expertise or enough of it to feel confident in when to use it, when not to use it and how to talk about it.
Pat Yongprudit: Here’s, we, we need to have a, a, let me start off with some perspective. We [00:27:00] are still. If AI and education was a marathon, we’d be in the first mile, we’d be in the first half mile.
Pat Yongprudit: And what I mean by that, and, and so even like the, the people who are leading minds and leading the charge in their school systems, they’re at the half mile mark. And people who haven’t done anything are at the zero mile mark. Uh, we’re all bunched up even though it feels like. Some people are being left behind or, or people feel left behind and everything’s moving so fast, everything might be moving so fast.
Pat Yongprudit: But we’re still at, at the beginning of, of all this, we have so much more to learn, lessons to learn, research to be done, et cetera, and, and, and many other technical achievements that will happen over the next few years. And so with that perspective for teacher prep. I would say rather than trying to figure out what [00:28:00] all the best practices are and figure out how to mush it into your curriculum, I’d say just start off with some organizational learning opportunities.
Pat Yongprudit: Show and tell. That’s it. Just bring people together in a real professional learning community to experiment in personally relevant, professionally relevant ways. Share that with others and talk about the trade-offs. The pros and cons have these discussions together. That is the minimum that a teacher prep program can do.
Pat Yongprudit: Right now there are many teacher prep programs that are doing nothing though because like many university programs, you know, people have been teaching the same thing for 5, 10, 15 years. They have, they have their shtick. Right. And while digital literacy technology might. An aspect of that teacher prep program.
Pat Yongprudit: An AI might even make, you know, one class for two hours. I don’t, I haven’t gotten the [00:29:00] sense that there’s this huge upswell of AI education teacher prep programs. And you know what, and my point is, is that, and that’s okay as long as you’re doing something, as long as you’re starting the conversations with these young teachers because there’s just that.
Pat Yongprudit: We don’t need to wait until all the research questions have been answered to finally adjust the curriculum. We can get people just learning with one another.
Rebecca Bultsma: Yeah. I actually have a son who’s in his last year of university to be a teacher, and, uh, in his student teaching, they’ll, he’ll have good teachers that will show him how they’re using ai, but at the school it’s.
Rebecca Bultsma: Absolutely forbidden. Still, in fact, to the point where he lives in constant fear that he’s going to be wrongfully accused of using AI by an AI detector, which is unfortunate, and we’re in that messy middle. So. You know, I, I have to explain to him, you play by the rules of the game that you’re playing and you, but that kind of leads into my next question as to kind of where does the [00:30:00] responsibility for all of this lie?
Rebecca Bultsma: Is it in these teacher prep programs, is it, do individuals need to take responsibility for just teaching themselves? Do they need to wait for their district to do it? Where does the responsibility for this lie? Is it, are we waiting for the government to send down curriculum and. Send PD dollars specifically for this.
Rebecca Bultsma: I’m curious about your opinion on this. ’cause we had a conversation with a guest the other day who had a different opinion than I did, and so I’m curious about,
Pat Yongprudit: oh, I’m, I’m curious too, because I can, I can only imagine one answer, Rebecca. And, and, and I would love to hear an alternative to this one answer, but the answer is it’s a shared responsibility amongst all of those stakeholders, right?
Pat Yongprudit: There is no one group that should just be responsible. Not the developers, not the parents, not the teachers, not the students, not the researchers, you know, and not the administrators. It, it should be a shared responsibility and there might be different. Starting [00:31:00] points, right? It might be the teacher leader in a school building who takes it upon themselves to be the AI go-to person for staff development.
Pat Yongprudit: It could be the district superintendent who went to some conference, national conference and got super excited because they saw Rebecca speak on stage and they bring that back to their district and say, Hey, we’re gonna. Be super AI forward. It could be so many things, right? And all those starting points are okay.
