Ben Sondgeroth: So if we can teach and learn a good, like, proper prompting skills, how do we get the most out of this tool? How do we keep asking it questions? How do we start with something very broad and then dive deeper into that response, like going past the first answer that you get?
Narrator: This is the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. The Transform Your Teaching Podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.
Ryan: Hello, and welcome to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. Today's episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles continue our series on AI literacy by chatting with Ben Sondgeroth, the lead regional educational technology coordinator at Learning Technology Center of Illinois. Thanks for joining us.
Jared: Well, Rob, we are continuing our series on AI literacy, and we're talking with, professionals in the field, in the workforce, just trying to get an idea of what to expect, where our graduates should expect as they, enter the the workforce. But we also have been talking with some, ed tech professionals, and one of them is Ben Sondgeroth, and he's one of the people responsible for getting me into educational technology. I originally met Ben at a conference in Boston. He led a session. It was actually right after the Cubs won the World Series.
We became good friends. The only thing against him is he's a Cubs fan, which is unfortunate. As a Reds fan, I didn't realize that their cubs are ahead of us in the division right now, but, you know, that's that's fine. But, you know, everyone has their flaws. Right?
But I'm going to Ben, I'm gonna let you take over and tell us who you are because I'm sure there's stuff I've left out.
Ben Sondgeroth: Well, thanks, Jared. Yeah. 2016, Jared. Because, yeah, the Cubs had just won the World Series. I remember that distinctly presenting very tired the next morning because of being on East Coast time and trying to watch the end of a World Series game that goes into a rain delay and extra innings, makes for a very late night.
And then also celebrating the greatest sporting achievement of my fandom in a hotel room by myself, was was definitely something. But, but yeah. So we're in Illinois, for an organization, called the Learning Technology Center of Illinois, and we're actually a, Illinois State Board of Education, organization, that provides services and supports for all the schools and districts across, the state of Illinois. So our primary focus is k 12. However, we've actually been working with higher ed quite a bit, in the last couple of years due to, artificial intelligence.
So it's been really interesting to kind of get, you know, my, you know, experience in in all facets of education from the higher ed world and and their concerns and also uses of artificial intelligence and how it's integrated into how we, you know, training our students in at the lowest levels of what AI is and how it works. But I don't just do AI. I also do all things tech. So that's, you know, STEM integration. That's consulting on networks.
That's, you know, bringing in devices, like, all the things, creativity, you name it. We we kind of support schools. My official title is regional ed tech coordinator, RETC, for short. And I have the whole Northwest corner of the state. So I have roughly a 140 school districts that I support, you know, 20 some counties, I think, kind of in the Northwest corner of the state.
So, yeah, fun job. Get to do a lot of different things. And then as we were discussing before, we we got, you know, hit record. Do stuff on the side too. So get to travel the country a little bit still and and present and and work with school districts and and organizations too outside of of schools.
I've done some consulting work for some some major companies too on on AI, and presentations on AI for some some big time companies. So, yeah, it's fun. I was a high school history teacher before I started this whole ed tech journey. So started in the classroom, and here we are fifteen years later. We're we're teaching teachers and not kids.
Inherently more difficult than than students. That's for sure.
Jared: So back in your session in 2016, you were talking about creating YouTube videos, to add to the public space of knowledge and using an app like YouTube to, record and create, so not necessarily keeping stuff inside the classroom walls, but going external. Ten years ago, we didn't even think this was going to happen with generative AI. But just think of the ramp up and tell me how you have seen in your ed tech experience, just how training has changed with the growth in and how quickly because we've talked about this a lot, the the huge ramp up and how quickly, generative AI is changing and starting to have a bigger and bigger footprint. So can you talk a bit about just how much your training itself has changed and how it's grown in the last ten years?
