Dr. Akbar Herndon, CTO of Grace Church School and a founder of the NEET conference, discusses his unique journey from professional jazz violinist to technology leader. He shares strategies for building highly diverse IT teams through a culture of belonging and explains why a "human first protocol" is essential when integrating AI into the independent school classroom.

1. Akbar’s LinkedIn Profile
2. Grace Church School
3. NYSAIS Education, Information, and Technology (NEIT) Conference
4. Black Swan Quartet, Akbar’s jazz group and recording
5. Weather Report, jazz fusion band
6. Max Roach, jazz drummer and composer

Dan, welcome to Talking technology with ATLIS,

the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for

technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens.

We'll hear stories from technology directors and other

special guests from the Independent School community,

and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics.

And now please welcome your host. Christina Lewellen,

Hello everyone, and welcome back to

talking technology with ATLIS. I'm Christina Lewellen, the

President and CEO of the Association of technology

leaders in independent schools.

And I am Bill Stites, the Director of

Technology at Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, New

Jersey.

And I'm Hiram Cuevas, the Director of

Information Systems and Academic Technology at St Christopher

school in Richmond, Virginia.

Hello, gentlemen, how are you doing?

Well, it is the great pollen ing here in

Richmond.

Yeah, it is that time of year. But I think

Hiram, the good news with that is that, man, are we barreling

toward the end of the school year, like, where did this year

go? Right? It was like, Happy New Year, and now we're

graduating. It feels like it's going

very fast. Well, when Bill has Spring Break this

past two weeks, you now get full steam ahead for summer for MKA.

Oh, yeah, no,

I think you're jealous. I am. Are you

basically saying you're jealous that MKA gets two weeks off?

What do you get? Hiram, I just get a week. Just a week. It's a

hard life. You have just a week. I'm so sorry. Y'all want to know

how much I had for spring break.

Oh, please. You were traveling. You were on your

like, CEO like girls junket recently, like going around

doing whatever it is you're doing, boondoggling around the

United States in your farewell tour. I don't want to hear that

you're like having such a tough

time about oh, we tried mufongo.

I did the mufongo. I am missing Puerto

Rico. It's crazy because I think that I landed two weeks ago

today, and I was thinking about that on my drive in today,

because it's gross and rainy here in Virginia, and I was

driving to the office, and I thought, Oh, two weeks ago, I

woke up and we went out on the beach, and it was gorgeous. And

you got to have those moments in life and savor them. But I'm

also like, big sad

face, yeah, we had two weeks off. But to be clear,

I worked like part of both weeks. So it's not like I was

like, on break doing so I was up on ladders replacing APs. I was

like, taking meetings. It's like, when you can actually get

the most amount of work done because no one's in the

building. That's right. So it's not like I was like, lounging on

some like, tropical island mojitos, cojitos, whatever it is

you're drinking and eating and doing coquitos. You know, I'm

doing none of that, none of that, none of that Puerto Rican

joy that you and Hiram experience? No, no, I was here

in like Montclair, New Jersey.

Thanks for taking one for the team.

I'm about to make Bill feel a lot better, though,

because I am spending time with Bill next week. I'm spending

time with Bill at ATLIS. Then I'm going to Utah with Bill. So

it's a bill Stites fest.

It's Bill spring, Bill and Hiram spring adventure,

absolutely,

oh, like that movie in the 80s, Bill and

Ted's Excellent. Bill and Ted's, yep, Bill and hiram's Excellent

Adventure. I think you guys could redo that. Did you have a

quick question for you before we get to our guest? And I

definitely want to hustle over to our guest, because it's a

good one. But I am in this era of my life where I've got a

couple college kids popping home for Easter holiday break, and

some folks are very torn about the whole Easter basket after

childhood thing, but I've always used it as an opportunity to,

like, give them a gift card or some laundry detergent, you

know, their favorite candies. And so I found these giant eggs

that I can put a couple gift cards in, couple dove dark

chocolates or whatever their favorite is. Do you guys put

together little Easter treats or little holiday treats, whether

it's for St Patrick's Day or anything like that, for the

older kids? Absolutely no.

We still do it. My wife's down with my mother down

the shore, but she's on spring break this week, and she's going

to the local candy shop, and she's like, What are we getting?

Still happens?

Yeah, my nephew and his fiance are in

their late 20s. I got some stuff for them too. Everybody wants a

little treat, right?

My boys still get letters from Santa, from my

grand Oh, yeah. And they look forward to it like, Oh, I hear

you've been a good boy, you know, rattling off all the

different things.

Oh, okay, wait, wait, wait, we might have

to cut this out, because they're friends. Your son is now working

for MLB, and you just outed him as getting cards and or notes

from Santa. This is not good news 100% and he loves it.

