Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Hello, and welcome to the Digital Kindness Podcast. I am your host, Andrew Marcinik, and I am so glad you're here. Today we welcome Dr. Adam Fayal to the podcast. Dr. Pfeil is currently the director of professional learning and leadership for Future ready schools.
And Dr. Pfeil has also been a technology leader, director, and a facilitator for many years. He is a keynote and national speaker on educational technology leadership and a great friend of mine. And it's, you know, I just started this pod and it's rare. You get like a big name, a big get, like right out of the gate when you're, you know, I've had two doctors on this show before, and I'm like, now I got doctor file coming in here, and it's like, look at his. Look at this guy's resume. And so thank you for being here today, Adam. It's nice to have you here.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Thanks for that warm greeting. I got to bring you around with me when I. When I speak now because that introduction is the best one I've gotten all year. So thank you.
You put me right up there.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, and you know the part I didn't even mention, like, that was just the first part. And then you are also the co host. I was on your podcast a few months, about a year with Carl Hooker. So the Undisrupted podcast just launched its ninth season. This is season nine. Yeah, man.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: We're getting close to our 100th episode, so. Yeah. Awesome.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Wow. When I grow up, I want to be you for sure. Or at least I want to grow up and have your shoe collection. Because the other thing that I mentioned is that you are also a father you had just destroyed and beat up cancer, which is awesome. We're all happy for you, brother. And. And like I said, you are a sneaker collector like myself. At least I used to be. I have young kids now, so there's been an embargo on my sneaker budget. And. But you still, you, all the boys still send me all the good links about all the sneakers out there.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: So I'm looking forward to. I think it's a release tomorrow that I'm. I'm contemplating. I'm contemplating that. That release. But, you know, you gotta have your. Your hobbies. You gotta have those things to keep you centered outside of all these other things that are going on. So, you know, the shoe collecting and, you know, when I look at it this way, it's a cheap hobby to have because as you get older, these hobbies get more and more expensive.
My wife, somehow another, she's gotten into purses. It took her 40 some odd years, but now she's into purses and they're the expensive kind. So y think I may have to make my only hands account.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I think our wives will probably have to talk because I also have a collection of handbags in my, in my house that some have fancy like dust cover bags and everything. And I look at them and I'm like, that's silly. But then I look at some of my shoes that I've put in individual boxes and have dust, dust rag on them and you know, and clean them up. And I'm like, okay, it's the same thing. It's the same thing. What are we kidding here?
All right, well, I'm sure we could talk sneakers all day, but I want to get down to business and chat with you. And again, thank you for your time today. This is really great to have you here. And I want to talk a little bit about your work in Future Ready Schools. You do a lot of trainings. You just were out at asu, GSV doing some Future Ready Schools training out there. You've done it at fetc, at iste.
So in your work with Future Ready Schools, you work with a lot of aspiring school leaders, current school leaders, what you present in those sessions, how does that relate back to the framework of digital kindness of thinking about, pausing and reflecting about technology implementations in our schools? Post Covid and post, a lot of the data that's come out from the Surgeon General in May 2023 that said screen time and excessive screen time is leading to a lot of mental health issues with our students. So how did that work kind of connect with what you're doing with Future Ready Schools?
[00:04:17] Speaker A: Yeah, good question there. Well, one of the things to kind of center everything is with Future Ready, we have our Future Ready framework.
We have these gears that go around our framework, whether you're talking about the budget and resources, curriculum, instruction and assessment.
