Dr. Jill Brown, Director of Professional Learning at CoSN, joins the hosts to discuss her transition from an independent school leader to a national association executive. The conversation highlights common challenges across public and private school sectors, including staffing pipelines, cybersecurity, and practical strategies for managing the rapid integration of AI in the classroom.

1. CoSN, professional association for K-12 EdTech leaders
2. ATLIS Pillar Awards, recognizing technology leaders in independent schools for their significant, long-term contributions, innovation, and dedication to the profession
3. Casa Brown House Concert Venue
4. “Cruise” by Florida Georgia Line

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, 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, good morning. How are

you happy New Year. Happy New Year. Did you have to like,

remember your titles? You've been off for a couple weeks.

This is our first recording of the year. How was your break? Do

you feel good coming back? I can

tell you that it was a good break, because at one

point I had to ask, What day is it? Oh, that's a good break. I

always tell people in it, it is the one time of year where the

building is closed. There's no camps going on, like spring

break. You'll have people that are still working, like one week

on one week off. It's the only time of year where everything

shuts down and no one expects anything of you. And it's really

the best break that you get during the year, in my opinion.

Yeah, I had a similar experience. My out of

office message was, I will see you on January 5,

and hopefully not

before, and hopefully not before. I spent a

lot of good quality time with the family. We did a little bit

of traveling, and then had a few days to kind of prepare myself

for re entry. It was fun.

So Christina, I do want to acknowledge something,

and I do want to start the year out on the right foot. I want to

acknowledge that for the 100th episode that we did, the work

that Peter Frank put into the closing of that episode, oh,

incredible. Was unbelievable. It was on heavy rotation as far as

what I was listening to and sharing with others. Though I

don't like doing this often, I want to put a public thank you

and a job well done to our good friend, our producer, Peter

Frank, on the work there. But I also want to follow up, because

we're now into 101 I wanted to alert everyone to a new

installment of the next zombie movie that's coming out. So

count one for zombie references for the next 100 because I got

to figure out when I'm driving down to hirams on January 16,

because the next 28 years later, movie is coming out, and we need

to revisit the whole zombie genre again, the bone tower.

Yes, exactly.

So it's January 16. Oh, I'm gonna feel a

disturbance in the Force.

And you know, one other thing, Christina, I got a

gift over the holidays from Mr. Stites. You did. I finally got

MKA swag. I couldn't believe it.

What'd you get? I don't have any MKA swag

at all, and I just was on the phone with some MKA leadership

yesterday. Now I'm feeling sad.

Well, you have to wait at least five to six years

before you get it. Oh, okay.

I mean, bill comes here and I give him a shirt right away.

We don't have a gear shop on campus. Hiram. I

got Hiram a hat. He's losing too much heat out of the top of his

head, and I need to make sure when he's out walking the dog,

he can keep his head warm, so I got him a little beanie.

Okay, I'll expect my beanie in the mail.

I'm so glad you guys had a great break. I'll just briefly mention

the elephant in the room that I'm sure many people are curious

about, and that is that news has hit the street that I have

decided to move on from Atlas later this year, and more

information about all the details of that to come, but

I'll just say I love living in this moment of celebration. It's

been so lovely to look back and think back by time I leave.

It'll be just a hair under seven years that I've been here at

Atlas and to have gotten so many kind messages and the LinkedIn

posts. It's incredible. It was a really difficult decision for

me, but one of the things I knew I wanted, though I certainly

didn't expect it to be this soon, I knew I wanted to leave

ATLIS on top, like I wanted to leave when the organization was

absolutely thriving, when the board is clicking along on all

cylinders like there's just nothing better than this job.

