Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Make It Mindful: Insights for Global Learning is a podcast for globally minded educators who want deep, long-form conversations about how teaching and learning are changing — and what to do about it.
Hosted by former classroom teacher and Banyan Global Learning founder Seth Fleischauer, the show explores how people, cultures, technologies, cognitive processes, and school systems shape what happens in classrooms around the world. Each long-form episode looks closely at the conditions that help students and educators thrive — from executive functioning and identity development to virtual learning, multilingual education, global competence, and the rise of AI.
Seth talks with teachers, researchers, psychologists, and school leaders who look closely at how students understand themselves, build relationships, and develop the capacities that underlie deep learning — skills like perspective-taking, communication, and global competence that are essential for navigating an interconnected world. These conversations surface the kinds of cross-cultural experiences and hard-to-measure abilities that shape real achievement. Together, they consider how to integrate new technologies in ways that strengthen—not replace—the human center of learning.
The result is a set of ideas, stories, and practical strategies educators can apply to help students succeed in a complex and fast-changing world.
Seth Fleischauer (00:01.376)
shoot and I have to ask you Carly DELO DELO
Karle Delo (00:04.499)
D-Low, yep.
Seth Fleischauer (00:08.846)
Hello everyone and welcome to make it mindful. The podcast exploring how students learn who they're becoming and how global experiences, human development and emerging technologies are reshaping teaching. I'm Seth Fleishauer, former classroom teacher and founder of an international learning company focusing on global learning. Each episode features deep conversations with educators, researchers, psychologists, and school leaders who are rethinking teaching and learning. Together we examine how students make sense of a rapidly changing world.
and how technology can support rather than replace the heart of human education. Today's guest is Carly Delo, an AI strategist in Michigan virtual with over 14 years of experience in public education. She has served as a science teacher, technology, integration, list, a curriculum director, and was named one of ed tech magazines, top 30 it influencers to follow in 2023, which I didn't know was the thing, but sounds awesome.
Karle Delo (01:03.527)
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (01:05.518)
Fresh off moderating a student panel and helping publish Michigan Virtual's Student Guide to AI, Carly joins us to get practical about how students actually experience AI and what real AI literacy looks like in classrooms. In this episode, we'll dig into sophisticated student use cases, how to teach the habit of noticing where AI shows up, and concrete moves for preventing cognitive bypass while building student agency. And we'll look ahead to the future.
how to communicate AI's value to hesitant families and how schools can elevate students as co-designers, peer mentors and leaders in AI literacy. Does that sound good? Carly, are you ready for this? Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. you were recommended by another Michigan virtual fellow, Aaron Boffman, who's actually been on the podcast twice, some really fantastic conversations. You came highly recommended from him. he focuses more as I understand it on.
Karle Delo (01:44.883)
So ready.
Seth Fleischauer (02:03.212)
the teacher end of things, you're focusing on student use. And so I'd love to bring in that lens here. I always love conversations about AI that actually talk about what's happening as opposed to like what could happen. And so I'm really appreciate that you have a sharp lens around that kind of work. But before we get started here, we were chatting a little bit before the recording started.
And you were telling me about how you ended up in your Michigan virtual position. And I'd love to tell that story for our audience. did you end up here?
Karle Delo (02:36.735)
First of all, thank you so much for having me. And I started out as a, my journey in education started out as a science teacher. And from there, I ended up moving into a technology coaching position. And that was actually, that happened during the pandemic. mid pandemic, everybody's shifting to this hybrid model of teaching. And I was the tech coach for our district. So when,
that happened, kind of got a crash course in, you know, how to, how to support technology initiatives and a variety of different users. We've got tech enthusiasts and then we've got tech minimalists. And your, your role is to really think about how you can help all those, all, all those people figure out how to use tech in ways that are really effective and positive for students. So then from that point, I switched to curriculum director for my district. And meanwhile, as all this is happening,
chat GPT is released. So at this time, I got onto the platform right away and tried to figure out what is this tool. I've always been obsessively curious and I love tinkering and exploring. So as I was tinkering and exploring with this tool, I just couldn't help myself but think like, wow, there's so many applications, there's so many things that we can utilize this tool for that would help teachers. And so that's where I started thinking about it. Even before I started thinking about
how this technology would be or could be utilized by students, just the implications for instructional impact seemed really, really massive. So I did something I thought I'd never do. hopped on TikTok and started making videos about how teachers could utilize these tools. some of the, sorry, we kind of froze up, so I'm gonna Lucas already. I'm gonna pull the Lucas card.