Pat Yongprudit: It, it’s, but it ultimately needs to be a shared responsibility, including policy makers as well, policy makers, the legislators, and certainly the developers. And I would say, if anything, Rebecca, the developers when it comes to education probably don’t have enough, have enough pressure being put on them to put out.
Pat Yongprudit: Things that are good for learning. Yeah, so everyone else probably has enough pressure on them, but the developers, [00:32:00] not so much. That’s our capitalist society and that’s our our current, current situation when it comes to regulations as well. Luckily, luckily. Groups like Google, Microsoft, they’re actually doing it on their own.
Pat Yongprudit: Like Google is doing some really deep research into learning and, and creating their own models created just for learning. Microsoft research has put out models just for math education. They’re just doing it. You know, you could say that they’re doing it to make a buck, but they don’t have to be focusing on education in that way.
Pat Yongprudit: No one made them.
Brett Roer: Yeah. Again, could listen to this all the time. I love the, the fact that you’re really bringing to. Everyone plays a shared role in this, but, uh, thank you for highlighting some of the orgs that, you know, they have many reasons why they do what they do, but one of them hopefully is trying to do right and, uh, give us the guidance and support that might be lacking.
Pat Yongprudit: Uh, anthropic with clo. Claude, I think it’s Claude Code or something like. There’s this feature where it, it doesn’t just do the coding for you, it explains it [00:33:00] as well. Like they didn’t have to include that. It could just code it for you. ’cause that’s usually what most professionals want. They don’t need an explanation, but they included that explanation thing.
Pat Yongprudit: ’cause they understand that there are still learners who might use that thing and they, these kids still need to learn what coding actually is.
Brett Roer: Yeah, that’s, that’s a really good point is people talk about what skills you’re gonna need in the future, but the like. Learning how to think about coding might be new thing you need to do.
Brett Roer: Not necessarily actually do the coding, but you need to be able to factor, you need to be able to explain it to other people. Yeah, so that’s a really great point and hopefully again, you know, you’ve already shared with teachers what they need to do now, EdTech companies and other large orgs that are builders.
Brett Roer: Listen to Pat, make sure you can make thinking visible and exciting and engaging, even if they never have to actually use that skill. ’cause there’s an AI tool that can do it for them. Pat, I mean, you’re just taking over the show, so let’s make it official here. So, uh, at the end of season one, we had, uh, a new initiative from [00:34:00] one of our guests and we just turned over the reigns to the M two 11 podcast to our guests.
Brett Roer: So for the next few minutes, you are now the host and so. For me and Rebecca, what is one question you would like to ask us about AI education innovation right now?
Pat Yongprudit: This is such a wonderful feature. I, I missed this in the prep, Brett, otherwise I would’ve gotten super excited about it. ’cause this is like, as you’ve seen, I am totally, I, I, I asked you all questions organically anyway.
Pat Yongprudit: Okay. So if, if folks have made it this deep into the podcast, they deserve something special. All right. They don’t, and, and more than likely. They have been exposed to AI education stuff and maybe only half of what we’ve talked about is new to them. So if it’s, since it’s my podcast now, I wanna talk about things that we don’t know about Rebecca and Brett, like significant fun things.
Pat Yongprudit: All right. So you know, [00:35:00] y’all, some of y’all on this, uh, in this audience, uh, been listening Rebecca and Brett for a while. You might not know these things about them. You certainly don’t know these things about them. We’re about to learn a little bit, you know, some new stuff about them, starting with Rebecca.
Pat Yongprudit: Rebecca, what, what’s like a new fun? What’s something these folks don’t know about you that’s like super fun? Uh, could be a hobby, whatever.
Rebecca Bultsma: I am about to have my 25 year wedding anniversary. ’cause I married my high school sweetheart when I was 18 and had three kids by the time I was 21. And so I’ve kind of have a, a different kind of academic and, and learning path and most people, but I kind of plugged along and.
Rebecca Bultsma: I’m from a town of like 3,500 people full of nobody who cares about technology, so I’m a bit of an anomaly, which is probably why I am a little bit of a nerd, but [00:36:00] I’m trying to think of anything else kind of interesting. I’ve ran a whole bunch of marathons and half marathons and triathlons for funds.