Ben Sondgeroth: It's just a wild space to work in. Be and I I'm I'm thankful because of, you know, my my mindset is always, on all things is, like, what's the next thing? Like, I I always, like, think of, like, what's next? I don't ever get stagnant, never have, which is ironic, I guess, because I I'm as a history teacher, which is, there's literally nothing more stagnant than history. It never changes, but I guess, you know, we build on it.
But, like, you know, when you're looking at the past. And I think what's interesting is the baseline has grown. So, like, the floor has been raised with, like, technical knowledge of people. Like, as like, especially with, like, newer teachers, Like, these kids that are now graduating and have jobs are the first generation that has come out of, like, the one to one generation. So, like, they know essentially some of the foundations of, like, hey.
Yeah. Like, open a Google Doc. Like, we can do that. Like, open Google Drive. We can do that.
It's interesting because some of the times when I have to still repeat those things, it's to veteran teachers that I need to, like, remind them how to get to some of those things. But, like, the the the shift is now, like, we don't have to spend as much time kind of on those foundational skills. Like, it's, like, already there. Right? So now we can we we build on these processes and this kind of floor that's there and and go.
So it's, not new concepts as far as, like, creating and things like that. Be like, oh, yeah. We can do that. Now what's interesting is, like, the speed with which it can be done. And that's the challenge that both mentally people have to get over and also, like, understand that, like, the thing that used to take you days to complete and do can sometimes be done in seconds.
And so the mental block of, like, I can't do that because it's gonna take too much time to now, like, no. You can do that because it's gonna take thirty seconds with generative AI is is an interesting one to kind of, like, try to relay to people that the thing that they've been maybe thinking about wanting to do with their students that they're like, I can never do that. I just don't have the time. It's like, no. You can do that now.
Like, let's try that. Like, let's push through that. You know? Like, let's let's break that barrier of, like, you can do that because, like, you know, you might have this idea of this cool project that you wanna do with your students. Be like, man, I don't have time to make a rubric, the instructions, let alone, like, introduce the concepts.
It's like, you know, all that, like, baseline stuff. Like, you can have AI. Generative AI can make the rubric you. Generative AI can help formulate your instructions for you. Generative AI can create all of these, like, ancillary things that then now allow you to do the cool project with your students.
And I think that's the interesting kind of push forward that I'm able to do now with with teachers of of like, hey, let's let's do that really cool thing and have AI help you with those foundational materials that just took forever to do. So if we wanted to do a video project, you're like, that's great. I've never graded one of those before. Like, woah. Like, now we can have AI help you make a really good rubric that'll allow you to grade those, right, in a little bit more intensive manner versus like, oh, yeah.
Good job. 10 out of 10. You know? So I think that's an interesting shift of, like, we don't necessarily maybe have to focus on the technical, like, how to point and click things as much. It's more the mental shift of, like, generative AI can help you accomplish those tasks.
It can create those things for you, which is kinda cool, you know, to kind of hopefully get teachers to to go past that that point, you know, of of resistance, if you will, to, like, doing new things with their kids that can change learning.
Rob: So I'm just curious. Have you created any frameworks for your faculty or or are faculty creating any kind of frameworks for students, on acceptable use?
Ben Sondgeroth: So one of the things that I don't know if it's necessarily a a framework per se, but one of the things that I encourage every person out there that's that's teaching students is the transparency. Like, I I think we can really distill it down. Like, the framework, I guess, would be the traffic light where, like, it's very upfront right away with the students of this is a no AI activity, and this is an activity that you can use AI in. Or this is when you can use AI, and this is when you shouldn't use AI. But it's very upfront and and and communicated.
Right? So, like, one of the things that we have teachers have done successfully is, like, write like, a lot of my schools are Google schools. So they have Google Classroom, which is, like, their Canvas, their Schoology, their their large language their learning management system. Right? The teachers are putting in the title, you know, whatever essay, red light.
And, like, it's just communicated. Right? Like, right away. Like, no. You're not supposed to use it.