Seth Fleischauer (04:30.154)
yeah. And, and also just so you know, if your internet, goes funky, it's fine. What, this program is doing is recording directly to your hard drive and then it will just upload eventually. any like tech hiccups, I mean, you could pause if you want to, but you don't have.
Karle Delo (04:48.447)
Okay, so if it glitches out, just keep going. Okay, perfect. So I'm going to backtrack just slightly. And give me just a moment. So I was talking about how I got on TikTok and so
Seth Fleischauer (04:52.034)
Yep.
Karle Delo (05:07.871)
I got on TikTok and started creating videos for teachers about how they could utilize large language models and chat bots like chat GPT, and also some of these ad tech tools that were specifically for teachers. And through that process, I realized there was a high need for this. And I started my own business at the time where I was doing that in addition to all the work I was doing in my district.
And then the role of AI strategist came up at Michigan Virtual and I thought it was an incredible opportunity to be able to still be in that role of as an educator, but on a more broad scale, working with teachers and district leaders. And now I get some opportunities to work with students as well, and really talking to students about how can we approach this tool with intentionality and with that experimental tinkering mindset.
in order to use it in ways that are really useful for us. Because like any tool, AI can be used in helpful ways, it can be used in harmful ways, it's about what we're doing with it. And so I'm all about bringing that conversation to the forefront. So that's a little bit about where I've been and how I got to this role.
Seth Fleischauer (06:19.594)
I love it. And, as I mentioned, deep respect for Michigan virtual and the work that you guys are doing there, not just Aaron, I know Justin Bruno as well. just some really talented folks, with, their hearts in the right place and, and, just, bring in some great thoughts, some great intentionality. use that word, to, to what we're, what we're all this, this grand experiment that we are all participating in. and, and I want to dive into that word intentionality. You talk about,
Bringing that, like speaking with students about bringing intentionality to this and tinkering, which is a word that I love. I've, I was listening to the homework machine podcast, which is an awesome podcast. You're smiling as if maybe you know it. but, Justin Reich is, a friend of the podcast who's, going to come on again to talk about it, but they did an amazing job and he talks about this, like,
One of the utilities of AI is just being like, let's play with it, right? Like, like it's does weird stuff. It's it's kind of cool. Like, let's just see what happens with it. And that kind of takes some of the pressure off of like, you got to optimize the use of it in order to be prepared for the future. I think there was some conversations that were kind of around when it first came out around like, you know, we've got to teach them how to use this or else they're going to be behind. And I think that that's kind of shifted a little bit and we're thinking a more a little bit more thoughtfully around it now. But
You've been talking with students. recently had this student panel that you ran and I'm wondering like, what is the intentionality that you're looking for them to bring or that they are bringing into their interactions with AI?
Karle Delo (07:58.442)
I'll start by saying, love that podcast, the homework machine. I literally recommend it to everybody that I talk to as far as professional learning. That's got its own slide at the end of the show. So it's fantastic. and one thing, the reason why I got into the whole student discussion and why I felt like there was a big need to go there is because when I reflected on the conversations that I've had with,
Seth Fleischauer (08:02.349)
So good.
Karle Delo (08:26.521)
know, AI experts across the country at these big national conferences and even local conferences here in Michigan, some of the most intriguing, interesting and insightful conversations I've had about AI are with students. And I'll never forget it, South by Southwest EDU, I sat next to a high school student who was going into journalism.
And she said it was jarring to hear about AI being talked about in a positive light, because the only way she had heard it talked about were negative ways at her school. And she was really concerned about how is this going to impact my future in journalism? And so these conversations started happening kind of organically at first. And then I began really seeking them out and talking to more students about what their thoughts were. And when we think about that question of purpose and intentionality,
A lot of students are not being asked intriguing or interesting questions by adults in their lives when it comes to AI. So they're not being given the opportunity necessarily to even form those questions. And you have to have the questioning process and the metacognitive process is a part of intention in the first place that has to happen first. And so we've just got to start to get
their wheels turning about it in a more intentional way. So I also, I think about a scenario where I was watching an AI literacy lesson happen in front of me. And there was a student sitting next to me who was using AI to do his math homework while we're learning about the different types of AI that are out there. And so my thought was, man, I don't know if these students care right now about
about AI literacy. So we paused what we're doing and we put away all of our devices and just talked about why should you care about this? How is this going to impact you? And immediately there was a shift in the room. Students had really deep insights on that question, but the look across their faces was like, well, I haven't really thought about that. Or I haven't been asked that question. So it's really about getting them to start thinking about these questions and this topic.
