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The Make It Mindful podcast, hosted by Seth Fleischauer, explores education through the lens of mindfulness, focusing on practical, transformative solutions for teaching and learning. Each episode features conversations with educational changemakers, authors, psychologists, and leaders as Seth uncovers what they do, why it works, and how listeners can incorporate those insights into their own educational practices. By applying a mindfulness lens, the podcast encourages listeners to look objectively at what’s really going on in education, using that perspective to create positive, lasting change.
Seth Fleischauer (00:00.846)
Hello everyone and welcome to Make It Mindful, the podcast where we explore how to keep schools relevant by looking through the lens of mindfulness and asking the question, what's really worth paying attention to here? My name is Seth Fleishauer. My cohost Lauren Pinto is on a break and to get, my name is Seth Fleishauer. My cohost Lauren Pinto is on a break and together we delve into the world of education by interviewing change makers and focusing on practical transformative solutions for teaching.
Chris Giles (00:30.928)
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (00:31.114)
And this week on the podcast, our guest is Chris Giles. Chris, thank you so much for being here.
Chris Giles (00:38.384)
Yeah, actually it's Chris Giles, but that's okay.
Seth Fleischauer (00:41.678)
Hold on, let me do that again. I always ask that and I forgot to ask this time. Look, we're keeping our editor busy from the beginning. And this week on the episode.
Chris Giles (00:49.136)
We are, we're doing great.
Seth Fleischauer (00:56.942)
And this week on the podcast, our guest is Chris Giles. Chris, thank you so much for being here.
Chris Giles (01:02.576)
Hey, thank you so much. I appreciate it. I'm actually super excited about being here.
Seth Fleischauer (01:06.958)
Excellent, I'm excited to have you here. Could you please introduce yourself for our audience?
Chris Giles (01:11.632)
Yeah, my name is Chris Giles. I have a long story, but make it short, I am from Canada, but eventually moved to Phoenix and then eventually moved to Brazil and then eventually moved back to Phoenix and now I live in Oregon. So it's quite a long story, but all of that was through the lens of being an educator and a teacher. My current role is what's considered an instructional technology coach, where my job is to work with teachers to bring technology.
into the classroom to enhance or enrich what's happening. Currently, or in my previous role, I was the district's Canvas admin for the district. And every single tool that our secondary teachers and students utilized in the classroom, I was responsible for making sure those things worked. But now I'm a instructional technology coach. We call them, they're called a LIT, L -I -T -T -T.
And so I've just kind of changed that to become more of like it's called a learning instructional technology teacher. So again, same role. The goal is to make learning meaningful, enrich the opportunities that students have and to work alongside the teachers. Our teachers do amazing things. And I had the opportunity to come alongside and just enrich that and bring opportunities that they made themselves not be able to create.
Seth Fleischauer (02:33.486)
Excellent. First of all, thank you for doing the work that you do. You know, there are so many people that we interview were in the public school system at one point and are no longer in the public school system. So thank you for your service and thank you for still being there. You are on the front lines. You're talking to teachers all the time about how they're using technology. One of the things that we talk about here is looking at things through the lens of mindfulness, kind of noticing what we can see when we take a step back and we.
take an objective lens towards what is in front of us. And I'm wondering what sort of patterns you've recognized, what sort of observations you can tell us about how teachers are using technology in the classroom right now and what sort of problems they're looking to solve.
Chris Giles (03:19.76)
I kind of like two lenses. One is my lens, my comfort level with being someone who uses technology. And then the lens of a teacher who may not necessarily use technology all the time doesn't mean they don't want to use it. It just means that it may not be the forefront of their thinking process when they're utilizing lessons. And so I say that because...
My goal is to not push the technology in the classroom, but my goal is to partner with the teachers. Like, hey, what are you working on? What's the outcome? What is it your goal that your students are doing? And then is there any ways that the technology can come alongside and enrich the activity, potentially make the job of the teacher's life a little bit easier, like freeing up some time for the teachers? Can the students create products and show what they know?
through multiple means. So if our audience is familiar with UDL, the universal design for learning theory, one of the principles is basically multiple means of learning. Like how can students show what they know? And I really think technology really allows students to show what they know in multiple means. Hey, I can record a video, I can record an audio, I can do digital work, digital art, digital design. And so that's really my goal to do that. And so I feel like our teachers,
hungry for that and they like to do that. But there is a balance between watching students actively wrestle with learning with a paper pencil, right? The balance between using paper pencil and analog learning and then when does technology come in to still support that but doesn't take away from that. And that's, I feel like we're, I feel like since the pandemic is kind of behind us, I feel like we're working towards finding a balance. The pandemic, we were all technology all in, right?