And some people probably think I'm absolutely crazy to go and

maybe I am, but I will say that it is in such a prime condition

for anyone who steps in as the next leader, and I'm obviously

going to be right here, John. Cheering on the sidelines for

everything to come with Atlas. Both you guys serve on the

boards of the Atlas certification Council and Atlas,

and you know, you've been side by side with me, not only on

this podcast, but in leadership. And so it was one of the hardest

things I've ever had to do, was to tell you guys that this

happened, and it caught me off guard. It wasn't something I was

necessarily out looking for. And so it came into my world, and

sometimes you just say yes, and this felt like a moment where I

was going to say yes. So there's going to be lots of time to do

the dismount and all the goodbyes and thank yous and all

that. But I just wanted to acknowledge to everyone who's

listening that it's been the ride of a lifetime, and I'm in

my feels about all of it for sure.

Well, you will be sorely missed, I can honestly

say, but know that you will never be too far away, because

you can leave, but you can't get rid of us. I know that's what

you just have to prepare yourself for.

I'm hopeful that that is the case. I really

love this community. You guys are absolutely the best.

Yeah, it was a serious case of happy sad when I

when I read the news, but it's fabulous news for you

professionally.

Thanks, Hiram. I appreciate it. I just

don't even know what to say right now about it, because I

think it's all just a little fresh and a little new, but I at

least wanted to bring it up, just because everyone has been

so sweet and kind. And you know, sometimes I'll just say this

like you hope that you're leaving a fingerprint, you know,

not like a dent, not a Fender dent in the spaces that you

occupy, but at least just a light, little fingerprint. And

it's been so cool to hear people coming to me and saying they're

either impressions of what we've been doing together as ATLIS, or

how we've grown, or the impact that we've had in the

Independent School community in the last couple years. And so

that fingerprint, you know, if I was in any way responsible for

it, it makes me feel really proud, like I love the work we

do together. So I'm not a deeply emotional person, but this has

been an interesting ride. It's Happy, sad, I know, happy, sad

indeed. Well, let's go to something just plain happy. I'm

actually really thrilled that on the day that I had to let this

all out, we have Dr Jill Brown with us today. Jill is cosins

Director of Professional Learning, where she's been since

kind of early 2021 not long after the pandemic, or kind of

in the heat of the pandemic, I guess. But before she was at

cole send, when I first came in, back in 2019 Jill was still

working in independent schools, and she was one of the first,

what I call first gen, right, first gen tech leaders that I

came across. And she was just killing it out there. I knew she

was one of those folks out west. And also being in Albuquerque,

wasn't surrounded by a deep technology leadership community.

It wasn't like it was a highly populated area with a ton of

schools, right? So Jill just stood out to me, and of course,

she's just such a sweetheart. So Jill, I am so glad to have you

here on the podcast. This is definitely a bucket list for me,

is to have this conversation with you. So thank you for

joining us. Oh, I'm thrilled to be

here with amazing people that I love from a long

time of working together.

Thank you. And let's start with that. Let's

go to you know, obviously I touched on how it was that I

first came to know you, but I'm certain that that was pretty

deep into your journey in life when I inserted myself as a

chapter. So tell us a little bit about your background, and now

you're working at a national association with a significant

footprint serving CTOs at cole sin. But I would love to start

if I could, where did this come from? What was your journey

like, and where did you start your education career?

Yeah, the technology thing kind of fell into a lot of

people I talked to did as well. I started as an elementary

school teacher, and I love teaching. I really did love it.

And when I was teaching, we finally got a lab in the school,

and I took the kids to the lab. I had no idea what to do with

them. I was just like, Okay, this is a reward for behaving in

class. We're gonna go to the lab, and then we'd get there,

and I'm like, just kind of let them play. And then I was like,

Wait a second, this could be a learning tool. This could be

something tied to my curriculum, and they were so excited about

it, and it put the kids in charge of their learning, which

was always my philosophy. You know, the teacher doesn't teach

the kids anything. You create the environment, and then they

learn. And with technology, that seemed to be something that just

let them take off and really own the learning more than anything.

And so I decided to go back to school and learn more about what

to do, and I took the kids to the lab versus just play, and

ended up getting a PhD in educational technology because I

found an amazing program with a stellar professor and group of

people. And so it was by accident, I guess. But then the

PhD helped me get my job at the academy at Albuquerque Academy,

which was a great school.

