Ep 7 AlanaWinnick Youtube
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Rebecca Bultsma: [00:00:00] Before we dive into today’s episode, I want to tell you a little bit more about our amazing guest, Alana Winnick. And let me tell you, she is a force to be reckoned with in the world of educational technology. So picture this, by day, she’s leading the charge as Ed Tech director at Pocantico Hills Central .
Rebecca Bultsma: school district in Sleepy Hollow, New York. And as a side note, I’m fascinated by this whole juxtaposition of a place that’s so famous for its history and you leading the charge into the future. But we’ll talk more about that in a second, but that’s her full time job. And that’s just the beginning. She’s the Hudson Valley director for NYSCATE and she’s got the credentials to back it up.
Rebecca Bultsma: We’re talking certifications from ISTE, Google, Microsoft. Plus, she’s won the Innovative Tech Director Award from Tech and Learning, earned a spot as an EDSAFE Woman in [00:01:00] AI Fellow, and was even in the running for Magic School’s AI Educator of the Year. Plus, she’s the founder of Students for Innovation. And if all of that wasn’t enough, she’s also found time to write her book, The Generative Age, where she deep dives into how AI is shaping education.
Rebecca Bultsma: And then On top of all that, in her spare time, she also has a podcast by the same name that you all need to immediately go and subscribe to, because this woman is amazing. And we are thrilled to have you as a guest today, Alana. Thank you so much for joining us.
Alana Winnick: Thank you. I’m so excited to meet you and to be on the show.
Brett Roer: Alana, it’s really an honor and a pleasure. We were catching up right before this, and we’ve been fortunate to catch up a lot over these last few months. And we’re so excited you’re One of our first guests on the podcast. ~Uh,~ we’re going to let the world know what you are about. You lead with your values.
Brett Roer: You’re doing it for the right reasons for our students out there. So if you ready to, uh, tackle our first [00:02:00] questions for today’s podcast, we’re ready to get amped to 11 with you. You ready? Yeah. All right, let’s do it. We’re always going to begin and end the podcast with a pop culture reference. So we’re going to start here at AmpED to 11 by referencing Stranger Things, the Netflix show with the character named Eleven.
Brett Roer: She has these supernatural powers. She leaves everyone in awe the first time they see them. So Alana share with our listeners today. What was kind of one of those first jaw dropping AI moments you experienced? Something that it just did that you couldn’t believe it had the power to do now in your role in education?
Alana Winnick: Okay, so I took this question a little bit differently because I thought everyone would do positive things and I really just wanted to highlight some of the important things that maybe people are not talking about that are not so positive. So something That happened when I was using AI that made my jaw drop in a not so positive way.
Alana Winnick: I just need to share it, so I’m going to share my screen. I was very taken aback by this, so I’m going to show you the image and then I’m going to [00:03:00] show you the prompt. So here’s the image. I want you to look really closely at the face on this image.
Rebecca Bultsma: And so for those of us who are listening to this, do you want to just describe what, what we’re looking at on this?
Alana Winnick: Let me read the prompt and then we’ll go back and we’ll discuss the image, I guess. So, it was a little bit disturbing for me. I don’t know if you guys feel like that image, like, what prompt could have I written to get this image? Well, let’s look at the prompt first. So the prompt was, a young female student and their teacher walk down a brightly lit hall.
Alana Winnick: The student is wearing a red shirt and jeans and carries a backpack. The teacher is wearing a red dress and guides her along the way. The warm inviting lighting of the hallway creates a welcoming atmosphere. And then, when you look at the picture. ~Um,~ I immediately texted Ken Shelton about this, who wrote a book about AI bias and discrimination.
Alana Winnick: And I, he’s like, what prompt prompted this picture? So it, [00:04:00] it looks like A man’s face in a woman’s body. I, that’s how I would describe it. ~Um,~ I don’t know if it’s supposed to be maybe a transgender person. I’m not sure. ~Um,~ we are welcoming of all genders in my school. We were a little bit confused by it. ~Um,~ I also forgot to mention for the listeners that can’t see it, it, it is a, uh, black teacher as well.
Alana Winnick: So I think that was a little bit what, ~um,~ Ken felt a little bit. discriminatory in the picture also. So this was something I loved the image from when you look at it from from far away. I love this image. I was going to use it in one of my keynote presentations. I love the colors of the lighting. I didn’t notice it.
Alana Winnick: And then when I was like, whoa, I got a little bit of closer look. And I was like, that. Is not what I was looking for. So it’s a little bit of a jaw dropping moment for me, [00:05:00] but I think what it does is it highlights the importance, ~um,~ of explicitly teaching all AI users about bias and discrimination and AI models and how AI can really exasperate our existing biases or not ours, but humans existing biases.
Alana Winnick: So. All of my AI users, adults and students, they know they have two jobs. Their first job is to be a detective on the lookout for bias and misinformation. And their second job is to be a DJ and remix the content so it’s reflective of their own thoughts and their own ideas and their own voice. And I think that we cannot Expect users, adults, students know how to do either one of these things.
Alana Winnick: And I explicitly teach these things as young as first grade. You think that they don’t understand what the word bias is and they do. They’re like, Oh, girls are ballerinas. Boys are football players. And they can give you a laundry list of all of them. I actually had a second grader last year say to me [00:06:00] at the end.
Alana Winnick: What, what about the they, thems? You’re all talking about he’s and she’s. What about the they, thems? And I was like, you are absolutely right. So they know, and I think we don’t give them credit, ~um,~ for knowing as much as they do, but I think we need to explicitly teach being a detective and also that DJ, like use AI as a thought partner, but pick and choose the ideas that resonate with, with you and make sure it reflects your own voice.
Brett Roer: You mentioned someone who we want to make sure we give flowers to on the podcast. He’s going to be a future guest of ours. Ken Shelton. That is literally who I think of when I’m not sure about why AI is doing something that makes me feel like it is not reflective or it could be doing something that’s not aligned with the values that someone like Ken Shelton and I share and yourself.
Brett Roer: Definitely want to recognize that is the go to person. Ask, what do you think’s happening here?
