⚖️ Getting the AI/human balance right

🎙 Bring Matt to your school, district, event

Are you looking to introduce AI to teachers in your school or district?

Want them to learn how AI supports teaching and learning?

Interested in helping students prepare for an AI future?

Now is the time when people start contacting me about workshops, keynote speeches, and presentations for the spring and summer.

I take on a limited number of presentations each year. And each year, I’m fully booked. This year, in April, I was fully booked through the end of December.

(Not saying this to brag. But if you’re in this group, I know you’re helping lead the AI conversations in your school/district … and I wanted to give you an early heads-up in case you’d like me to help.)

Here’s how I can help:

• My keynote speech, called “Tomorrow Glasses,” introduces teachers to the basics of AI but also shows its implications on today’s classrooms — and how we can prepare students for the future.

• I have lots of AI-focused breakout sessions on topics like AI tools, practical classroom activities, cheating/academic integrity, responsible use, and more.

• My full-day AI for Educators workshop is VERY hands-on, providing educators with tools and strategies — and facilitating conversations about appropriate use.

PD and event organizers always tell me that teachers come away feeling less scared about AI and more empowered on what to do with it (and about it).

• The feedback from attendees is always glowing with a resounding theme of, "please bring him back again".

• Matt was awesome and just what our district needed. He was an engaging, dynamic and relatable presenter.

• Since his presentation, we have received many comments from staff regarding how they are using the technology ideas in their classrooms.

🙌 Want some information? 

• Email Jeff at [email protected] for details, pricing, and availability. (He’s super quick replying to emails!)

• Visit Matt’s speaking page for more information.

⚖️ Getting the AI balance RIGHT

This is going to be crucial, fundamental issue we’ll wrestle with for the rest of our lives …

How much AI use is the right amount?

How do we balance our humanity and the powers of artificial intelligence?

How do we augment what we can do with humans in the right amount so we don’t squander the preciousness of our humanity?

It’s a question I’ve been wrestling with a lot recently.

As educators, I think we NEED to wrestle with it …

… and we need to wrestle with it out loud with students. They need to SEE us wrestling with it — and hear why it feels like wrestling (and it’s not just easy).

If students are going to understand how to get this balance right, it needs to start with us. They could use some guidance from a trusted adult.

So … what does that look like?

I noticed this balancing act in my own life a few times just in the last week …

1 — The “Pink Out” Script 🏐

My daughter’s high school volleyball team had a “pink out” night to support breast cancer research and awareness.

My wife, one of the coaches, realized they needed to make an announcement before the game started explaining the purpose of the night.

Matt’s a writer, she thought. He can come up with something good.

And she’s right! I am a writer. And I knew I could do a good job.

But I didn’t have much time. So, I considered … what if I let Google Gemini write it for me?

I actually went to Gemini and started writing a prompt. But I realized something …

If I took the time to provide all the necessary context in the prompt, it’d take me longer to write a good prompt than to actually write the script in the first place! (Or I would take more time adjusting a bad AI response than I would take to write it myself.)

So I wrote it myself. Took me a few minutes. I was really happy with it. And it got a great response from the crowd.

MY AI BALANCE LESSON: Don’t ask AI to do something you can do quicker and better.

2 — Making TikTok Videos 🎥

I’ve started getting into the TikTok / Instagram / short vertical video game.

(Because, let’s be honest. Twitter, my go-to social platform for years and years, is a dumpster fire these days. I’m ready to try something else.)

I have struggled getting traction with my videos, so I invested in an online course on creating great TikTok videos. I LOVED the course — asynchronous, fun, engaging, lots of practical points.

So I decided to create an AI TikTok assistant using Google Gemini.

I made a “Gem” — a handmade AI bot with custom instructions. I plugged a bunch of the tips and strategies they gave me about making TikTok videos into the Gem as instructions.

Then, I used it to plan out new TikTok videos.

Holy smokes. The advice it gave me was AMAZING!

I was coming in with ideas for videos — even the creative ideas that would make it stand out. But each time, the AI helped me with several small adjustments that took the video concept from good to great.

(Example: This video I made about Google’s NotebookLM has more than 50k views!)

