Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to the Digital Kindness Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Marcin and I am so glad you are here.
Today we welcome Becky Keane to the podcast. Becky, welcome.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Thank you, Andrew. It's great to be here.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: That's great to have you here. I'm going to tell our listeners a little bit about you and then we'll get into some really engaging conversation which I'm very excited about having today. So, Becky Keen is an educator, author and speaker focused on innovative teaching and learning. She specializes in instructional coaching, game based learning, and integrating AI into education to empower students as creators.
Becky is currently the CEO of Think Tip and Digital Labs and has developed esports programs for schools as well as immersive learning experiences using games.
Becky speaks globally on AI and education and has spent over 20 years designing professional learning experiences for teachers.
A national board certified teacher, ISTE certified educator and certified instructional coach, she spent 15 years teaching, coaching and leading programs in public schools. She is the author of the book AI Optimism and holds a master's in education and early literacy.
Becky, wow, that is quite the resume.
I am very impressed and I don't know how we got you on the show, but I am really excited about you being here and hearing all of what you have to say today.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Well, thanks, Andrew And I came on the show because you asked, so that was easy.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Yeah, that's easy.
Sometimes all you gotta do is ask. Just say hello. And so one of the things we talk about in digital kindness, just be kind to say hello and introduce yourself. And Mr. Rogers taught us all that back in the day and it still holds true.
So yeah, and I'm very excited to have you here. We're going to talk a lot about AI, but also just really about your work and about your book. I'm really excited to hear what you have to say today.
So your book AI Optimism, which I love that title, really great title, sets the tone that AI in education should be approached with curiosity rather than fear.
What inspired you to write it? And what does AI Optimism practically look like for educators today?
[00:02:30] Speaker A: So a couple of years ago, well, three years ago this month actually, right when ChatGPT went, call it GA, generally available for everyone worldwide, free download on your phone.
That was a big moment and I think a lot of us are reflecting on the last three years and what that has meant.
And as someone who has worked in ed tech for a very long time and has been an innovator, early adopter style person, I call myself a rogue educator. Always the one like, hey, you know we could do this thing. I immediately saw application in education at a transformative level.
And I'm not trying to, you know, be prideful about like oh, I immediately saw possibilities. But that's where my brain goes is hey, where can we take this? What's possible?
And I was a little disappointed to see and hear many educators, but more importantly ed tech companies just absolutely promoting from the start, look, you can auto generate a lecture, look you can auto generate a quiz, look I can make a worksheet.
And I appreciate the thought partnership with lesson planning and designing instructional materials for students.
Great benefit there.
But many of the marketing campaigns that we see around AI and education end with substitutional, substitutionary work. Right? Like I can do this for you. And it's, it's completely outsourcing.
And because of the, the way the AI programs are designed, the LLMs and their algorithms, we're actually seeing now kind of this, I'm going to call it like a teachers pay. Teachers churn of the same types of lesson plans and activities because they're all based around a common algorithm. Especially if educators are using some of these apps that kind of filter Mad lib style, drop down, you just fill in the blank, right? Like I'm right, right? You know, drop down menu, seventh grade social studies.
And I want this standard. And so it's just generating very predictable pattern based, low level content.
So I saw that as a pattern.
It disappointed me because I was teaching during what we call the Internet revolution when people were like, oh, you know, kids have Internet, oh, kids have devices.
And I was hopeful 20 years ago that we would see a massive shift. And that's happening in silos around the world.
What I haven't seen is systemic shift. And so I'm very excited to think that AI is what's going to get us there.
So that's what I had to say. What I had to say was, hey, look, we can use AI in these very helpful and productive ways to substitute our work and augment our work.
And we can also be using AI in a way that redefines what education looks like.
And I wrote the entire book and went through developmental editing, it was in copy editing. And my publisher finally said to me, we're really going to need a title.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: And, and so that's the hardest part, right?
[00:05:56] Speaker A: The hardest part, Yeah, I knew what I wanted to communicate, but I didn't know what to call it.
And so I was actually having a conversation with a trusted friend and said, I don't know what to call the book. I need a Title like, I've already written all the content, but what is that called?
And we eventually kind of came to the realization that what I wanted to communicate was this optimistic view where I choose to focus on potential more than problems.
It's not that the problems don't exist. I fully acknowledge issues with bias and ethics and privacy and those are things that I am always happy to talk about.