But then taking guided notes, green light. Like, you know, like so that way kids know and the students know because I think for me, I go like, I'm gonna use my history background here. We look at, like, a a topic like prohibition. When we banned alcohol sales throughout the country as a government, what happened? People still drank.
It gave rise to the mafia. It gave rise to the mob. It gave rise to speakeasies. The government lost out on money. They couldn't tax because and then people were sneaking around, doing things illegally, you know, distilling bad, you know, dangerous alcohol, and they were not following the rules because they were but they were still doing it.
And I think that's what happens when you don't have a sort of framework where you're just communicating when appropriate AI use is to students is they're just gonna sneak around and try to do it anyways. And they're gonna do it incorrectly. Right? And they're gonna learn they're not gonna learn a responsible way. They're not gonna learn the right situations to use it in.
And so that's, I think, my kind of framework, if you will, is like, just just be upfront. Like, red light, but encourage the green light because then it teaches them the right way to use it, in my opinion. You know? Like, that's that's, I think, a really good you know, pretty easy. Like, red light, green light.
You know, yellow light. Like, you can use it to help for, like, part of it, right, but not all of it. Mhmm. You know, that's that's, I think, one of the things that I I encourage, you know, staff to do when they're working with it. Then because if a kid knows they can use it, then they're gonna use it.
And if they know, like, no, you can't use it, oh, okay. Like, I'm not gonna sneak around and use it. And then hopefully, they see the light. They're like, oh, I see how it helped me do this. And I think to put one bow one final bow on that, for you, Rob, is, like, I think one of the things that I see, especially with with high school students, and probably this is definitely in the college and the university level too, is the students don't know the appropriate way to use AI because they've never been taught it.
Like, they don't they don't know what the right way is because to them, they're like, well, why can't I just copy that question, paste it into the chat? It gave me the answer.
Rob: Mhmm.
Ben Sondgeroth: What more do you want me to do? It's like --it's like a Google search. Like, I did my research. I typed it into Google, and I clicked on the first link. But there's so many other things we can research.
Like, there's so many better sources out there. Like, that source paid to be at the top of the Google search. Like, it's not the best one. So we have to teach kids how to research.
Rob: Mhmm.
Ben Sondgeroth: Now we need to teach them how to AI. And I think that's the the challenge, because a lot of teachers are like, well, I don't know how to AI it correctly. You know? I don't know how to use AI the right way. And that's the mindset shift.
So but I think this starts with just being transparent.
Jared: What are some of those conversations you're having with educators right now?
Ben Sondgeroth: So I think the big thing that that I'm seeing is there's there's a a mixed bag.
There's the the educators that are, like, grabbing and just running with this thing. And they're like, this is awesome. And then we still have educators that are like they're trying to hold the shirt tails of those people and pull them backwards, or they're just like, nope. Here's a hole.
I'm gonna jump in it. The people in the hole are lessening. Like, there's I would say there's a big like, over the last three years, there's been a big shift of, like, a lot of acceptance of, like, understanding that, like, this is a movement that is that is not is unavoidable. You know? And that we need to kinda figure this out.
And maybe I don't wanna use it all the time, but I need to realize that this is a part of our future. And so that's a conversation of, like, what's the appropriate use? And and that's, I think, the big thing right now that that we're having is appropriate use for faculty and appropriate use for students. And, also, when do we introduce this technology? And I know you have a higher ed primary audience here, but, like, a big conversation at the k -12 level is at what grade level do kids get access to this stuff?
You know, I have a nine year old. I'm I'm teaching him prompting because I think that's a skill that will, like, continue to be important. And so I want my nine year old to be really good at it. I want them to understand how to prompt and get the most out of these tools. But also, like so it's that it's that acceptable use.
Right? Like, when do we use it? When do we not use it? When do we understand it's appropriate to use? When is it not appropriate to use?