Alana Winnick: I mean, I had a whole episode dedicated to bias and discrimination with Ken Shelton. I had a second one about how I rolled that out in my district. [00:07:00] I, Ken is someone who he, he cares and he wants, you know, all these tools to be safe for our students and he’s who I go to when I have these difficult situations.
Brett Roer: Yeah, and I also want to make sure folks out there that are listening here. Something Alana talked about this idea of DJing, remixing, ~um,~ being a detective. You know, I’ve been fortunate to not only see some of these resources she shares with students, I’ve watched her present to adults in education. I just love that you break it down for people and make sure it’s clear.
Brett Roer: That yes, what you get from an AI tool, whatever’s generated, it’s step one of a process. And I just love the way you talk about the process of making it your own, having to still do research or detective work, as you say. So again, just a great philosophy on use AI as a starting point, but then you have to make sure you’re thinking through how to make it your own and make it right for the population you’re sharing it with.
Brett Roer: So thank you for that. So speaking of, right, we’re here at AmpED to 11, right? Ken Shelton is an 11/10, right? He’s someone that when we just think of him, it’s just, he’s off the charts. Amazing at what he does and the work he [00:08:00] believes in. So Alana, we can stay in the vein of AI tools. We can stay in the vein of AI educators or innovators.
Brett Roer: What’s something right now in the AI space that our listeners need to know about? That’s truly an 11 out of 10.
Alana Winnick: When I read this question, I was thinking that you meant a tool. Oh yeah, it does say which AI tool. So I know that most people are probably saying like, Chat GPT. And like, yes, I do use chat GPT.
Alana Winnick: Yes, I have the paid version. Yes, I have my own custom GPTs with all of my documents loaded to them and things like that. I also do use Notebook LM. I’ve uploaded My book and the articles I’ve written and I’ve created a nice little custom space in there and what I do like about that one is they do say that they don’t use your data to train the models and it’s all stored locally on your drive, which I think is important.
Alana Winnick: I think people don’t realize that sometimes we are training the models when we use AI, so that’s another thing we need to keep in [00:09:00] mind. I actually had a situation where I asked AI to help me write a proposal for a student presentation. And it spit back a student’s last name. And I know for 100 percent certain, I also am data protection officer of my district, I do not use student last names ever.
Alana Winnick: I’m very careful of it. And so I was, I prompted it and questioned it. Like, what information did I, where’d you get that from? Was it from a previous prompt? Was it from something uploaded? And it wouldn’t give me the answer. So that’s a little scary. Anyway, that’s not the 11 I do want to give you some more tools, though.
Alana Winnick: So, perplexity, I think, is really great for research. When we talk about, ~um,~ credibility, right, we don’t necessarily always know where our information is coming from. And when you use something like a Chat GPT or like a Gemini, some of these tools, they don’t tell you where it’s getting your sources from.
Alana Winnick: Some do, like, Bing, I know they’re the, um, Microsoft Copilot does tell you [00:10:00] sources, but what I really like about Perplexity is that it is not built as an LLM, a traditional LLM. It was built more like a search engine. And what you could do is you could click these three little dots at the bottom, and it will show you the sources that it got it from.
Alana Winnick: And you can deselect the unreliable resources, and it will regenerate your prompt with only the. the sources that you deem reliable. So if you don’t think Wikipedia is reliable, or Reddit, or YouTube, you’ll remove those, and you could have ones like Britannica, and whatever the content area is like, that you would deem reliable, and we’ll regenerate it with only those sources.
Alana Winnick: So that’s something I think is really important. And then, I want to pivot like a mini bit because I think a lot of the tools that people might be talking about, and I can name a hundred teacher tools, they’re talking mostly about the teacher side, and I think what we really need to do is focus on that student side.
Alana Winnick: So the 11s for me are the [00:11:00] student facing tools, and the tool that I’m using right now in my district is School AI. And I, Put asterisks around all of these things because I think that we’re talking about AI right now, we’re talking about tools right now, um, flash forward five years or ten years, I don’t even think we’re going to be talking about AI at all.
Alana Winnick: And I don’t think there’s going to be a separate AI tool that we go to. I think that AI is going to be embedded directly into every tool we already use. I don’t think we’re going to go somewhere different. So I’d imagine probably, if I had a bet, that Microsoft will probably embed Khanmigo because Microsoft already dumped money into Khanmigo, so I’ll probably just embed it right in there.
Alana Winnick: Google will probably just use their own proprietary one that they are building, ~uh,~ but I don’t probably foresee and I’ve told them. I love School AI, they’re probably 11 for me right now, but I don’t think in 10 years we’re probably going to be using School AI because it’s going to be embedded right into our Microsoft environment.
Alana Winnick: But for right now, ~um,~ School AI is my 11. I think they’re [00:12:00] very, uh, student focused. They started building their product from the student perspective, where a lot of their competitors started from the teacher side and went backwards. They always had the students in mind. I love creating these custom chatbots for students.
Alana Winnick: Some really great examples that we’ve done in my district could be everything from like a family and consumer science project We have a, we are very fortunate. We have a very diverse population from socioeconomic status to, um, nationalities. We, we represent some, like, I don’t know, like 90 countries or something wild.
Alana Winnick: And they created a fusion recipe. So with their partners, the AI prompts them, what country are you, is your, Origin from what about your partner and then it helped them come up with ingredients and then we have a garden So like what ingredient from the garden do you want to use as like that twist? That they had to use an ingredient from the garden and it helped them develop this fusion recipe Combining their culture.
Alana Winnick: So that was a fun [00:13:00] one ~Uh,~ my third grade teacher marina lombardo who i’ll talk about later. She just won NYSCATE educator of the year. She’s super innovative she does a lot of work with like, um, combining computer science with traditional curriculum and like the debug, which is like computer science, but mixed with their writing.
Alana Winnick: And it’s really helping them become stronger writers. So we use that for that. I think that AI, when you, when you put it in the hands of the students, what you’re doing really Is you’re deeply personalizing the learning experience for each student instead of giving them all the same assignment, you can relate it to their interests and also have the AI adopt to whatever, ~um,~ the information they’re giving back.
