Intention and Creativity: Navigating AI in Education

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:11] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to the Digital Kindness Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Marcinik and I am so glad you are here. Today we welcome Dan Ryder to the pod. Dan, welcome. [00:00:24] Speaker A: Thank you, my friend. It is a thrill to be here. [00:00:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it is good to have you on. We were just at the MassCute conference where we connect, usually our annual connection throughout the year. [00:00:36] Speaker A: One a year that we can count on. [00:00:38] Speaker B: The one time they let us out of our respective buildings, we get to see each other. So it was good to see you. So I'm going to just kind of share a little bit about for our listeners out there and our vast subscriber network, a little bit about who you are and then we'll get into the conversation and the questions. [00:00:55] Speaker A: Sounds fantastic. [00:00:56] Speaker B: So, Dan Ryder, educator, creative catalyst and co author of Critical Creativity in the Classroom. Dan's work has inspired countless educators, including myself, to move beyond rote tasks and help students think critically through creative making. We'll talk about how those ideas intersect with the rise of AI in schools, what creativity looks like in this new era of AI, and how we can help students stay intentional, human and kind in those digital spaces. So, Dan, again, welcome to the pod. And I just want to kind of start with. For our listeners out there who might not be familiar, what was the driving idea behind intention? What did you hope teachers and students would take away about the link between creativity and critical thinking? [00:01:43] Speaker A: Well, again, hey, it's super great to get to talk to you in a way that is captured for historical record. [00:01:49] Speaker B: Yeah, this is gonna be around. [00:01:53] Speaker A: Hey, I just need to be able to look this up on the wayback machine in archive.org in eight to 10 years. Yeah, no, I did know him. I really. No, I knew him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Secretary of Education, you know, he's a good dude. [00:02:08] Speaker B: One of my greatest moments was when I was going back through tweets I had sent and kind of hot takes I had made over time. And I don't know if you remember Google Wave. [00:02:19] Speaker A: Yes, I do. [00:02:20] Speaker B: And I made this bold hot take that Google Wave was going to transform education like we've never seen before. And that's out there. It's for all historical and records when my daughter someday. Well, yeah, my, my daughter someday when she's researching her father and his work, she'll come across my tweet that said Google Wave will transform education like we've never seen before. And then she'll also read an article about how probably two months after that tweet was sent, Google Wave folded and was Never a tool that did anything ever again. Yeah. It's why I love to capture all of these great moments in it and education history. Here we are today, putting it on the record. [00:03:10] Speaker A: Google Wave never been seen would have been the, that there's the whole, there's the whole tweet that's. [00:03:18] Speaker B: We'll never, we'll never enter a school building ever. [00:03:22] Speaker A: That's fantastic. I love it. Yeah, yeah, I've got, I've got some of those for myself. I'm sure, I'm sure they are, they are, they are vast. [00:03:31] Speaker B: Sure. [00:03:32] Speaker A: But hey, you asked a question and it was a good. [00:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a good question. [00:03:36] Speaker A: I believe, I believe the proper response is that's a great question. But the driving, the driving idea behind intention. Amy Berval, my co author on there. She and I had become fast friends in the early days of Twitter just by sharing what we were each doing with our kids in the classroom with really fast, quick, formative assessment type activities. And we both found ourselves scaling these little quick kind of whimsical ideas and into full on projects sometimes. And we just kept going, well, what, why are these working? And what we were discovering and what we both believed, but it had been, it had been a minute since either of us had really thought mindfully about it was that kids really truly understand things better when they are using deep critical thinking to make intentional choices about what they're doing. [00:04:37] Speaker B: Right? Right. [00:04:38] Speaker A: And what they end up creating are things that go so far beyond in terms of nuance and these little unexpected like, like insights and, and moments that it's, there's no way to replicate it in a quiz, in a test in, in a traditional human. Here's your, here's your force. You know, did you spell everything right? Did you, did you include use of color? Did you, you know, these kinds of things that had, had been so much a part of, of my teaching, like I, I'm not above it. And what we realized was that by being intentional and by being very thoughtful in every choice someone makes in what they create, even if it's the smallest thing, as a one panel cartoon. But you're saying, why are you using the colors you chose? And they're like, I don't know, I'm like, so pick a color that means something to what we read. Right. Try to be deliberate about every choice. And that doesn't mean it needs to