And then teachers came back from the pandemic and they're like, I'm done with technology. But I feel like folks are coming back to this balanced approach. Like, how can I just simply make technology an ally of learning in the classroom and not a burden, but also not something that I'm like, yeah, I'll just stick that in, if that makes sense.
Seth Fleischauer (05:28.846)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are there examples from your perspective of technology that very clearly supports the otherwise good teaching that's happening in the classroom versus technology that in order to engage with it at all, you're kind of fundamentally changing what's going on and therefore it's kind of the, you know, the dog, the tail wagging the dog.
Which technologies do you think are the ones that more support the organic quality that's already there?
Chris Giles (06:03.056)
Well, for me to get to that point, I always kind of, and this is just my, the process on how I do things. If I'm working with a teacher or I'm solving a problem, my process is usually the same. I usually ask them two or three questions. What is it that you want students to do? How do you want them to engage in that thing? And how do you want them to turn it into you or submit it to you? And those questions really kind of help me understand, okay, this teacher's just looking for a paper or pencil because that's the expectation and they're happy with that.
Or this teacher is looking for a way to enrich the traditional, let's say, five paragraph essay or the traditional multiple choice of tests or assessment or just a traditional way. And they're looking for a way to enrich it. And so being able to answer those questions, what are they doing? What's your outcome? How do you want them to engage with that thing? And how do you want them to turn it into you really helps me look at what we have available. And I mean, I just can't see it over here on this board over here. I have a list of all the.
tools that our school district has either purchased or we've approved for teachers to use. So Canva, Adobe Express, Adobe Firefly, which is an AI tool, Canvas, obviously, because that's what we use in our district, WeVideo. So there's lots of tools. And so then it's like, OK, we've got this tool belt of tools. Now that I know what you want to do, and now that I know how your students are engaging in that thing and how they're submitting it to you,
Now let's go look at the tool that really fits. And so for example, one of the recent projects we worked on with the teacher was Book Creator. That teacher wanted those students to basically create.
They take the learning they're taking, they're doing, but rather than just write an essay, rather than just sort of turn it in with a paper pencil, that teacher wanted the students to engage by using a book creator. And so what they did, and this was awesome, in PE, they created these safety books. And so they chose their audience, what the age level was, what the safety book topic was, and then they used book creator to create these really killer electronic books for that appropriate age. And what's great about a book creator, for example, is...
Chris Giles (08:12.816)
You can find lots of images, lots of graphics to support you. It connects with Canva. So if you're like, I can't find that one thing, can I come to the rescue? And so they, I mean, you wouldn't necessarily think in a PE class they would do that, but they were, kids were totally into it. And these books are really, really super cute. These are middle schoolers creating books for elementary, pre -K, elementary age groups. So kind of fun. So, but again, what was it they were working on? What do you want your students to do? And how do you want them to engage?
and then how do you want them to turn it into you? And so those things. And so then you look at your tools and go, this one sounds like it's going to be the one that's going to work for you.
Seth Fleischauer (08:52.398)
Chris, I'm gonna say just a moment. I'm getting some like feedback when your mic touches your shirt, I think is what's happening, or you're like kind of touching it with your hands or whatever. I'm not sure if you can kind of like, sometimes I see people like sort of like hold it like right there or something like that, but I think that that might help the recording. Yeah, or even like even holding it there with your hand like that like would probably help a little bit.
Chris Giles (09:00.464)
Yeah.
Chris Giles (09:09.456)
Hmm. That looks dumb.
Or I could tape it.
Seth Fleischauer (09:21.71)
I would say that touching your cloth, touching the cloth is not good. That's great. That's perfect. Cool. Yeah.
