Ep 50: AI: the Tool that Brings Human Touch Back to Education

On this Higher Ed Conversations episode, I host a conversation with an Al expert and, more impressively, my sister-in-law, Suzi Boynton! Suzi is the Executive Assistant to the Superintendent and Board of Trustees for the San Marcos Unified School District, where she utilizes the tool of Al in her day-to-day work for the school system. In our conversation, we discussed Suzi's journey with AI and how its practical applications in her role enlightened her to its broader, more practical implications in education and the general workplace. We also tackle the subject of the importance of AI literacy, the ethical and responsible usage of Al, and its future applications. There's a lot to digest, so grab your coffee, sit back in your comfy chair, and join us as we focus on viewing AI through the lens of efficiency and its potential, not only for current educational needs but also for the future.

Thanks for listening!

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Higher Ed Conversations is hosted by Cheryl Broom, CEO of GradComm, a marketing and branding agency specializing in community colleges and public education.

Transcript

Cheryl Broom (8s):
Hi, I am Cheryl Broom, host of Higher Ed Conversations, and CEO of GradComm. And today I have a very special guest, and not only is she special because she's the executive assistant to the superintendent and board of trustees for the San Marcos Unified School District. She's also special because she is an AI expert and is my sister-in-law and shares my birthday! And, and, and, and, is here actually in the office with me, which is the first time I've ever had a guest in person. 

Suzi Boynton (42s):
Oh yeah. Cool.

Cheryl Broom (44s):
So you're our first in-person guest. 

Suzi Boynton (45s):
I'll take all the firsts.

Cheryl Broom (48s):
Yeah. And for those of you that listen to this podcast on your phone and don't know, we actually do record this and put it up on YouTube. So if you want to see the wonderful Susie Boyton, you can go to our YouTube channel and check out the podcast. So I invited Susie on the podcast because she has been speaking at conferences throughout California about how she uses AI and has integrated it into her school district and is teaching people responsible and ethical ways to use tools that are available. And I know in marketing we are starting to explore the use of AI.

Suzi Boynton (1m 24s):
Yes.

Cheryl Broom (1m 24s):
And a lot of the schools are kind of asking how and what and when they should be using it. So yes, Susie is here to talk all things AI. So welcome.

Suzi Boynton (1m 34s):
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me.

Cheryl Broom (1m 36s):
So how did this interest in AI begin?

Suzi Boynton (1m 40s):
Okay. So I started to seek out professional development. There's not a lot of groups in the executive assistant world that provide good professional development for our industry. And so I found a group called the, it's called ASAP, which is very easy to remember, and it's the American Society of Administrative Professionals. And although that's not tailored to K12 school districts, like what I work in, I decided that there's a need for professional development for myself to get better at my job.

Suzi Boynton (2m 21s):
And because there's a lack of, of that, that professional development out there in the world, I just went with this group. And so I went to their conference and there was a bunch of vendors at this conference that were demoing platforms, specifically calendaring platform platforms for executive assistants. And so what I did at that conference, I ended up sitting in most, almost every single demo that they offered an AI. And I started having these light bulb moments go off. And so at one of them, at one of them, that was the company's called EA Buddy, and it's a calendaring platform that helps you streamline your daily calendaring.

Suzi Boynton (3m 4s):
We do a lot of that as an executive assistant and in general across all industries. But she showed me how I could save basically five minutes on one task. And the way my brain works, because I'm an I was an accounting major, I started going, wait a minute, let me quantify that across my entire organization and what does that mean? And so that, that afternoon, I went back to my hotel after the, the conference that day and I was like, wow, that equates to, if I save everybody in my district five minutes, that equates to 250 hours.

Suzi Boynton (3m 45s):
And that's only on one task. And So, I started to think about that at, on a grander scale and what, what an organization could do with that kind of time and the changes that they could make when people got that kind of time back and what, what would that mean to each one individually? And so that sparked this intense interest in AI just in, its in its efficiency capabilities, but also like what it means to business in general for school districts and industries and all industries pretty much.

Cheryl Broom (4m 20s):
I love that you saw the potential of AI rather than thinking, oh my God, this is gonna take my job.

Suzi Boynton (4m 27s):
Yes.

Cheryl Broom (4m 28s):
Like, did you ever have, as you've like, dove more into all the tools out there, have you ever become afraid that you're gonna be obsolete or we're gonna be obsolete, or you think it's gonna improve things?