be artful, it just needs to be mindful. [00:05:43] Speaker B: Right. [00:05:44] Speaker A: In doing so, it moves us up into those higher levels of blooms. Whichever version of blooms you Use or whichever. Whatever your cognitive scale is. Right. That you prefer, no matter what. You get into creativity, and you're up in those upper echelons where you have to make evaluative decisions while you're also synthesizing, while you're also expressing, while you're also. Right. [00:06:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:07] Speaker A: And that's what Amy and I were really trying to do with intention, was one, kind of express our philosophy, and then two, provide people 40 or more full on. We call them. We call them. Good lord, playlists. No, we don't call them playlists. We don't call them lesson plans. We have something much more clear that we call them. But there's 40 of them. Pathways. That's what we call them. [00:06:30] Speaker B: Pathways. I like that. [00:06:31] Speaker A: But the idea is you can remix them, you can use parts of them, you can. You can stay on it for as long as you want, and you can jump off, and that's fine. But you've got a complete learning experience. And the whole learning experience is steeped in this idea of getting kids to make deliberate, intentional choices and push their brains to go forward with it. [00:06:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that's just. I think that's just so great to hear, and it's something we're lacking in a lot of our classrooms where we're just trying to get kids. We're taking the baseline skills, like, here, just learn this skill, but don't embed any other things. And I love how you have that idea of being really intentional and mindful about every choice you make within what you're doing, because that's. That's just how we learn. That's how we evolve. That's how we get to where we want to be. I really think that. I haven't read the book yet. I will. I promise you. I usually read the book before it's new. [00:07:25] Speaker A: It just came out in 2019. So I get why. You know, I get why you're a little behind. [00:07:32] Speaker B: Yeah, my. You know, I'll just. Covid. You know, Covid. Covid's always the thing. [00:07:38] Speaker A: It's on the stack on the somewhere. [00:07:43] Speaker B: Anytime. I wonder how. What the. What the. How long we're going to be able to use that term, like, oh, sorry, I missed. I missed Covid, you know. Yeah. But. But I'm going to wait for a. [00:07:54] Speaker A: Good 15 to 20. [00:07:56] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, I think that's. There's one thing I want to. I want to kind of talk about, though, because I think. And correct me if I'm wrong. Well, actually pretty right. It's not to where it is right now, but when. When you wrote in, when you and Amy wrote Intention, AI wasn't really the tool that it is right now. How has this new landscape. It's one of the things of, like, I've written two books myself, and every time I. I feel like I'm done. I'm not because there's something new that comes out or there's a new idea. It's like. It's like that whole adage of being an artist where it's like, the painting's never done. Like, I just can't. I don't know where it ends. And so, like, in this new landscape, how has that changed your thinking about what it means to make with intention? Or has it not gotten there yet? [00:08:42] Speaker A: No, it's. It's gotten there. Like, you know, pulling up the veil behind the curtain. Any of it has been like, oh, by the way, you know, here's a few of the things that we're going to talk about. And this. This question really got me. Got me thinking. So we'll start with. That's a great question. But I feel like when you look at the heart of what we're talking about in that book, with being deliberate and mindful about the choices we make in how we express ourselves and how we want to show that we understand something and that we understand a concept or demonstrate a skill in a way that taps into creativity, I think it lends itself really well philosophically to. All right, so how are you going to use AI intentionally? Right, right, right. And say, like, well, we'll never use it. We'll never do a thing with AI because AI is. It breaks creative spirits. It's all built on. On stealing other people's expression without credit. And in terms of the ethics side of it, like, that's a whole nother, you know, a whole nother universe. Right. And. And like my. My patron saint of creativity is Austin Kleon. Right. Like, steal. Steal like an artist and show your work are like two sacred texts in. In my. In my universe. And I haven't read. I haven't. I haven't been. Been like, checking to see what he's saying about AI because I. I don't want to find myself, like, in disagreement with him. [00:10:17] Speaker B: Right. [00:10:19] Speaker A: Yeah. So. So it's all good for me. It is not the death of creativity, nor is it a renaissance, like, when people are like, this is going to explode people's imaginations into places that they never thought possible. No, because it's all based on things that have existed Right, right, right. It's just rapid fire remixing digitally with little to no soul. Right? That's what's happening. [00:10:47] Speaker B: Right, exactly. [00:10:48] Speaker A: So on that side, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, nice and cute. Other side of me looks at my struggling learners who have no confidence, who have been told they're not an artist since