Rebecca Bultsma: That tells you just. How boring of a person? I’m
Pat Yongprudit: Rebecca. You ever heard of this guy named David Goggins?
Rebecca Bultsma: I think I have.
Pat Yongprudit: Okay. Alright. Alright. Yeah. And when, when you say marathons and multiple marathons, I think of David Goggins,
Rebecca Bultsma: not like, not on David’s level. I don’t do ultra and supers. That’s definitely for sure.
Pat Yongprudit: Oh, I didn’t even know there was thing called a super Oh yeah, an ultra
Rebecca Bultsma: great question. I actually was. This is reminding me of a podcast I listened to this morning. I was talking about the difference between yacht sizes, like a mega yacht and a super yacht. And a regular yacht. And the answer is, I, I’m not cool enough to know, but I’m pretty sure one of them involves running a hundred miles, which means I will never do it.
Rebecca Bultsma: But I’m sure Brett is way more interesting than I’m
Pat Yongprudit: okay Brett, but you, you’ve had some time to think about it. What? What’s the interesting thing?
Brett Roer: My mind went a different direction than Rebecca’s, so I’m gonna tell a little story about. [00:37:00] How I became a teacher in Brooklyn, so I was a college student at Hunter College in New York City.
Brett Roer: I was a bartender. I’ve worked 12 hour shifts and I was student teaching. So literally you’d student teach from approximately eight to three, and then I’d work a bartending shift from four to four, two days in a row. And so I don’t actually remember all of that. Yet towards the end, as you start to apply for jobs, I went to a hiring fair and they called me back for an interview.
Brett Roer: And so I wore a suit. The suit I chose to wear was in the lobby of the East Village apartment I lived in and said, take these, you know, free. And I went and I got it tailored to fit me. And I wore this white suit to a job interview with a panel of about 20 educators. Right? So they had like aps, students, parents, the principal, and.
Brett Roer: They hired me and brought me back for follow up interviews, but for almost 20 years now, that was 2005. That’s, they still will send a random text picture of me in that white suit. I also [00:38:00] had hair, you can’t see the audience, but I had hair down to my shoulders. Um, I had glasses. I would get mistaken all the time for Julian Lennon, who at the time was his John Lennon’s son and he lived in the East Village and they, people would come to me in the bar and they’d be like, are you Julian Lennon?
Brett Roer: I’m like, do you think if I was the son of John Lennon, I’d be. Like slinging your drinks. No, you’d be slinging my drinks. So that is the story of the white suit. And that literally, if that white suit had turned off that educational community, that was the most transformative place I could have worked. And now to get serious for a second about that journey, before I was allowed to go to that hiring interview, I wore the white suit and sat just with the principal.
Brett Roer: And what she did was she was running around, it was her first graduation, and I didn’t even get into her office yet. She just stops me in the waiting room and goes. You wanna work here? I’m like, uh, yeah. She goes, okay, this school is 99% black and brown boys. ’cause it was an automotive school. Why do you wanna work here?
Brett Roer: And I’ve always shared [00:39:00] like, I cannot imagine what I could have said as a 22-year-old that would have made her say yes, this is the right person. But. I’m really fortunate I did, because I think that really changed my entire worldview perspective and the trajectory of my life, like how important it is to really meaningfully care about the people you’re serving in the community.
Brett Roer: That if you’re fortunate enough to let you in. So hope that was a little background about, I don’t know how they hired me or why they hired me, but I’m forever grateful and indebted to that community.
Pat Yongprudit: That’s a great question. Yeah. That principle is not messing around. They’re moving and shaking. They just wanna get to the point and, and, yeah.
Pat Yongprudit: That’s a great question.