Suzi Boynton (4m 40s):
That's, that's a really good one. I mean, I think I had one minute where I felt like that I was like, uh oh. But the reality is, is the more I started investigating and reading articles and like fine-tuning my knowledge in ai, I started realizing it's the next industry, right? So, I don't need to be scared of it, but what I need to do is upskill myself so that I'm relevant to my industry when we shift. And there's a big shift across the world right now with AI, you know, and our jobs are changing and, and our skillset's gonna have to change too.

Suzi Boynton (5m 23s):
And so for me, I, I didn't see it as, I didn't see it as scary. I saw it as like exciting. 'cause I got, I get to think about my job in a new way and, and then I get to explore learning. Like I get to learn my job in a new way. And everybody will say this, you'll hear this the more and more you talk about AI, people won't be replaced by AI, but people who know AI will replace the people who don't know ai. And so part of me just feeling that deeply said, okay, well, I'm not gonna be left behind either, so let's get on board and let's learn.

Cheryl Broom (6m 2s):
That's great. I mean, just thinking of the calendar example, like, do you remember when before we used like Calendly or those AI tools, it'd be like 4,000 emails trying to find the time to meet, like how much time we wasted doing simple things that-

Suzi Boynton (6m 17s):
Yep.

Cheryl Broom (6m 17s):
-that AI can now do for us.

Suzi Boynton (6m 20s):
Yeah. And so let's just take an example of, of just like one task. So as an executive assistant, I, I'm constantly creating, you know, calendar events for the members of the public city council with my boss at the, at the school district. And so we're talking hundreds and hundreds of tasks, right? And so there's no reason for me to manually look at a calendar for open space AI can go take that, can go do that for me, and then I can use my time now thinking more strategically about how I do my job.

Suzi Boynton (7m 1s):
So, I don't need to be the eyes, the eyes looking at every single day for the next month, if that's what my boss has asked me to do, or if that's somebody what somebody's requesting, I let AI go take care of that and bring me back options, and then I can decide what to do with them. Right?

Cheryl Broom (7m 18s):
Right. oh my gosh, I just had a flashback of working on the college campus and I would have to be the one, like, if the, if the general public wanted to rent the gym or like they wanted rent the theater, I would have to like call all across campus to see the dates. Yes. And oh my gosh, the fact you're just like, tell the AI or the computer like what's available and have that.

Suzi Boynton (7m 39s):
Yes.

Cheryl Broom (7m 39s):
That's such a time saver.

Suzi Boynton (7m 40s):
It's a huge time saver. And you know, I, I do look at, at it through a lens of efficiency, but also I had this conversation earlier today with somebody and that like, by getting that time back, like what does that mean? And, and really what I think it means is we get to do the human parts. So prior to this, we've all been really, and and at least in education, I feel we're asked to do more with less resources. Right? And so we are bogged with day-to-day tasks and things, things like this that can be automated with AI. So what, what I see the opportunity, where I see the opportunity is that I get to put like a human touch to my job more than I did before because I get to scale back all those menial tasks and, and now I get to add value in my unique human way.

Suzi Boynton (8m 35s):
So in my Suzy way, I get to add something to my job and to my role.

Cheryl Broom (8m 39s):
And that's something that really stuck out for me when I saw your presentation was this philosophy that, you know, AI is gonna save us time and what do we do with that time? And that's the question that organizations need to be asking. Yes. Is we're gonna give people tools to do their job better, to take away menial tasks and in return, what are we gonna ask them to do? And I loved your philosophy that this gives us the opportunity to be more, to be better critical thinkers, to be better colleagues, to ask better questions, to serve people better.

Suzi Boynton (9m 15s):
Yeah.

Cheryl Broom (9m 15s):
So it, it gives us the opportunity to really be better.

Suzi Boynton (9m 20s):
Yeah, yeah. And like, I feel that AI is allowing us to be critical thinkers and creative thinkers, right? So again, we were kind of more the doers before, and now I feel like we're getting to scale out and scale up and kind of spend that time that we were previously spending on being the doers and putting two o'clock on the calendar or four o'clock on the calendar. And now we get to think about our role strategically. So for me, what does that look like? How do I help my organization achieve its goals? And and from the lens of what an employer's gonna do with that.