they, you know, since after age 8, and they stop putting their every picture they drew up on the fridge. Right. Then it's, it's, well, no, no, no, that's not good enough. Or, well, we don't have time for art. Or it's a special. You get to do art once every two weeks when she comes around with the cart, you know. [00:11:18] Speaker B: Yeah, right, right. [00:11:20] Speaker A: These are the other driving forces behind intention. Like, we can have art in every class every day. It doesn't matter what the subject area is, doesn't matter how old they are. Adult learners, young learners, everybody can have creative expression and art as a part of their experience every day. If you wanted to do that. It's just how you use it. [00:11:40] Speaker B: Sure, right, yeah. [00:11:41] Speaker A: And what AI is doing is allowing me to have conversations with kids about, oh, what did you, you know, what are you writing in your prompt? What are you telling it you want it to generate? And what is this matching up with what you're picturing in your head? Right. And they're able to then look immediately and say, no, that's not it. Like, cool, so what, what should we change? And they might say, I don't know. I'm like, that's fine. Should, you know, I'll put in things that are the opposite of what would be helpful. Right. So green and orange and purple, like, no, why are you doing that? Like, well, you didn't know what to do. So. And it's, it's just, it's just costing, you know, 2,000 gallons of fresh water every time I type this in. [00:12:27] Speaker B: And it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. [00:12:31] Speaker A: Fresh keep. [00:12:33] Speaker B: Yes. And we want, we want. I mean, we want kids to ask all the questions. I mean, that's what we're talking about. Inquiry all the time. But you're right. On a serious note, though, this idea of it completely crushing the creative process, I think is a little overblown right now because I think it's. I look at the way I use AI and I think it's, It's. I think kids are. It's similar to when we talked about, like, people being, like, adverse to using an iPad or a tool in the classroom that was, like, foreign to them. Where they're like, I don't. I don't want to. Kids will dive in, they'll jump in, and they'll. They'll figure it out. And they have that. They have that energy, they have that lens. And so I think there's a lot of. You know, and again, we talked about for years, we want kids to be. Not just get the right answer. We want them to ask the right question. And what is. What is prompting AI? It's prompt generation. It's asking questions until that's not right. And that's a skill. That's a skill in itself. [00:13:28] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [00:13:30] Speaker B: And I agree. And I think it's. I think what kids need to know is that they. The AI is not going to give you everything you want. AI is a big, giant remix of everything that's already existed for now. And so it's just like, if we can get to that point where we have the kids using the AI tools with intention, I think that's a really great thing to have and a really great support for those. Like you said, those learners who are struggling, who don't have that creative lens, AI can kind of guide them and help them get to where they want to be. Absolutely. [00:14:08] Speaker A: You know, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, but. [00:14:10] Speaker B: No, you're fine. You're fine. Yeah, go. Do you have any idea who I am? [00:14:14] Speaker A: What are you doing? [00:14:16] Speaker B: I have eight. Excuse me. I have eight subscribers on this podcast, so just so you know, they're gonna be very upset with that. [00:14:23] Speaker A: Twice as many as I have on my sub stack where I have yet to. [00:14:26] Speaker B: Have. [00:14:26] Speaker A: Yet to publish a thing, yet somehow I have these four. [00:14:30] Speaker B: It's just cool. It's just really cool to say you have a substack. [00:14:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:34] Speaker B: You know, it sounds like you. Sounds like you. You're doing something amazing. [00:14:37] Speaker A: Wow. Goodness. You really made it. That's why I tell my mom. Yeah, Mom, I have a substack now. So I know you're kind of wondering about how the whole career was going. [00:14:51] Speaker B: That's great. [00:14:53] Speaker A: But. But what I think what happens is we have to give ourselves both time and grace to get through that messiness of. Of. Of playing with the. The tool of AI. Of playing with the tool of AI in the service of. Of helping learners in a way where they're. They're playing co creator. Right. And co conspirator in the thing. And we're not. We're not turning it into. Did I catch you using it? Right? It's like. No, no, no, no. Go ahead and Use it. Use it right now. And. Oh, you see that, that image you got out of there. Hey, what if we print that off in black and white so we're not spending. There's zero reason to make this 25 cents. Right. Like, yeah, three cent. [00:15:33] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:15:33] Speaker A: You know, here we go. And then trace over the part that you like. Right. Or let's put that on the light box or let's capture it and let's throw it onto an iPad and you put it on, you know, put it on Procreate or, or put it on whatever your favorite drawing app is. And, and let's trace over parts of it and let's see what parts of it we want to use for the rest of your work. Right. And. And then