So tell me about your time there. What were

some of your responsibilities when you were in that role?

Well, they first hired me. On because they wanted

to separate the technology from the Ed Tech and not have it in

two different departments. And so I was brought in to do the ed

tech side. You know, I work in the world now, where I support

the CTOs. And so I never was on that side of the boxes and

wires. And behind the scenes, I was always working with teachers

curriculum. And then, of course, you work very closely with the

IT department, but, but I was more on the academic side. And

then, of course, by the time I left, we had pulled it back

together. So that's the way the schools go. They're like, we're

gonna do this way. We're gonna do it this way.

Oh my gosh, the combination and separation

of Ed Tech from it is, like, I don't even know if it's a

pendulum as much as it is a hurricane, a swirling, cyclical

nature at most schools in terms of whether they separate it or

put it together. So Albuquerque Academy is an independent day

school for upper levels. So tell me a little bit about when

you're serving only six through 12 and you're in ed tech space,

especially in those entry years, I would assume that there's a

little bit of an adjustment, right? Because you're getting

students from different feeder schools. So tell me a little

bit, especially when you were back in that role, what did that

look like for you, and how did you kind of juggle that

we had kids come from almost all of the

elementary schools in the city. So of course, from every

different walk of life, every different background, and our

six seven program was really amazing. Was a very cohesive and

they worked together incredibly well as a team. And there wasn't

a lot of people doing their own thing. It was a whole program

where everything worked together, and the kids had to

experience everything, which I thought was great. I mean, they

had to do all the different disciplines, and they had a

certain technology curriculum that they kind of went through

to get everybody at a baseline. And the faculty down there were

amazing. A lot of that was already happening before I got

there, so we just kind of continued on with a lot of the

good stuff that was happening. And then, of course, the

technology was getting better and better and easy to use and

more robust, and so it just grew

from there. When I did meet you, and you

were still in Albuquerque Academy, I know that we were

just trudging through the pandemic, and that was a really

tricky time. Tell me a little bit about that. I think that one

of the things Jill, that I really appreciated about you is that

you were at that moment, even though you were living it and

walking through it, there was also this authenticity about

your voice in the space to me, which was that you were saying,

this is hard, this is not easy. And not everybody was feeling

brave enough to just say that out loud. And I just remember

you being one of those people that was like, Oh yeah, we're

doing work that the leadership in our schools don't necessarily

have the capacity to understand, because we're just in it deep.

Are you traumatized from that era? Like many people?

Well, it's kind of weird, because in a way, I was

excited, which really sounds horrible because it was a

horrible pandemic. But, you know, you work with teachers and

you're like, try this and try that, and all of a sudden,

everybody needed to try everything. Needed to figure it

out. Wanted to get down and dirty in the online learning.

And that part I was happy about, because I was like, Oh, this is

good. They need it. They want it. It was just all at the same

time, and everybody at the same time. And so I know that summer

I worked harder than than I think when I was finishing up my

PhD, is probably the only other time that I can remember like,

okay, maybe I went a few days without a shower. It was the

only way to just keep your head above water. So it was

invigorating and fun in that way, because I really got to

work with and support the faculty in a scary time. But it

was a lot of work. We just needed more people, and

everybody just had to and the teachers too. Everybody had to

just work so hard. You saw that from all facets of leadership

and teaching and to every level at the school. It was an

interesting time. You know, everybody has their own memories

of, Wow, that was crazy.

And then you kind of made a career pivot. You

went over to koson. Can you tell us a little bit about Cole sin,

and then also why you decided to make that change? Yeah.

So Cole send is the Consortium for school

networking, and they were developed to support CTOs and

people running the networks at the schools, and a lot of it

pivoted on advocacy at the federal level. How do we make

sure that schools are getting the money and the support that

they need from policy, not only money, but also in the way that

they operate and what they need to be able to do, what they need

to do for kids. And so a lot of it was out of policy, and then

it also the professional development, and like ATLIS,

bringing people together, right? Finding your tribe, finding the

people that help you do your job. I found that with ISTE, I

used all the ISTE resources when I was in my graduate program.