But it's not my core focus. My core focus. I choose to look at potential.
And so we kind of talked earlier. I said I can't call the book being optimistic.
And we just kind of landed on AI optimism. And when I let that marinate, I was on a dog walk thinking about it. And those people who follow me on TikTok know I do it like a daily dog walk, little conversation, a TikTok walk.
And I thought, you know what? That is exactly what I want to communicate. I want to communicate AI optimism. And it's turned into this wonderful movement that I've just. People have been so kind to give so many positive remarks worldwide that that's really what's needed right now is a little bit of AI optimism and, and you know, looking at what's possible because we do hear a lot of fear and fear based decision making and we hear a lot of negative around AI and there are negatives. That's pragmatic, but how can we use it powerfully? And that's where it came from.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: I love that.
And something really stood out to me, what you said around this idea of focusing on the potential rather than the problem.
And I think in, I think about, you know, I also taught at that kind of the introduction of the AI or Internet revolution where Google was gonna like, the first thing we talked about was cheating.
And then there was Wikipedia and it's like, oh, they can copy and paste their paper or they can, they can do all this stuff. And I think we spend a lot of time focusing on those problems. And yes, I agree. I think everyone out there is like, yes, we need to be mindful, but like, let the adults figure out the problems. And let's also think about, let the educators, you know, figure out the potential for these tools because they are powerful, they are really great.
I talked to a group of students a few, a few weeks ago and I was asking them how they're using AI and one of the students was working through the PSAT study book and he said, I take questions that I get wrong and I put feed them in the chatgpt and I say, I got this one wrong. Can you give Me five or six more questions that could, you know, help me understand this more. And I'm like, wow, that's. Wouldn't have thought of that. But, like, there's a kid who's really taking initial and like, focusing on the potential that not all kids want to cheat. I think most kids want to, you know, leverage the tools in the way they were intended. And I think, you know, hearing that from a student, kind of unsolicited, was really exciting to hear, know how he's using it. But I love that, that optimistic approach because these tools are powerful.
And, you know, I think we can, we can figure and we can navigate the guide rails for our students and our faculty in these, in these spaces.
But this is no reason why we should be also so focused and so hyper focused on this idea of cheating and all, all these things, because there are a thousand ways to cheat, and AI is not the new catalyst to make everyone cheat.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: No, it turns out cheating is a character issue, not a technology issue.
And I, I love the example. Can we just talk for just another moment about that student you talked to?
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Because, you know, without getting into that particular student, let's just use it as a Persona that's a student like, that could have hired a PSAT or SAT tutor. Right. Their family could have paid a few thousand dollars. They could have gotten a book or subscribed to an app that's giving them same or lesser quality help. Right. Lesser customization, especially if it's a book, if it's an adaptive app, maybe if it's a person, you know, highly personalized and customized and, and. And all of those things are socially acceptable. All of those things are, like, good for you. But they all require access, money, you know, an, an adult advocate who's helping you get to those things, an awareness of the system and what it takes to be prepared.
Instead, we now have a tool that every single kid, regardless of means, regardless of, you know, all they need is a mobile device, which, you know, our students have. They all have mobile devices.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: They all have. Right, right.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: Like, that's just not even a thing anymore in the United States specifically.
And so, like, now every kid has that option if they choose to use it. And that student you're talking about was motivated, you know, had a personal relevance to do what they did, and so they used it appropriately. So I love that story because it meets all of the needs. And my personal opinion is, how dare we remove opportunity from, from these students because we're worried that some will misuse it. We don't do that with pencils. We don't do it with calculators. We don't do it with lockers or desks. Like, kids misuse their school learning tools all the time. And we don't remove the tool. We, you know, we guide character. And so that, yes, we are totally. We're so on the same page.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: I love that. Yeah. And I love that idea of guiding character. That's so important. And, you know, one of the things maybe we need to maybe spend a little bit more energy on in our, in our schools.
I want to shift focus a little bit to educators because I, I've talked with a lot of schools out there, a lot of school leaders here in Massachusetts. We just had a big conference. It's our, our Mass. Mass. Q Conference. Yes. And, you know, one of the, you know, this. Everyone's talking about AI, But I think what, I think a lot of educators are kind of like, where do we begin? You know, so when you work with teachers, when you work with leaders, you know, what's kind of that first entry point or mindset that you encourage them to, to kind of get into before diving into tools and workflows and efficiencies?