Brett Roer: Thanks. And I wanna give some flowers to somebody, uh, whom I, he was a guest on this, uh, Marlon Styles. He was a former superintendent out in Ohio, you know, really well-regarded iste, distinguished district and leader. And he’s testified before Congress and he actually spoke with Richard Kula on a panel at a SA, I’d never heard him speak, and he said specifically if you.
Brett Roer: You could talk [00:40:00] about innovation. All you want this right before AI came out. If what you are doing in your districts is not impacting the trajectory of black boys, I don’t want to hear about your success. If you can’t help the most underserved population. Then it’s not really innovation or the outcomes that that truly are going to change society.
Brett Roer: So I just want to share that. Like that’s someone who I like. I will never forget sitting there hearing that and saying, why aren’t people saying that? That part out loud, that’s so important to me when we talk about innovation.
Rebecca Bultsma: I wanna hear yours, pat. I want you to tell a story here that nobody else really knows.
Rebecca Bultsma: Make it good. No pressure.
Pat Yongprudit: Well, I’ll make it good, but it’ll be, it’ll be really nothing anyone will expect. This is a story about being courageous and shooting your shop. So I was a senior in high school. Definitely play this back from my friends. They know this story. Some of them already know where this is going.
Pat Yongprudit: They’re, they’re probably [00:41:00] laughing right now after to listen to this. I was a senior in high school and you know, you walk in the halls. These halls are busy in high school and there’s this, there’s this girl who’s. Constantly smiling at me when I walk by her. And you know, in the schedule, you know, you walk certain ways and you see certain people all the time.
Pat Yongprudit: Every time I see her, she’s smiling at me. I’m like at, at some points I’m like, I’m like looking around like, what? Why is she smiling? I don’t know her, you know? And after a while I’m thinking, okay, maybe she likes me, or something like that. And I thought, okay, that’s cool. And I knew that she was younger than me.
Pat Yongprudit: She was either a freshman or a sophomore at the time. And I was a senior. Uh, but I thought to myself, okay, well if she’s my me, you know, let me find out what she’s about. So we, we end up in the bus loop one afternoon and I see her, I go straight up to her. And I introduce myself and, and, and then, and then she introduces herself and I goes, goes straight to the point and I go, Hey, would you like to go out sometime?[00:42:00]
Pat Yongprudit: And now to, just to get to that point, now you have to realize I’m a senior. She’s a freshman or a sophomore. Turns out she was a freshman. And like I didn’t, I didn’t. Need to do that. I didn’t, there were many other people of my age that I could have talked to or whatever, and I wasn’t like telling her like, Ooh, I like you, be my girlfriend.
Pat Yongprudit: I just wanted to like get to know her. That’s, that’s it. And, and by the way, at that time, that wasn’t a thing that people did. Like, this wasn’t like the fifties and like you go out for date for an ice cream or something like. There weren’t many guys at that point who were just like taking someone out just to like get to know them.
Pat Yongprudit: You know what I mean? Like, and so anyway, I did that and this was her response. She said, aren’t you a senior? And I’m like, yes. And she goes, well, I’m a freshman, so that means that you must be really desperate. And [00:43:00] I was like, I was like, what? I was like, girl, you don’t, what are you talking about? Like, like, I’m trying to do you a favor.
Pat Yongprudit: That’s what I was thinking in my head. That was what? Like, I’m just trying to get to know you. Like you are the one smiling me. Why are you smiling at me anyway? I’m thinking about all these things real fast, and then I think, and then I just respond, no, I’m not desperate, and then I just walk away. So anyway, my, my point is, is that it, it actually did take courage for me, a different type of courage to do that and.
Pat Yongprudit: That type of behavior, like just shooting your shot, being straightforward. Um, being interested in people has actually served me a bunch over since senior year of high school.
Rebecca Bultsma: Did you ever go on the dates?
Pat Yongprudit: No, we didn’t go on a date. No, she, she said I was desperate. Like I just walked away. I said, I just said no
Pat Yongprudit: one.