That's the big conversation that we're having right now, is is that appropriate use case. And then the teachers themselves are asking a lot of questions on, like, student ownership of work. Like, at what point did the kids use AI too much where it's not their own original concepts? How do we determine that? You know?
How do we know when a student used AI and when it was them? Because it's getting better, you know, at sounding more and more like people and like a person individually. So it's really fascinating. And I don't pretend to have all the answers because I can have an answer for you that was correct today, and tomorrow, it's not the correct answer. And so it's a neat space to be in because it's a very conversational space of, you know, we're gonna have this conversation.
We're gonna build the plane together while we're flying.
Rob: Yep. I think one of the things that's still out there for faculty, whether they be k - 12 or higher ed, it's this continual refrain that I hear. I don't know if you hear it as well is, okay, these are great ways into helping navigate, but I think there's still this backstop of how do you authenticate. So, yes, you signal that this is when you should use it. This is when you should not use it.
But who's doing the authentication of that use or nonuse? How are we making sure that students are kept accountable to to those guidelines? What kind of tools are you all using? Are you how are you training faculty and, you know, and how how to, number one, use those tools like you were talking about per assignment, red light, green light, how are they verifying if those things are being followed?
Ben Sondgeroth: So it's interesting. And the name escapes me. I might have to look it up, and then I can maybe follow-up because I know it's in an email, and I don't wanna sit here and clatter on my keyboard. But I know two of my local colleges that I've worked with have a program. They're paying for it.
It's expensive. It's not Turnitin, but it's like a it's something similar to that. But the they're actually pilot- both are piloting it with their ELA departments where students are actually composing the they're they're not using Word or Google Docs to compose their essays and their written work. They're doing it inside of this AI tool, and then the teachers are able to turn on and off different AI features for the students based on the assignment. Right?
And then it has a revision history component of it where the teachers can see, like, when did that kid maybe could do a large copy and paste in.
Rob: Is it Clarity?
Ben Sondgeroth: It could be Clarity.
Jared: Yeah. I mean That's that's a that's actually a Turnitin product.
Rob: Yeah. It is a Turnitin product.
Ben Sondgeroth: Yeah, so it's owned by Turnitin. Sure. So it's it's a little different, than, like, the AI detectors where, like, those those are very they're just not very good. And, like, they they also I I struggle with them because it'll give you a percentage.
It's like, oh, Jared turned in his work. It's 82%. We're 82% certain it's AI degenerated. Like, 82% of what? Like, what does that what does that mean?
What does 82% mean? Is it 80 did he only write 18% of those words? Did he make 18? Like, I put in the declaration of independence into GPT zero, and it came back at, like, 74% certain AI wrote it. I'm like, I'm pretty sure Thomas Jefferson didn't use ChatGPT in the 1700's to do this.
Jared: That we know of.
Ben Sondgeroth: Yeah. Maybe. I mean, he was pretty smart. Like, they coulda had stuff that we we don't even know. But it's it's interesting.
Right? It's like so there's a few things. Like, there's a tool out there that I personally, like, really love. It's Chrome extension. It does work now on Microsoft products as well.
It's a tool called Brisk Teaching, b -r -i -s -k, Brisk Teaching. And what it does is it opens up, is a little black dot in the bottom corner of your web browser. And when you click on it, when you're inside of a Google Doc and it would work, I think, on Office 3 6 5 as well. Like, you open it up. It has an element or it has a tool called inspect, inspect writing.
And all you do is you click the button and it brings up a window and it gives you a play keystroke by keystroke, like basically a five x speed video of that student's writing process. And you see every delete. You see every paste. And then if he has a large copy and paste chunked into it, it, boom, pops it in in a bright yellow. And, you know, some people are like, well, what about the kid who just, like, has two browser windows open?
And they type it all in just with what's I'm like, well, then you're gonna see that they never deleted anything. And, like, that essay that should have taken them two hours to write, they wrote in ten minutes, we should have some conversations about that. Right? Like so that's a tool I trend towards more because it it shows the writing process, which can be good for learning, you know, of like, oh, I'm watching this kid sit here and struggle on this paragraph. Like, they deleted it seven times.