Alana Winnick: So I think these truly customized chatbots are an 11 for me, like I, and I’ll talk a little bit, like in a few more questions about what I think about the teacher tools versus student, but. My 11s [00:14:00] are in the hands of students, not in the hands of teachers.
Rebecca Bultsma: And I want to go back a second to what you’re talking about with perplexity, because that’s one of my favorite tools too.
Rebecca Bultsma: And I think that’s the reason this new search feature that ChatGPT launched is so interesting to me, because now you can check those sources as well. And also in NotebookLM, which you also mentioned, that you can directly find the citation and where it’s pulling that information from without having to wonder, where did this come from?
Rebecca Bultsma: How much of it is made up? That’s why those tools are so great. They’re easy to verify. Great choices.
Brett Roer: Yeah, and I just want to highlight for the educators out there, you know, Alana and the teachers that you’ve shouted out congrats to the NYSCATE winner in your district. I love that you’re thinking about ways to make it culturally relevant.
Brett Roer: You’re starting where students like around something, you know, we all have a passion affinity for like food is a vital part of culture. And showing how you can use AI to, to kind of like streamline that process. Cause two students like brainstorming might take a while, but it just leads to a higher level of engagement and it [00:15:00] brings technology into it.
Brett Roer: So,
Alana Winnick: and the teacher can’t meet with every group throughout the period. It’s impossible. It’s impossible. Right. But then what’s great is the teacher could go in and look at all the chats and see what they were talking to it about. So that’s, that’s really great because the, the level of questioning that, that’s what I love is like the level of higher order thinking that you can see by the types of questions that the students are asking.
Alana Winnick: And I think we also have to really rethink how we’re assessing students instead of. Assessing the final end product. We really need to focus on that learning process. And I think a tool like a school AI that allows you to see the, the learning process, um, and just rethinking how we assess students.
Brett Roer: Yeah.
Brett Roer: Just want to, again, this is so many just really great nuggets of wisdom. Uh, what you just said, especially that idea of flipping the script. So if you’re the teacher, you can’t clone yourself, you can make a GPT that asks those probing questions or students will react, but I love what [00:16:00] you said about like checking the receipts, right?
Brett Roer: Reading what students are inputting into whatever AI tool you’re providing to them, that’s a great form of assessment. And you’re doing the things that you love and the students love, and you’re not recreating, um, a bigger workload for yourself, but you are able to assess things like their level of questioning and how their, their critical thinking skills.
Alana Winnick: And you can also take the, the responses and then put it in an AI and like have it, analyze it for you without you having to analyze the students responses. So that’s like a, taking it to that next level.
Brett Roer: In your own personal, you know, work life, as, as, uh, as Rebecca mentioned, you are doing everything everywhere and it’s all for great reasons.
Brett Roer: So, you know, if you can’t clone yourself, I’m sure you’re using a bunch of great tools right now. You know, we get the term AmpED to 11 from Spinal Tap’s iconic scene, right? They’re pushing past the limits by turning it up to 11. So Alana, in your work life, what’s that AI tool that you’re constantly using to help you be more efficient and more effective in all that great work you’re doing?
Alana Winnick: [00:17:00] It’s anything that allows for students use or to transform education. So I think what we hear a lot from a lot of these vendors is this tool will help you save time. It will save you time. It will save you time. It will save you time. It was, that’s what I hear over and over and over and over, but it will help save you time for doing.
Alana Winnick: The same things that you’ve done forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. I’ve always thought that education needed change, and I think that AI really is this catalyst for change. And I think that we used to say, if a question is Googleable, it’s not a good question. And now, if the assignment is AI-able, it’s not a good assignment.
Alana Winnick: If the kid could copy your assignment and put it in an LLM, and get the, the, the whole assignment done for them, that’s not a good assignment. So, um, I think for me, when I look at it, it’s sort of like, it’s sort of a joke. I’m sorry, but like, if, if they’re going to use these tools, the teachers uses the eye to create the assignment [00:18:00] because it will save you time.
Alana Winnick: Use AI, create the assignment. And then the student goes home and we all know they’re doing it using AI to do the assignment because they are. And then the teacher, we’re going to save you time. The AI is going to grade it. What was the point of that assignment? The AI created it, did it and assess it. What was the point of the assignment?
Alana Winnick: So I think we really need to rethink the types of assignments we’re asking our students to do. And I think that it’s any tool that’s going to transform assessments and learning and teaching. It’s how you use it, not what you use, I guess.
Brett Roer: Yeah, absolutely. And I think two things you just hit on one. I want to make sure listeners like that’s a great clip of like, you could create this new loop of nothing’s nothing’s being done by human.
Brett Roer: ~Um,~ and they’re like you said, what’s the point? And unfortunately, there’s versions of that from the past. Like you said, that was a fear a generation ago with kids can just google the answers. So right. So we know that this exists, that that part’s [00:19:00] not new, that challenge of that, that aspect. But I love what you’re saying about if it’s transforming education, sure.
Brett Roer: Saving time on certain aspects of education will hopefully reduce teacher burnout, but not this stuff that you’re talking about. That’s not the important part. That thing you mentioned before, if you’re analyzing the work, use it to then help the student and push their thinking, not just to back off that you put a grade to the grade book.
Brett Roer: So really appreciate that insight of finding tools that transform education. Saving time, of course, is a benefit and it’s needed in education, but it’s got to be purposeful. So thank you. Yeah, that was excellent. We know that you’re a district leader on top of the many other things you do. And so you work directly with students.
Brett Roer: So first of all, in a second, I’m gonna ask you to talk about some of the amazing work you lead with students, including that organization that you founded. But I also want you to kind of put yourself in their shoes and kind of send a message out there to those 11 year olds who are going to grow up never knowing a world without AI like we did.
Brett Roer: What’s a message you want to give them about their future in this AI driven world?
Alana Winnick: [00:20:00] Really think about what makes you unique, and never ever pass that off to AI. Like, that’s what makes you special, and you should preserve that, and keep that, and don’t ever pass that to an AI. Your creativity will matter more than ever in this world, and AI could do a lot of things for you, and it can help you save you time, but your imagination and your unique perspective is what’s going to shape the world, so just never Stop dreaming and innovating and questioning and preserving your unique, um, characteristics.