That's nothing to be embarrassed about. He's on

the in I mean, he's getting letters from the man, exactly.

That's a direct pipeline. That's amazing. Sean Stites and Craig.

He'll take it. I'm jealous. I don't get a letter from Santa.

I'll work on it for you.

Hiram, it took me years. To get an MKA at so, you

know, Oh, stop.

Okay, we're not going here.

Sean and Craig. I just want to say that I

advocated to cut this part out, and so if it's still here and

you're hearing it, I just apologize on behalf of everyone.

Trust me, our

kids don't listen to this.

I'm very excited to transition to our

guest today, because Bill, you have been raving about what you

call the NEET conference for a long time. This is an event

that's been hosted by the New York State Association of

Independent Schools, and it's their Education Information and

Technology Conference. So n, e, i t neat conference, and there

is a gentleman who was one of the founders of this technology

gathering almost three decades ago, and so that is who we are

welcoming on the pod today. Dr Akbar Herndon, hello. Dr,

Herndon, how are you today?

Hello, Christina, thank you. I'm great. I love

hearing that conversation about giving to our children.

Okay, so where do you fall, like, on this

little debate that we have? Do adult children need a little

Easter treat?

We give the basket. We have our basket.

We're preparing it now. I love it.

Okay? Just have to once a parent, always a parent.

That's right, yep,

I will say that I will probably have one of

my daughters actually put them all together. So I don't know if

that takes away from the magic. Mom's busy, so I might have to

actually outsource the assembling of the baskets to one

of the aforementioned children. But we'll leave that where it

is.

Any opportunity to give is worth it.

I agree with you. Bring a little joy into

everybody's life. So, Dr Herndon, you have a really

interesting background, and so I do want to talk about the neat

conference. I want to talk about your career in independent

schools. But before we jump into the Independent School part, can

you tell our listeners a little bit about your life before you

came to independent schools,

it's a long period of finding my way. I came

to Grace 32 years ago as computer coordinator, then soon

after, tech director, and then for the last 10 years, CTO. But

before then was a math teacher who integrated computers into my

math class? I take one day of the five days that would be our

computer day, we'd have brain puzzles teasers, brain teasers,

coding with logo and so on. But coming to that point, I grew up

in Ohio, Cleveland, Ohio, read a lot of books, loved tinkering,

loved doing puzzles and took violin lessons. I love music,

but you know, as a black teenage boy trying to figure out how to

be cool, the violin did not fit. So as soon as I could drop it,

when I went away to college, I stopped soon as I could get away

from my teacher, who I was terrified of but respected. And

there at college, discovered coding, and that really turned a

page in even what I was doing at school, the entry level

programming language at Carnegie Mellon in 71 was PL one, which

was a combination of cobalt Algol and Fortran, and that

whole idea of being given a puzzle, essentially and given

constraint, I had a language. I could define my variables,

define your environment, create the logic flow, and then did you

do it? You know? Is it right? So that really resonated with me,

like never quoted before. That led to other tech classes, but

the process was, you bring your solution into the computer lab,

you would go to a keyboard machine where, you know, a cards

about the size of $1 bill, you type on the key punch machine,

and every card was a different instruction. 4050, cards later,

you would go to the card reader in a different part of the room,

read the cards into the card reader, and then the data was

sent to this that IBM 360 but this monstrous machine behind a

glass wall that had a huge desk in front, probably the original

help desk, and then about an hour later, someone would bring

out dot matrix paper that had your solution or your mistakes

more often than not. So it sounds arduous, but it was just

like a new world to explore, and of course, getting it right was

the goal, but that led to taking courses like data structures

miracle analysis. We learned to program in machine language,

assembler, using PDP 10s PDP elevens created parsers or

interpreters, compilers. So, you know, there was a whole world

there, and as much as I liked it, I did not feel like I was on

the inside of that circle of kids who were majoring but they

didn't really have a computer science major, but applied math

with computer options was how it was termed. So I got my degree,

but did not click with that circle in my um, I think the

first summer between sophomore and freshman year, I heard a

music group named weather report. And weather report blew

my mind. These were jazz giants already, but they were using

synthesizers, funk, bass, crazy polyrhythms, and I was smitten,

bitten by this need to play jazz, and all I had was violin.

So I got my violin, brought it back to school with me, and

started trying to teach myself how to improvise. Spent the next

three years finishing school, of course, but finding ways to

play, finding other people who wanted to play together, forming

pickup groups, sounding pretty bad, but um, it was fun, but um,

I kept going with it even after graduation and to support

myself, taught I had already been hired by Carnegie Mellon

several times to teach either supplement classes. I didn't

have a complete degree, but I could lead a section in math or

in technology, and being pretty good at coding, you know, be a

tutor. So I loved teaching. It wasn't a compromise in any way.