[00:12:51] Speaker A: I'm so glad you asked this question, because tools should not be the first thing we talk about.
It is.
That's another thing that I, you know, one of the reasons I wrote the book is because I feel that I see educators and schools fall into the trap of, oh, we're going to adopt this tool, or I'm going to use this tool, and somehow, magically, we'll check off this box like, oh, we're using AI. But that's just really not the right approach at all. So I built the AI Optimism framework around three core principles. And this is in the book, but also just on my website, like, I share this broadly.
The three core principles are praxis, privacy, and prompting.
So to me, those are the three elements that should guide every single decision we make around artificial intelligence. So praxis being how do we act based on what we believe?
So, for example, I don't believe that memorizing a bunch of facts is important as a middle school language arts and humanities teacher.
And so I didn't give quizzes the entire time I taught middle school. It wasn't a part of my teaching approach. So I would never get excited about an AI tool that's generating quizzes because that's not a part of my praxis. That's not how I act based on my belief system. So I want to start There.
And then I add privacy because, you know, I hope that's obvious. But like, we should be protecting student intellectual property, we should be protecting their data. We should not be using tools that are not compliant, that don't have an agreement with our school system if we're going to be accessing student data. As an IT person, you're like, yes, please say it louder.
And then prompting and prompting is huge for me because I call them easy button tools. And we're all glad for easy button moments where we can just quickly, you know, select a few things from a dropdown menu, fill in a Mad Libs prompt, and get something out of it. If it's Sunday night at 9pm and I need sub plans for tomorrow, thank goodness for the easy button tools.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: However, they are also limiting because they have this kind of additional filter on a full LLM, right. To provide that safe, secure education environment. And they're, they're turning out some predictable, very pattern based content and they're not actually giving educators the full power of an LLM. And so when I do workshops, I walk participants through, depending on the amount of time we have, up to 10 prompting strategies.
And they are like jaw drop, mind blown by the end, not because of me, but because of the power of prompting and, and what they can do. And so if one of my goals is to empower educators with potential impossibilities, then I want them to be able to see what they can do with a full LLM, a full tool.
And you know, students, we don't necessarily want accessing these full tools depending on their age and maturity. But as an adult professional, yes, I want them doing all of that. So that's what I really base the getting started around, is looking at those three core principles first and then thinking about what I'm trying to achieve. And in the AI optimism framework, I break our tasks and education into six categories. Design, create, support, analyze, evaluate, and manage.
And we really think about what am I trying to achieve and then how much do I want to allow AI to impact my work. So if I'm looking to design, for example, I'm looking to design a learning experience, do I want a substitution tool that's just gonna, you know, grab and maybe that's okay and.
[00:16:53] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:16:54] Speaker A: It's, it's a range, it's not a yes, no. Oh, you know, you, you weren't a good educator today. It's more about what do I want?
Do I want a substitution level tool or do I want something full, transformational that's going to allow me to do something with my students that was previously inconceivable, not even possible, based on I didn't have these tools. And so, again, we focus on the core principles. We look at the task we want to achieve, then we look at how much we want AI to get involved.
Then we pick a tool that best meets my needs, which means I have to have a decent level of knowledge around what tools are even available, which is why I think the book is so helpful. It's meant to be a guide where people can just kind of flip through and look at what am I trying to achieve and then get some recommendations on what's possible. Because sometimes we just don't know what we don't know.
[00:17:51] Speaker B: Exactly. And I love that. I love that framework because it really kind of.
And I love it because it places the tools over here, and it allows people to really engage with what they're trying to accomplish. Like, what's the. What. What problem am I trying to solve? Like, that's where we want to. That's where we want to start. And it's not that we're starting. You know, there's nothing more intimidating. You've written a book. I've written a book. It's like, nothing more intimidating than sitting down at a. At a dock, and it's just that blinking cursor with a white page. And it's like, you just, oh, I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna, you know, start with this. And, like. But you have to have. You have to put the energy into where you're gonna go, and that's when you really see the full potential of AI and what it can do. And that's exactly how I use it on any given day. There are certain times where I'm like, you know, I don't know how to respond to this or, I don't know. I need a. I need a couple more ideas for this, and I'll prompt it. But I've already been through a process of. I'm working through something, and I'm, like, kind of pinging somebody. It's like, if I had somebody else in the room, and I thought, partner sitting next to me, and I would say, like, you know, hey, I. What do you think about this idea? Does this work? Like, no, no, no. Here. Here are three other ideas. Try this. I'm like, oh, I like that. And then it kind of gets you in where. Into where you want to be. But I also like that you also say, like, you know, there are. There are times that, like, you Know, I just want the easy button. You know, I just, there's, there are times when that easy button just works and you know, that's okay on occasion, but we shouldn't be starting there. We should be kind of, shouldn't be ending there, be ending there. Right. We should be building up to when we're going to use AI and how much AI do we actually want to the task at hand, how much AI do we want to bring into that?