Karle Delo (10:45.823)
through a critical lens in a way that encourages them to share with each other and opens the dialogue between them and teachers.
Seth Fleischauer (10:53.922)
Man, I love that. and why is always a great question. that shift that you describe is the shift between, thinking about things from the perspective, from your perspective and beginning to thinking about, about things from the perspective of the people that you're trying to reach, which is a critical mindset shift, I think for anybody trying to have some kind of influence, like you have to start from where they are. you talk about good questions.
Why should you care about this is perhaps the most foundational. Are there other good questions?
Karle Delo (11:27.847)
Yes, I love it in the student guide that we recently published, the student guide to AI. One of the big topics is encouraging students to set their own boundaries when it comes to AI use. And so one question that comes up in that conversation is oftentimes about AI and creativity or AI and art and a really
interesting debate topic is, is AI generated art really art? Or is AI generated film really, you know, is that considered art? And the conversation around that is so interesting. And I care a lot less about the answer than I do the question and the discussion itself. So we have to be asking those questions in the first place. And that
that dawned on me during a conversation with adults and students where we were having that debate and everybody had a different response. That was okay. It was just asking the question in the first place. So there's so many interesting questions that we could get into, but I want students to think about, you're gonna have boundaries that you have to work within when it comes to AI, whether that's at work one day or at school. I have, for example, at Michigan Virtual, we have AI guidance for staff.
And so I have to work within those boundaries, but then you also get to set your own boundaries and getting you can't set the boundaries without the questions coming first.
Seth Fleischauer (13:02.306)
Yeah. Yeah. And what I, what I love about that approach to circle back to the first question about intentionality is that you are, it doesn't, I like the idea. doesn't matter what the intention is. What matters is that you have the intention, right? That, that you have done the work to think about what your relationship is with this technology and that you are bringing that in, which ideally it's a reflection of your personal values.
Karle Delo (13:17.567)
Mm-hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (13:29.174)
You've done some kind of thinking, whether it's deep thinking or not, just some kind of thinking is better than no kind of thinking at all. Right. What are, what are your boundaries with AI?
Karle Delo (13:40.512)
By nature, because of my role, I use AI quite frequently. That is my job to figure out what it can do, what it's good at, what it's not good at. So I get to tinker and explore a lot. When it comes to the personal boundaries, I'll say that people are surprised oftentimes at where I do draw the line because sometimes I'm more cautious than people expect. So I'll say that I went into
the doctor's office and my doctor was like, Hey, I use AI, this AI note taking app, for my appointments to help with my, notes and all of these things. And at first I said, well, I've got some questions about that. And she was very surprised. She's like, I thought you of all people, I was excited to tell you, I thought you were going to just be all about it. And I'm like, well, I want to know, where the data's going. And is that conversation.
Seth Fleischauer (14:24.448)
you
Seth Fleischauer (14:35.107)
Yeah.
Karle Delo (14:37.151)
kept and what does that look like and is it compliant with HIPAA regulations and all of these other questions? And she had a ton of answers. She had them ready to go and I was very impressed by that. But that's one area specifically that I do draw a line. I also am pretty cautious when it comes to data about other people. And when it comes to my personal life, I'll use it. I've used it almost as like a
personal coach in some scenarios, but then there's others where I'm like, you know what, this is not something I want to go into AI. So those are some things that I've really thought about and tried to be intentional with.
Seth Fleischauer (15:16.14)
Yeah, that's a, that's a funny story, right? Cause it's like, it's AI strategist, not AI advocate. Like you're thinking about it. It's not like you're just blindly accepting all these things. And the idea of a scribe, this was actually in my previous episode, I talked to a therapist about this, right. And had those same questions of like, where's the data going? How can you protect, your privacy, balancing that with the benefits that you would have of being able to record with fidelity, what happened in a room and have access to that information.