But after graduating, I picked up a couple of teaching

positions Upward Bound. Had a program on the college campus,

so I taught there, learned about how relationship is really the

heart of teaching. Content was okay, but relationship was

really what you took away and shared. That gave me a chance to

keep trying to get into jazz clubs, sitting in with various

performers create a group of my own here and there. I didn't

know how this was all going to end, because there's no pipeline

to the jazz world. And then on violin, you know, jazz is very

cool. Violin in jazz, strange, but sometimes it clicked, and I

had the amazing, like a miracle, amazing fortune of at a jam

session two or three years after graduating Max Roach, who is

like a giant in the jazz world, drummer, heard me playing and

came up and raved about what I was doing and insisted I moved

to New York. You know what a confirmation first time someone

saying you're on the right track. So I did. I moved to New

York soon after he and I became very good friends. Still have a

piano that he gave me for composing, and I started working

on building my own group and to be able to support myself.

Taught math, continue to teach math, yes, little courses here

and there, long story short, we recorded very successful for a

short moment, which is how fame works. You have to keep calling

the crowds. And you know, our album did well. We were doing

something different, very different, but it was very hard

to have my classes while being on tour. My schools would agree,

yes, you can go away on tour as needed, but when I came back, my

classes were in shambles. I had a substitute, but it was clear

that this is not a right solution. I felt disingenuous as

a teacher. As years went on, Black Swan, which was the name

of the string quartet, hit its peak, and some internal

frictions that to the group not playing as often, and that gave

me reason to sort of turn towards teaching, maybe as a

better investment, as I, you know, wanted to think about

family and a stable lifestyle, and you can't do that when

you're on the road. So coming to grace in 94 was a real turning

point, because that meant I wasn't teaching math. It was

only as computer coordinator, and it was a chance to really

think about, what is this new field, and what does it need,

and how can I maybe contribute to that in a way that most other

disciplines are somewhat fixed. You can explore them in new

ways. But technology was not fixed. It was we were inventing

it. So is that a good precursor to

I love it. That's so great. And now you've

been at Grace Church school. Tell us about the school. What

are the demographics? Where is it located? We're in Manhattan.

The school is over a century old, I think 1894

It was created as a boys or for a boys choir at Grace Church.

This was the education component. Now has 850 students.

Originally was all boys. Now, of course, it's co Ed Pete, 150

full time faculty, 200 faculty with full time and part time,

and another 50 staff. We have two campuses. The original

school, as I said, began back in 1894 and that's the primary

campus of K through eight, Junior K through eight, but we

just added a high school. It seems recent to me, but it's

been 14 years. We have a high school that is on a campus four

blocks away. Students move between the two campuses in

Manhattan pretty regularly, but um, the high school pretty much

who was at the

southern campus, that's so cool. And the

idea that you came in as a computer coordinator in those

early days of coordinating computers is kind of

interesting. You also were a founder of the neat conference.

So tell us a little bit about why that was necessary. You and

some folks got together and said, we need to do this. And to

think about a technology conference that's 30 years old

is just kind of crazy to me. I know you guys have been in the

space for a long time, but ATLIS just celebrated its 10th

anniversary last year, and so we're relatively new kids on the

block. So the idea that there's been a tech conference out

there, and I know there were a lot of precursors to Atlas, but

why did you feel the need to get people together around this

topic?

Technology was a new animal, a new direction. No

one needed it, but it was slowly creeping its way into the roots

of every school and every culture around us. And I say no

one needed it. You know, the math classes did not have a

space for technology, per se, unless that teacher chose to add

that component. So it really was sort of a standalone and on the

other hand, there was a growing dependence on, what could we do,

you know, presenting reports, comments and reports. We weren't

quite at the embracing the web yet, but we were in the process

of embracing the web in schools, we had them, had web contact at

home and web access AOL in most people's cases. But I think the

biggest thing was just needing camaraderie, that we were

looking for a way to share my problem and solution to ask,

does anyone else run into this to see who else had networked

their computers to the dot matrix printer using Apple talk,

and, you know, eventually Ethernet, or whatever next

generation of connection. When I was hired, my predecessor,

another computer coordinator, she taught all of the computer

classes, and that filled her day for five days a week. Those

computer classes were keyboarding or basic writer,

early word processors, basics of tools. But I was able to arrange

to only teach middle school and that the lower school would be

taught by their own core teachers and assistant teachers,

and I would work with those teachers. So that was a whole

new model for me at Grace. And then to be able to compare that

with other schools, to find out, how do you have time to do those

other things? Who's teaching the course? What are you teaching in

those courses? So it was just really a way of comparing notes.