I think that's just really important. And if you're listening, make sure you go out there and get AI optimism. Because I think this is what school leaders need to think about. They need to read this, they need to understand that AI isn't this big scary thing.
When you put it in the context of a framework like you're talking about, Becky, I think it's important that we can start to visualize and you see the potential as opposed to just seeing like, you know, the kids are going to cheat. What about privacy? What about ip? What about all this? I'm like yes, all that stuff matters but like let's focus on where we want our kids and our students, our faculty to be and let's help them get there, you know. And I think that's an important framework for a lot of folks.
So you've supported districts, you've worked with schools globally, you've worked around the world and brought your work and experience and you've helped them build AI guidelines, professional development, implementation plans.
So with AI moving so fast. Right, because it's like I feel like every three to four months there's something new.
So what does a healthy, sustainable AI rollout look like in a school?
And what are the common pitfalls that some schools fall into and should avoid?
[00:20:53] Speaker A: Oh my goodness.
In two minutes tell us.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: In two minutes? Yes, in two minutes. Go. Yeah, right.
It's a loaded question.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: Yeah, right, yeah. That's so incredibly loaded. So, so one of the things that I think school systems tend to do is they look for an all up solution. And I get why I do. Like I, when I worked as a program coordinator for Kent School district, I was staffed under it. And so I got to sit in a lot of meetings. Many of them were way over my head.
Not my skillset to be technical, but I heard and I underst, I began to understand how difficult it is to support 182 apps in a school system.
And so I understand why we're looking for this like one magic bullet that's going to just do it all. And so I think However, a mistake that many school districts made at the outset was they, they went after the shiny, fun AI tool and said, great, we're going to adopt this for everyone and it's going to check the box that we're doing AI and you know, everybody is going to get trained on how to generate, generate, generate with this thing and push more content toward kids, which is not at all what we should be doing with this powerful tool.
And, and I think that's really unfortunate. The school systems that I've seen who have been a little slower to the rule, have said, hey, we're going to give staff access to a full LLM through our main platform. If that's Google, Gemini, Microsoft, Copilot, whatever they have, they're like, we're going to give it teach. You know, educators are going to have access immediate. Then they said, let's make sure we're highlighting proof of concept, whichever you're going to call it some student facing apps in groups. Right. And we're going to get feedback on that. We're going to see, you know, what it looks like, where it goes, and really test them against the goals we have in our school system.
So, you know, I've heard schools talk about we really wanted something that was accessible to all types of learners, or we really wanted something that, you know, had teacher oversight, they had some sort of rubric in mind, again, about their praxis, not about, is it an AI tool? Can we check the box? Can we tell our board, yes, we're doing AI because usually this is what are we doing about this? And you're like, calm down.
And so they went through some sort of testing process.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: And vetting. And then, and then many of them said, okay, we're going to be age and maturity appropriate here. You know, we're going to give a system fill in the blank. I don't want to endorse anything or knock anything specifically, but we're going to give a system to our, you know, K8 students and we're going to give this to our upper students. And then everyone is going to get Canva or whatever it is, or Adobe, because we know those are creative tools. Right. And they, they picked and chose based on again, what they wanted to achieve and then gave educators a toolkit.
And I think that is what's going well is when again, there's some sort of kind of wide toolkit. I think most of us who are using AI regularly don't just use one tool because they do different things very well and they all have these different Personalities. So, and then your, your second, the second part of your question was about, like, failure, right?