Karle Delo (15:22.193)
Yes, yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (15:45.673)
it's interesting. but even in that story, in that example, you're kind of, you're noticing where AI is showing up in the world. And I know that your, Michigan virtuals student guide to AI starts with that idea of noticing where AI shows up. how do you think you, how can you teach that noticing habit?
in like a real class setting so that it sticks when they start mindlessly scrolling through TikTok.
Karle Delo (16:18.291)
think first it's important to build awareness about how much artificial intelligence is already embedded into a lot of the apps and a lot of the tools that we use. So I talk about that, how when you're scrolling through social media and you hover over an advertisement for a little bit longer, that is going to be remembered by an AI algorithm and that's going to be used to feed more similar content or make decisions in the future about what you see. And a lot of people don't realize that.
And I'll say that's true for both students and adults. So bringing that awareness about what is AI and where does it show up and showing some of those similar examples, your Netflix recommendations, your, on Amazon, there's an AI generated review summary that now shows up at the bottom. So just starting to point it out and figure out where it's happening. And then having a dialogue and discussion about that. And then the follow-up would be.
What are the implications of that? And that's another part of the guide talking about data. And so we could go down that rabbit hole as well. But just starting to have that conversation and then modeling it as well as an adult. If you are starting to see, there's so many education tools that use AI in the background to help personalize learning that have been around.
before chat GBT, but then there's even more that have come out since then. And so telling students, for example, we're going to interact with an AI tool today, and this is why we're using the AI tool. This is how it's going to help us. This is where you might want to push back. And this is something you might want to be aware of and look out for as we're going through this activity. So a really amazing AI tool for education is called Snorkel.
I'm not sure if you're familiar with that one, it's yet no E, yep. And students explain their thinking and they draw on this whiteboard and record their thoughts and then they're able to get AI feedback. But that would be a great point. And it doesn't matter what grade level it's at. That would be a great opportunity to say, hey, we're gonna do this activity. This is AI, let's be mindful of that or let's be aware of that. So anytime you can model it as well is helpful.
Seth Fleischauer (18:14.71)
Yeah, no E, right? Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (18:42.198)
Yeah. And still just going back to that, that, awareness piece, very similar to a lot of the work that we do around digital citizenship, you know, half the battle more than half the battle is simply like taking a beat to think about it. Right. and notice it. I, mentioned student use of AI and I, I, I want to dive into what I think is, I think is the critical issue. If you ask teachers what the critical issue is,
Karle Delo (18:55.538)
Mm-hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (19:09.89)
Well, I would ask you, what's the number one thing teachers say when the word that they associate with AI. Yeah, cheating.
Karle Delo (19:16.069)
And I know this because I ask this in professional development sessions and I create a word cloud instantly with it. And that is almost always the biggest word that comes up is cheating.
Seth Fleischauer (19:22.318)
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (19:26.272)
Yeah. And, and I think underneath that layer for me is this idea of cognitive bypass, right? So it's like, yes, there is a moral component of cheating and making sure that they are just doing what they say they're doing. There's, there's an entire life lesson in that. But for the purposes of education, there's this concern that by using the tool, they are not going to learn what they need to learn.
In order to be able in order for the teacher to be able to feel like they did their job of teaching the student. Right. And even worse, there is the possibility that the teacher might not even know because they've produced this work that looks like they, they did actually use their cognition and they didn't. I know that Aaron has talked about a certain AI tools as being ones that
prevent that sort of cognitive bypass, but I'm wondering how much this is an issue in your work. What sort of safeguards you consider when you're talking to teachers and students about it. And if the students are themselves are thinking about whether or not that that is an issue in their use of AI, whether or not it matters that they are using the tool to do something that ostensibly
they should be doing in order to prepare them for their future.