At first, we met several times here in Manhattan. I remember a

big turning point meeting at Riverdale, but we knew that the

heads of school had an annual conference at Mohawk up in New

halls, New York, beautiful, huge castle that bill was mentioning

earlier to a beautiful setting and heads were able to enjoy

this. We propose that we have that opportunity. And NAIS, the

state association, supported us. So we were able to arrange our

first conference, and in that conference, I think Alan

November, he's a instigator, intellectual instigator, was at

that first conference and really challenged us around things like

technology plans, which he thought we should throw. Away

automating, choosing what to automate, and where is this

going. So it really woke up, I think, a certain conversation

that not only kept us in contact with each other, but out of the

neat conference, the nicest listserv which you might be on

or be aware of, was a cornerstone for people, not in

New York but across the country, who brought those same problems

or accolades, or, you know, the exchange was quite alive, and

it's still functioning 30 years later. And then we also had a

monthly meeting, naisis meeting, where we brought topics each

month and discussed, but the real culminating event was

always the annual conference. So I'll name some of the people

who, in addition to Alan over the years, who we brought in as

keynote expertise, Alan Kay, probably our biggest name. That

was a pretty wonderful weekend of conferencing, Tristan Harris,

who's more popular right now, Dana Boyd, Manoush, zamorotti.

These were just off the top of my head, but I just chatted down

a few names. You know, it was a place to bring your

understanding and to learn and really, to just relax, finally,

for two days, but we were constantly on the phone. You

know, what's happening? Why did it go down? Try this. You didn't

get away, but you could be in a different place and have

periods, maybe of relaxing or listening to someone else's

accomplishments and not having to be on site with the pressures

that went with keeping the system up, which was largely the

main goal at the time, is it up, can I depend on it? And slowly,

as that became more true, that we could depend on it, more and

more teachers were able to treat it as a reliable source and

include it in their lesson planning.

You mentioned getting away, you mentioned the

ability to relax and not really relax. I gotta tell you, in all

the times I went there, the location just lends itself to

kind of exhaling a little bit. The way in which the conference

is structured is, I think, very unique. And having time for the

tea, being able to talk to people and kind of explore the

space, but also get those one on one times with the people that

are there. The other is knowing where it is, the fact that in

the main day, you schedule stuff in the morning, you give people

time in the afternoon to explore, to spend time with one

another. But one of the things that has always struck me, and

I've taken pieces of this and brought it into our own

professional development here at MKA, is the idea that the

knowledge is in the room, and that the model of the conference

is an unconference. That's right. So I can imagine

Christina just trying to think about running the ATLIS Annual

Conference, where it's like, All right, we're gonna have

keynotes, and then we're gonna have rooms, and we're gonna let

people propose sessions, and then at that conference, they'll

go where they want to go. So can you explain, for those that

don't know what an unconference is, what it is, how it's

structured and run, and what the benefits of that are to that

idea that the knowledge really is in the room.

Thank you, Bill, that's a beautiful call, and

you're right to be that has become the most important part

of the conference, more than the keynote speaker. So unconference

is that either after a keynote speaker has presented, or before

you even get there that something that you wish to

discuss, meaning, I'm not an expert in this, but what do you

think about this idea, or how are you handling this issue? Or

maybe you are an expert in something that you want to share

with the group. We line up. There's a call for conferences

or unconferences. We line up, jot down the name of the event

we'd like to lead, or convene, is a better word. And then in

the 20 different rooms that are available, that particular

unconference is assigned to one of those rooms. You don't know

how many people are coming, if anyone you're given the power to

not only just visit, but if you aren't crazy about what's going

on, or if you feel like it's hit its peak, to get up and go to

some other conference. The law of traveling

feet, that's the best thing. Feel free to leave.

You don't need to stay here. If this isn't what you thought it

was, get up and go

and it's not an insult. It's not personal. That

is great. It allows what Bill is talking about with that key and

those exchanges. It allows the spontaneity, and I think, a

level of creativity to appear that in your choosing which one

to go to, you're also. So allowing something in you to

sort of Spark, initiate and find a next step. So there might be

four or five different bands of unconferences, and it sounds

crazy, you know, how can you fill so many different spaces?

You won't have anything to talk about. You'll run out of topics.

That is not true. There's always too many events being proposed,

and there's time for always, and they don't have to be tech

things. So usually they are. I jotted down some of the ones I

remember myself leading in the past that I was going to read to

you in the very first conference. This was not an

unconference, so I'm cheating. I had a presentation about the

difference between an apple, a picture of an apple illustrated

and a digital representation of an apple. I challenged my

audience that those were three different types of data which

had different impressions and different impact on our systems.