Pat Yongprudit: I
Rebecca Bultsma: was waiting for the plot twist like you guys got married or something. But
Pat Yongprudit: no, that was it. I’ve never seen her again after that. It was probably like the last two [00:44:00] or three weeks of, uh, senior high school. So
Rebecca Bultsma: Oh, bet she’s, sorry. Now if you’re listening to this, I hope you’re, sorry you missed out.
Pat Yongprudit: Yeah.
Pat Yongprudit: Hopefully you reflect on that time and think, oh, silly freshman to me. Like,
Rebecca Bultsma: missed your shot.
Pat Yongprudit: I know. Yeah. So anyway. And, and I was, yeah. And, and I just appreciate how senior me kind of dealt with that rejection. Just, I just said straight up, no, I am not desperate. And then walk away. That’s it.
Rebecca Bultsma: Good for you.
Rebecca Bultsma: That’s a, that’s actually a really good growing experience to have at that time of your life too. It makes you realize you can shoo your shot anywhere. I think that’s great. It took me way longer than that to learn that lesson, so
Pat Yongprudit: Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I, that’s what I was saying at the beginning. Y’all like, like you’re given these things.
Pat Yongprudit: And when I say given, it’s not like I don’t know where that came from, right? Like upbringing or my friends. I don’t, I don’t know what, but I ca I’m given these things, so therefore I should [00:45:00] use these things to the best of my ability to serve people. And so what I, what Pat does now is actually a lot of executive influence and schmoozing.
Pat Yongprudit: I’m actually quite introverted, but because of those types of experiences, I have these tools in my toolbox, these habits, right? These things that are, are not too big a deal for me to do, and I deploy them for the sake of education.
Brett Roer: I, I, I know Rebecca also, right? I met Rebecca while she’s keynoting in front of, you know, hundreds of leaders and teachers and educators.
Brett Roer: And yet she sometimes all, and we’re on a podcast together and she sometimes mentions that she’s quite introverted. And Pat, I think what you said about like using what you have to serve others. Um, I think Rebecca and I like, I find a lot, if we think it’s for the right reasons, we are definitely willing to be an extrovert.
Brett Roer: Like, I’m willing to be shameless in asking people it’s gonna help kids or a community, but like, I am like the most timid person if like, the way I [00:46:00] need like another napkin from a waiter. Like, I don’t wanna bother anybody. But if it’s for the right reasons and for others, then it’s like, of course we’re gonna do this.
Brett Roer: So I’m, I just wanna make sure, like, pat, that’s so incredible that like you use them when you need to use them, but you also are doing it with like. Purpose and it seems to be having a really big impact in the world of education. So thank you for always going above and beyond there. Rebecca, we got another place where we give Pat a little autonomy here.
Brett Roer: I feel like he’s talked a lot about really great advice for classroom teachers, and we always want to kind of give advice to other demographics. So we got 11 year olds. Like if you’re an 11-year-old today on the M two 11 podcast, or you’re recent college, college graduates, maybe a double 11, like 22.
Brett Roer: What’s the best advice you would give to an 11-year-old or a 22-year-old today, right now? About the future and their, and their, uh, their opportunities.
Pat Yongprudit: Oh, great. Let me, a little, little segue. There’s some kind [00:47:00] of phenomenon called like the Kroger phenomenon or something like that. Well, y’all might know it.
Pat Yongprudit: Where you like, get exposed to an idea and then you see that idea everywhere. Some, something like that. I forgot what it’s called.
Rebecca Bultsma: Yeah. Have you seen focus with Will Smith? If not, put it on your list. It’s fantastic.
Pat Yongprudit: I have, I have, but that’s, is that where, okay. Anyway, so I’m having that situation right now, y’all, because I just did a LinkedIn post just today about someone in Louisiana who runs a group called the 1111 Philosophers Group.
Pat Yongprudit: I’ve never seen 11 portrayed that way, ever. And I, I tried to figure out like what that’s about. It might mean something. And then now here we are obviously Amp to 11 and, and I didn’t know that you all would use this 11 thing this much, even to the level that Brett just said, like 11 year olds and 22 year olds.