Chris Giles (09:25.744)
What if I just do it? Hold it. I'll hold it. Just because I use my hands a lot.
Seth Fleischauer (09:32.942)
So Chris, what I'm hearing here is that first of all, you're approaching it in precisely the right way where you're letting the learning drive the use of technology. You personally have a deep knowledge of the tools that are available and so it's almost like you are somewhat of a translator, right? It's like you've got all of these tools, you know what they do.
The teacher has the knowledge of what they want to accomplish and you're there to be the bridge to bring the tools to the specific teacher by learning about them and being curious about what is actually going on and what their goals are. All of these tools that you're talking about, these are for the most part, like you put an input in and you get an output and that's a predictable kind of sequence, right? Like it's a tool where like, you know, a hammer, if you hit the...
The nail on the head, like the nail goes down. we have a new tool, AI generative AI, which is, the reason that you and I connected in the first place, that doesn't quite do that. it is surprising sometimes with the type of output that it gives you. And I'm wondering first, where are your teachers right now with the use of generative AI?
Chris Giles (10:50.16)
I think, if I give it just the school that I'm located, that I'm, that I'm working with, I feel like, probably about 10 % of the teachers are, are comfortable using it in some capacity. our drama theater teacher who I love that he's always a risk taker. And so the risk take that he took was he wanted his, he wanted his students to generate an AI. He wanted Canva and the AI product in Canva.
to generate a short play and then those students were actually going to act that out and present it. So originally when Canva started releasing AI, some of the functionality was available for students and most was available for teachers. So for example, the magic right necessary wasn't available for students, but now it is. But so he would have his students come up, he would have his students come up and say, you know, what is it that you're thinking about? What's the plot? What's the characters? What are they doing?
And then he throw it into Canva and it would just spit out this, you know, two or three minute play and say, all right, here you go. This is what you're going to go do. super exciting. He was really, really amped about it. So we have, you know, we have a few teachers like that. I feel like, I mean, as far as the district concern, I mean, our whole district, which, you know, we have like 3000 teachers, maybe it is 10 % that the teachers are using it. I have started using it quite a bit. I would say.
January of last year. So really started using it and started using it with my own personal life and then using it in some of the aspects of education that I'm doing with We just finished putting on an AI summit and some of those teachers came Hoping to just learn a few things like how do I? How do I create a five -minute warm -up every day? So I don't have to sit and think through my own process Like this is my topic, but I'm tired to come on with my own can AI generate?
some more interesting ones. And that's what they came to learn. And a few of our teachers now are specifically using ChatGBT and I think the other teachers using Magic School to create a prompt about their topic and give their students a five minute warmup.
Chris Giles (13:00.048)
just as powerful as if the student, if the teacher sat there for hours and created their own. I mean, I, I'm a big proponent of, I used to say to teachers a lot, why guess when you can Google? Well, now I'm kind of like, why sit and labor through the process when you can use AI to help quickly facilitate that. And then take a few minutes to kind of like go through that process, clean it up and go, yep, this is exactly what I'm looking for. This fits my.
Seth Fleischauer (13:11.278)
Thank you.
Chris Giles (13:26.032)
outcomes and my learning and now I'm going to make it available for my students. And so now that teachers save themselves an average of an hour a day, but they're, they're still producing opportunities for students to learn. and so there's really a really productive way of doing the AI. So I feel like 10 % is probably using it, but I feel like that's going to continue to grow, especially when teachers start to feel like I'm saving myself some time as a teacher. And because I'm saving self some time, I'm using that time now to build.
relationships or to use that time in other capacities instead of just either a grading or B planning, which is labor some.
Seth Fleischauer (14:03.502)
I love the idea of saving an hour a day. And you gave us an example of a lesson opener that I think is a constant need in education, right? We've got these, we have this meat of this lesson plan, but we're like, okay, how are we going to make this engaging from the get -go? How am I going to grab the students from the beginning? And I do think that that is a use of AI that really plays to its strengths, right? Like it is a technology that can...
be feel somewhat creative. It can be a thought partner. And when you have a good idea of what you're already doing, finding, you know, generating 10 ideas that could be the opener for it and you pick one of them that makes the most sense. That's something that a teacher could definitely use to save some time. I'm wondering if you have other examples of those types of things. Cause you're talking about an hour a day, obviously like I don't, I don't think teachers are spending an hour a day.
coming up with lesson openings. I hope not. So like, so like, what are some of the other things that are, that are enhancing efficiency? Because I think that time saving is one of the, is one of the ways that we're going to get those remaining 90 % to be more curious about what AI can do. Right. There, there are plenty of teachers who I don't think are necessarily all that interested in getting a lot better at teaching, or at least they're not necessarily interested in having AI help them do that.