Okay? Unconference. In fact, Ashley cross, who invited me to

the podcast, heard me propose a conference on conferencing while

black, and that was a year or two after I proposed another

conference of similar nature. Why so white? And that came out

of the fact that in earlier years of this conference, there

was a much larger demographic of African Americans and people of

color than I'm seeing there of late. And I don't know what that

means after the pandemic, maybe your drawback of budget? Who

knows? But why so white is something that we can go back to

in a moment, but it was a challenge again to really think

about what are our practices that are excluding unknowingly,

some people and not others. What's keeping my comfort level?

So that's an unconference topic. It was packed. How do we protect

ourselves? And what is important was another topic. This was

before AI and its onslaught of demand. It was just technology

and technology leaders, being at Mohawk is a way of protecting.

But what do we do? Do we turn it off? Can we put down the phone?

Do we meditate just hearing each other's insights about how can

we protect what's human, recognize what's human and feed

that while balancing the technology demands technology

department leadership and structures, oh, I led a group on

meditation, when to turn it off, and that was connected with a

program we had at Grace called unplug the Connect, where we

unplug as much as possible for one day. No smart boards. Of

course, we keep the phones and emergencies available. But to

really challenge again, where does the teaching come from, and

what do we find when we aren't looking at a screen? Teacher's

toolkit, and my list is not as technical as some others.

There's many attendees who come in with an expertise. You know,

early on, I'd led sessions like smart boards, 101, and so on.

But a lot of that was caught up. You know, we caught up with

those cornerstones. They're now staples in every classroom, but

there are all sorts of right now AI leaning unconference topics

that are the current list that one would find

so Akbar, I would like to first extend a word of

gratitude for developing this conference, because Bill has

been trying for years for me to go up to this conference, and

it's just a tougher time of year, but I'm originally from

New York, so I know the area quite well. Hearing your

soothing voice describe the conference even more. Just

what's the appetite for wanting to attend it with greater

fervor. Now I'd love to also mention that your unconference

model has been replicated time and time again in a variety of

other venues, and it's certainly a very powerful approach. It is

definitely taking the wisdom of the crowds and leveraging the

community to provide that dialog that is often needed for folks

who may not be heard on a regular basis. So once again,

thank you for that. I do want to pivot slightly, because I am so

intrigued, from the run of show notes, the diversity of your

staff and your department, it truly is quite fascinating. Did

you seek this out? Did it happen by accident? Was it a charge by

this. Schools leadership and I mean, what's the secret sauce

that you have to get this? I mean, let me read off the

backgrounds of some of these folks. You have a Dominican, a

Guinea and Puerto Rican, an African American, a Ukrainian, a

Chinese, Dutch, European American, four women and five

men. I mean, you've kind of hit the jackpot on the melting pot

there.

I agree. I feel like I did hit the jackpot. Did

I do something that I'm aware of? No, I would love to claim

credit for the secret sauce here,

so the stars were all aligned.

But you know, in truth, my head pointed this out

to me a couple times, and my former head also, he said, you

know, you have the most diverse department in the school. I

mentioned this to other department heads, and that made

me try to look closer at what does he mean, you know. And it's

become even more true, to be honest, in the last couple

years, no, I didn't do something that I could call a technique,

but I'm sure there is some element of belonging that I

champion that has to Do with, if not just, attracting and

recruiting, retaining department members. So, you know, as I

thought about it, I jotted down a couple notes of things that

might contribute, and there is some luck, no question, but

things that might continue, I think, go with the fact that I

don't see dei as separate from the tech department, and I'd

never thought about it that way until recently. You know, we

have a dei office. I've had a lot of roles and impacts on the

DEI aspect of our school, but I wouldn't have said that was part

of how the Tech Department operates, but the evidence shows

otherwise, that there is something about how we operate,

you know, our recruitment sources, and these are things

that the ATLIS tech leaders community building framework

touches on a number of the things I'm mentioning. So

they're not secrets, but it sort of came together in the right

way. But things like recruitment sources, we require having a

person of color in the final round of selection as a school,

and that predated me, that I encourage the members of my

department to be active in the DEI programming events. And we

have some events that are pretty powerful. For instance, every

year right after Martin Luther King's birthday, we take three

days for symposia, workshops, assemblies. This started with

middle school. Remember? High School just came on 14 years

ago, but they've embraced this. We take those days and we look

at topics like gender expansive identities, algorithmic bias,

automating racism. And for me, it's the most alive time of

school year. We bring in a keynote speaker, and I urge my

staff, the tech staff, to be involved, not just in helping

set up, which, of course, comes back to us, but have a seat in

that room that you just set up. We'll get someone else to cover

your floor. We find ways to make sure that they have access to

their own cultural feeding and needs. We try to make everyone

feel like this is theirs. So I meet with my staff regularly.