Brett Roer: So many thoughts on that. But if it’s possible, can you give some flowers and shout out the students in your own district and the work you’re doing with them to make sure they are kind of those next leaders in the field of AI?
Alana Winnick: As a district leader, I lead two after school clubs, one on Monday and one on Tuesday.
Alana Winnick: I really think that every school leader should lead a club. Like, I know you think you don’t [00:21:00] have time in your day. It’s one hour a week, and it’s gonna be the best hour you’ve ever spent in the whole week. And you will learn more from that one hour than you will learn from any administrative team meeting, from any observation, from any walkthrough, from from Any other thing you do throughout that week, you will learn.
Alana Winnick: More in that hour, you will develop relationships with your most important stakeholders, and you will hear the real tea on what’s actually going on in school, and you’ll also pick something that you love, and then you’ll get to be passionate about it and enjoy that passion with other people who are children that are also passionate about it.
Alana Winnick: So, yes, I lead two clubs, an AI club and an innovation club. And I founded this organization called Students for Innovation that empowers students to advocate for change in their schools. And yes, I have my own students in my own district that are as young as like 8 and 9 years old. And then I have students that I’ve met literally through [00:22:00] the internet.
Alana Winnick: Some of them I’ve never met in person. Um, and they, , Advocate for change within their own school environment. They teach professional development to their teachers. They speak at national conferences. They opened for national AI literacy day, week of AI. They were featured speakers for Matt Miller’s ditch summit.
Alana Winnick: That’s ending this weekend. They, one of them presented on the main stage at NYSCATE. Um, my own little guys, they. In my innovation club, it’s not just about AI, it’s about all technology. Uh, I bought VR headsets a couple of years ago that never get used. So through the technology in front of them and said, figure it out.
Alana Winnick: And then they know, they know how to use it now. So if any teacher has a kid in my group that wants to use. VR or AI. The kids in the class are now the experts and so they made Canva posters that they’re hanging all around to say teachers come on Tuesday and we’re going to teach you [00:23:00] how to use VR and they’re going to dress all professionally and they’re, the teachers are going to come in and they’re going to teach them how they can use the VR headsets in their classroom.
Alana Winnick: So I think for me, leveraging. Elementary school students all the way up. And I think their voices matter. I think when they have these big ideas and you elevate their voices and you amplify their voices and all those are your, like your words, people listen. When they know what they’re talking about, right?
Alana Winnick: It could be a little kid that doesn’t necessarily know what they’re talking about, but when they know it and they can speak so eloquently and powerfully about it, people listen. And I think for these little 11 year olds that are going to grow up in this world, what they say, these are not my words, what they say is that.
Alana Winnick: We need to know these things if we want to be successful in our future, and if you, if you don’t teach them this to us here in [00:24:00] school, then how are we supposed to learn it? And they, they, they, I have eight year olds that have said this on national panels, and that to me Is incredible. Like that little nugget of a clip could probably go viral, but it’s true because if we don’t teach them in school, then they are going to be at a major disadvantage and we’re causing a very different type of digital divide.
Alana Winnick: never existed before because it used to have to do with socioeconomic status. And now it has to do with access and knowledge to artificial intelligence, because the reality is that a student that knows how to use it and use it the right way will be more effective, more efficient than a student that doesn’t.
Alana Winnick: And it’s just the facts. So we are doing a major disservice to our students if we do not teach them how to use it the right way.
Rebecca Bultsma: And I think you touched on something really important, that gap, right, where there’s that gap between education that’s like, oh, we can’t use this, it’s cheating, and then surveys that come out, like from Microsoft and LinkedIn recently, [00:25:00] that say 77 percent of business leaders are demanding AI skills and wouldn’t hire you unless you had AI skills, but if we’re not teaching them, the kids don’t have them, they don’t know, maybe when they get to university, and I have a firsthand story of this, you know, they don’t know how to use it or use it Yeah, they didn’t use it to write, but they used it to source, and the sources didn’t exist.
Rebecca Bultsma: You know, they just don’t know how to use it, and we have to be helping support students as they get ready to enter the world, and the world’s going to look a lot different than it did when we graduated, right?
Alana Winnick: A hundred percent.
Rebecca Bultsma: It already does! Yeah.
Brett Roer: No, absolutely. Again, just want to highlight, like, these are the words of wisdom that I hope listeners are hearing.
Brett Roer: Eight year olds can see this, right? We know that we have to innovate and we know we have to make sure they’re prepared for what’s coming. So again, really take this model that Alana’s made. I love that your students are teaching your teachers and everyone’s in it together, right? This is a breakthrough for everyone.
Brett Roer: If we embrace that mentality that we can all [00:26:00] learn from one another. That’s great for AI, but really that kind of mentality and education should be ubiquitous. So thanks for leading with your values and getting that, getting that front and center in your district. We have this expression, you make a wish at 11:11, right?
Brett Roer: To get some, to put some magic out there. So, you know, if you can make one wish. Or how AI can shape education and society. Where do you hope it’s, it’s going? And, uh, what would you, what would your wish be?
Alana Winnick: I hope that it, and wish that it transforms education. Like I said before, I hope that our future students are not in the same educational system that our current students are in.
Alana Winnick: I think we need to transform teaching, learning, and assessment. And I think. That we really need to rethink the what, the why, the how. What we teach our students, why we’re teaching them this, and how we’re assessing them. So I think every single assessment and assignment needs to be rethought [00:27:00] in this world where now AI can do the work for us.
Alana Winnick: So I just hope that it transforms, ~um,~ what instruction and assessment looks like.
Rebecca Bultsma: And I have a follow up question about that. Most of the districts that Brett and I talk to are the teachers. Uh, you know, there’s concern, the districts are and the leaders are like, yes, we want to do this, we want to do this.
Rebecca Bultsma: They don’t know where to start and a lot of the teachers feel overwhelmed or like they have to learn one more thing. If you had to offer any advice to districts who are just kind of starting out and trying to figure out, like, we know we have to do this, we just don’t know where to start. What advice would you give them?