Chris Giles (15:02.416)
No, no, totally, no, totally.
Seth Fleischauer (15:28.334)
But there are lots and lots of teachers, I would venture to say all of them, who would take an extra hour a day if they could get it. So do you have more examples of what they can do to save that time?
Chris Giles (15:40.88)
I feel like, you know, as a, as a classroom teacher, I spent a lot of time planning, and a lot of time grading. those are the two biggest component, like the bookends of teaching. I mean, there's more. so using a, that kind of helped. So we have some teachers who are using magic school, and in chat, GBT and diff it to basically create for them some lessons. So it is taking like, Hey, here's my topic. Here's my standards. Here's my overall approach. Can you help me create four or five lessons for this week? So that's one way of doing it.
the other way of doing it is I think one of the most tedious things about being a classroom teacher is giving feedback, and creating rubrics. So there's nothing wrong with. Grading and giving feedback. What's tedious about it is it just takes a long time to create a rubric. Like if my, if my students are working on a project, I might know what I want them to complete to score a four or three or two or one on the standard, but they need the language to understand, well, what is there looking for? And so.
going to AI and say, hey, can you create for me a rubric that has these four criteria or five criteria and break it down so that it has a four, three, two, or one? We consider four as highly proficient, a three is proficient, and so on. But make it kind of task specific. Like if there's three or four things that you're looking for specifically in this project, break those down. And the big thing is, to me, the win on this is if a student's not seen the rubric until it's time to turn in the project,
It's too late. The students should have already seen the rubric and should have an idea of what it is that they're working towards. I don't want to say product, but it could be a project, whatever it is. And so creating this rubric, a task specific, like here's the three or four criteria I'm looking for. Here's what a four looks like. Gives the students an opportunity to say, okay, this is what I'm aiming towards. This is the language that I should be looking for when I'm creating my project. The teacher is still going to go ahead and assess it. Still going to look at the assignment that the students are submitting and still get feedback.
But in my opinion, especially from my own experience, the more a student has an opportunity to compare what their work should look like compared to what the rubric says, the less grading and the less feedback I should have to give because they're already doing that self -reflection already. Now, I'm still going to do the assessment. I'm still going to give the feedback. But that component of the students being part of that grading and that assessing is, I think, much easier when you use AI to kind of basically build out those rubrics for you.
Chris Giles (18:09.104)
Make those rubrics available in Canvas or whatever your LMS is. And now students are completing the work. Maybe even have them do a reflection. Hey, based on the work that I'm turning in, here's the rubric. Here's where I think I should score myself. And now the teacher, yes, should save some time. But I think the biggest thing that they're going to save, and I shouldn't say save, the biggest thing they're going to gain is that students have been part of that process of assessing themselves and being part of their own reflective experience in that process.
And that to me is really where the growth is. So the next time we do a project or we're working on an assignment, here's a rubric again. And now my students are used to seeing a rubric. They're used to seeing maybe potentially scoring themselves against a rubric and processing and then hopefully improving. And in the end, as a teacher, your goal is you want your students to improve. And so if they're sitting and waiting potentially weeks for you to finally give back that feedback, cause you might have 180th grade.
The feedback may not be as powerful as it was when they actually looked at the rubric, assessed themselves, and then submitted that work into you. And quite honestly, some of that feedback and that growth has already taken place by the time they give it to you. If that makes sense, does that make sense?
Seth Fleischauer (19:18.67)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what I'm hearing from you is that, like, there are times when time is an obstacle to practicing good teaching. And if there is a tool that can help you increase your efficiency at those tasks for which time is an obstacle, then that tool can allow you to do better teaching is kind of what I'm hearing in that example. And I think that those those two examples that you gave are pretty compelling examples for how AI can help.