Seven out of nine, I would say I see every week, and then we

alternate. So there's a caring that I try to make sure they

understand I am literally interested in their next step,

and what is it they see themselves doing in five years?

What would help you to that next step? Where are there holes in

how you've been brought into the school? Let's look at that

together. So again, these are not tech things. I know some

tech stuff. There's most stuff I don't know anymore. You know,

it's gone beyond me. I can't keep up with it, so I work with

my tech director of infrastructure to know what's

needed and what the next decision is. But I can urge that

tech director of infrastructure to speak at Ramadan chapel, and

he is suddenly now at the center of something that is so

important to him and his family, and that's not separate from his

job. That is part of not only his job, but he's our teacher at

that point. I love that. So I look for situations. I look for

situations where you. Chapel could be a place for sharing,

but being called into a classroom might also be that

chance for sharing a whole other level of identity.

I love that. I would imagine that these

issues have gotten a little bit more complicated now in this era

of AI and Dr Herndon, I'm curious what your school's

position is. You know, everybody's in a different place

in their AI journey. There's some intersectionality that I'm

sure is happening in some of these topics and now with AI on

the scene. So how are you guys thinking about AI and how does

that sort of work into the fabric of your school?

We, like many schools, within a month or two

of open AI's release, we were cautious. We were afraid. I

think a lot of our reaction was the threat of AI and the

articles that were flying around. We formed a committee to

look closer, look for ways to try and guide students. We

developed the philosophy and policy that I think was not bad

for that time, and are only now ready to upgrade it to a next

step, but that first level was that we offered training.

Certainly, we offered licenses, paid licenses, to faculty from

any platform encouraging them to explore. We made it clear that

teachers determined whether AI was invited as part of that

lesson and class work and at the same time, students were

encouraged to explore. And we in all of our technology courses,

starting in second grade through high school, had a component of

every course that spoke to prompt engineering, explaining

what is an LLM, comparing, you know, writing their own material

and comparing the outcome from any of the generative AI

platforms that were so popular. You know, we, I think, struggled

really with that point of honesty dishonesty. No real

checker was accurate enough, and if it came down to our word

against their word, very uncomfortable to say we really

don't think this is you, and they're saying, No, it is me and

the text reviewer, you know, chat GPT zero, not really giving

enough support in either direction. I feel that now where

we are at is we are mandating a training that will make sure

everyone, all the faculty, at least, and staff, has basic

information enough to make decisions about their class. I

think we're moving towards requiring that there be some

level of AI included in every class that can use it wisely. I

don't think there should ever be a time when it has to be used.

On the other hand, I think every teacher should have the

capability of deciding Yes, this is a good tool that the

assignment is no longer gather your sources and analyze them.

The assignment is now take those gathered sources that you may

have used AI for and create a next step that will enhance a

particular goal that was stated. So there's a place for it, but I

think we are only figuring out what that place looks like we

did in our first iteration very quickly see that we have to base

all of these decisions not only on our mission, but on the

values that we champion as a school and particularly

initiative. There are many places that would say, yes, use

it to brainstorm. I am not so sure about that. I like when we

create the ideas initially and then compare notes and can

brainstorm from there, but that we retain that first step, and

so we have something we call the human first protocol that we

teach in our classes, with students and with teachers, to

take that first step and not lose our ability to risk putting

our ideas out there. So it's a very fine line, but it's one

that so far has held up as we compare it with policies that we

think we're moving towards. We want to renew our discussion of

guided. Student use beyond classes, like I said, we provide

paid licenses. We are providing guidelines now as to, you know

what is a private and protected environment that students can

use? For instance, since we're a Google school, Gemini is a

protected area. We shouldn't be starting with the free chat GPT

with students, so that's not clear for every teacher, so

we're building those guidelines and sharing with them what we

think are the next steps. And then there are examples like

took our HR guidelines, combined it with our faculty handbook in

a Gemini gem. We call it the HR advisor, and you can ask any

question that calls on those two documents, and it's a very easy

way of seeing a great use for AI without the question of loss of

initiative or creativity and so on. But those other questions

about those things that we need as humans, I think, has to drive

this, and I'm a little nervous, I have to admit, about how much

of it we can retain as the flood gates are opened wider and

wider, I think we have a good intention. But I think given the

choice of ease that generative AI offers versus effortful

thinking that we know has to be part of our development as

challenge that eventually the ease will win out. It's quicker.