Alana Winnick: You don’t need to make it its own separate thing. I think people think they need to make it a separate initiative. For example, we have a big PBIS initiative going on right now. So I just like sneak the AI in there. So they have to do these community building PBIS lessons. Okay, here’s a list of 10 Mad Libs style prompts.
Alana Winnick: I want everyone right now to open fill in the blank LLM, [00:28:00] either copy one of these prompts and fill in the blanks, or Work on your prompt engineering, come up with your own prompt. But I sneak it into existing other initiatives and I don’t make it its own separate thing. And I try to make things, so that’s one.
Alana Winnick: The second thing is, create things that people can walk away with and use immediately. Because if you’re talking about this thing that they can use in the future, They’re forgot about it, but if you have them walk away with something they could do the next day and try, they’re hooked now. So I think embedding it into your existing initiatives and making it relevant and timely are my top two tips.
Brett Roer: Amazing. Incredible. I want to share a brief anecdote. Similarly, uh, I was so fortunate, right? I met Rebecca while she was doing a keynote at one of the AI summits across the state of Ohio in 2024. And one of the ways we try to make it really fun and show a real use case that any [00:29:00] educator can use is we do these raffles at the end and I actually walk people through like, here’s all the attendee lists, so I uploaded an Excel sheet.
Brett Roer: And then I can show them how I want it to be proportionally ratioed. You know, people from this part of the state, you know what? I don’t want district leaders to win. So weighted towards people whose title as teacher in it, and I can show them how they can do that. And I shared, you know, I asked some of the educators and they’re like, yep.
Brett Roer: I always have these things in my district where we need to announce prizes. And this would be a great way to walk people through an AI tool and show them like how it, How it thinks or how you can reorganize your thoughts in real time and it can regenerate things for you. So that idea of like the remix and the detective work, um, made it really sticky for people.
Alana Winnick: So, one use of AI that I thought was interesting that a teacher did, um, last week? Obviously, we don’t want to use names, student names, depending on the LLM. If they’re, if they say that they don’t use your data to train the model, you have to really be careful with these LLMs. But hopefully, you’re not just putting into like, one that does use your data to train the model.
Alana Winnick: No [00:30:00] last names, please. Anyway, she, she wrote little descriptions like, student one. Need to sit. And she made a seating chart with AI. So student one needs to sit in the front of the room. Student two can’t sit near student three or four. And a whole description of things. Created a seating chart in minutes.
Alana Winnick: And she said it’s better than any seating chart she could have ever created herself.
Rebecca Bultsma: It reminds me of studying for the LSAT, all that conditional logic, fascinating,
Brett Roer: reminds me of the long days after school with the co teacher being like, okay, how are we going to reorganize it? And how many times do we do it?
Brett Roer: So I love that. And I bet you can obviously keep that chat going. So a few weeks later, when it’s time to reorganize, you say, okay, here’s the update, you know, student four now and student five are at each other’s throats. Like, what do you suggest? And I, I’m. That’s so brilliant. ~Um,~ I love this examples you’re giving, ~uh,~ about real life applications for our listeners.
Brett Roer: This is how you should be playing with it, right? Again, that’s the kind of time saving the amount of energy you put into your seating chart can be [00:31:00] utilized elsewhere. As long as you feed the information that you said safely and provide enough information, then it’s, that’s the fun part. You get to experiment with it.
Brett Roer: Let’s have a co teacher.
Alana Winnick: And I think, like, whatever you’re doing, just say, how can AI help me with this? That’s what I do. Every single thing I’m doing, I just say, how can AI help me? And if you’re not sure, ask it. How can you help me make a seating chart? How can, like, whatever task you’re trying to do, just ask, how can you help me?
Alana Winnick: It’s your personal assistant.
Rebecca Bultsma: Brilliant. Yeah, people ask all the time, right? Hey, do you think AI could do this thing? And I’m like, ask it. Say, hey, how can you help me do this thing? That’s great advice. It’s universal.
Brett Roer: Yeah, that’s a, Again, just so much brilliance here and so many exact use cases, uh, or that the people can iterate on, like we’re doing right now.
Brett Roer: So another tool that, uh, we’re both really big fans of here at AmpED to 11. Uh, Eleven labs, right? They’re known for creating these amazing AI voices. So Alana, we’d like to ask our, our guests, you know, if there’s a specific voice of [00:32:00] any character, fictional, real life, living or dead, that you would love to have read your daily emails or be the voice of your AI tools and assistants, who would it be and why?
Alana Winnick: So I actually would love AI If it could read each email in that person’s voice, like, I want to hear that person talking, so I don’t want the same voice. I want each email to be that person’s voice, so like, um, Brett, if you email me, I want to hear you. And Rebecca, if you email me, I want to hear you.
Rebecca Bultsma: I think that’s the best answer we’ve had to that question so far, Brett.
Rebecca Bultsma: What do you think?
Brett Roer: Oh, my, I mean, if there’s a video, my jaw would literally drop. Yeah, that, uh, is brilliant, and I’m sure that is not far away, and it’s crazy that, like, In any other time in my life, you know, preceding the last few years, I’d be like, that’s really cool. But like, that’s literally sci fi, but that is definitely not, could not be that far off based on all the other ways we use voice activated tools these days.
Brett Roer: [00:33:00] It probably like an opt in, but like, I bet you could attach it to your Google and have it say, would you like this red in their voice? So I, we all heard it here first, but maybe it’s, maybe it’s on the pathway. So well done. That’s a great idea. Speaking of like this gap, right, right now, AI, if we’re saying like right now, it’s at a one.
Brett Roer: There’s so much it can do, and yet there’s still so many, like, puzzling gaps. So, what’s something that, like, with all the 11 tools out there, what’s still something you’d challenge yourself and say, How is this not something AI can do for me yet?
Alana Winnick: I don’t understand why it can’t just tell me that it doesn’t know the answer.
Alana Winnick: Like, just tell me, I’m not sure. I’ll be okay with that. But then it just hallucinates and comes up with these wild answers. And that for me, I wish you could just say, I’m not quite sure this is what I think, but I’m not quite sure.
Rebecca Bultsma: I think that’s what I kind of like about Notebook LM, is I’ll say, hey, [00:34:00] find something in this, all these documents I dumped in about this, and if I can’t find it, I’ll say, I can’t find anything specifically about this, but here are some other ideas, or would you like me to, something like that.