it's like, well, it's just stealing from someone. I'm like the, the, the, the. The DNA of that piece at that point. [00:16:04] Speaker B: Yeah. So gobbled so far down the line. Yeah. [00:16:08] Speaker A: Who knows? Are you just like, is every drawing I do just aping Jim Lee from 1989 when he was drawing the X Men maybe? You know, sure. That that'd be fair criticism. You know, I would. [00:16:21] Speaker B: Right. [00:16:22] Speaker A: Criticize for being that good. You know, but that's, I mean, I know where my, my cartooning and doodling and drawing, you know, what influenced them the most? And I know that I'm just trying to ape other people most of the time. And, you know, whatever it is. And if kids are not trying to pass it off as their own and they're. They're using it as a way to express an understanding of something that isn't art. Right. Like, well, like, it seems like it's a benefit if it allows. It allows this, like, access point. And at the same time, we already know, like, it's one of those other. And then you have all the issues of equity and access and is it truly equitable and like schools that are more progressive and, and open, you can use these tools in there more frequently and schools are more rigid and closed. You can't. And the ones that cost money, they're for, you know, pop, pop, pop. I mean, like, canva. Like, I gotta give them credit, you know, you. You've got a pretty decent little generator in there. [00:17:36] Speaker B: Sure. [00:17:37] Speaker A: Adobe Firefly. Not bad. Like, they've got pluses and minuses. Right. They both are freely available. Right. You're not counting every generation like you are with most other tools. They've, They've got some. And, but with all of them, you know, I know there's someone listening right now. One of Those eight is like, well, have you seen all the problems that they have not addressed in the 45 page white paper that I wrote on your subs on their sub stack. And you're right, like none of these folks are perfect and they probably are in a position where they should be more perfect than they are with it. [00:18:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I really, a lot, a lot to unpack there. There's a lot of good stuff cracked. [00:18:19] Speaker A: Open like 24 eggs. [00:18:22] Speaker B: Yeah. I think this is going to be a ten part series with Dan. So for you eight subscribers out there, just stay tuned. We're going to be going on, taking this on the road. But I think, you know, and I think when I'm listening to you talk there there are two things. The idea of co creating and the idea of, you know, accountability and transparency of your work. These are the same conversations we were having when Google was coming into, into play. We were having these exact same conversations and we, we, we focused first on the. They're all going to cheat, they're all going to go to Wikipedia, they're going to copy and paste and how are we going to know what's real and what's not? We did fine. Kids turned out fine. Kids have gone on over the last 15, 20 years to great schools, have done great work, have made it. We had a conversation probably about this when we were in school around the calculator and when that technology tool should be used and should be implemented and where are we learning the skills as compared to where are we just crushing, crushing the skill building and moving on. And here we are again. We're, we're doing this co creating and I think that's, that's the key that schools need to really think about. It's not about playing gotcha. It's not about trying to assume that the kids are all going to do the wrong thing. It's about giving them the guide rails and the guidance to help them get to the right thing. You said springboard and I think that's a great thing because there are so many times when I'm trying to write a substack post or I'm trying to come up with questions, hardball questions for Dan Rider for this podcast thing. I will, I will ping them off of my AI, my ChatGPT and I sounded very old saying that my AI bot, I'll use my AI machine. Yeah. [00:20:09] Speaker A: And after this I'm gonna machine all the time. [00:20:11] Speaker B: It's like, because I'm gonna, and I'm gonna go like something on Facebook, you know, so that's, that's where I am. No, but it's like, you know, with any technology tool in advancement and a disruptor to the level of AI, we're going to have this conversation and we're going to have it again in 15 years when there's, you know, a Neo robot in every house that, that works with the kid and is tailored to their learning. You know, I was just recently, I did. I was at a school out in Santa Monica and I was talking. I had an opportunity to talk to some students about how they're using AI. One of the students was saying that he uses it. He has an AP testing book that he uses for one of his classes, and he takes the questions on there, and as he goes through them in the book, he'll ask AI to show AI the ones he got wrong and ask him to come up with new questions to challenge him further. And so here's an opportunity. You talked about equity, and here's a kid who may or may not be able to afford, like a private tutor for AP or sat, and he's using the tool in a very mindful, intentional way and very smart way to, you know, give him an upper leg on things. And I think that's gonna be, that's gonna be where we have to guide students to. That's. That's where we need to get them to that point where they're, they're able to be really