Suzi Boynton (10m 2s):
Do they wanna improve company wellness? Do they wanna improve company culture? Well, they have more time to do those things now because the automated piece is given back, I'll, I'll just reference it's grammar lease. One of their annual, or not annual reports, but one of their reports that they just released said that knowledge workers can save 7.75 hours a week by using generative AI in their jobs. Okay, that's a full day. What would you do? And So I asked some of my colleagues, some of the other executive assistants here in North County, what would you do with that? And across the board, everybody says four day work week. But we're seeing that more and more and more.

Suzi Boynton (10m 42s):
So that could be something that actually contributes to, to wellness. If some, if an employer's initiative is wellness because people want ti more time to themself. Yeah. So. it just depends on what their goals are, what their objectives are, and where they want to add value for their organization by saving that time.

Cheryl Broom (11m 3s):
Yeah, well I just had this like, like diabolical thought, like, save 7.5 hours a week, what would I make my employees do? Yes. But now like, no, maybe I would actually move to a four day work week. Yeah. Like, if you're not having to spend all this time doing those things, like why not use the rest of your time wisely and, and have some more time for your family.

Suzi Boynton (11m 24s):
That's another reason why I started this. I was so compelled after seeing all these platforms that I decided I needed to show internally, the group of people with the similar job titles and rules, like me, I need to expose them to this. 'Cause education can sometimes be a little slow on the technology piece. And I just thought, Hey, exposure's great. Let's just, let's start having the conversation. We might not be rolling out anything yet, but let's, let's show people what it looks like in action. Right? Like, there's no harm doing that. And what I got was all those same light bulbs going off in the room like they did for me when I saw that, when I talked to you about the person that showed me my one task and how that, you know, kind of just snowballed.

Suzi Boynton (12m 16s):
I see those light bulbs go off for people. And that's like, like right now what you just did. That's why I love talking to people about it because they have these light bulb moments, I call 'em aha moments. And it's just so exciting to see that go off for people in different ways and like how they can creatively think about what they, it, it's like this whole new world, we get to like, imagine all these new things about how we do our job, what, what we wanna do with that extra time. Are we gonna have a full day off? What does that mean for my family? Like, it has all these like, snowball effects really. And it's, for me, that's really exciting.

Cheryl Broom (12m 53s):
That's exciting. Yeah. Well, I want, you've given us some really good examples about the ways that you've used AI and the presentation I saw you give had some great examples that I didn't even know existed. So we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, I want you to give us some examples of your favorite uses so far. How do higher education decision-makers find the right solution when technology evolves at light speed? Well, we usually start with our network. EdTech Connect is the network that's democratizing the higher ed technology conversation. EdTech Connect is free, so anyone with a .edu email address can sign up unless the software and services they use in their role at their school.

Cheryl Broom (13m 39s):
Once you're in, you can find out what solutions similar schools are doing all over the country. Whether you're looking to find the hot new AI tool or maybe learn options, you have to upgrade your campus search engine or even get to your short list of marketing solution vendors. Ed Tech Connect is the place to go. So visit EdTech connect.com and set up your free profile to get a pulse for what's happening with higher ed technology today. Okay, we're back. Okay. So before the break we were talking about light bulb moments and I had a light bulb moment, like, if I could save my team seven hours, could we work to a four day work week? I'll see if anybody's listening, anybody on my team's listening to the podcast mention it to me.

Suzi Boynton (14m 26s):
Good one.

Cheryl Broom (14m 26s):
And I wanted you to give us some more examples of, of things that you've used or you've seen that saves that type of time.

Suzi Boynton (14m 33s):
Sure. I think a big one right now, which a lot of people are exposed to already, is Grammarly. Grammarly has created a AI platform. It's currently called Grammarly Go, although a lot of things are shifting. So the names change, but Grammarly has a version of their, of their platform that is generative AI. And what it does is it, it helps you be the best communicator that you can. We spend over 70% of our day communicating. Think about it. We're emailing, we're writing, we're we're, we're writing. If you're doing marketing, you're writing maybe pitches for people.