Rebecca Bultsma: That’s the thing, you just want to know, right?
Alana Winnick: Yeah, but I feel like not every AI does that, and it really bothers me so much because students will hold it at face value. Well, the AI told me it, so it must be true, and we could teach it all we want, but I wish it would just have like a disclaimer, like, you might want to back this up with a reliable resource.
Brett Roer: Yeah, I feel like what both of you just said, ~um,~ really ties into like, Similar. Like someone’s like, well, I read it on Facebook, so it must be true. Or like I Googled it and it came up and I think that’s going to be a new one. But I love, um, again, Rebecca shouted out notebook LM, right. For our listeners, like.
Brett Roer: That’s a great example of it only will provide responses based on what you have provided it. And I say this all the time. I rarely will [00:35:00] use AI, like just say like, help me make something. I usually like upload something for it to react to first, which I think helps with the hallucinations. But Alana, you hit on most people’s pet peeve.
Brett Roer: It’s like the hallucination thing is like. They don’t know when it’s happening or not. So therefore it’s like, if you can’t trust it, can you use it for whatever task you’re trying to do? Whereas some students are like, well, it’s here. So I’m going to like copy and paste this. It really is one of the bigger challenges.
Brett Roer: So it is funny. And maybe again, maybe that’s the tool out there. I don’t know GPT, right? Like just have it say, I don’t know when you don’t know, but that. That’s been a struggle for a lot of people and I think it turns some people off. So I also liked that you mentioned there are some tools that are better at it.
Brett Roer: You know, Rebecca mentioned notebook LM, but yeah, that’s a, that’s a big turnoff for I’m sure many of our listeners out there.
Rebecca Bultsma: And I don’t know if it’s anything that any of the major LLMs have been able to solve for at all yet. Right. It’s something that they’re still working on and trying to figure out, but it’s just hasn’t been a solvable problem until now.
Rebecca Bultsma: So fingers crossed. [00:36:00]
Brett Roer: You know, I’d love for you to take a moment and really, uh, you know, you shared some of the, you know, organizations, or especially in our intro, some of the organizations you’re part of, where are you starting to see what we call those like Apollo 11 moments? So, you know, you’re based in here in New York, you’re on all of these different organizations across the state.
Brett Roer: Where are you starting to see some breakthroughs that feel like people are taking, you know, education through tech and AI kind of into that new frontier. Are there any things you’re seeing here in the state of New York that maybe you could, you know, highlight?
Alana Winnick: In my own district, what, what I’m really pushing, I, it’s my favorite thing I’ve done, um, is students creating their own custom chatbots.
Alana Winnick: Do you understand the higher order thinking that’s going into these custom chatbots? It’s so cool. So they’re creating them for themselves, they’re creating them for their peers, so it might be related to whatever they’re learning about in class, and they’re creating a little Custom chat bot to help their peers [00:37:00] study.
Alana Winnick: I, the most creative one I’ve seen right now is my little nine year old student, Gwena, who was featured in Matt Miller’s Ditch Summit. Uh, she created a custom GPT that is a fashion designer and it helps her accessorize her outfits. So that’s the most creative one I’ve seen so far. But I think for me, I don’t see a lot of students around.
Alana Winnick: Have you guys heard of any students creating custom chatbots? Like it’s pretty rare, I think.
Rebecca Bultsma: Which platforms are students using? I’m so curious because I think one of the big concerns is, well, we don’t know what’s safe. We don’t know like what’s sandboxed, what’s not. And the teachers may be not even understanding enough to give that leeways.
Rebecca Bultsma: Tell us more.
Alana Winnick: So we do pay for school AI. They don’t have student accounts yet, but they are working on that. And, and I’ll probably, hopefully be able to pilot that before anyone else. I’m hope [00:38:00] I’m hoping cause I have a good relationship with them. But so we, we create custom chatbots for students as teachers in SchoolAI.
Alana Winnick: So the students have a document and I copy and paste their prompt over, and then they can play around with their, with their chatbot. And then if they want to tweak it, then I work with them and I tweak it, but there’s no student login as of right now, but I know for 100 percent fact that SchoolAI told me that they are working on that.
Alana Winnick: So.
Rebecca Bultsma: Amazing. Yeah, I think that will be a really cool thing for students to learn. You’re right. It teaches that higher level strategic thinking, those skills that are going to be The highest in demand in the future, so that’s and it
Alana Winnick: helps them study. They make oneself them study. We upload their notes, the teacher’s notes, the power points, other content that they’ve come up with.
Alana Winnick: Also created custom chat bots where let’s say they know they’re getting interviewed by someone. We can [00:39:00] take videos of that person. ~Um,~ interviewing other people to try to learn their interview style and then help it come up with questions that they might be asked and also help give them feedback on their responses.
Alana Winnick: We use, I mean, we use so much AI, like one example of an assignment I did with elementary in Marina’s, ~um,~ third grade classroom, the one who won the educator, nice educator of the year. We turn a traditional persuasive essay. into a TED Talk, and we invited the community in. So like, as a parent, Brett, I know you’re a parent, Rebecca, I don’t know if you are one, but like, Brett, I don’t think you want to read every single assignment of your child’s.
Alana Winnick: Like, I know you love them, but I don’t think you wanna read every single thing that they’re ever gonna write. And I don’t think their teacher wants to read all of them. Either, probably, right? And if you’re a high school teacher and you have a hundred of them to read, that’s a lot, right? So, why is a kid going to put in so much effort for an [00:40:00] audience of probably one, their teacher?
Alana Winnick: They’re probably not. But if you give less assignments and make them more meaningful and impactful, they’re going to really step up. So taking that, remember I talked about the what, the why, and the how? What you’re asking your students to do, why you’re asking them to do it, and how you’re assessing them.
Alana Winnick: We took that persuasive essay, turned it into a TED Talk. Invited the parents in. They were so proud of their little Eight and nine year olds for getting on a massive stage and speaking with no notes, no script. They used AI to help them create the images for the slides. They used AI to help them give feedback on their writing.