[00:24:37] Speaker B: What, what are the, what are the pitfalls? I mean, I think. And I think you alluded to it too, with like, kind of. Yeah, really, like, focusing on the tools and kind of like saying that. I love that. I love that whole concept of us. Like, I just picture like, everyone at this, you know, whatever district wearing a shirt to a board meeting saying, we're doing AI. Like, what does that mean? Like, it's like, right. But I feel like that's, but that's where we were with like iPads, like, or EdTech. We're doing one to one, we're doing it. We're doing ed tech now. And you know, I'm always, like, curious. I'm like, oh, why? Like, they go into a school, like, well, why are you doing that? Like, why are you using it? Why are you using these apps? Why are you using these tools particularly? And most, most places, though, they don't know. And they're like, we have things, we have technology. But like, why? And so that's where you start to see, like, okay, like, they need help. They need, they need breed AI optimism, like yesterday. And so that they can like, take that we're doing AI shirt off and actually get into the understanding of like, we're doing AI purposely and mindfully and intentionally as opposed to just, we had a, you know, we had a tool or we, you know, I think, I.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: Think we see a big gap between.
And this isn't a criticism of any one teacher. It just enters our vocabulary.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: But some, some school systems, when you say, hey, you know, what are you doing with ed tech? They, they answer with a device or a platform. Like you just said, oh, we're doing, we're doing. We have iPads. Like, that's their answer. Or we're doing Fill in the blank app. We're a Google school. We've got Magic school, whatever it is.
Then you talk to some school systems and educators. You go, hey, what are you doing with ed tech? And you know what? We just launched a student film festival, and this year, for the first time, we're letting kids use AI to help write their scripts or generate or actually, we've got this great thing where kids are developing their coding video games.
They start with a pedagogical strategic goal of empowering kids to be creators and they tell you how they're achieving it. And that is such a different answer than, well, we're a Windows district.
[00:26:44] Speaker B: Or like, yeah, right. And it's like, well, what is it? That means nothing.
I know. Yeah, right. Yeah, but you're right. That's the first thing you hear. It's like we're, oh, we're at Google school and we have, you know, this lms and that's what we do.
We just do that all day, every day.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: It doesn't tell me anything.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: It doesn't. I know, I know. Nothing about.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: Tells me what you pay for.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Yeah. It says you're probably paying a lot of money and I'd love to see how many license are actually being used. But, you know, that's a whole other podcast and that actually kind of goes into my next question is a perfect segue.
So kind of with that looking ahead.
So say there's a school, a really progressive school out there.
They've read AI Optimism.
They've embraced your framework. They bring it into their school. They're running with it. They love it.
What skills do you believe educators and students will need most in order to thrive along AI?
Like we said, it's moving very fast. But, like, where we are right now, what are those skill sets that students and educators will need to really work alongside AI? And are there any things that you recommend schools start doing now that could kind of help them get to that place?
[00:28:02] Speaker A: So funny. My first book covered this. We've been talking about skills and education for so very long.
Yeah. And, you know, the World Economic Forum came out with a new list in 2025 on like, oh, these are the skills. And I don't feel like those have changed a whole lot in the last 20 years now. They have in the last hundred.
Right. But we're in a place right now where we've been talking since, you know, around 2000 about critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaboration skills.
Recently, we've added adaptability, empathy. We talk a lot about problem solving, which is just a subset of critical thinking, in my opinion. Students being creators, which is just part of creativity. So I don't know that that has changed with the advent of AI. I think that it's changed how we approach some of those skills and actually amplified the possibilities around, you know, having AI be our collaborator. That's obviously brand new. Using AI to help us be creative, to help us solve problems, to help debug code. Like, all of those things are new applications, but the skills themselves, I'm not sure We've seen a big shift, which is. I've been in public education for 25 years now, and that's something that I have been advocating for the whole time. And you know, there's people that are. That are on that ship with me and people who have been talking about it much longer than I have. It's like, not my ip.
But I think that we as educators aren't looking for different. We're looking for a different way to approach it.
Right. And unfortunately, our system is not set up for us to be creative, adaptable problem solvers. Our system is set up for us to memorize facts and figures and dates and timelines and concepts and theorems and then demonstrate that understanding on an assessment that says that our teacher did a good job this year.
[00:30:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:30:22] Speaker A: So I hope that AI will be a conduit to move some of those systems to a different place.
[00:30:34] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's really important. I think you're right. I mean, it's like we.
The skills we want our kids to have aren't. They haven't changed dramatically. You're right. Because like, we were talking about this, you know, 15, 20 years ago when all these. When the Internet age came in and then everyone was coding, and it's like, okay, everybody has to code. Everybody has to code. And it's like, okay, well, let's pause on that a little bit. But I think that we've made great shifts in getting our kids. But you're right, those persistent things in our system, within education, at least in the United States, have kind of stayed stagnant where we have this kind of.