Chris Giles (19:40.08)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (19:47.982)
teachers save time and how and you talked about you know the various things that they could do with that time right because that might be time that they would spend at home and maybe now instead of that they're doing yoga maybe they're just watching Netflix but maybe they needed to watch Netflix maybe it was time that they were going to be doing that you know in between class periods and instead they can spend some time getting to know their students in a different kind of way.
I think that there's a whole lot of possibilities of what they can do with their time that would increase both the teacher and the student experience, enhance the teacher and student experience. And sometimes it's just time that makes them feel a little bit less stressed about their job and therefore maybe more likely to stay. And that's a bit of a long journey from like use AI to teacher retention. But I hope that, you know, well, we need all the help we can get when it comes to retaining teachers.
Chris Giles (20:42.608)
Well, I will say that time is important. It's totally true. But I think, well, sorry I didn't mean to cut you off, but I think the value in the example Gabe was.
Seth Fleischauer (20:43.118)
And I'm, yeah.
Chris Giles (20:55.376)
I should spend less time, labor some time giving the feedback and grading because it's just me as a teacher doing it. But I'm using AI to create these rubrics to create the criteria for how I'm going to assess them anyways. And they're involved in that process. Then in a way I'm actually doing two things at once, saving a little bit of time, but also helping my students increase their own ability to assess themselves and hopefully make gains on their learning themselves. And so in the end, it is going to be a larger benefit. I think.
The other tool you would ask like, you know, how are you using it? What are tools? I'm not a big fan of students just watching a YouTube video for the sake of watching it. Even though the video quote is part of the learning, just watching your videos to me is not necessarily very learning, very engaging. So I'm a big proponent of, all right, we're going to watch this video. It's a short video on gravity. and here's the three or four questions I want you to think through while you're watching the video. Well, for a teacher to watch.
countless videos, four or five minute videos, and have to try to create questions for themselves that they do want their students to engage in. This is where AI comes in. Like for example, Google Gemini, you can take a YouTube video, put it into Google Gemini and say, hey, can you craft for me four or five multiple choice questions and give me the timestamp of where those questions are. Now I know that typically multiple choice questions are low level, but you can also say, hey, can you throw in a couple blooms taxonomy questions?
from this video and again kind of give me a timestamp. So the point of this is now, yes, I am still saving time as a teacher. We're using videos. My students are engaging the video, but they're not just watching. They're actually having opportunity to engage either answering the questions or I might use those questions as part of my discussion. So now instead of me having to sit as a teacher and watch a five minute video on gravity and go, gosh, what kinds of questions am I going to come up with? I'm going to use AI. It's going to generate these questions in 30 seconds. And now I have multiple choice questions that I can use.
some open -ended questions I can use. Again, I could sit for a while and create my own, but AI could do it in 30 seconds. And this is where I'm saving time. But again, I'm actually saving time, and I'm actually using the ability to use AI to actually have my students engage in the learning instead of just passively watching or passively viewing, if that makes sense.
Seth Fleischauer (23:00.75)
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (23:13.614)
Yeah, and I think Bloom's taxonomy is a great example of a philosophy of framework that AI has an understanding of and AI is really good at like taking, you know, some existing framework and you having some kind of input and saying like, Hey, can you apply this framework to this input? Now we can do that ourselves, but we can, but it takes some time. And oftentimes that time is an obstacle to it actually getting done.
Chris Giles (23:23.376)
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (23:39.438)
And so I think that this is an example where it's not just more efficient, but it's also deepening your expertise. It's making you a more effective teacher because it's easier for you to just use the tool to do something that you know is a good call, but sometimes you don't have the time or patience or ability or stress level to do it. And so with all these benefits, it seems pretty clear that teachers can...
consider using this technology to both make their jobs easier and make them better at their jobs. But yet you said that only 10 % of teachers are using it. And this has been, you know, in the zeitgeist for the last like year and a half. You said January of last year you started using it. Why are those 90 % of teachers not using it?
Chris Giles (24:29.104)
That's a great question. And I will be honest and tell you, I'm not a hundred percent sure. I certainly don't want to speak for large amounts of teachers who are not using it. Well, I feel like, you know, I guess I think about like this AI in K -12 Summit that we put on a few weeks ago. And in that space, we had people who had never used AI at all. And I feel like one of the...