thoughtful and mindful about what they're doing and thinking, like, you know, what, here's the, here's what this tool can do, you know, and, and how do I, how do I get there? How do I get to that point? [00:21:45] Speaker A: Right? And, and how is it, how is it, like, amplifying my, my abilities? [00:21:49] Speaker B: Right, right, exactly. Like, yeah. [00:21:51] Speaker A: Is it, Is it. Is it augmenting and transforming my skill set, you know, a little? [00:21:56] Speaker B: Right. [00:21:56] Speaker A: You know, Reuben Putin Tara, you know, quite in Tara on. On us there. Right? Are we transforming? Are we, you know, where are we at? Right? And, and, and this is the fear that I get people having of it substituting, right. Like we typing, substituted the handwriting. Well, now is AI going to substitute the typing? And that's when it's like, it shouldn't. Right? Because doesn't sound like you do. [00:22:27] Speaker B: No, exactly. [00:22:29] Speaker A: It's cheating. I'm like, really? [00:22:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:32] Speaker A: One thing created by AI it's not that hard, right? It's not that hard to pick up on it. And we're like, sneak past you. I'm like, dude, like, it's, it's if we know our kids at all. Right, Right. We know when they. It's their authentic voice or not. Right. [00:22:51] Speaker B: And that. Yeah. [00:22:52] Speaker A: And. And well, some of them are training their chat bots to do that. Great. [00:22:57] Speaker B: Like, that's awesome. Yeah. [00:22:59] Speaker A: Like. Like they're. They have figured out how to leverage that thing. And, and maybe that is, you know, my good friend Michael Hernandez and his book Uncheatable. Right. Like, that's, that's where he's digging into why are we really good? Why is it, you know, we're not. We're not asking the right questions all the time, you know? [00:23:21] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:23:22] Speaker A: Yeah. And it makes sense. Like, at the same time, I don't condemn people because they're like, I'm really concerned about kids cheating. I'm like, yeah, it's. It's a fair thing to be concerned that what you're getting is not authentically representative of what they. They, you know, Just remember that that has been the case forever. It's not new. That we've been concerned about. Well, did you know Michelangelo's mom, like, do his. I think he might have made, you know, she got her hands in that. I just. It looks like something that she's done before. I saw her at a church luncheon and she was. She was selling some crafts in the back and that looked an awful. Like that chapel roof. [00:24:05] Speaker B: Yeah. That's a big hoax. [00:24:08] Speaker A: Big hoax. Big hoax. [00:24:11] Speaker B: Mom did it. [00:24:12] Speaker A: So they came in, decoupage that thing to the ceiling. Really? It's gorgeous what. What she did. But that's, you know. You know, I was thinking as we were talking just today. So I use AI almost every day in some capacity with. With learners either learner facing or in the service of them. And I, I came up with this coding system where we're. We're still in the infancy here at school. Community Regional charter school. Free public shout out of Maine. You want to come up here? We'll welcome you. Come on in. All right. [00:24:44] Speaker B: All right. [00:24:45] Speaker A: Weird. And we love it. But we, you know, we don't have a formal AI policy because about the time we write a policy right now around AI, the landscape changes. The other rules change about other things. Digital aaps change. There's so much shifts. So what we're working on, what we focus on is guidance. Right. [00:25:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Right. [00:25:06] Speaker A: How should we think about this thing? And what are the ways that we can not play safeguards but play. Just like you and I are talking about being intentional about how we use it. So. Right. I came up with a little coding system. These like Four or five icons and these tiers of use. Like, and to be open and honest with, with your, your learners. Like, this is how I used AI to create this. I used it to check my work or I used it to give me some ideas in a brainstorm or I co created with it and it gave me a lesson plan and I twisted this piece and I made that part work. Right. Like where are you at with user? Or I didn't use it at all. Right. I came up with an icon for that. I don't expect people to use it, but the idea is we get to this place where we have coded our, our work that faces faces our learners so they know what they're doing doing. And then in turn I've got the same codes for them to use. [00:26:04] Speaker B: Yep. [00:26:05] Speaker A: And that we can put on the assignment like and say this is the degree to which you may use it for this assignment. And you know, this is a great time for. To check your work. Right? [00:26:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:14] Speaker A: But you're using it to check your work, not using it to answer all of your questions. [00:26:20] Speaker B: Questions. Right, Right. Yeah. [00:26:23] Speaker A: Yeah. So you got to give that sort of thing. [00:26:28] Speaker B: I really like that because it's also you're directly modeling how the tools should be used. And I think that's a big thing where we, you know, I wrote in my book Digital Kindness about how one of the, one of the biggest issues and why we got to the point of cell phone bans in schools is because cell phones are usually distributed