But one of the things I want to point out, like outside the gear structure, we have our collaborative leadership. So all this work is done with everybody being a part of this leadership structure. It's not just the administrators, it's not just the teachers. You're talking about having parents and students involved in this whole collaborative leadership structure. And then the dead center of our structure is student center. So all the work that we do, we can have the best, we can have the robust infrastructure, we can have all the budget and resources, the community partnership. All those things can be There. But if the students aren't the focus of the work, the. Then we're missing the boat with all this stuff. So to the point of making sure that we're doing what's right for students, and not just students in high affluent districts, but in all places in your districts that have a lower economic status in your rural district, in your suburban, urban. We wanna make sure all students have those best resources and that the teachers and the administrators know the best practices. That's really what's important. Because I think sometimes when things are done, they're not done with malice. It's. They just don't know they haven't had the right conversations to put the right structures in place to ensure that we have equitable access and we're doing the right structures for our students. So when you start talking about, like, digital kindness, ensuring that we're going to screen time, you know, it's funny because we're talking about, like, computers right now, but, you know, we're in the same age group bracket.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: We had the same conversation with us as kids, as tv, you know, are we watching too much tv? You know, it's going to drain your brain, you know, we turned out okay, I guess. So we're doing good. Yeah. So we got podcasts.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: We have these conversations and it's kind of. We keep having the same conversations. And yes. Is there. Are we changing what we're learning? Yes, because technology has made the things we need to memorize change, but we also need to have the conversation about, you know, what's happening on screen time. And the thing that I think a lot of folks miss is not just the kids, it's the adults, because we actually had to learn this on the fly. And when you start talking about who is doing a lot of the mean stuff on the Internet, on computers, on technology, it's the adults. They're learning from us. It reminds me of that old drug commercial where the dad comes in, is like, where did you get this? And he's like, you, dad, I learned it by watching you. Well, you can't get mad at the kids when they are looking at what their parents are posting on blogs and on these news feeds and how they're screaming at each other on the tv. That's what they're seeing and that's what they're mimicking. So we have to make sure that we're setting the good example as the adults, as the leaders in these spaces.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Yeah. No, and that's great, man. You really took back to that scary commercial that one and seeing the kids, some of those commercials were just generated to scare you and give you nightmares. I mean, I swear, since I've seen those commercials, I've had nightmares. I'm like, that was that commercial in the. In the 80s. I was like, that's the one about the. The scare. The scary dad who busts in and doing drugs, you know, and it's like, man, but I never had the kid.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: To come up to me in my locker. You want to do some drugs? Like, I don't know.
[00:07:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I've never. I've never seen those kids at school. You know, I was like, wow, that's a really bold thing to do.
But I. I think you make some really good points there, and I think you're right. I think we're the generation that grew up without all this stuff, and now we're the generation that has become by default, the stewards of technology and how it's being used. And I think that's an important piece. But in a lot of my work and a lot of my research, that's what I find. I find that the adults have a lot of the technology issues.
Anywhere I go, I go to dinner or I'm just driving a car, I see people with their heads down, looking at their phones, and just, like, constantly looking for that next kind of drip of dopamine to hit them and get them in the right place.
But one other piece I want to talk about, too, that you mentioned that I know you're very passionate about, and it's been one of the things that I've always really focused on in my work around equity and access. So tell me about a little bit about your work in promoting and advancing digital equity within the future Ready Schools framework.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: Well, it was one of those things that. Going back to my time as an educator, I was always that teacher that would look and find ways to bring technology into my classroom. And I always taught in Title 1 districts, in urban districts, and in those spaces, I would often have students where, in their other classrooms, teachers would not do those fun activities because they would tell those students, oh, you need to earn it. Or, you know, your behavior is at this level where I don't trust you with the technology.
And so I was the one that saw, hey, this is the way to get those kids involved. And I didn't have those discipline problems. I didn't have those behavior problems because my kids were involved with the technology and those things. So I saw as a. As an educator in the classroom, hey, if you give the kids the things to get Them involved in the classroom, you're not going to have those behavior issues, they're not going to have that. The students are going to learn, have those enduring understandings. If you have sound pedagogy behind the activities, I'm not saying, hey, technology for technology's sake. So when I saw how my students were being impacted, that's what spoke to me. So in this space, I'm an advocate for ensuring that all students get these opportunities. Because if you gatekeep these opportunities from these students, they're, they're not able to really thrive. Then they're going to feel as school is boring, they're not going to see the alternative ways that for screen time, if you're not showing them, hey, here's a really cool innovative way around using technology, then they're just going to get on those games and play it all the time. You know, they'll get on Minecraft or whatever and just, you know, play and do all that stuff versus, oh, let me show you how you can build out an ecosystem on Minecraft and do all these things and build your, you know, environment. When they see those opportunities to connect technology with your lessons, that's when it makes a difference. So my thing is, when you start talking about equity, it's not just an access of the devices, it's ensuring that all students have those opportunities to explore and to create their own pathways with technology. Because as the world changes, this is going to be something that's always going to be a part of these students lives to some degree. And you know, we've all heard the term the technology they have today is the worst technology they're ever going to have. It's only going to get better. So if it's getting better, how are they going to be able to thrive in that space?