Seth Fleischauer (24:38.574)
Sure, sure, but what are you seeing? What are you hearing?
Chris Giles (24:56.624)
One of the reasons why I got from those teachers, why they weren't using AI was just unknown. I don't know where to start. And so it wasn't necessarily I am anti AI or I'm against it. I just, I'm just not sure where to start. And then once I start, how do I apply it? And so I think one of the conversations that I know took place with some teachers was just start using it for your own personal life. Like just ask AI to come give you some questions.
or ask AI to kind of give you an itinerary for your summer trip to Venice this summer if that's what you're going. really? I can do that? Yeah. So I feel like part of it is this comfort level, to be quite honest. And I think some of it also is there's a stigma, and it's a valid one, that the use of AI in the class is really going to just do one thing and that's going to help our students become better cheaters. And I really think that's also kind of a...
potential reason why some teachers are choosing not to do it. One, I'm not really sure where to start. And two, I'm not sure how to prevent my students from cheating or I don't know how to make that barrier take place. And I think that's valid.
But I feel like as a teacher, once I start using it in my own personal life, I get a little more comfortable with how it works. Then I kind of started thinking about the low hanging fruit as a classroom teacher. Like I know I need a warmup every day. I know that I have an exit ticket every day on something. So let's try it there. And then as far as like looking at the approach as to what, you know, the concern for cheating, I mean, it's valid.
And I know that we have a specific product here that I love using, but it doesn't have a guarantee to catch students in cheating. And so I feel like one of the other challenges is if I can't just catch students cheating, how do I make learning better? And I think it's a burden on teachers to say, all right, I need to really actually rethink potentially how I'm assessing students. I need to rethink about maybe my assignments and my lessons that I'm giving to them. And that takes a lot. And that's kind of scary.
Seth Fleischauer (27:06.221)
Yeah.
Chris Giles (27:06.8)
I was meeting with teachers a few weeks ago with my, a really good friend, Rebecca Larson. She's our English language arts TOSA. And one of the conversations that took place in that space was how do we prevent high school students from cheating? And, you know, it was a huge conversation. And in the end, I think the takeaway was when you are giving your students an assignment, are you assessing them on their ability to tell you what they know and just kind of regurgitate?
Or are you assessing them on something at a higher level? And so you have to really think about how it is that you're going to start assessing kids. This five paragraph essay is being the only way to assess students' knowledge isn't really going to be useful. I don't think, I mean, I could have AI generated an essay right now in 30 seconds on something and then write it as a fifth grade student. So I think there's concerns, there's valid concerns, there's a little bit of the unknown, and then there's the big elephant in the room.
How do I deal with cheating? And...
Seth Fleischauer (28:07.374)
Mm -hmm.
Chris Giles (28:10.48)
And so I think some of that plays into that 90 % or even 80 % that are just not using it yet.
Seth Fleischauer (28:17.454)
Yeah, yeah. And what I'm hearing is, you know, there's a certain amount of just ignorance of what the first steps are. But then there's a whole lot of fear, right? This is a new technology. New technologies can often breed fear because it's something that students can use to cheat. There's kind of this negative association with it from the beginning. Am I cheating as a teacher if I'm using it? Right. Like there's and there's kind of that identity piece, too, of like, you know, am I as good of a teacher if I'm relying on this tool to, you know, help me with?
Chris Giles (28:37.872)
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (28:47.182)
this and that. And so I think that the the the sorry let me stop for a second. Where am I going?
Chris Giles (29:03.825)
The most probably the why. Why aren't more using it?
Seth Fleischauer (29:05.054)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you. And so I think what you're getting at is that there are some, there are some emotional implications of this that go beyond what typical technology adoption is like. And I think that that is, that comes from the fact that this is like uniquely human -like technology, right? Like the best practices for engaging with it are to essentially treat it like a person.
Treat it like you would a human conversation. Have a conversation with it and ask it to improve and ask follow -up questions and don't be satisfied with your first answer and lead with curiosity but with a healthy dope of skepticism the same way you would like any given person that you were asking for advice. Get to know the technology, get to know what it's good at and what it's not good at so that you, you know, the same way that you would go to that teacher for advice about.