at home and you know, without really any structure or guidance around them. And then that's where the, that's where the bad habits develop. Now I'm not castizing all parents out there because. Because that's exactly where I'm going to be in a few years with my daughter. And she's going to be asking for a phone and whatever. And you know, that's where I'm going to have to make the decision. [00:27:07] Speaker A: No, go back to your tower. No, but father, my hair is so long and lovely. [00:27:14] Speaker B: Go write me another stuff. Stack. Somebody needs to go to college. But no, but you're right. I think it starts with modeling and being transparent as the adult in the room because I think a lot of times kids will think like, oh well, you're using it. Why can't I? What are you hiding from me? What's behind the curtain? And I think it's having that open transparency, open conversation about AI tools and how we're using them so we can kind of start to destigmatize that negative aspect of it because I don't want students thinking that it's a bad thing or it's a thing they should try and cheat their way to. But this thing has a lot of potential, and it's going to get better. We're only like. I had Adam file on the pack us last season, and he basically said the AI students are using today is the worst that they're going to ever use. So, I mean, that's a really profound thing to think about when you think about, like, what's next for this. And. And I like that you're not stamping a policy on this, because we get sometimes so caught up with defining policy and defining such rigid structures that we have trouble being elastic in our. In our mindset and supporting. [00:28:31] Speaker A: Love how you just said that. Like, being elastic in our mindset. Yeah, like, absolutely. Like it. That is the. Oh, I'm gonna use that all the time now, so thank you. [00:28:43] Speaker B: That's my. My. Actually, that's a. That's a big drop because that's my next book, Elastic in our Mindset, you know, coming out. No, it's not. It's not coming up, but can't wait. [00:28:53] Speaker A: Can't wait. Me and my two friends will be. We'll be sitting right. Amazon's waiting to put it in our cart. [00:28:59] Speaker B: There we go. All right. [00:29:00] Speaker A: We happen to be at the moment that day gonna be like a supreme shoe drop. We'll just. I'll be like. We'll just flood that thing and. And it'll sell out in seconds. [00:29:11] Speaker B: I love it. I love it, man. [00:29:12] Speaker A: Can't wait. [00:29:13] Speaker B: I should design a shoe. [00:29:15] Speaker A: We should really think about. [00:29:16] Speaker B: We should design a shoe. [00:29:18] Speaker A: We are missing out on this. This whole era of the drop. Right? [00:29:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:29:25] Speaker A: Really be creating this buzz around. Hey, when's Marcia next? [00:29:32] Speaker B: We're not gonna use that breath. We're not gonna use that creepy breathy voice, though. That's. That's something we'll have to work with. [00:29:37] Speaker A: When's his next binder gonna come out? He got some worksheets. Oh, you should see them. [00:29:43] Speaker B: I heard he did a collab with. I heard he did a collab with Ryder. It's gonna be awesome. It's a one of one, dude. [00:29:49] Speaker A: Now. I have so many ideas right now. [00:29:52] Speaker B: I know. We gotta. We gotta. My whole. My whole life. [00:29:57] Speaker A: Like, I know X. And yeah. It's such a it. [00:30:02] Speaker B: And it aligns perfectly with. My whole goal in life is to go viral one day, you know, for good. [00:30:08] Speaker A: But not like those times that we had to scrub. [00:30:11] Speaker B: Not Those. Those things I've had to scrub from the Internet, and. And, like, I'm still trying to, you know, scrub my. My. My Covid. It was just Covid. I mean, I don't know. I was so lost in Covid. And, you know, I think I had it five times. [00:30:26] Speaker A: That's fantastic. [00:30:29] Speaker B: I have a few more questions, Dan, and then we'll get to our final question that I ask all of our guests. I'm curious about. You co wrote intention in 2019. If you were writing Intention today, what kind of new chapter would you add for educators navigating AI in your classrooms? And you may have already answered this, but I'm curious of just thinking about how when you and Amy were writing and, you know, what mindset should educators carry into the next decade of creative learning? [00:31:02] Speaker A: So the way the book is structured, it's like creating with the body, creating with words, creating with images. Right. And I think I would actually do a chapter that's not specifically about AI, but. Right. Like, it would be more like, well, here's our little supplement that we went through, and we. We kind of took the things that are already here and we said, you know, we. We code everything in the book as to what kind of tools you need to create it. Do you need pencil and paper? Do you need, you know, paint? You need clay. And everything the book has, has a marker. And I just create an icon for AI you know, probably something subtle, right? Yeah. Nuanced. This is a. In an I around it. Easy. I put that on there. But really, to emphasize the point that here's how you might use that. Right, Right. Or go through the book and add another line and like this, like, you know, AI integrations. Right. That just adds a. This little, like, oh, by the way, to amplify this if you wanted to, and find a place to use AI meaningfully in here, here's what we would suggest. You might think about using this as a brainstorm moment today. Just today. True story. Hand to higher power that you believe in or not. I was working. I run an elective with our elementary school kids. Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, we play one hour of Dungeons and Dragons. And first with. With. I play it with the. The kind of upper elementary kids, and I play with the younger elementary kids. And in one of those groups today, someone threw a magical trident, and I improvise like, 90% of this thing. Right. And we use these, like, nerfed rules. So it's really focused on having fun and telling story and collaborating. And it very little about, like, tactical like, no, hold on. You can't do that according to the rulebook. [00:33:01] Speaker B: Like, I mean, because that's how I play. That's how I play. [00:33:04] Speaker A: It's all homebrewed. And the way I was going is like, they found this magical triad. It was the literal fork in the road. This one was like, I want to kill the goblin. And it's like, it was really nice because the other kid goes, but they haven't done anything wrong to us. Right? Like in character. [00:33:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:26] Speaker A: Right. He's like, I don't care. Right? Which is. It's great. They were like, they worked it out and still he did it anyway. And I could have been like, no, no, no. He said, no. No throws. So yes, handed it, right? He throws it. The magical. He's like, it hits him. And then I said, now look at this chart. And I put up on the screen because I have a little map going with all the little icons of their characters moving around as we're going through things. And I just went right into Gemini and I just typed in 20 magical transformations that could be the result of being hit by a magical trident. And it took all that and it made all these seafood and like ocean creature related things. Oh, my gosh, 20 of them. I said, roll that D20. And the kid, you know, the kiddo rolled the D20, got a five of like, it goes into the goblin and it sinks inside of him. It sparks and sparkles, and you watch as his arm turns into a giant lobster claw. Because that's what item was on the. The random generator list. [00:34:31] Speaker B: Love it. [00:34:31] Speaker A: One of the kids goes, goes, oh, you're putting this into AI And I went, yeah, because I need a bunch of ideas fast. And this is a really good way for me to get a bunch of ideas. [00:34:44] Speaker B: Yes, fast, fast. [00:34:45] Speaker A: And I'm not interested in the best idea, a good idea. I just need ideas. And if it's terrible, that's hilarious. Right? Wonderful. Right? [00:34:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:58] Speaker A: Like, let's not worry about it. But that. Yeah, but the idea of putting it right there, they saw it. They saw me typing the prompt. They saw what it looked like. I was using the tool that's attached to our Google where Google for Edu School. So it's the tool that our staff has ready access to. And I've got feelings about Gemini just like I got feelings about everything. Like, they're. They've all pluses and minuses and all. All of their. Their fine print is subject to gigantic scrutiny and none of it is perfect. Right. We talked about this ago and that's okay for them to see. Oh, this is how we're doing it, right? [00:35:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:37] Speaker A: And then three hours earlier, I was sitting down with kids at a desk who have been trying to design a card game. And they've got this great idea for this card game. It's kind of like a. It's a humans versus aliens magic, the gathering thing. It's great, right? They really don't know what they're doing, and that's awesome. But they have so many ideas, right? And they just needed some help harnessing it all. So we just took a deck of index cards and we split it in two. And I said, start playing the game. How many cards do you draw? And they hadn't even thought of, like, that. Yeah. How many? [00:36:13] Speaker B: Yeah, like 10. [00:36:14] Speaker A: I'm like, okay, well, that's an arbitrary decision. Like. And I told them what arbitrary means, you know, because. [00:36:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:22] Speaker A: What? [00:36:23] Speaker B: Right. [00:36:23] Speaker A: Well, that was just random. Right. You just picked that out of thin air. And it's fine for right now, but let's just keep that in mind. You said 10. All right, 10. And then we played it. We didn't. We worked through all these mechanics. They got talking about how health works and how all these spells are supposed to work, and what do you do if this happens and this happens and. And a friend was watching, and they look over and they go, well, should you play one than the other? Should you play simultaneously? Because that would solve this problem that you're talking about. They're like, oh, my gosh, yes. And at the end, we hadn't looked at a screen. We spent almost 30 minutes. I neglected everyone else in the room. Right. Kids are crying in the back, wishing for help. These are our upper school kids. Right. And I'm like, fend for yourselves. Right. We're in the middle of something important. No, but I actually walked away for a minute, worked with other kids, came back, they had finished and resolved their. One of their struggles. We hadn't used AI at all. And one of the points I made to them is when I sat down, I grabbed