You know, we just recently seen the executive order that was released around AI governance or usage. Now, not going down the political rabbit hole in this conversation, but the White House has determined that AI is important. It is important for kids pre K to grade, as they say. So we want to ensure that however that is implemented, that is done equitably and the students have access and they're able to learn and create their own pathways through the use of this amazing technology.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: Right? No, and that's. Yeah, this is not a political podcast at all. That's what I listened to very early in the morning to get me going. But no, yeah, I think you're right. I think I saw the EO come out around AI and I agree with you on everything. You said, I think we talk a lot about technology and its promise, but if all kids don't have equal access to it, it's not promising anything if we're only promising hopes and innovation and ideas to a select few. And I've seen it too, in some schools that I've worked in. I've worked in very, very affluent schools and I've worked in schools with lower socioeconomic dispositions. And you see the struggles where if kids get these tech, if kids get these tools and they have them, most of them are probably not using them to their. To the way they should be. And they're using them just to mindlessly, you know, kill time and just, just go about their business. And those are the ones that are usually end up getting the bad habits around technology.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: I often use.
You have to edit this one out. But always use this analogy when I talk about it. I say it's similar to sex education. It's a reason why we have it because it ain't hard to figure out.
But if it's not done properly, you have a lot of bad things that can happen. And our students need to be educated on the proper ways to do certain things or we're going to end up in a space where we have a lost generation. So with this technology, yeah, they can pick it up, get on the Internet and do things. It's not that it's the kids get it. They just don't have a fear of it. I think as you become educated, you respect whatever this thing is and so you have this admiration of it and also this fear of it, whatever that thing is. So with technology, they don't fear it enough to know what they should do or shouldn't do. And so they just are doing things on those. So the education comes to that point where the students become educated on this technology and they have a greater understanding of, oh, the potential of this tool, not just at service level of what they're doing with that technology. So it's really about getting that deeper understanding to let them decide that because. Yeah. Do I get lost on TikTok sometimes? Sure, we all do some type of thing watching the streaming those videos, whatever the case may be, but they need to understand also how to create their own videos, create their own following or use those videos to advance their own skill set in whatever space or whatever passion that they have also. So those are those things that we need to do a better job of in our, in our K12 space to really improve opportunities for our students.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think you're you're spot on at that. And, and I agree. And I think it's looking at, you know. Yeah, we all get down the rabbit hole of, of TikTok and YouTube and all those videos. And I think the, the important part is, and what I've always seen myself is anytime I'm, I'm going through those videos and I spend my. I look up from a moment and I'm like, what am I just doing? And I'm like, I need to be creating videos like this, not just looking at all these Adam Fayal and Carl Hooker videos. I mean, it's like, I mean, because, I mean, that's pretty much my algorithm these days. So.
So it's. Yeah, but it's. You're right though. It. And if kids are just doing that and if they're not being taught in schools and they're not getting the support at home, that, that's, that's, that's a big, big loss for those kiddos in this generation.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Because we assume that a lot of our students get that outside of the classroom. And let's be honest, we had this digital divide with access for years. And a lot of our students, when we provide them their one to one device, that's the only computer in their classroom, in their home. They may have cell phones in their home, but, you know, they may not have that computer device, whether it's a Chromebook, iPad, Ibook, whatever, they don't have those resources. So it's our job, as we are sending those devices home with our students, to also empower them with what they can do outside of just that fun stuff. We want them to also be looking at the other opportunities. If our students are thinking about a career pathway, how can they research those things on their home computer? How can they share that information with their families?
Because I, I was reading this one report and it was like, oh, our students are spending too much time on computers and they don't need to be on there. I said, that's a two America's conversation. Yes. In some spaces, like for example, the file kids, they have all the, all the technology gadgets they can find, you know, you know, they got the, the Oculus stuff around the house, they got the, they got the, the Alexas, they got all that stuff. So we're good with all the various technologies around here. But I know that's not true of all the kids in my daughter's classroom, in my son's classroom. They don't have all those things around there. They don't have a mom and dad. Like, my kids have to kind of navigate them and show them, oh, here's common sense media. Here's some things to do. Hey, let's do this assessment before I give you your own social media account.