Alana Winnick: They used AI to, ~um,~ help them with their speaking, like presenter, speaker, coach in PowerPoint. ~Um,~ they used AI every step of the way. But then they confidently stood up there with the mic in their hand and a clicker. And they’re eight and nine, and they persuaded the audience to build something in our community.
Rebecca Bultsma: That’s incredible. I really predict all the time, and I don’t know if it’s because I have this comms background, but we’re just [00:41:00] going to really see a return to some of those verbal communication skills, those people interactive skills that we’ve kind of replaced with texting and emailing and those written forms that now can be so easily replicated by AI.
Rebecca Bultsma: So I love that, you know, the idea of getting business ready.
Alana Winnick: I made this, um, passport to success. I came up with like the 10 things that I thought that students needed to be successful in their future. And I do think that you’re right. That it is like that speaking here.
Rebecca Bultsma: Oh, I, is that in your book? What page?
Rebecca Bultsma: I can’t wait to check. I think it’s page 86, so. And so for our listeners, you can get that on Amazon. That’s where I ordered my copy. And you should all grab it because it is truly timeless. That is, that’s, I think your predictions are exactly right. You know, those are the things and that part of that, what we’re going to change and what we need to think about differently.
Rebecca Bultsma: It’s [00:42:00] teaching towards those future skills.
Alana Winnick: Yeah. Or, but they’re timeless skills, they’re not even future, like I’m not really suggesting anything that is so out there.
Rebecca Bultsma: Right. It’s just like we’ve forgotten a little bit. Maybe there’s been less emphasis in some areas on the verbal and presentation and interaction skills and more focus on the writing and that’s going to have to shift a little bit.
Brett Roer: And Alana, some of you said, you know, we know Obviously, especially in the United States, right? We got 50 different education systems. Each state has its own values, uh, its own forms of assessment, which can make it challenging. But what’s interesting is there are these, like, there are many times where the words you use to describe the skill.
Brett Roer: We’ll differ by region and state and kind of like, you know, local politics and the climate, but a lot of them are like exactly the same. And so I think some of the things you’re talking about, these transferable skills, sturdy skills, life skills, clear communication, be able to persuade others is something we’ve wanted students to be able to grasp and master [00:43:00] for generations.
Brett Roer: So I love the idea of what you’re really trying to do here is catch them up. Empower them with the tools at their disposal, like we’ve always done and make sure they’re really equipped for success. So I love that you’re continually thinking about these age old questions, but remixing them, as you say, uh, using AI.
Brett Roer: So again, just. That sounds so much fun. I’m envisioning my seven year old walking up and giving a TED Talk. Uh, that sounds amazing. And it’s, I mean, we live very, uh, I live very near to where your district is, and it sounds like it’s happening right here in my backyard. So, you’re giving me food for thought on ways to push
Alana Winnick: Wouldn’t you rather he do that than read their paper?
Alana Winnick: Honestly.
Brett Roer: The things you’re talking about, what I love, and I use this example all the time, and again, this is no shade, I love my son’s teachers. He’s had two in the past few years. Has changed his life and they’ve changed my life. It’s so amazing to watch the work of elementary school teachers with, uh, you know, my own, my own children, but both his kindergarten and first grade, he drew on the, you know, on literally a paper plate, a face of himself and scribbled his name.
Brett Roer: And I’m like, [00:44:00] great. Or, but now imagine.
Alana Winnick: Now imagine. ’cause this is what we do. He recorded. Holding it up and talking about it. And then we put a QR code on that plate. And when he brought the plate home, you scan it and you can hear him telling you about what it is. Let’s bring it to the next level.
Brett Roer: Yeah. I, again, the idea of student voice, especially at that age when, you know, my daughter is so eloquent and she’s four and a half, so she’s true.
Brett Roer: She wants to read, she wants to try these things, but like. Listening to her tell me stories or playing teacher at home. I mean, there’s nothing more fun. And a lot of times her talking into an AI tool and me capturing that is so important. I’m like, she’s never going to have this spark and imagination exactly like this way.
Brett Roer: She has right now. So,
Alana Winnick: but also my last year was in as a, as an educated, like a, Not in ed tech was in a kindergarten classroom. And those kids have like a hundred questions. [00:45:00] And my rule was ask three than me because they could just ask a hundred questions each in a five minute period. And what I love about AI is that it has unlimited patients and you could create a custom chat bot for like Like in first grade, they’re learning about the solar system or they’re learning about butterflies and they could ask their AI 100 questions and get all 100 answers and the teacher can just.
Alana Winnick: Not feel burnt out by being asked the million questions that they gasped it has today.
Brett Roer: So when David Adams was on here, we talked about dad, GPT. We got to make YGPT, right? Like a chat bot that just yeah. Anytime you got a Y go ask the chat bot. And let’s see what
Alana Winnick: it’s so funny. Cause when I was little, that was my thing.
Alana Winnick: I guess I’d ask my dad, why like a million times my dad, I vividly still remember my dad going. Um, because I said so, like you just didn’t want to answer my why questions anymore. I asked a [00:46:00] lot of them, but that’s curiosity is important, right? That’s what keeps kids going. You want them to be curious.
Brett Roer: Absolutely. We are going to be wrapping up in just a moment. Uh, and this is like, again, our favorite question where you’ve shouted out so many amazing educators and students and, and products and solutions out there that are helping change the world of education. Before I go to our last question though, I really want to make sure you get some flowers, right?
Brett Roer: You’re doing this. I know so much of this. You’re just doing out of. Your passion for transforming education and like really carrying that kids and teachers and educators like have what they need to succeed. So before we transition to giving other people flowers, can you just share a little bit more like, what’s the name of that podcast?
Brett Roer: The, what, you know, where can they, where can people find your website, your book, all of these amazing things. And then we’re going to turn it over to our final question.
Alana Winnick: So everything’s linked to my website, AlanaWinnick. com. Um, my book and my podcast are both titled The Generative Age. In my [00:47:00] podcast, I’ve been very fortunate to interview some really incredible people.
Alana Winnick: I think I’m just a really curious person and I like to learn. And that’s kind of how that developed was just. Me being on a quest for knowledge and bringing other people along for the ride with me and hearing my why’s, um, my why questions. So that was, that’s been really fun for me. And all those people are going to be listed in your next question.