Maybe I should have a conversation about that with them as opposed to, like, being AI Sherlock Holmes. You know? And so there's there's a lot of that. That's one of the so I would say, like, Brisk is and it's free. They have paid versions of it, but it's it's got a free version that's very capable.
And so that's that's a tool that I personally like because I don't want my teachers to have to be the AI detectives. Like, your job isn't to do that. Your job's to teach, to encourage kids to be learners. Right? So if we can give them a tool that helps in that process, like the Clarity or Brisk, like, that's a really helpful thing in, like, let's let's remove that barrier, but also keep our kids, like, engaged and make sure authentic.
And then the last thing for that, Rob, I personally like, if you think like, if I think Jared turned something in that's AI generated, like, it's gonna be in the assignment, in my syllabus of, like, you're you might be prompted to come up to my my desk or my office hours, and I'm gonna ask you five questions about the topic. Like, that's that's just policy. Like, I'm not gonna accuse you of using AI, but, like, I'm just gonna ask you. Like, and if you can answer all five questions about your paper Yeah. Okay.
You know the topic. You know? So so I think those are kind of the ways that we're trying to encourage teachers and less off of the confrontation piece and, like, the direct accusation. Because the the thing that I'm seeing and I'm hearing from kids too is there is a mistrust on both ends, and it's causing friction where the faculty thinks everything every kid turns in is AI generated. Mhmm.
And the students are freaked out to turn anything in because they're gonna be accused that it was AI generated.
Narrator: Yep.
Ben Sondgeroth: And and that's just not a cool world. Like, that's not the point of education. Right? Like, we don't wanna have that that battle forces, you know, of mistrust. Like, that's not that's not fun for anybody.
So so, yeah, that's that's, I think, where I where I land on that.
Rob: Have you seen that actually play out? Have you done it yourself where, you actually did call someone up to your to your office hours or whatever, and and how did that play out? Because I know I've got a lot of listeners who have probably thought of the same thing. Matter of fact, I know I've told some of our faculty, you know, this is what you need to do. I've done it myself, and I had some very concrete information that actually told me that they use ChatGPT.
So some hidden HTML tags that they didn't know were there. Sure. But they still, you know, said, no. I didn't use ChatGPT. How did it go for you?
Ben Sondgeroth: So I'm speaking from experience and talking to other teachers Yeah. You know, about this, and it's been interesting. So the the conversations the couple of conversations I've had where this has gone down is I think it works best in a, like, a known like, they know it's gonna happen without it's it's not an interrogation. Right? Like, I think that's the point of, like, I just wanna ask you a few questions about this.
You don't want kids on their back foot like a boxer, you know, like, trying to play defense. Like, let's just have this conversation because then, yeah, they get real defensive and and all that. And so I think the thing that when the teachers that I've talked to have had success with it is, like, after a couple of questions, the kids are like, they kinda give up if it's you know, they're like, yeah. You got me. You know?
Like, I got it. But then I had I had one who you know, she's like, we went about it very genuinely, And, like, the kid answered every question correctly and, like, knew the content. And I was like, man, can you just be honest with me? Like, it just still doesn't feel like you're writing. And they're like, yeah.
I had AI help me write it, most of it. But then the teacher was kind of, like, taken aback. I'm like, but they knew all of it.
Rob: So that's a problem.
Ben Sondgeroth: So that's like so it's like, did they accomplish, like, the goal of learning?
Rob: Yeah.
Ben Sondgeroth: You know? And it's like so then it became I think her her kind of, like, play out of that was like, okay. Like, you learn the content. Writing maybe just isn't for you. You know?