Pat Yongprudit: And, and this whole 11 thing is like growing on me. Like, like if I had to pick a number for like a Jersey 11 [00:48:00] now feels good. You know what I mean? Uh, like I, I never would’ve thought about it before. Like it, it’s. So, so thank you for that Brett, for 11 year olds, that’s my son’s age actually. My, my youngest son’s age, so he’s in fifth grade.
Pat Yongprudit: And for fifth graders, oh man, they just want to have fun. What kind of advice would I give to an 11-year-old that they would actually follow or even like process? Uh, okay. I would say, look, save your money kid. Like you don’t need to buy these little $5, $10 things. Save your money to like build it up for like a switch to, or like, like a, a pair of shoes or something.
Pat Yongprudit: Like, just don’t, just like burn money when you get it. And, and I guess that’s the idea of like being more patient or like pushing out satisfaction to a, a later date. Um. Long suffering. And then I would say for a a 22-year-old, this is a kid who is about to enter the workforce. Oh, okay. I got some good stuff for you all.
Pat Yongprudit: ’cause I [00:49:00] got this advice from someone else, Matt. Matt Sigelman at the Burning Glass Institute. Burning Glass Institute does a lot of labor data analysis stuff and it’s really super useful. And I asked Matt the same question. I said, Matt, what should I tell young workers? He said they should look at resumes.
Pat Yongprudit: And look at the skills that the resumes have in common with one another. Put them through chat, GPT or whatever, and create like a set of skills that a lot of the jobs that they want have in common. And then start working on demonstrating those skills immediately while they’re not even in the job market yet.
Pat Yongprudit: And, and that’s how they can kind of almost shape. Their resume and their experiences towards skills and not jobs and, and it’s a little more adaptable an approach, and especially if these job descriptions are starting to have [00:50:00] AI skills, you should already be kind of working on them already. I thought that was a pretty tactical way of thinking about preparing yourself for the workforce when you don’t know.
Pat Yongprudit: Just focus on skills versus like the job title.
Brett Roer: Very. That’s a very 2025 answer. Well done. You are on the zeitgeist. I think you’ve given advice to literally the current adults in the world, the future adults in the world, and the current students like your son. So I think our last question for you, pat, is.
Brett Roer: Kind of an extension on talking, go behind people’s backs. But again, it’s Ocean’s 11 now, right? You’re, you’re Danny Ocean. You get the chance to assemble like the crack squad, the people who are going to have a unique set of skills, who can help you change the trajectory of education in the way that you think is best for society.
Brett Roer: Who you’re bringing along on that journey doesn’t have to actually be [00:51:00] 11 people. Feel free to take your time in thinking through some people you wanna make sure others know about who are doing this great work, uh, that you would trust to do that.
Pat Yongprudit: Uh, I’m gonna give you a mishmash answer, meaning I’m gonna talk about some of the people I currently work with and I’m going to because they’re top of my mind.
Pat Yongprudit: Yeah. Name some people who I, that don’t work with, but I mean, who I do work with. I know them and all that, but we don’t work in the same organization. I’m gonna give a shout out. To our content and research development manager Veronica Ellis, who recently ran her first global AI education expert group meeting in Paris.
Pat Yongprudit: This is a group that is, uh, informing the development of that AI literacy framework I talked about earlier. And Veronica had never done this, done something like that before. She did a lot of prep, [00:52:00] a lot of rehearsal. I grilled her in in numerous ways with scenarios and all that, and she worked on the scenarios and figure out ways to kind of.
Pat Yongprudit: Make sure that she could continue, like, you know, like a lot of herding cat scenarios, right? And keeping people from derailing the conversation or dealing with, you know, people who might say something like off the wall or whatever. And how she would handle the facilitation of this experience. And the experience went awesome.
Pat Yongprudit: And just like working, what I appreciate about her is her openness to, IM like, work on something and improve. Not feel like she has to prove something on her own. Her, her coachability, she plays tennis, so it’s kind of built into that. And I play tennis too, so we use a lot of tennis analogies when we talk about professional development, her professional development.