Chris Giles (29:46.512)
Mm -hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (29:59.438)
classroom management, but this other teacher for advice about lesson planning, you know, you might go to different AI tools for different things. And, and I think that that, that idea that this is a human like technology is just kind of freaky and weird for people. And so even, even though the utility is obviously there, I understand the trepidation on a lot of teachers, but I, I know that you are a person that as,
you know, in your role of a, as a tech coach, you obviously, you, your job is to introduce, at least, at least, make it so that the decisions that people are making around this technology are not based on fear and ignorance, but actual information. And I think that that probably is part of why you were motivated to, run a conference. You, you threw together an entire conference with speakers. I was one of them, and, attendees from all across your district,
What motivated you to do this particular conference on this topic and what did you learn from doing it?
Chris Giles (31:04.464)
I will say, and I feel like the question you had asked earlier, like potentially why are 80 or 90 % of teachers not using it? That is actually one of the motivating factors for me wanting to put on this AI and K -12 summit. Originally, this was going to be slated for January or for February, we had a snowstorm. But it was kind of birth, I think, in my heart and in everything I do in October. Like I just...
I've been using it for so long and I really enjoy doing it and I learned and I like learning more about it, especially from people who are just really good at using it. And so I learned something new that my goal was to basically how, you know, it's like, okay, I could, I could do some professional development, which I've been doing. I, in, October I put on some professional development and then in November I did, cause we have, here in our district, we have one dedicated day.
Not each month, but every six weeks we have a dedicated day where teachers can go to training in the morning that's their school based and in the afternoon is choice. And so I put on some, I think I put on a total of four or five AI specific topic webinars live. You know, people can come in the window or into the webinar space. And I did this, I did one on using turn it in. How do you use turn it in to not only potentially prevent cheating, which is not possible.
but to at least use it as a way to get your teachers, your students to really use their learning and use the tool, turn it in to kind of help, I wouldn't say prevent cheating, but at least help your students become better writers. And then I put one on using Canva and then how do you text to image? So I did this, but I only had 20 or 30, 40 people show up in total. Okay, well, what can I do that's bigger than that? And so the thought was, well, we used to have a future write team.
And we used to do full day summits that were amazing. and so I was like, let's just put it on a full, a half a day summit. So I'll use the day that's dedicated for professional development for teachers. So there's really nothing holding them back from attending other than just choice. and I'm really fortunate that I work with some amazing people who are in my role, but that are, are other schools. And so when I presented this idea, there's 14 of us, I said,
Chris Giles (33:20.56)
who of you guys would be really interested in helping me put this on? And two people were like, yeah, I got some time. I have some time to do it. And so we had four or five people who are at the summit physically who were able to help me put it together. I'm really, I'm very fortunate to be surrounded by very detailed oriented people because I'm not always the most detailed oriented. And so they're like, let's make a list. And so they were really such a blessing to do that. And then I...
I get joys when I get to hang out with people. And so I'm using my connections that I've made over the years. we had a keynote, Sean Newfer, who he did a zoom keynote from Florida. He's originally from Oregon. He did an amazing job and I invited you Seth and there was AJ and I've invited some other people. We ended up having 14 sessions that people could choose from between two different breakout times. One session had three high school students from sunset, which when they, yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (34:13.038)
Yeah, that was during my time I was pissed. I wanted to go.
Chris Giles (34:15.888)
I know, I know. Well, that's why I said, because when they originally asked me, they said, Hey, can we do, can we present at this summit, Chris? And my thought was this is either going to go really bad. They're going to offend a lot of people, or it's going to be amazing. Let's just do it anyways. And so I was really excited. and so they actually came after they presented their session at the same time as you did, they came to me and said, can we do it again? And I said, well, I have an extra room. And so they did it. They did a session session.