This rote memorization, this grinding of facts and skills, and then this output of a test. And yay, my teacher did good for the year. And that's the problem that I think is still churning within the education system. That hasn't really changed. And I hope you're right.
I hope AI is a conduit to help move and shake that up. Because it's been there for as long as I've been in. I've been in education for 20 years, and it's been there. And I didn't, you know, since technology was prolific, became more. More prolific and prevalent in schools.
I constantly said it's like, we've got to change this. Like, you know, we're not having the cheating conversation if we're completely changing the way we assess our students. Like, the cheating conversation doesn't exist when we're talking about having kids demonstrate and be creative about how they demonstrate their understanding of something thing.
That's just. That's just. I don't know, it just, it's. It seems so simple, but it's like we're still. We're still spinning those Wheels.
So.
Well, Becca, I'm sure we could go on for probably another hour or so. This has been easily, this has been, I mean, I think I had one question that probably could have spent an hour on, but I, I, you know, I want to just kind of ask you one question before we wrap up here that I ask all of my guests and, you know, what strategies do you use to step away from the digital world? You and I probably spend a lot of time in digital spaces and with digital tools and reading and doing all this stuff and want to know, how do you get away from all of it? How do you put it away and kind of go off the grid a little bit?
[00:33:01] Speaker A: I am, I'm in the Seattle area. We are known for being outdoorsy people, even though the weather is awful.
And I am one of them. So I get outside every single day. I do sprint distance triathlons, I snow ski, I hike, I water ski year round. So I mean, you know, when applicable, I paddleboard, I'm out with my dog, my family, camping.
I love to be doing active things outside. And so I am always away from a screen. I mean, other than like tracking, you know, like, I've got to have Apple Fitness running when I'm doing those things because I gotta close my ring. I mean, obviously.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: Obviously. Obviously, yeah.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: Or my tri tracker app or whatever I'm doing. But I do find that I actually, the people who work with me, like at federal labs will joke when I need to brainstorm or really ideate on something, they'll go, yeah, can you like, go for a swim?
Because I do really great thinking when I'm lap swimming or on a road bike ride or on a run, you know, because nothing else going on and it kind of frees up my cognitive load. I'm not looking at my email, I'm not, you know, getting the pings from Slack or teams.
Just be creative and, and I appreciate that time. So that that is my answer is REI's slogan hashtag, get outside.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: Do something to move your body. Because there's a lot of chemicals that, Yeah, I mean, I'm not a, I'm not a brain chemistry expert, but all those chemicals that happen when we get outside and we exercise are just massively to our benefit in a lot of ways.
[00:34:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. That's so cool. And, and as you know, I, I, I do spend some time out in Seattle and every time I'm out there, it's, it's interesting because, like, I'll go out and I was like, hey, what'? This weekend. And everyone's like, oh, I hiked through Olympic mountains. Or I, you know, I was. And they do these amazing things. Like, I ran two triathlons. I'm like, oh, wow, that's. I feel really. We're not that active in the Northeast, so it's.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a little bit comical that our weather is bad, but, yes, on. On a weekend, people have made it outside.
[00:35:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's. There's gear for that. Like, you know, again, at the end of the. At the end, going back to one of the things you said, like, you find the tool at the end to make it work because it's like, you know, you get the rain gear, you get the whatever you get outside.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: Yeah. There's, you know, our snow. We snow ski as a family. And I've been snow skiing my whole life, so 40, 40 years I've been snow skiing.
And you can ski anything in the right gear. We always joke about that.
What if it's wet and 4 degrees out? If you have the right gear, it's fine. Like, it's fine.
[00:35:51] Speaker B: You're good. Yeah.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: So it used to be. Yeah, it used to be a little more accessible when I was a kid. It was like, dirt cheap and you just skied in jeans. But, yeah, still a fun family activity.
[00:36:03] Speaker B: That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, Becky, thank you very much for being on the pod today. Those. Are you listening? The book is AI Optimism. Make sure you check it out.
And again, Becky, thank you for joining us today and sharing your energy and optimism for AI.
[00:36:20] Speaker A: Well, thanks for having me. And people can always find out more or follow up at beckykeen. Com.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: Great, Becky, thanks again.