Suzi Boynton (15m 17s):
I, you know, but nonetheless, what happens when our writing is poor, we lose credibility, right? And so on top of streamlining and creating efficiencies within your writing and or improving your writing, you're also gaining more credibility. 'Cause you, you don't have all these grammatical errors and so I find, I use Grammarly Go It. It has a, the capability to do some of the things similar to chat GPT where it can generate text for you. It can sink into Word into your email, which a lot of us just use for right spelling checks, but it's more robust than that.

Suzi Boynton (15m 58s):
And so that's a platform that I see. If you're spending 70% of your time writing, I really see value in making sure that you're writing as quality and that you also have the option to streamline that and edit it with AI instead of yourself

Cheryl Broom (16m 15s):
Before you send it up. I actually use Grammarly and I've consider myself an expert writer. Yes. And there's some things that it catches daily where I'm like, oh

Suzi Boynton (16m 24s):
No. Yeah, yeah. Whoops. Whoops.

Cheryl Broom (16m 25s):
I use it in my emails and everything.

Suzi Boynton (16m 27s):
Yes.

Cheryl Broom (16m 27s):
So, I really like Grammerly a lot. Yeah.

Suzi Boynton (16m 30s):
Yeah. And it gets you a fun little report. don don't know if you've-

Cheryl Broom (16m 33s):
Oh, I've never looked at the report.

Suzi Boynton (16m 34s):
If you look at the report, it'll say you, you've used, let me think of what it just sent me. You've used like 80% more unique words than the average person today.

Cheryl Broom (16m 45s):
Oh, that's nice.

Suzi Boynton (16m 46s):
Like I said, I'm a data nerd.

Cheryl Broom (16m 49s):
Yeah.

Suzi Boynton (16m 49s):
So I'm like, oh, thank you. It's like little compliments it gives to you for being, for, for working with it.

Cheryl Broom (16m 55s):
That's great. Oh, I'm gonna have to check that out now.

Suzi Boynton (16m 59s):
Yeah.

Cheryl Broom (16m 59s):
I like to be rewarded.

Suzi Boynton (17m 1s):
Yeah. It's a reward system for sure, so.

Cheryl Broom (17m 4s):
I also saw in your presentation a PowerPoint generator that just like blew my mind and I haven't tried it yet.

Suzi Boynton (17m 10s):
Yes.

Cheryl Broom (17m 11s):
But I do so many presentations and I watched you build a PowerPoint live and I'm like, what? What is that?

Suzi Boynton (17m 19s):
Yes. I will say that's my favorite AI tool right now. I still feel like it's going to be my favorite AI tool For a while the founder or creator grant created what I think is gold. So it's, so Gamma has the ability to, to help you present ideas beautifully. Right. So what he's told me when he was speaking to me was people were more engaged when something is visually appealing. And Absolutely, I've gone to a lot of conferences where I almost fall asleep the second, the PowerPoint, not PowerPoint, but the bullet points come out.

Suzi Boynton (18m 2s):
Right. You know, and so the capability of Gamma is that you can tell it like generative ai. You can tell it a topic that you wanna create a presentation on. And in about less than 30 seconds, it spits out a beautiful, basically PowerPoint for you. You can present directly from Gamma with a live link or you can download it to PowerPoint if you like, or a PDF. And it's got so many capabilities to pull in GFIs and to pull in things from the web. And it's very user friendly. And So, I just think it's gold. And just recently they launched a website builder and it will build a website similarly.

Suzi Boynton (18m 42s):
Right. And I haven't tested that yet 'cause I don't have the need for a website. However, I can't imagine being able to create a website in a short period of time. The unique thing from Gamma is that, and where my brain went with this, with this platform was don don't have to be a don don't have to go take a course to be an expert at PowerPoint to make it look visually appealing or you know, like AI is letting me present something and present an idea without having a graphic design background. So while a lot of the times I don't even use the content that spits out in Gamma, but I use the design factor.

Suzi Boynton (19m 31s):
Yeah. And it, I would spend days probably trying to create a beautiful presentation. Now if my boss asked me, Hey, I have this presentation due, here's my content, I can go build it within 30 seconds.

Cheryl Broom (19m 43s):
Right.

Suzi Boynton (19m 44s):
And then add his content later. But it's, it's gorgeous.

Cheryl Broom (19m 48s):
That's amazing.

Suzi Boynton (19m 49s):
Yes.

Cheryl Broom (19m 49s):
Oh, I need to try this.

Suzi Boynton (19m 50s):
Yes.