It costs less. You don't even have to have humans involved.

And as much as we can say right now, of course, we want humans.

We have to keep humans at the center of this. I'm not

convinced that we can keep the flood on the other side of the

town?

Yeah. I mean, that's where, like, the

rhythm project is trying to advocate, you know, basically

what you're saying is that it's a little bit frictionless. And

the rhythm project is trying to say, No, especially with kids,

they need that healthy arm wrestling. They need that

pushback and certain reminders of like, Hey, I'm not a human,

I'm just AI. So to put a little bit of friction into the system

is probably a good thing, especially for our young people

who are just trying to figure this all out and understand that

taking the quote, easy way out is something that we're going to

have to figure out what that looks like moving forward,

right? Because we all had to work our way through looking up

phone numbers in the phone book. Interestingly, you've been in

technology for so long that you've seen these shifts. So do

you feel like this one's the biggest compared to when the

internet came around and people were stressing about what that

did in terms of education? Is this really a ground shifting

moment for education. I think so.

I do. I would have said no to that a year or

two ago, and was driving it and making me lose, not faith, but

making me feel that this is larger than ever. Is the

financial momentum, not millionaires or even

billionaires, but trillionaires. Well, some companies who have

such a stock in this and are using education as a way of

laying a groundwork for a paradigm shift. So I don't want

to be a downer, but I do think we have a grave situation in

front of us that, of course, there are ways of using this new

tool that are a benefit, and we want to find them and get better

at them. I'll be the first to mention I use AI very rarely,

but I teach it. I can teach students how to use it, and I

can use it in some ways that are careful. I want to learn better

ways and more sure ways of supporting our school,

supporting our school, mission of developing our humanness.

That creative initiative I mentioned, I think, is a

cornerstone human first curiosity challenge to care and

be cared for. Those are things that I think we need as humans,

and I will fight to the end that we keep them in our life. But I

think we have to be honest as we see the demand growing for

what's required. As I said, I never would want to see it

required that we use AI in living and on the other hand,

I'm not alone in that, but I think that there are a lot of

people who would say otherwise that it should be required.

So Akbar, you had mentioned in your exchange with

Christina about the friction between AI. And the students.

I'm curious, since you're using Gemini at your school, has your

faculty leveraged the guided learning feature within it,

which actually pushes back on the student some more so that

they're asking thoughtful questions, as opposed to just

getting an answer being a Gen X baby on the cusp of almost a

boomer, I could definitely remember the days where I could

have 50 plus phone numbers in the back of my brain. Not so

much today, but the guided learning feature. I'm curious if

you all have leveraged that within Gemini, because it mimics

essentially what another AI platform, Flint AI, if you're

not utilizing that at Grace does Yes,

we are considering Flint. I have not,

but I'm with a committee right now who's looking at guides like

the guided learning feature, pulling together a resource

guide. We're hoping that our school can then share with

teachers, giving them choices, but also making it clear that

there are some things here that all of us can benefit from, and

that's part of I think I mentioned something about

mandated training that should be the basis of that mandated

training. So thank you for mentioning it. I'm not familiar

enough yet, but it is part of a list of different sources we are

working from.

Well, the landscape is ever changing, and

it's one of those features that I have found causes some sweat

on the brow of our students, because it's not giving them the

answer immediately, it's forcing them to actually rethink and

retool their prompts so that they actually solicit the type

of information that they're after. I think you'll be

pleasantly surprised by it.

I will definitely follow up on that. I jotted it

down, and I've seen reference to it before, but we have three or

four, and you mentioned Flint, I think that's a good in between

tool, Flint that can use the benefits of guided guardrails,

really, and then repeated support without losing that

initiative that I keep coming back to as so crucial.

What I also found interesting about the flint

product is that it allows you to add a certain persona for your

entire domain. So we essentially added our pillars and

essentially the ethos of st Christopher's school, so it now

knows that it should be responding with that knowledge

that we're an Episcopal School and that we are an all boys

school as well. And so it's really interesting to see the

types of responses that are then generated by the LLM that is

matching what we believe we are as an institution, and it

becomes a very supportive process there. That's great.

And we're also an Episcopal School, so the

language that goes with that environment, it's even part of

the beauty of that kind of training that I would want to

tap into.

So Dr Herndon, I know that you

mentioned, as we were just getting on the call this

morning, that you're not necessarily the biggest consumer

of podcasts, so we very much appreciate you being here, but

you clearly are a consumer of knowledge and thought

leadership. So tell us a little bit about what you are reading,

what you listen to, what voices you pay attention to. So

obviously, there's a lot of change happening in our space

right now. So where do you educate yourself, and in what

ways

I'm digging deeper into the ATLIS resources.