So as our job as educators to provide that structure for those students, and in some cases, it's our job as leaders to educate our teachers so they can be better implementers of that and also support their own personal kids because they like that skill. In some cases as well, even empowering our parents, bringing those parents in, whether it's parent workshops, parent universities, whatever you call those things, so they could be those partners, bringing in your community groups, bringing in your houses of worship, whatever the case may be. So all these places where people congregate, we have a role and a job to play in helping educate not just our students in our classrooms, but our communities as well. And I think that's an opportunity for us as educators that we really should be utilizing.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and that's, and that's a point I talk about in my book, Teaching Digital Kindness that I really touch upon. Is that, is that that bridge between home and school? And I mean, we saw the gross inequities in technology use and access during, during the pandemic when kids were sent home. And as a tech director at that time, I think you were a tech director at that time. It's like we saw that, like, yeah, we're sending kids home with the device, but we don't know if that's the only device in their house. We don't know what their wifi is. And so we were giving over control of so many things that we can control within a school building. And then we're sending these devices home, and we don't know, like, what their house situation is or if they have a private space. You know, and so I think that really, I think we all got through that, but we all learned a lot coming out on the other side. And I think one of the biggest takeaways is that, like what you said, we need to be that bridge between home and school. We need to bring parents in and have conversations about them. We need to let them know as parents that it's. It's not okay to give your kid a cell phone at, you know, age eight. You know, maybe you need to wait a little longer looking at what the data and the research says. So, and, and I think that's, you know, that's a big part of, of why we do what we do, because I, I find myself now as a father, like Thinking about, you know, when my daughter's going to get her, her cell phone. It's not going to be a cell phone. Who knows what it'll be in? My daughter's the one.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: It'll be an implant at that point.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it'll just be an implant. And she'll be wearing contact lenses and doing her Even know him.
We'll long for the days of direct messages someday, you know. But no, I mean, it's, it's like you, you wear that, that parent hat as well. And, and like you said, like, we're, we're, we're dads that are, are gadget geeks. Like, we, we get the gadgets. We are the, the early adopters. We try things out both. And we also like a lot of what I, I think I, I, I do. I don't do it to be like, I know better than you, I'm a better parent than you. Because my kid doesn't get an iPad at the dinner table. It's because I know, I test all this stuff out. I see how addictive it is. I see how addictive my phone is. I see how addictive my iPad can be.
And I was listening to Ezra Klein podcast. You had Jonathan Haidt on a few weeks ago, and he was talking about how he likes to show his kids Disney movies because they have a beginning, middle and end. They have a story as opposed to letting kids kind of even YouTube kids, letting kids go on YouTube because it's just a, it's, it's an, it's an infinite thing and it has no end and it has no story. And you know, nine out of 10 times they don't even know what they're really watching.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: So that's that whole mentality of the apps and the algorithms. All these things are designed to make you addicted to it, right? It's, it's a, it's funny. I think I've heard it somewhere before. It was like, what other businesses use the term users?
Drugs, you know, full circle, you know, like you got a user. So we want, they want to keep you hooked. Even when you start talking about, like, you remember years ago, the game Flappy Bird? The whole thing was not designed for you to beat the game. It was to keep you, get you just far enough where you want some more. You know, we've all had those games, whether it was like Candy Crush or whatever the case may be, like, we're going to give you somebody. It's like a drug dealer. Hey, first hits for free. But you want more, you got to Pay for it. So you. It's that thing to get you hooked. You got on the game. He's like, oh, I could have almost beat this level. It's like, oh, for 199, you get five more lives and you get some extra bonuses. So, yeah, it's the same kind of mentality. I mean, that was that early way got us hooked on these different technologies. Oh, I could do more. Oh, just a little bit. Just a little bit. Next thing you know, hey, an hour's pass, two hours pass. And what did you get accomplished? Oh, I'm on level 64 on Candy Crush. So, you know, those