Karle Delo (20:51.871)
So for that, we're going to go back to the word intention. And I would say that right now, in many cases, not all, but in many cases, if we stick with what we're doing right now, I think that that is happening. And there's a lot of evidence, whether it's anecdotal or hard data, quantitative data showing us that students are using it in that way. And if we don't take action and we don't have conversations about it and
rethink how we're doing things, then that will continue and that's going to cause a lot of problems and issues. On the flip side of that, that is not the only way that AI can be used. AI can be used as an incredible coach, thought partner, and something that can actually quiz you on what you know and help you gain mastery towards a topic or towards a subject. What's really interesting is in my discussions with students,
some students are using it that way naturally because they realize that they are missing out on the actual learning when they use it to just bypass the process. And so one of the books back here on my bookshelf is Make It Stick, which is all about the science of learning. if we don't have enough, like struggle is a required component of learning.
And there has to be, it's called a desirable difficulty, has to be in place in order for learning to happen. And so if we remove too much of that friction, that's when it becomes a real problem. So I think that is an important conversation to have with students and, and make it, cause for some students that is very obvious and they just know that. The author of the book, Make It Stick actually talks about that, how some, some people just pick up on how to learn,
throughout their lives and they realize these habits and skills that help them learn. A lot of people don't, it's not necessarily an intuitive thing. So making the reasoning and rationale behind it, I want you to struggle with this today because you are building a skill. And then when we're thinking about how could AI come in to support, AI can actually help challenge students in that way. So one thing that came up in that panel discussion with students is,
Karle Delo (23:14.899)
I asked, how do you use AI? And almost all of them said that they quiz themselves with AI. Most adults that I, the vast majority of adults that I've talked to have never quizzed themselves with AI. And so that is a whole interesting, like what's going on there, you know? That's a whole interesting topic and discussion and students have a lot to teach us when it comes to their own use cases on it. So.
Seth Fleischauer (23:19.064)
Hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (23:26.446)
you
Karle Delo (23:41.564)
Yes, there is a desirable difficulty. is struggle required for learning to take place, but we can't assume. First of all, we shouldn't assume that no students care. Some students care. this is also, we could see it in, there was a Gallup poll about Gen Z and their feelings towards AI. And almost half of students said they were concerned that AI could harm their critical thinking. So I love sharing that with teachers as well, because it shows that the adults and
Seth Fleischauer (24:05.217)
Hmm.
Karle Delo (24:10.129)
students have similar concerns. And this is an opportunity to have a conversation about that. An analogy I like to use because people bring up the MIT study, the chat GPT causes brain rot study. And to a lot of people who use AI, that was not a surprise. It's like going to the gym and expecting to gain muscle and get fit by watching other people work out.
Seth Fleischauer (24:16.077)
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (24:23.118)
You
Karle Delo (24:37.053)
Like that's not, that's not how it works. That's not going to happen. And so an analogy I like to use with students is like, what if you had this, this super powered robot that you could bring to the gym and it just lifted the weights for you? And they know like that would not be useful or helpful. Let's flip that. Let's say what if the, the super helpful, amazing robot could be your personal trainer and could coach you through how to get fit in ways that are really personalized and specific to you. And
That's how we want to approach AI is this teammate and coach. So those are some of the things I like to talk about and bring up and then point people towards the Homework Machine podcast to hear from students and teachers on that topic as well.
Seth Fleischauer (25:10.232)
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (25:18.07)
Yeah.
Yeah. love the, the gym metaphor. I might amend that to say that it, it feels less like you're watching people lifting weights and more like you have like, motor assisted weightlifting. Right. So it, it's not like you're you, you're not using any of your cognition. You're sorry. Most of the time it's not like you're not using any of your cognition. Of course there are those cases where like the student accidentally or, know,
Karle Delo (25:36.02)
Yes.
Seth Fleischauer (25:51.449)
without thinking will paste the entire thing and like with the, the like, yes, of course I can provide you with this answer right now. but, but most of the time there are practicing some kind of cognition in the way that I use it in my work. there is, there's a ton of critical thinking going on, but I have noticed that it's harder for me to approach a blank page now. when I've, when at least in, terms of my workflow and the way that I use it and it's.
Karle Delo (25:58.559)
Mm-hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (26:19.202)
You know, generally, I think there was a lot of like promises in the beginning about how AI for teachers was going to like make everything like it was going to save you time. And I think that that might be the case, but really it's just increasing your efficiency, right? Like it's not like you're saving that time and then going home and spending it in the gym or with your kids. mean, maybe some people are, but teachers tend to be the types of people who are going to feel like they need to put a certain amount of time into their work in order to feel like they've.
done their job for the day. and so, you know, you could have one student in 24 hours and in a day and, and, and still run out of, or not run out of things that you could possibly do for that student. Right. So, it's, it's been, it's been a great like efficiency, increaser. but, I guess I wonder about some of these use cases that you're talking about for kids. Like I just illustrated some of mine, and that, metaphor of the trainer.