markers and I grabbed colored pencils and I showed them our decks of cards, and they were all still blank. Guys, look at how much you accomplished today by just holding blank cards. Nothing on them. These are just index cards, right? [00:37:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:44] Speaker A: And they resolved so many things that they've been struggling with by just keeping it in their noggins. And that's where I'm like, this AI doesn't solve all the problems. Right. AI was not going to solve that for that was going to be a place where AI did their thinking for them and they went through and went. I like this one that AI came up with. We'll do that. And that's, you know, just so, like, when we're talking, like, being deliberate about our choices and why. [00:38:11] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. [00:38:12] Speaker A: I mean, better, like, example out of one day that just actually happened. Right. [00:38:18] Speaker B: Right. [00:38:18] Speaker A: As we record this. Right. In the morning, it was hyper creativity with no AI use. In the afternoon, it was very, very much a hybrid analog digital experience. And then we used it so we could just get something cool to happen. [00:38:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that's. That's. And that's a perfect antidote. Example of how. Of kind of the goal, like, right. [00:38:44] Speaker A: That. [00:38:44] Speaker B: That's. That's the goal where we want to, like, never sit down with something where I'm like, oh, I really need to write this post, or I need to write that. Where I'm just like, AI do it for me. I'm usually in something and I get to a sticking point or I get to a part where I'm stuck and I just need. I need to ping something off somebody. And, you know, and. And so I think it's. I think that's when it's like, use it. And again, going back to your work, use it intentionally. Use it mindfully. And I think we. That's where we want to get our students, too. And if. And if you're listening out there and you work, I think it's important for you to look at Dan's work, Dan and Amy's work, and really think about how you can take what they've written and apply it to your school and your classroom practice, because it totally aligns with the age of AI and where we're going. And I think there are times when we're going to make that intention of reaching out, grabbing Gemini and pulling it off the shelf and saying, I need this right now. I'm not going to need it a little bit, but right now it's going. [00:39:46] Speaker A: To get me there. [00:39:46] Speaker B: So I think that's a really good example of how we can be intentional about our AI use and also really thoughtful about that whole process. Final question, Dan, and it's a question I ask everyone on the show, has nothing to do with AI. What strategies do you use to step away from the digital world? [00:40:04] Speaker A: Oh, that's a great question. Sleep just. It's pretty much the only option. Everything else in my life just revolves around ones and zeros and as many of them as humanly possible. But. But, yeah, in Seriousness. You know, a lot of people are like, like my friend Alex who just stepped into the room for a moment. Thanks for letting me steal your spot, Alex. I really appreciate it. I'm like it. I'm in borrowed borrowed geography right now. I've taken over the space usually used by our dean of learners and our, and our elementary principal here at this building right now. What I do when, when I need to to kind of detox off the digital is I one I love a good board game. Like I love board games. Yeah, hobby board games. I, I think they're great and like, and I love all of them. I love the lightweight ones and like the heavier weight ones and I, I'd love to go game cafes. I like it's some, One of my favorite things is a Go find a game that I kind of know, relearn how to play it, then find something that I've never played before. Play that. I read comic books voraciously. [00:41:14] Speaker B: That's awesome. [00:41:16] Speaker A: I, I, I love the idea of reading but what I usually end up doing is, is sleeping. So, so really like the, my favorite, my favorite thing to do is, is to do something that's a little social but just taps into like my just pure love of, of all things pop culture y geeky and, and a lot of times it turns into the TV is off. I'm sitting on a, on a couch. It is like 11 o' clock at night. Everyone else is asleep and, and I've got this stack of comics next to me that I'm reading unnecessarily difficultly by, by angling it towards this tiny lamp to the side. And I just sit there and just like live, live my best post adolescence. [00:42:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's, and I'm sure it's an oil lamp because you haven't had electricity in Maine and you haven't gotten there yet. Right? No. Right. [00:42:16] Speaker A: Crazy kids in your mixed up ways. No. Hey, I know that's Albert and Isaac downstairs just riding bicycles, just keeping everything going. [00:42:25] Speaker B: That's where I get my sugar. All right, well Dan, it's been real, it's been fun. Always good to catch up with you. Those of you out there listening, the book is Intention, Critical Creativity in the Classroom. Please pick it up. Please check it out. And Dan, thanks again for being on the Digital Kindness podcast. [00:42:45] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me, my friend. [00:42:47] Speaker B: All right, take care, buddy. [00:42:49] Speaker A: YouTube.