are those things like with our students you mentioned, with those YouTube videos or TikToks or Reels or whatever, there's those short segments because they figured it out. Hey, with this, 30 seconds, whatever the case may be, this algorithm, you watch this, then you're going to click to watch the next one where they break up their video. It's like, hey, you want to find out exactly how this project ends? Watch the next video. And then next, you know, you're eight videos in. So it's. It's also looking at that, realizing that and have the conversation with our parents, with our students, say, hey, these things are designed for you to stay on them. So when we start talking about screen time, it's being aware of what's happening to you so you can take corrective actions. It's hard to make that corrective action if you don't even know what's happening.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: Right, exactly. And I think that's. That's the. That's the crux of the issue, is that I think a lot of us fall into that trap. I mean, I ask. I ask people all the time. I talk to them. When's the last time you read a book? When's the last time you went to the movies and watched a movie longer than two hours? Like, we have an attention deficit in this country where our attention spans are being sucked into these machines, and it's happening to our kids as well. And that's taking away time from growing up, being a kid and doing things that kids should be doing developmentally at this age. And it's crazy, and it's only gonna escalate. Oh, you're laughing. I got something good here.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: Can you imagine our kids had to deal with the Internet we had in the early 2000s with a picture loading when you had, like, the picture coming down, it's like, oh, is it going to load? Is it going to load? Oh, I only got half the picture, like, if it takes the website longer than like 2 seconds to load by 8 year olds. Losing his mind, he's like, oh, my God, dad, it's not working. The Internet's not working. I'm like, it's slow right now. Just wait. You know, we have WI fi in the car. So if he's on this tablet and we're going through a space where the cellular service is not good, he's immediately, dad, introduce that. Work in the plate, son. Give it a few moments. We're in this weird area. When we get out, it's going to hop back on. But they're so used to being connected that when it slows down even the tiniest bit, they're like, but we grew up. Once again, we grew up not to be like, get off my porch, old man. But back in my day, son, you couldn't have seen the video.
It's gotten so much faster. That is also, to your point, gotten rid of that attention span where our kids want it immediately. I mean, everybody wants minute rice in 30 seconds. It's minute rice for a reason. It takes a minute. You can't do it any faster. It has to take a minute. So just wait. You know, it's something to that waiting.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: Yeah, no, you're right. And it's as Tom, as Tom Petty said, the waiting is the hardest part. And you're right. I mean, what was you. I remember the first website I saw unfold on my screen. It was espn.com and I. You're right. It was like you waited there and you stared at it and just. It dripped down slowly and then you saw a picture and then it's like, wow, this is where's. And then you clicked on a link and like, same thing happened on the next page. And with my. But I remember my buddy and I just sat there and we just were like, like awestruck by this like, thing where you could just move about this space and do it. And then, you know, and then somebody would pick up the phone in the house and be like, mom, I'm online. Mom, hang up the phone, I'm online. I mean, I don't know how many times that happened. I mean, in today's world, the kids would just, they would just, they would just.
They wouldn't handle it so well. I want to switch gears for just a quick minute. I'm sure we could talk a lot about. We should do a whole podcast about nostalgia. Nostalgia and tech nostalgia. I think that would be great.
And so I want to switch to A.I. you talked to A, about A.I. a little. A little earlier, and I know you've done a lot of work and spoke a lot about artificial intelligence in schools.
And I guess my question is, because I don't know the answer. I work in a school that had an AI committee, has AI policies in place, they have guidelines for their teachers, they have information on their students. So they're way ahead of where I think a lot of schools are. But how should schools be approaching AI at this moment in time?
[00:25:30] Speaker A: One thing I would say, if they are sticking their heads in the sand, then they're missing. They're doing a disservice not only to their, their staff, but to their students, to their community.
Because it is amazing how fast this thing has got ingrained into everything. We talked about cell phones. You know, right now, if you get a cell phone, it's a part of it, the new iPhone, the Google phone, whatever the case may be, AI is baked in, so you can't even turn it off. Pretty much, it's there.