And using it to quiz you, um, what are some of the, like the specific things that you're hearing from students, these like sophisticated use cases where you're like, wow, that's, that's a great idea. And that's definitely in that, you know, trainer realm and not in the motor assisted weightlifting realm.
Karle Delo (27:36.456)
So when I think about in many cases, when I've talked to students, it is, they are oftentimes using it on their own. So there's plenty of cases out there where teachers are creating these learning experiences for students as well. And what I hear is that it's great to get real time feedback from AI. And that's one of those teacher assisted in class type of activities that can be really powerful.
I'll share one use case of a teacher, ninth grade language arts teacher who had students write a research paper. It is for the World Food Prize competition at Michigan State University. And they were able to use AI to get some feedback that was, it had a rubric uploaded to it. there are a variety of different tools that can do something like this.
School AI and Magic School both have this capability where you could, as the teacher set up a chat bot, set up a chat room. And then students would go in there and there's guardrails on it. There's already information uploaded to the chat bot. So it was a tool similar to that. Students got feedback from AI and then conferenced with the teacher about the AI feedback. And that was a great human in the loop type of moment.
And then they were able to make their revisions. And the teacher said that about double the students who normally actually submit their work to the competition actually submitted. So it's an assignment either way, and then they have the option of submitting it. And so what that showed me is that students were really gaining a lot of confidence by using this tool and by being able to be drivers of their own learning.
And so that's one case that's assisted by teachers. But I also talked to students who are kind of just exploring and experimenting on their own. And this past year at ISTE, which is a big national ed tech conference, I decided I was going to only focus on student sessions and I was going to try to see how are students using it. And there was one student who created an entire debate coach tool.
Karle Delo (29:52.576)
for other students with AI and she had to, she vibe coded this. She doesn't know much about coding. So if people are unfamiliar with vibe coding, look it up and give yourself a few hours to go down that rabbit hole. But basically it's when you are, you don't necessarily know how to do the coding yourself, but you're giving instructions to the AI and then AI is coding for you. And she talked about how when teachers,
Seth Fleischauer (29:54.286)
Hmm.
Karle Delo (30:21.297)
or she hears adults say that AI is killing creativity or not encouraging writing or critical thinking, she'll say, do you know how many hours I spent doing a lot of writing and a lot of iterating and going back and forth? She's like, this is the new form of creative writing. She did a ton of input in order to get this incredible debate tool that she ended up with. And that to me,
is going beyond just using it as this type of coach that could assist you, but using it as an amplifier and really empowering students to be able to go above and beyond with the tool. So I thought that was a really inspiring example. And I walked away going, I got to up my vibe coding skills because I was just blown away by what she created.
Seth Fleischauer (30:58.189)
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (31:16.912)
that's awesome. vibe quoting. love that. That's a great term. love, desirable difficulty. that a little bit ago. think about that as like kind of the, the foundation of good parenting, right? Is like when to, when to, identify what is a desirable difficulty. and obviously a lot of parallels with that in, education as well.
I loved it. You talk about the human in the loop, right? we talk about like keeping the human relationship to the center, like even in the face of these emerging technologies. and I think that that is a, a very, logical and should be like a standard solution here for teaching is like these, these things should not be happening without that human in the loop. and, and to like keep that, teacher relationships center to the learning experience.
because there's so much more that can happen when you use that tool to amplify the relationship and when the relationship is there to amplify the tool yeah?
Karle Delo (32:19.783)
Yeah, I'd love to build on that a little bit and talk about how why I think it's so important to have some of these conversations and empower first of all empower educators to use it themselves so that they can have these conversations with students. And I consistently hear that is one student. Once teachers get in there and actually use it, they realize, this isn't scary. I just need to know what it's good at what it's not good at yet, and this is going to help me come.
approach this tool with more purpose. And when we think about students using it for feedback, one thing that surprises students when I talk to them about this is that sometimes AI can give bad feedback, and that oftentimes AI writing is quite mediocre. And you can see that right now in a variety of different ways with what I call AI slop. It's all over the internet. It's in writing, it's in video. It's just AI generated.
junk that doesn't have a lot of value or content to it. And a lot of students have a surprised look when I say that AI can take really good writing and make it worse if you're not careful. And so, yeah, and I tried this out. Take, find a passage from a book or an author that you really love, put it into Gemini and say, hey, give some feedback on this, improve this writing and it'll try. And if it's a really good author, it'll make it worse.