Cheryl Broom (19m 50s):
Yeah. I mean, and it's funny 'cause I, people are like, oh, that's new. And, and it is new, but it's not new. 'cause if you go into PowerPoint, they have this feature called Design My Slide. And, and I've never thought that that is AI. So it's actually kind of buried. But if you do your own design and then you like hit this button, it gives you like 20 other ways to lay it out.

Suzi Boynton (20m 11s):
Oh.

Cheryl Broom (20m 11s):
And I've always used that in button compliments. And I think, I think the point I'm trying to make is we already have-

Suzi Boynton (20m 18s):
Yes.

Cheryl Broom (20m 19s):
-these tools, we've already been using a lot of these tools and now they're becoming more and more useful and more robust. So you go out there, people listen, go out there and and test them. Try them out.

Suzi Boynton (20m 33s):
Try them.

Cheryl Broom (20m 33s):
I'm gonna try this one out.

Suzi Boynton (20m 35s):
Yes. So try play with it. Yeah. What, what, what did, what do you have to lose?

Cheryl Broom (20m 39s):
Yeah, for sure.

Suzi Boynton (20m 40s):
You can scrap it, like throw it away. It took you 30 seconds. If you hate it, then move on. Right. But my thing is, let's see how useful it is before we make judgment about it.

Cheryl Broom (20m 56s):
And, and when it comes to things like PowerPoints, you are still presenting. And even if I use AI to help me write, I'm still having to come up with the idea and edit. 'cause I'll tell you if I have like AI write something, they used the word bespoke like constantly. I actually heard somebody say be bespoke on a zoom call today. Yeah. Like a, like a live person. And I was like, whoa. Like I've never heard anybody use that word. I actually wanted to ask him if he used like Chat GPT and decided to use like, and it's very adjective heavy. Yes. If write something and it's like, wow, it has a lot of like flowery language. Yes. So, I always will go in and edit it.

Cheryl Broom (21m 36s):
So I'm not, I'm like you where these are great tools to help. I'm not really afraid that it's gonna replace marketing.

Suzi Boynton (21m 45s):
Right.

Cheryl Broom (21m 46s):
Because a human being still has to read it and understand it and test it and edit it.

Suzi Boynton (21m 51s):
Yeah.

Cheryl Broom (21m 51s):
If you just plop it in there and let it rip, it's not gonna get the result you want.

Suzi Boynton (21m 59s):
No, no. And, and so what I'm hearing more often is what they call human in the loop. Right. There has to be a human in the loop when it comes to utilizing and creating work with generative AI. Right. You can't, I I, I talked to the groups that I speak to. I tell them, listen, you can't copy paste this and put it and send it out to people as though it's fact. We have to remember back to our education where they taught us to critically think. And, and there are biases in AI. And so you have to be the human in the loop that can see those things and can add you're value to whatever you're working on.

Cheryl Broom (22m 44s):
So for sure. And it's interesting that you, you know, you're, you love AI, you're speaking about it. You've given us some great tips so far and I find it interesting that you work for a school district because schools are struggling with students abusing AI.

Suzi Boynton (22m 60s):
Yes.

Cheryl Broom (22m 60s):
And in fact, my own son who's 16 and he's in 10th grade, he said one of his friends is a great student, straight A student AP classes. The last kid you would ever think would cheat got pulled out of class last week and came back crying because the teacher ran his paper through some checker. And guess what? He used AI to write his paper.

Suzi Boynton (23m 24s):
Right.

Cheryl Broom (23m 24s):
And plagiarized.

Suzi Boynton (23m 25s):
Right.

Cheryl Broom (23m 25s):
So he got an F and everybody was shocked. 'Cause no one ever thought that this would be the kid that would use AI. Sure. So like how do you balance like teaching kids responsible use of these tools and not abusing them? Like is your school district doing anything around that? Or are teachers starting to talk about it?

Suzi Boynton (23m 49s):
Yeah, I think, I think that's another reason why I'm really passionate about talking about it. I feel like in some ways it's kind of like this unsaid, we're using it, are we not using it? Everybody's using it. And the sooner we talk about it, the sooner we can be the mentors to students about responsible use. Right. So we're now in the age of AI literacy, but back in the seventies they were talking about digital literacy when computers just like started becoming a big thing. Right. And so back then they had to teach us, what is a computer? How do you log in? And then after a while it was like, oh, you can get all this information on the internet or through the books.