Alana Winnick: So yeah, book and podcast is the generative age, both linked to my website, but it’s also generative age. com, but it’s, it’s linked to Alana Winnick. com. And then I’m on every social media platform at Alana Winnick. So it’s really easy. Just. At Alana Winnick everywhere, alanawinnick. com. Everything is just my name.
Alana Winnick: And then Organization Students for Innovation is where we empower students to advocate for change. We’re hosting a virtual summit in April, which is completely student led. Um, all the presenters are students. I’m going to be having some eight year olds all the way [00:48:00] up to college students presenting on all different things.
Alana Winnick: Some is AI, some is not. Some might just be, um, one girl, she’s in an engineering program in high school and there’s only two other girls, so she wants to talk about the importance of how to increase, of of females in STEM, but also how to increase female involvement in STEM. I have another student who went from a district with no STEM program to one with STEM and really wants to advocate for why STEM and STEAM is important in schools.
Alana Winnick: One, my students, What are presenting on why you need to use Minecraft in the classroom and all the positive things that come out of using Minecraft? So it’s AI, but then there’s a lot of other things. So that’s happening in April. It’s all student presenters. So number one, you should register. It’s studentsforinnovation.
Alana Winnick: org. It’s also on my website, too. But two, if you have any students that you Want to empower to present, please encourage them to submit a proposal. The proposals are up for another [00:49:00] like two months, maybe. So make sure that they get a proposal in because we want to amplify your students voices. So, um, I don’t know.
Alana Winnick: I do a million other things. NYSCATE, if you are in, especially New York state, please become a member of NYSCATE. It’s a free membership. If you’re not in New York, you can still join. We have. people that travel from all around the country and the world. We have people from Canada, Rebecca. Uh, so it’s not just a New York State thing and we’ve been bringing a lot of talent like Ken Shelton was there this year, Tom Murray was there.
Alana Winnick: They weren’t even the keynote speakers. They were just featured speakers. So we’ve been bringing A lot of talent in and once people come, they kind of just keep coming. So, uh, that’s been real. Carl Hooker was there this year as a featured speaker, a bunch of others, big names, uh, Monica Burns. And they were, none of these were keynotes.
Alana Winnick: So we encourage you to come and join. And that’s, I think all I have about that, but thank you for letting me plug it all.
Brett Roer: Yeah. So Alana, you kind of [00:50:00] mentioned, you know, obviously you host a podcast and you’ve had some, these amazing, amazing guests. And you kind of said, it’s like you make a wishlist and you kind of put them together.
Brett Roer: And we’ve been fortunate here at AmpED to 11 to do the same. I mean, we literally put eight names out there and all eight names are our first eight guests. And we are so excited to share them with you, including you, Alana. So we always end with our Ocean’s 11 question, right? We know the movie Ocean’s Eleven.
Brett Roer: They put together this amazing crew to pull off the impossible heist. They needed a bunch of specialists. They needed people who cared about the mission and vision. So you, Alana, you’re building this team that’s going to tackle AI’s biggest challenges to transform education. Who are some of those people that you just have to have along for the ride?
Brett Roer: Give them some flowers now.
Alana Winnick: Bring your most important stakeholders along for the ride, your students. Please include them in your conversations, in your committees. That is a hundred percent a must. Bring your innovative teachers along for the ride. So my most innovative teacher in my district is Marina Lombardo.
Alana Winnick: I bring her. You [00:51:00] pick your Marina in your district and bring them along. for the ride, include them in the conversations in my tech committee. I make sure that I have voices represented from our earliest grade or youngest grades. So like a first grade teacher, then I have like a third grade teacher, a fifth grade teacher, and I kind of stagger the, the gen ed teachers.
Alana Winnick: I pick someone from related arts. I pick one, someone from special ed and I pick someone from every possible area. Cause I think that it’s important to have. All voices heard. I have my ENL teacher. Cause that’s so incredibly important to me. We have a very large non English speaking parent population and student population.
Alana Winnick: So that’s very incredibly important. And the director of student support services. So in your circles, bring these people together when you have these conversations and not just your tech savvy people, like it can’t just be your tech savvy people. For me. My podcast guests picked, handpicked each and every one of them for a reason.
Alana Winnick: [00:52:00] So anyone that’s a guest I would bring along. I think Ken Shelton, who we mentioned before, would be that very important person to bring in to discuss bias and discrimination. Some other areas I haven’t talked about yet that I am going to be having on the podcast are going to be about, um, data privacy and security, and I’m looking for the Number one person.
Alana Winnick: I don’t know who it is yet, but whoever it is will be on the podcast. And another one I really want to touch upon is, like, I think that people don’t realize how much energy it consumes to do one prompt and all of the technology that goes behind that, so I think that’s a topic and a person I want to bring in.
Alana Winnick: Just some other people I want to give shoutouts. I, I’m a huge John Spencer fan. I respect his work so much. I, I feel like some people don’t know about him. I don’t know how because he’s, he’s work. His work is incredible. A. J. Juliani. They wrote a book together. I’ve had him on as well. Um, Holly Clark and Matt Miller.
Alana Winnick: I know [00:53:00] they have a podcast together and I’ve had both of them separately. Anyone that’s on my podcast list, I would bring any of any of them in.
Rebecca Bultsma: We’re going to link all those people and, uh, make them easy for everybody else to find and follow. So we can democratize access to all this brilliance. Is there any other shout outs you want to give or anything else you want to leave our listeners with today?
Alana Winnick: I just want to thank you guys both so much for your time. This was really fun. I liked the layout. I liked the theme. I think it’ll be really fun for your listeners to hear the different perspectives.
Rebecca Bultsma: Well, thank you. And we are, we are absolutely thrilled to have you join us today and, and looking forward to working together and sharing the good things that we’re doing and connecting.
Rebecca Bultsma: All of our networks together so we can work towards this common goal of supporting and amplifying and elevating all of the good work happening in AI and education. So thank you so much for being here, Alana.
Brett Roer: Thank you, Alana. Thank you to our listeners. I hope you enjoyed.