So, like, maybe we're gonna alter an assignment next time or, like, you have to give a presentation or, you know, do it in some different form, you know, like, something like that. Right? Like, that's that's where I come down on it too. It's interesting because I think we're at a really spot in with technology use that kinda goes back, Jared, to the first part of our conversation of, like, different mediums or mediums of, like, demonstrating knowledge of maybe the kid that we've been giving C's to on papers because they're really bad because they just aren't a good writer, but they know all the stuff. And they could stand up in front of a room and do a slideshow and present the heck out of that topic.
But then you ask them to sit at a computer and, like, they're just not good at writing. But they know the content. So, like, what's the ultimate goal? What's our learning objective? And it it's maybe the the the AI is a means to an end where they can sit there and dictate to Chat GPT and just sit there and talk at their computer, and then it formulates a really good, you know, essay.
And it sounds AI and it looks AI, but it's really them. I don't know.
Rob: It's a quandary.
Ben Sondgeroth: You know, it is. It's it is. It's it's very strange. Like, I'm not gonna sit here and say, like, that's the right way to do it because every kid should still learn how to, like, compose something well written, but it also offers an opportunity for students to demonstrate their learning differently.
Jared: Alright. So one more question, from me. I know we just talked about how quickly this is changing, but I want you to look into the Ben Sondgeroth crystal ball. What does what does AI literacy what does training educators what does it look like? And just let's do one year down the road.
What are you what are you seeing?
Rob: That's way too far.
Ben Sondgeroth: Just way too far?
Rob: That's way too What's it gonna look like in six months?
Ben Sondgeroth: One year down the road, we're gonna be like Wall E. The like, people in Wall E is floating around on spaceships fat and, you know, sucked into screens. I hope not. So so here's where I think. I think the main component of AI literacy right now that we need to encourage both all adults and and students, you know, because this is this is a two- way street.
It's not just it's not just students we need to worry about, is is proper prompting. I think that's the biggest thing that we can all focus on right now. Like, how do we learn how to get the most out of these tools? How do we learn not to use them like a Google search? Because I think that's the basic level of of AI right now that people are doing the most is I have a question.
I type it in. I accept the answer that it gives me. And and that is not being that's the very that is the most basic way that we can use this. Like, we're you're just burning through AI data usage at that rate. So if we can teach and learn a good, like, proper prompting skills, how do we get the most out of this tool?
How do we keep asking it questions? How do we start with something very broad and then dive deeper into that response, like going past the first answer that you get. Because that then, like, allows people to understand, like, more about the topic that they're inquiring about. But then also it teaches them how AI works. And then they become more AI literate.
Because the more you engage with the technology, the more you start to understand, like, its little intricacies and its quirks. And and, Rob, actually, to go back to, like, a question that you had just a little bit ago, like, how do we detect AI use? We use AI, and we see the patterns that it writes in, and then we're better able to be like, that's not like, I can read something now and be like Yeah. They used AI for that. Like and if it's like an article or a blog post, like, I I see the trends.
Like, you know? And so that's how do we get beyond that, you know, of, like, engaging with it differently, like, using its memory, using its ability to draw back on things? If we can get to a point where people understand that the more information I give it and then the more specific the question I ask, like, the better the response gets, the better I'm able to use it. I think that's the component that I'm, like, really encouraging people to, like, do over the next six months to a year.
Jared: Ben Sondgeroth, I miss you, my friend. Thanks so much for coming on. You've been a resource to me all these years, and you're being a resource to educators in Illinois. And I think across the nation, everyone should attend a Ben Sondgeroth session at some point in their lives because it is a fountain of knowledge for sure. So thanks, man.
Ben Sondgeroth: I appreciate it. Yeah. You're welcome. Thanks for having me.
Ryan: Thanks for listening to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. If you have any questions or comments about our conversation with Ben Sondgeroth, feel free to email us at ctlpodcast@cedarville.edu. You can also connect with us or message us on LinkedIn. And finally, don't forget to check out our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog Slash Thanks for listening.