Suzi Boynton (24m 31s):
But what they had to do is they had to teach us, they had to teach us how to, for lack of better words right now, not plagiarize. Right. So it's something that we have to teach kids, but if we're not AI literate, how are kids gonna be AI literate? So that's another thing, like there school districts are starting to create task force to start the discussion because you need guardrails, you need responsible use parties for employees and, and students, and, we need to start showing kids how to use it responsibly. But what that, what that begins with is us knowing how to use it responsibly too. And I think there's just a, a void of that right now.

Suzi Boynton (25m 15s):
There's a void of that information. And so the, the more we talk about it, the more we learn. And And we will get that, you know, foundational knowledge like we did with computers in AI, you know, over time. But that's, we're the ones that are gonna help future generations know how to use it responsibly. Just like we learned in high school and college. This is how you cite sources responsibly when it's not your, it's not your thought, but you can add thought to it. Right. So we have to do the same for students and AI.

Cheryl Broom (25m 48s):
Now, that's brilliant. That's this concept of AI literacy. Have you done, like how are people, how do you become literate? Like what are you doing to help them?

Suzi Boynton (25m 55s):
Yeah.

Cheryl Broom (25m 56s):
Like how can we, how can we take that concept and expand it?

Suzi Boynton (25m 60s):
Sure. I mean, I'm really still learning what that means. I read articles on it. It's really just getting like a solid foundation of what AI is, what are its advantages, and also what are the ethical implications that are out there? What are the biases? And then also how do, how do we interact with it? Yeah.

Cheryl Broom (26m 26s):
So, and this concept of AI literacy is great. So how, how are people, how can they become literate? Like what do you do to become AI literate?

Suzi Boynton (26m 39s):
Right. So first being invested, being invested in knowing more about AI other than its daily use. What is it it, where does it come from and how do I think critically about it? That's a good start. But there's articles, there's, there's more and more literature being written about AI literacy right now than there ever was before. And it's grown exponentially since 2016. So doing more research yourself on, on the key concepts and also knowing that it's just not, it's not an end all. Like you have to, you have to be able to look at it through a human lens and, and apply like I keep saying critical thinking to it.

Suzi Boynton (27m 25s):
But, but if we think about it, like you could look at two pictures that are, that look almost exactly the same. And one could be generated by AI and one not. And so we have to start being able to use a different filter when we think about AI as well. So.

Cheryl Broom (27m 44s):
I think it's such a great point people need to really consider, especially in higher ed because when something new comes along, there's usually like a small group of people that are excited and then a big group of people that are like, Nope. Yes, nope. And I think with AI there's a lot of fear around it. So I've seen in talking to colleges this kind of like fear of embracing it and exploring it rather than looking at it through the lens of we need to become literate 'cause it's here to stay. And we need to understand how to use AI responsibly and then teach our students how to use it responsibly.

Suzi Boynton (28m 26s):
Yeah.

Cheryl Broom (28m 26s):
And just like my son seen, 'cause I've caught him on chat GPT writing essays and I'm like, you're gonna get caught and you're gonna get in trouble. And he'll be like, oh, I'm only using it for research. I'm like, is the word bespoke in there? But then he, after this happened, he was like, oh my gosh, you're right. You do get caught. And he said, so my teacher talked to us about this is a research tool. This is not for you to write papers with. This is for you to get ideas from that you go out and explore on your own. And So I think those are the conversations we need to be having in schools. Yeah. We don't wanna raise a generation of kids that just write papers on Chat GTP or-

Suzi Boynton (29m 6s):
Right.

Cheryl Broom (29m 7s):
You know, or make photos using ai. There has to be right that, like you said before, that human element to it.

Suzi Boynton (29m 16s):
Yeah. And maybe so students will learn how to cite their sources and their source is gonna be their, their own prompts. Right. So there's actually a, there's a way to cite your prompting in your, like if you are using chat GPT to create a paper. Right. And those are things like we don't even know about yet, so we're just figuring this out. So how would we expect them to know that yet? Yeah. And because it's so not talked about, right. Like our poor kids don't, don't know the boundaries. Yeah. They don't have guardrails. And so what we can do is teach them, like, like his teacher said, tell them it's a tool and tell them it's like their thought partner.