I wasn’t mindlessly asking AI to do the work for me.

MY AI BALANCE LESSON: Use AI to elevate your humanity, not replace it.

3 — Conference Presentation Proposals 💼

It’s time to propose presentation topics for the big ISTE Conference.

(It’s the biggest international edtech conference in the world, and proposals are due soon.)

The proposal forms are soooooooooo long and tedious.

I was just talking with a friend about co-presenting a session, and we discussed using AI to help us write our proposal.

We did the most important parts — conceive the idea, get passionate about it, have important points we want to share.

But the parts of the proposal that don’t bring us joy? That don’t directly help other teachers? Yawn. Meh. Not excited.

We decided that AI could help us with those parts. But the heart and soul of the idea — and the actual presentation of it — those belong to us.

MY AI BALANCE LESSON: Outsource the minutiae so you can focus on what makes your soul sing.

4 — Water Bottles and AI 💦

I’ve read recently about the huge water consumption it takes to operate the biggest, most capable AI models.

In short: in some locations, for AI to generate a 100-word email, the AI model consumes 1,408 milliliters of water — roughly three 16.9oz water bottles.

That’s heavy resource consumption.

Read about the amount of electricity AI requires, too. All of it should make us pause and consider our usage.

But it also made me think about my own personal water usage.

I don’t want to be wasteful. For instance, I wouldn’t turn on the water in my garden hose and just let it run for hours on end.

But, on the other end of that spectrum, I won’t deprive myself of a drink of water when I need it.

The answer lies somewhere in the middle.

I will wash my car or pressure wash the siding on my house.

But I also won’t let the water run when washing my dishes.

I know those examples show a bit of hypocrisy, and I get that. But hopefully we’ll find a balance instead of totally eliminating our use.

MY AI BALANCE LESSON: Find your sweet spot in the middle.

How does this apply to schools and classrooms? 🤷🏽

I believe that THIS is the way that students learn how to use AI responsibly — without overusing it or misusing it.

We talk about it. We. The adults. We tell them about how we have used it (or avoided it) — and WHY.

We encourage students to talk about it. Ask them to reflect on their use of AI — or have them discuss YOUR use of AI and whether it was appropriate.

Do we need lessons and units about artificial intelligence? Maybe … but I really believe that these short, impromptu conversations can help equip students more practically for an AI world than a unit about neural networks and natural language processing.

They need balance.

Help them to find it. ⚖️

✅ POLL: AI balance in YOUR life

Click on an answer to the question below.

Then, on the next screen (if you want), share some examples from your own life … like I did above.

I’ll share some of your responses in next week’s email!

🛠 New AI tool: Google NotebookLM

Google created NotebookLM in 2023 as a “personalized AI research assistant.”

Upload some source material — a PDF, a document, a website, some copied text — and it’ll synthesize it into resources for you, like …

• Study guides (with short answer questions, answers, and a glossary of important terms)

• FAQs (frequently asked questions)

• Table of contents (to help you navigate the source)

Now, it has added a new feature — the audio overview. 🎧

And, put briefly … it’s mind blowing. 🤯

It creates a realistic-sounding conversation between two hosts where they discuss your source material.

I did this with a chapter of an Openstax anatomy textbook. It created an analogy about organs and tissues … and the hosts even bantered back and forth.

Incredible.

READ MORE: I wrote about NotebookLM — and the new audio overview feature — here.

📚 New AI resources this week

1️⃣ 5 concerns about AI in education (via Ditch That Textbook): I read Ken Shelton’s and Dee Lanier’s book The Promises and Perils of AI in Education. It was eye-opening. I share five things I learned.

2️⃣ The Dawn of the AI Era: Teens, Parents, and the Adoption of Generative AI at Home and School (via Common Sense Media): In a survey of students, seven out of 10 are using generative AI. And most adults in their lives are out of the loop.

3️⃣ Can you cite AI in classwork? Should you? (via Digital Learning Podcast): AI assistants like ChatGPT are disrupting the standard operating procedure for student writing. Can you cite AI in student work? In this episode, Matt and Holly discuss problems and suggest better paths.