Pat Yongprudit: So yeah, she’s just great. So Veronica, you’re wonderful. I’d also [00:53:00] like to shout out our CEO Hadi Partovi. Hadi has given a lot to this organization and the CS education movement. Uh, and Hadi is on the, on paper, one of those like rich tech people who are now trying to influence education on paper.
Pat Yongprudit: That’s the category he’s in, but he’s very different than that. For many, many years, he was the hardest working person at code.org. So he didn’t like start it as a vanity project. He was like, very, for real. Like, I want to make sure that every kid has the opportunity to learn computer science. And, and he, he, he, blood, sweat and tears he put into it for years and years and years and years.
Pat Yongprudit: And, and only recently has he taken like a step back to, you know, just work, you know, just have a personal life. And so I just, I just wanna. Celebrate him because having someone like that who is ambitious, [00:54:00] who’s using what he’s been given, like, he’s very tech-minded. And so I’ve, I’ve learned a lot of different ways to approach problems.
Pat Yongprudit: Yeah, just having someone like that is on a team is excellent. O obviously, ’cause he has a lot of resources and he, his network has a lot of resources and that, that allowed us to do great things fast at code.org. So those are two people. I mean, gosh, if I had to hit 11, y’all would be here forever. So let me just try to touch on one more person and I’m gonna try to think of someone else who I do not te technically work with right now, but I would put them on my solving AI and education team.
Pat Yongprudit: You know what I’m gonna, I’m gonna holler at my homegirl Karen Brennan at Harvard University, Harvard Graduate School of Education. Karen Brennan leads the Creative Computing Lab. She teaches probably one of the most popular, uh, HGSE you know, har Harvard Graduate School of Education courses [00:55:00] related to like education technology or something like that.
Pat Yongprudit: I forgot what it’s called. It might called Learning design and Technology, or is that the name of the program? Anyway, people love her for good reason. It would, it’s always useful to have someone who’s super smart, super knowledgeable about the space, but who’s done really practical work, like cranking out curriculum out of her lab, but also working on tools as well and, and, and just really just a person who really brings people together, um, isn’t afraid to debate and dissent, uh, is always like a value add.
Pat Yongprudit: But you know, researchers like, she never like lords her knowledge over people. And it, it’s just very inviting, it’s very educational and that’s why I bring Karen on to every project I can bring her on to. ’cause she’s just absolutely wonderful and, and, and, and I can feel [00:56:00] very confident putting her on my Oceans 11 because so many people feel the same way about her.
Pat Yongprudit: So it’s not just, just Pat. Think of that. So if y’all don’t know Karen Brennan, you know, she, she ain’t gonna be like the flashiest professor or anything like that, but you should get to know her work. And if you ever get to, you know, the, the point in your life where you want to go to graduate school for education and, and, and ed techie something, something, I highly recommend the learning design in technology.
Pat Yongprudit: Program at Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Brett Roer: That was incredible. And yes, you’re right. I don’t know if, I don’t know if our listeners, uh, we would put on an extended play for the all 11, but I mean, this is amazing just to get the sampling into who’s doing amazing work. Pat, you know, that was how we end.
Brett Roer: This has really been such a, like, inspiring, informative conversation. So just wanna, again, thank you for [00:57:00] putting your all into this and really giving some wisdom out there to everyone in the world of education. Thank you so much for coming on today.
Pat Yongprudit: Oh, Brett, Rebecca. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah.
Brett Roer: Um, also listeners, you didn’t hear this at the beginning, but offline, pat said this is, we’re gonna, we have an audacious goal to make this the most popular education podcast episode ever. So now that you’ve listened to it and you know, it’s amazing, make sure to share with every single person you have ever met.
Brett Roer: And with that, I wanna say thank you, um, for listening to the AmpED to 11 podcast. Have a wonderful day.