Seth Fleischauer (33:29.582)
You
Seth Fleischauer (33:36.802)
Yeah.
Karle Delo (33:45.21)
And I know this firsthand because I record most of my talks that I give with an AI powered note taking device. And then I take it back to chat GPT and I'll say, I want you to act as my public speaking coach. What are some strengths and areas of growth? And it has helped me improve as a public speaker, undoubtedly. It can count the number of words per minute I'm speaking.
the filler words that I'm using and help me really work through some of the clunky sections or transitions. So I know it has helped me, but it almost always tells me to remove some of the best parts of my talk. And I have to really filter through all of that. And I get feedback from multiple sources. I have exit tickets. I have conversations with people. I am doing this professionally. So I have that expertise and I can read the room.
Seth Fleischauer (34:23.0)
Huh.
Karle Delo (34:38.963)
So I'm making my own professional judgment at the end of the day. And I don't think enough people are having conversations about the importance of that so that when students are approaching this tool, especially with creative writing, we don't want students to sound like a bunch of bots. We want them to have their unique special voice and know that sometimes AI is gonna push back on that because, and I've put so much thought into this, like, why does this happen? And it's because AI is,
that the role of AI and how it works by nature is it's trying to spot patterns and then replicate those patterns. And when something is truly good, it stands out because it breaks the pattern.
Seth Fleischauer (35:21.72)
Hmm.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ha.
Karle Delo (35:25.873)
And so, yeah, this is a big conversation that we have to have with students because it also, when you break the pattern, you stand out and that's kind of terrifying, even though it's something we admire in people we look up to. And so we have to really encourage students to push back and find their own unique voice. And I think we're going to see that trend continue as, as we see more AI slop flood the internet, we're going to, we're going to start to notice, wow, this is
Seth Fleischauer (35:38.552)
Yeah.
Karle Delo (35:54.694)
obviously human generated content. And I really like that and it stands out to me. And so I want to create students who know how to use it as a coach, but also know where their voice and where their unique perspective can fit in to help them stand out.
Seth Fleischauer (36:11.894)
Yeah, it's interesting because so much of the conversation I think has been around deep fakes and being able to identify whether or not video is real. But you're right, there is this almost like uncanny valley phenomenon going on with writing as well, where you're just like, there's something just a little off about this where, especially for people who have used it a lot, they recognize, like we recognize the pattern of like what it does, you know, that, that whole like
three beat like dramatic breakdown that it does. Like, yeah, and also it's like, it's, it kind of talks like a politician, sometimes where it's just like, it's, it sounds really good without saying anything at all. And that's something that like, it's good to hear that that's part of the conversation and in your conversations with students, of course, they don't want us
Karle Delo (36:54.867)
Yes.
Seth Fleischauer (37:05.442)
they don't want to stand out in the way because you break the pattern. You can stand out in a good way. You can also stand out in a bad way, right? But that standing out in a bad way is also a learning experience because then your teacher knows what you actually have to work on. And that's one of the biggest dangers of this, of student usage is that the, of the students that really do need the help are, are slipping through the cracks because we can't tell that they actually need that help. I want to address,
Karle Delo (37:11.551)
Mm-hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (37:33.679)
quickly because we are approaching the limit of most teachers attention spans as they listen to this podcast, but you talked about data and I'm wondering when you're in privacy, when you're talking to students, like what are sort of the plain English go to like these are the things that you need to understand about data privacy. What's safe to type? What's never okay? What's sometimes okay? Like what do you tell them?
Karle Delo (37:38.42)
Mm-hmm.
Karle Delo (38:03.231)
So I'll clarify what personally identifiable information is first. And so this is any information that can be used to identify you specifically. So the obvious ones are your complete name, social security number, address, all of that. But the real important part is the question of why would tech companies want your data? And they have really interesting, they know.