To be honest, I say it without any hesitation, really, I feel

like I was not paying attention to a lot of the outside world,

maybe of technology in schools, until recently, with the

pandemic and say, have got more interested? ATLIS is amazing.

The depth of resources that I'm finding have made it so that

that's where I'm starting to turn to first. More often than

not, I've listened to about 1015, podcasts in the last two

months. I love it. It's true, and they're good. That's the

thing I'm learning. I feel like I know people, you know, Daisy

Seale, we've never met, but oh, she's the best. I agree. Allison

Ross,

yeah. Oh, she's great too.

So I feel like I'm not reaching very far out

into resources beyond my school, but I am looking for better

resources. Us by reaching out and ways of measuring, for

instance, the effectiveness of our infrastructure, of our cyber

security program, of our ed tech usage, I can find elements of

all of that within ATLIS. I'm a believer. I've been converted.

I love it. Audience. I did not pay him to

say that. Yeah. I mean, it is a community. And what's great is

when you get smart technology people together, they find the

commonalities, they find the shared issues and the shared

celebrations, and then they're just so open to sharing it. So

it really makes ATLIS job more one of facilitation and just

bringing the minds together than it is that we're driving a bunch

of this thought leadership independent of our volunteers,

because they're fantastic. So it's a useful and I think really

important community, but I know I'm biased.

And then naisis New York City consortium, who

was a partner group with the need conference has been

generating what presenting, creating resources for 30 years,

and have online records of exchanges and questions and

search for help. So in a way, that point that Bill made about

the knowledge is in the room, which is the sign off of the

nicest Miss serve showed itself in ATLIS, but I feel is very

much still very alive in all of the nicest events at the knee

conference, even. So I'll continue there.

So speaking of that, before we run out of

time, can you tell listeners who maybe haven't experienced the

NEET event, when does it happen, and is it open to anybody who

wants to come check it out, like what's on the horizon for the

NEET event? So I'm no

longer on the Coordinating Committee. I was

for many years who planned the details. Our schedule has moved

around. Originally it was mid November, and just in this

school year, returned to that time slot. I think it's one week

after the heads conference. It was for a while in January, but

right now, I think we're trying to keep it in that November

slot. So it's the second, third week of November, going to the

NAIS website, n, y, s, a is New York Association of Independent

Schools, will have a link describing when and the

registration process as they are still the host organization. I

don't know what's on the horizon in terms of formal planning of,

for instance, Keynote presenters, but I'm positive the

unconference format will continue, and as every

conference has been sort of dominated by AI and its

evolution, I'm sure that it's going to continue our main

shared read, AI, snake oil. You know, it's all going back to

questioning what's real here, what's to be held on to. And I'm

sure those are the things to be explored at the knee conference.

But I don't really have the details of who's going to be

there leading that charge. I will nice, but I won't be the

keynote speaker.

The one thing I would add to that is, you know,

we talked about that conference a lot from the technology

perspective, but we've had some of the best conversations when

we brought our librarians, when we've brought our curriculum

leaders, when we've brought the Tech because just that audience,

that group is second to none. And again, those conversations

that ensue both amongst the people that you bring and the

people that you meet in all hours. I mean, that's where it

aligns with honestly the Atlas conference, because from hitting

the gym in the morning and the coffee and the conversations you

have at Atlas all the way up until everyone coming back from

dinners and hanging out downstairs, the conversation is

from Don deltask, and it just works out beautifully. And

that's why I think the two are so closely aligned. And if

people ask me where to go, my first love is always ATLIS. But

again, if you could make the neat conference work, you will

never be disappointed.

I'm glad you said that, Bill, because I neglected

to really describe the overall purpose of NEET, and I read it

literally to promote connections between librarians and

technologists and cultivate the relationship between IT

operations, library services, technology education,

information literacy. So librarians have been central to

neat from the beginning, I talk more about the technology part,

because that's who I am, but my librarian and I go to that

conference annually and come back as a team. I love

it well. Thank you so much for joining us

today and sharing so much about not only your journey. Bit about

these really important topics. As always, the hour flies by. I

really appreciate you joining us and spending the time with us.

This was fantastic, and we welcome you back at any point if

you want to dive into any of these big picture things,

because this was fantastic.

Thank you, Christina and Bill and Hiram. I

enjoyed this thoroughly, and I'm looking forward to next time

this has been talking technology with ATLIS,

produced by the Association of technology leaders in

independent schools. For more information about Atlas and

Atlas membership, please visit the atlas.org if you enjoyed

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