Seth Fleischauer (34:30.862)
Hehehe
Chris Giles (34:44.432)
But all of our sessions had, had lots of people in them. People were excited and to back to that question, why aren't more than, you know, why are more than 10 or 20 % of teachers using it? So back to that question, the sole goal of this summit was to invite teachers to feel that they could come to a space where they could connect with people who are like them, who may not be using AI or just started, who could be in a space where it was a very low bar, very low.
stress level. You don't know anything about AI? Come on in. This is an opportunity for you to learn a few things. And the goal really in the end was we want you to feel like you've made a connection and that you've walked out of this little summit knowing more than you did when you come in. And we just want you to feel good about what you're learning. And we had almost 100 physical teachers show up. I mean, I say physical. My goal was for 100 to show up in person.
We had a few people from outside the district. We even had somebody from our local ESD, which was awesome. and the feedback I've gotten from teachers was thank you for putting this on because in the end, I mean, to be quite honest, Seth, I wasn't going to wait around for our district to do it. I was going to do it. I want it to be, I want it to be part of doing something that was different and new. and so with the team.
Of lits that we have who all helped out. They were all awesome. we put it on and I will have to say, it feels good to know that we put on one of the first physical in -person AI summits for teachers in Oregon, or at least in Northern Oregon. and then our hope is we can do a full day in the fall, and invite more speakers, especially outside speakers. because it's kind of fun to have people who are outside the district, right? Who are different and new and stuff. So yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (36:34.958)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I thought it was a fantastic event. You know what I'm hearing for listeners who might want to put on their own thing. You know, you identified a time when teachers were going to be available anyway. You got permission from your district to like use that time to provide your own professional development session. You got some other people in your similar position that you could kind of spread around the workload a bit. Maybe some people with some complimentary skills to you. You.
went into your Rolodex and just recruited as many people as you could that had a perspective that they could share on this technology. And then it just happened. And I think that like, it's pretty inspiring to think that you can sit there one day and say, there should be a, and then you go and make that thing. And that you, and that it was fairly straightforward once you had the vision of what you wanted to do.
So that's really inspiring. It's why I wanted to have you here on the podcast to tell that story. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective on AI, especially from the front lines as you have. I'm wondering where can our listeners find you on the internet if you do indeed want them to find you?
Chris Giles (37:48.88)
I'm obviously on Twitter slash X. So, I mean, it's, it's Canada tweet. So I'm Canadian. So that's why it's Canada tweet. that's probably where I, where I'm on as far as the social network. And obviously people can get ahold of me if they need to get my email or whatever.
I feel like, you know, we're a district of 42 ,000. So we're not a small district and we, we've got a lot of staff. And so, you know, we only had a hundred teachers show up out of 3000, but those hundred teachers have gone back to their buildings and had a chance to share with their own teammates and colleagues, which I think is fantastic. And so I feel like if somebody is like, Hey, I would love to put one on at my school or my district. I have to just, I say, just do it.
I really don't know why somebody wouldn't be honest, especially if you have a day off or you have the ability, like you leverage what exists, right? Which is, you know, I work in a building so I can use this building. I didn't have to go out and rent space. And so we have an actual dedicated day to doing professional development. I think the biggest challenge that I had, I think was advertising it. you know, we don't have the most marketable experience here.
We used to, but we don't as much as anymore. And so I was able to leverage my connections with people. I was able to leverage, a newsletter that went out, but not a whole lot of people read it. So a lot of this was word of mouth. I went to a few specific meetings where there was like instructional coaches at this meeting. And I went to this meeting where I knew a lot of the folks already because of my role, but.
speaking to them out front and then they all went back to their school and shared it was really kind of how we got it out. So it was kind of like an organic opportunity for people to learn more about it. So, I mean, yeah, so I think, and we had like 10 people from outside the district from other districts who came. So maybe they're going to go ahead and put on their own AI summit at their own school and I think it'd be awesome.
Seth Fleischauer (39:42.83)
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (39:55.63)
Yeah, and I think especially with this topic right now where there aren't really any experts, there's just a bunch of experimenters and the people who are leading the field are just a few steps ahead of everybody else, that it makes a ton of sense to do something like this homegrown like this. So I hope that our listeners are inspired. I know I am. And again, I thank you for your time and for coming on the podcast.
Chris Giles (40:01.52)
Mm -hmm.
Chris Giles (40:18.992)
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me. I love it.
Seth Fleischauer (40:21.646)
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