Suzi Boynton (29m 58s):
Like this is, I, I'm hoping this gets the, you know, wheels spinning it, it gives you new creative thought, but also it's gonna be, it's gonna be great to see how teachers could actually really embrace it themselves and start thinking creatively about how they can let their students utilize AI because it's so powerful and it's not going away. And how they can shift and creatively find new ways to test students. Maybe a paper isn't going to test the skills that the skillset that we need now.

Suzi Boynton (30m 38s):
Things have changed. Right. So it's like this beautiful start of this whole new world and how we see it. So, it might not be a paper anymore, but it might be, you know, presenting an idea and them having to do some sort of like presentation to demonstrate that they know that the same information that they would've put in a paper.

Cheryl Broom (30m 57s):
Right.

Suzi Boynton (30m 57s):
Because maybe the value of the paper isn't gonna be as important in the future. I don't know. I don't know.

Cheryl Broom (31m 3s):
But that's a good point though, that makes you really think, like, it makes you think as a, as a faculty member, like, hmm. Like maybe you're right. Maybe the tools we use to test knowledge need to change to really test knowledge.

Suzi Boynton (31m 16s):
Yeah.

Cheryl Broom (31m 16s):
That's a great thing to think about.

Suzi Boynton (31m 18s):
I talked to a friend of mine who teaches at a private, private Christian college and we went for a walk and she said, I don't like it. I said, okay, let me listen to that. And for about like a mile and a half I listened to, to what she was saying and I said, okay, well I challenge you. Like I I'm gonna push back just a little bit here because I don't know how we you get around just ignoring it. Right? Like how are they gonna, how are your students gonna be skilled for the future where all the jobs are if you just pretend it doesn't exist? Right. Like that's not gonna work. And So I said, I challenge you to maybe come up with a creative way to test their knowledge that's like unconventional.

Suzi Boynton (32m 3s):
And she, she paused and like thought about it for a little bit and she's like, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe I can do that. And so I just think it's gonna be a big shift in how we think about how we test, test the knowledge of our kids, right? Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's gonna take, that's gonna take a while. You don't turn a boat. You don't turn a boat instantly. The boat turns very slowly. Right. And So I, I feel with education that's, that's how it's gonna go. It's gotta turn very slowly.

Cheryl Broom (32m 32s):
Right. Yeah.

Suzi Boynton (32m 34s):
But I'm happy it's here. Yeah. Right. So I'm happy we're having the conversations. Ellie Unified just started their, they've put out resolutions to, you know, know with their board about the use of AI and where they plan to go with it. And so once kind of the bigger districts start doing that, the rest follow suit. And it's so exciting to hear that they're all gonna have task force. Because what that means is that we all get to, you know, share resources too and and continue to grow and learn in our AI literacy.

Cheryl Broom (33m 7s):
Okay. Well it's been a fascinating conversation. I thank you so much. You definitely have given me some light bulb moments.

Suzi Boynton (33m 13s):
Yay.

Cheryl Broom (33m 13s):
And for those who have made it to this point, we are now gonna go have some margaritas, which AI cannot make.

Suzi Boynton (33m 23s):
Nope.

Cheryl Broom (33m 23s):
Maybe one day there'll be AI margaritas.

Suzi Boynton (33m 24s):
Yeah, I never know. It might be able to make it in a machine or something.

Cheryl Broom (33m 29s):
You just tell it seriously.

Suzi Boynton (33m 30s):
Come up with a new concoction with whatever you have in there.

Cheryl Broom (33m 33s):
And so Susie is, speaks at a lot of K 12 conferences and if anybody wants to get a hold of her, she's on LinkedIn or you can always reach out to me as well. So thank you so much for your time.

Suzi Boynton (33m 50s):
Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Cheryl Broom (33m 54s):
And that wraps up this episode of the Higher Education Conversations podcast. I'm host and grad com CEO Cheryl Broom. A big thank you to our sponsor, EdTech Connect. EdTech Connect is free, so anyone with a .edu email address can sign up and list the software and services they use in their role at their school. So visit EdTech connect.com and set up your free profile to get a pulse for what's happening with higher ed technology today. And while you're online, take a few minutes to leave our podcast a five star review. It will help other colleges and universities find us and learn from the great experts we have on the show. That's it for now. Until next time.