Seth Fleischauer (38:26.392)
Hmm.
Karle Delo (38:31.943)
what the answer is. Like they can get, they can get there. And a really cool website is called they see your photos.com just spelled out. And it shows what you can do is upload a photo of yourself. And it demonstrates using Google visions API technology, what it, what an AI system can tell from just one photo, but then even more importantly, what it can infer about you, including things like your income.
your religion, your political affiliations and what targeted ads should be used. It even tries to predict your self-esteem level. And so it's really mind blowing. And once you show that they start to realize, you know, this is important for me to be aware of. And it goes back to that noticing where it shows up. And that's another area where beyond the most important things, your personally identifiable information.
What else are you giving away as you share all this information? And then another important component is if you're using like a free version of chat GPT, that is not a secure and safe tool. So I know they just came out with chat GPT for teachers. Gemini education workspace has more privacy protections in place. And so it's important that we point out to students that some of these tools are collecting that data and then using it. And some of them are not.
So those are all important conversations to have too. And realizing that chat GPT has been talking about integrating ads and purchasing right within the app for a long time now. that is, that's just an inevitability that is going to happen. So we just want to look out for those things.
Seth Fleischauer (40:01.443)
Hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (40:05.934)
Hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (40:16.172)
Ooh, yeah. It'd a different GPT with, with ads mixed in. last question. What are you curious about? What are, what are the questions you're trying to answer right now?
Karle Delo (40:20.564)
Mm-hmm.
Karle Delo (40:28.713)
I'm trying to figure out the balance between there's so much power in using these tools when it comes to supporting students. But there's also a lot of risk and there's things like mental health implications, which I did listen to that podcast you had previously. And so I think it's important to listen to that. And then also what about the over-reliance and how do we navigate all of that?
What I've been doing to try to figure out the answers is talking to students and believing and listening to what they say. And in many cases, they have additional information that I had not previously considered. So when it comes to creativity, when I hear a student say, you're worried about AI killing my creativity, the formulaic essay is killing my creativity.
And so that is not helping me right now. And so if you could show me how to use this AI tool to really amplify my creativity, let's do that. And that really, that shifted my perspective. So in these conversations that I'm having, I'm really trying to listen, stay informed, and then use that information to guide what I'm doing moving forward. Because a lot of people, going back to politicians,
A lot of people, when it comes to AI, they're politicking. They're figuring out their opinion and they're putting their stake in the ground. And what we really need to do is be listening and take that scientific approach of what is the information telling us and where should we go from here instead of just being so concerned about being right or wrong. And I'll tell you that having a, I consider myself a cautious optimist. have a balanced approach when it comes to AI and I try to take in all that information and that does not go viral.
on LinkedIn or TikTok or Instagram or any of those platforms because it's not a divisive take. It's not this big hot take. But I don't care because it's the right thing to do. And so that's what I encourage people to do is really look at all the information, keep asking those questions and make informed decisions.
Seth Fleischauer (42:24.653)
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (42:30.498)
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (42:41.998)
Well, another thing that does not go viral is deep long form conversations that then uncover like, you know, what's really going on places, but I certainly enjoyed this one. where, if, if you do want to be found, where can our listeners find your work on the internet?
Karle Delo (42:45.471)
True.
Karle Delo (42:58.473)
So I am at Coach Carly on all platforms and that's coach like C-O-A-C-H and then Carly K-A-R-L-E. So you could find me on almost every social media platform at that username. And then we also have michiganvirtual.org slash AI. And if you're interested in the student component, just add a slash students dash students to that and you'll find all of the resources there, including the student guide. And we have AI literacy lessons as well.
that are one to two minute YouTube videos made by high school aged, starring high school age actors for students to learn more about this topic.
Seth Fleischauer (43:38.776)
Fantastic. Yeah. The really, really great resources that you guys have created, curated, provided, over there at Michigan virtual. Thank you so much for that. Thank you for being here for our listeners. If you would like to support the podcast, please do tell a friend to leave us a rating, a review, follow us. I, this episode was written and produced by me, Seth Fleishauer. And, thank you as always to my editor, Lucas Salazar, and for all you listeners out there.
Remember that if we to bring positive change to education, we must first make it mindful. See you next time.