And even with generative AI, it's a part of whether it's Canva, Adobe, Microsoft Word, Google Docs, I mean, it's a part of it. So, yeah, we really have to, one, confront it, realize it's here. It's only going to get more ingrained in what we do. So we need to have those conversations. But to your question, schools really need to develop their own governance committees around this, whether it's that we have with data governance. They need their AI governance team. That's one of the, one of the projects we are releasing with Future Ready. We have a governance guide that's based around our framework and really our job. We're saying we're not going to tell you what to do. We're all about local control. So as a school district, as a, as a, as a school itself, you need to determine what's best for your constituents, for your population. But our guide is really around questions, around our gears, around how you could kind of come up with your plan. You know, who should be a part of your governance. You know, as I mentioned earlier, you know, having parents involved, having your students involved, and not just your salutatorian and valedictorian, you know? Right. We all know those kids. You know, you want to get your entire community there, right? And have the conversation. And people are like, well, they don't know anything about it. Well, once again, let's educate them on that. Hey, here's this tool. Here's what we think it can do. We want to have your ideas because the thing is having those people there that don't really know what you know, they're going to ask questions that you may not even think of because they're learning it on the fly. So they're like, well, well, what's it going to do with all that data? You know, well, how do I know it has my business? How do I know? It's by having those conversations you're able to now develop a plan for your district, what it looks like today, what it looks like tomorrow, and have people understanding that it's a. Everything's fluid. Because if we had AI policy written last year, this time we would have to change it. Because what you can do now with AI has changed. It's so easy now to make a deep fake video. I don't even know if they're called deep fakes anymore. They're just like an AI generated video of whatever the case may be. I can make a video of myself running down the street with Michael Jordan. And if you just kind of catch it on the fly, you're like, hey, is that real? Because they're, you know, at one point, you know, we'd have like six fingers and two heads and so you could tell. But now those videos are really crisp, really clean in 4k. So we think about how those things have changed. What can we put in place to ensure that our students are using it appropriately, our staff are using that technology appropriately, and then asking the right questions about how they should and when they should use it? It because it's really interesting when you talk to students how aware some of them are, but also how some of them also have no idea. They don't even use it. Because some of the students are actually scared of this technology. Because we. In my job, I've got opportunity to talk to students from Seattle to Florida around AI and some of they're like, tell us how to use it.
They'll say, we want to be responsible users of this technology, give us guidance, let us know when it's okay to use it in class.
Because you know, you have some teachers who are like, oh, they're just going to cheat with it. Well, kids have always cheated.
Give them a tablet and a chisel, they will find a way to cheat. Because your assignments are bad, they're not engaging, they don't care about the work, so they just cheating to turn something in. So we really need to have a question about the assignments that are being done and how the kids are utilizing the AI. So I've seen a lot of districts use that Little scale, whether it's okay, it's green, yellow, red, about, you know, how much the AI can be used on the assignment. But having a conversation with your parents, teachers and students around when it's okay to use AI, how much AI to use, I think are very important around developing your plan to use AI. Just have the understanding that what's true today may not be true tomorrow. But then also being transparent with your stakeholders, letting you know, letting them know that you're going to make some mistakes in this implementation of this technology because it's so new and we're okay with rolling back something if we find out that we did too much or, you know what, let's give more leash because we didn't do enough, you know. So really being transparent with that, I think, is the most important part about however you decide to implement AI.
[00:30:16] Speaker B: I agree with that. Everything you said there, and a couple points stick out, one is around, it's just the inclusion of various stakeholders, including student voice, and not just your every, every student raising their hand in the front saying, I'll be on the committee and, you know, getting, getting a diverse student voice in there, and then transparency and, and just saying like, hey, this is not a perfect document and it's something we're going to have to review year to year. I mean, you're, you're so right in that. You know, I've been really working with, I've been working with the, the Deep research feature on ChatGPT4045. I think it is, it is amazing to have this, literally an assistant as I'm working on a blog post or I'm working on another book right now. And I have this tool next to me that is very powerful and very quick and very accurate in a lot of ways, but also makes mistakes and is also not 100% ethically and morally sound. And so I think it goes back to that digital literacy piece that I think is so important. And, and I know you just recently talked about that on the. One of the earlier episodes of Undisputed. Undisputed. Undisrupted. Undisputed. I think that's, I think. Isn't that a talk show?
[00:31:35] Speaker A: A different, different one.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: Different one. Yeah, yeah. So. But I think it goes back to that idea of digital literacy is like, you're right, kids want to use this stuff. They want to, they want to jump into it with us. And I think we have to give them the opportunity to it and be transparent with parents and be transparent with your staff and faculty because it's important that they understand this new literacy that's coming and we shouldn't be burying our heads in the sand in it.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: I mean, the funny thing is the kids will even call out when the teachers are using it because that's the thing the students know. Because the teacher's like, oh, I know that Andrew didn't write that. I know his writing. But guess what? The students know that too. They're like, Yeah, I know Mr. Fayall didn't write this assignment because that's not how he does his assignments. So the kids know it. And so once again, being transparent, I've seen in some places where they require their teachers to add a little credit to AI when they make an assignment. Yeah, they'll let their students know that this was co authored with Magic AI or Magic School or ChatGPT or Gemini, whatever. So those students know, hey, I also use an AI tool to help refine that assignment you mentioned with your book. I'm working on one myself and one of the things that I found was so, so beneficial. I wish I would have had it when I did my doctoral work because I remember trying to find research and I'd just be on those sites just looking, just putting in my searches and seeing what came up. Like, no, that's. No, no, that's crap. Nope, nope, no, no. But now I literally, I took a passage that I wrote and I'm like, okay, find me some peer reviewed articles that could be referenced for what I just wrote. Yeah, it gives me a list of stuff I'm not copying and pasted. But now, now I know what to look for. Now I'm looking at these articles and I'm like, okay, can you find a specific passage that you're referencing? And then I'm looking and I'm like, oh, I really love this research study. I probably would never would have found if I didn't use an AI companion to go in there and do the digging for me and bring those to the top.
You know, I didn't find something from Bahrain. You know, it's like, this is a research that was done in Wisconsin around topics like, oh, great, this is really cool. So those are things. But even with that, having that educator learn that this is a way to use the AI tool, I think is something that we need to make sure that we're including in our education prep programs or our teacher professional learning programs. Teaching our educators how to co author with AI I think is very essential versus them saying, hey, I need an assignment on how to do fractions. Enter. No, here's the Assignment. I have a student that's struggling with this particular concept. What are some strategies that you can give me around this? Oh, this is really cool. I can do that and modify my assignment for this particular kid. Those are the kinds of activities we'd want our teachers doing with the tools. So it's really that education piece that needs to happen with our educators and with our professional learning folks around the use of these tools.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And speaking of the whole nostalgia correlation of. Do you remember going through pulling out the drawer and finding the card catalogs and then having to. I mean, I had a whole English unit on just citing stuff, and it was like, man. And now it's just like, it just makes that process go along so quickly.
And you're right. I think it helps us. It's a good. Right now, I'd say in my use, AI is a great filter and a great resource to kind of narrow things down, to help me move things along. Because you're right. I mean, it's doing. Putting a book together, which I also think I'm like, who's going to read this book? People aren't reading books anymore. Why am I writing a book? But it's like, I also am. Like, I hope that comes back.
And so the idea of, you know, I don't know, I was going to say, but I can't remember to cut that out.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: I'll make a TikTok about your book. You need to. You have to recite or read a page because that's all we can handle at a time. But it has to be a TikTok and you got to do a dance with it.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: That's where I was. That's where I was going.
[00:35:37] Speaker A: Cinnamon. Eating cinnamon while you're reading a page of your book. Then it'll go viral. That's what you got to do.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: All right, I'm going to start that today. I'm going to work on. I'm going to see if I can find some cinnamon. I think I have some in the pantry, so just want to shift gears here. Only a few more questions. I'm going to leave this going. We're past 30 minutes, but this has been good. This has been fun and insightful, so we're going to keep going.
You mentioned you and Carl just launched season nine of the Undisrupted podcast.
What's been the biggest kind of return on investment, if you will, for doing the podcast?
And is there a memorable show that stands out aside from mine, which I had the most clicks in history? But yeah, I think one Thing is.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: Just realizing that there's. Because I've said it before to people about there's an audience out there for everything, and actually. Actually saying that and actually living it are two different things. So actually creating something and getting an audience and having people say, oh, I heard that. I heard your podcast. People that aren't even education people that have, you know, sent me a message or whatever the case may be. I had a. A friend that I. I knew from college, hadn't talked to him in over 20 years and said, hey, one of my friends told me to listen to this. And I started listening. I didn't know who was on it, but then I heard the voice and was like, I think I know that guy. And then he got on the phone and looked at it. He was like, oh, yeah, I went to school with this guy. And so that was kind of cool.
[00:37:12] Speaker B: That's great.
[00:37:13] Speaker A: And, you know, I'm like, oh, yeah, you're like our eighth listener. So, you know, that was really cool when that happened.
You talk about memorable episodes, and I kind of jokingly mentioned this about a challenge, but Carl and I did a live episode where we did a hot wings challenge. And on that one, I have this one hot sauce. I'll never forget Dave's Insanity Sauce. It's like. Yeah, it's like the devil's toenails. I mean, it's. It's hot. Oh, yeah. My teeth were sweating from that one. And I literally went to the hospital the next day.
I ended up finding out I had Covid. But, you know, but that. That was memorable because I. I definitely paid the cost of that one.
[00:37:56] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:37:57] Speaker A: I'll put it this way. It was just as hot going in as it was going out. So I definitely caution anyone about that one. But the things you do for fun. But that was one of those that I always remember as an episode.
[00:38:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And this would be a great time to say. This podcast is brought to you by Dave's Insanity Sauce. Dave's Insanity Sauce. Making everyone go to the hospital since 1996. All right, that's really great. All right, final question that I ask everyone, every guest on the show.
It's kind of a reflective question. What strategies do you use to step away from the digital world?
[00:38:38] Speaker A: One thing I've been trying to do right now is Rubik's cubes and puzzles and stuff. So I have this one. I have this little round kind of cube that I do. So. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that I figured out is that this whole screen time piece now that I'm a remote worker. I spend more, more time behind the screen than I have ever done in my life. So I have my standing desk and all that fun stuff. I'll take a break and go for a walk. But just having something that's tactile using my hands or with a Rubik's cube or some kind of puzzle keeps my brain thinking differently than it does behind a computer screen. So for me, it's having that disconnect, having this kind of component that's something that I can do on my own. Because I found myself like even at night in the bed doing the whole scrolling thing before I went to bed. And I'm like, I know that's not the best thing to do before you go to bed, but I can't stop doing that. So I need. So it's like, it's like a user and an addiction. I need to find something else to replace it with. So finding these little puzzles to do gives me something to replace that with. And I found myself sleeping better now that I've gotten rid of the screen before I go to bed. Now I'm doing this. So now my brain gets to the point where it's like, I can't solve this. Go to sleep. It's like, yeah, I'm going to go to sleep now. I can't figure this thing out right now. So those are those things that I use now to kind of keep my mind off of the devices, off of the technology, and kind of like reconnect with those things. And I used to love doing puzzles and things when I was, was a kid and my mom was like, oh, you always little as a kid. So this kind of brings me back full circle to those things that kind of sparked my curiosity to spark. My interest was like solving puzzles. And I think even as a technology director, I've always had those things, those problems, those puzzles to solve, thinking about different perspectives, being able to figure those out. So I think any leader, you are a problem solver, but you're talking about people or puzzles. And so this is the way I think about building that, that puzzle solving skills as a leader.
[00:40:40] Speaker B: And I think that's. That is a really great piece to end the show on is this idea of, you know, I talk to a lot of parents, I talk to a lot of teachers, and there's this whole thing around banning cell phones and, you know, pulling technology away from our kids. If our kids are already in it, if they're already using it, like you said, if they're already users with the Technology. We can't just take it away. We got to take it away. We got to replace it with something fun, engaging, and innovative. And I think that's really the key to where we need to be going. So the technology has to go away. You can't just sit there as an adult and play on your own on your phone and say, well, I'm an adult. That's what I get to do. That's just not fair. Don't. Don't be that. Don't be that adult. Don't be that parent. Like, replace it with an engaging activity, like challenge your kids in the Rubik's Cube or. Yeah, like, exactly. I love it. For those of you just listening, he's holding up a Rubik's Cube and a little. What's that? What is that one? What's the circle one called?
[00:41:37] Speaker A: I forgot what it's called. It's some kind of orb cube or whatever. Yeah, you got to get all the colors together or on the different rows. So, yeah, it's fun. It's one of those things that definitely keeps me busy, whether I'm just needing a break when I'm actually paying attention in a zoom meeting or needing a moment to myself. And I don't want to take my phone with me someplace. So, like, the bathroom, you know, comes in handy. So, yeah, don't bother. Don't hold my Rubik's Cube. I may have taken it to the bathroom. So just heads up.
[00:42:09] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, there's also research that I quote in my book that you shouldn't spend any more time in the bathroom longer than 10 minutes, but the average person is, as a result of having phones, spending more time in the bathroom. So maybe if you took the Rubik's Cube in, you'd spend less time in there.
So we will end on that glorious note. Dr. Adam Pfeil, thank you so much for being on the pod today. Appreciate you. And I know we all appreciate all the work you're out there doing with feature ready schools, so thank you. And, you know, for our 100th episode, maybe we'll have you back in a few years.
[00:42:43] Speaker A: Thanks for having me.
[00:42:45] Speaker B: All right, take care, buddy. Thank you.
[00:42:47] Speaker A: All right, have a good one.