Hiram and getting my degree, I wouldn't have been able to do my

dissertation without the resources that ISTE had. They

actually helped fund some of my research Intel did, and then I

use the ISTE stuff to do the research. And so I can't imagine

people in their careers not having that, you know, not

having their group of people at ATLIS are having their ISTE

people and coast them to help them do their job on a daily

basis, especially in technology, a lot of times we're kind of

like the island of one, you know, we're the only one doing

that specific job at that school.

That's what I call the Lone Ranger. Yeah,

exactly, yeah. You're like, this is this? And

they're like, Huh? And then you talk to your people, you know,

with Atlas, and they're like, Oh yeah, yeah, we get it. We

totally know. So when I saw the position with Cole son, I

thought I was just going to retire at the academy. I mean,

was a great place to work. Wonderful people love my job,

love the school. But when this came up, I was like, Huh? I can

do something else at a national level before I retire, and it

was a really good fit for the background that I had, and it's

been a great ride. I am loving it.

What do you do? What's your role? I mean,

what does professional development and professional

learning mean for an adult capacity?

Yeah, so I look over I organize all of our classes,

workshops, webinars, very deep into the conference. Of course,

that's a team effort. Nobody does anything by themselves. I

don't know cyber security, but I have an amazing instructor that

you know, Amy, that teaches the cyber security stuff, that knows

it inside and out, and is still working in the field and

committee work. We do have a lot of committees, and we have them

help us. What do we need to give our members today? What do they

need today? What is going on in your school, what's going on in

your district, and how can we help you? So I get to work with

people, amazing educators, from across the country, and I love

that, because I get to stay here in Albuquerque, which I love.

And then I get to work with people at a national level, and

I like working remote. I know some people don't, but I thrive

on it. I get my head down and I work all day and I'm like, wow,

that was a fun day, and it goes really fast, and I enjoy it.

What was that overall transition like? Because

I mean spending the time that you've spent in the schools

focused on the teaching and learning goals in an independent

school, and then moving to a position where you're going to

be up at that national level, where you're dealing with not

just a six through 12 school, you know, in the southwest, but

dealing with everyone, all aspects of Education, and what

that looks like. What was that transition like for you in

making that pivot,

a lot of it, I think, like anybody, right, when

you start a new job, you're like, all right, I'm here. I'm

not going to make changes. I'm just going to listen and watch,

and I'm going to see what's been happening and what's been

working for so many years. And then, you know, I came into some

very strong program pieces that were already there, and there's

no reason to change those. But then over time, you start to

look and you're like, Okay, how can we modify this? How can we

make this better? How can we serve people better? And I have

a committee. I have a professional learning committee.

They're my sounding board. You know? I go, Okay, I have this

idea, and then it's a very organic process. And I bring

ideas to them that we have, and then, more than that, I listen

to ideas that they have. They're like, Okay, we think this would

serve the members. We think this would be a good way to modify

this program. And so having that committee and having that group

of people that are in the schools doing the work is

essential, because otherwise, I don't know, I would just make it

up, and it wouldn't be right.

That's the thing I love about the

association space, is that when you bring an industry together,

you don't have to have the expertise on the staff. It's

this really powerful combination of staff that is focused and has

the time and capacity to get a project across the finish line,

combined with amplified by the experts in the field who

wouldn't otherwise have time to put together a white paper or a

thought leadership piece. It's part of what I love about this

field, is that you get to support the whole industry. So I

totally get that vibe of like bringing together the experts.

It really does end up being one plus one equaling 10. In some

cases, it's really cool and powerful work.

So Jill, you'd mentioned the annual conference.

I'm curious. I've used many coasts and resources in the

past. Tell us about the makeup of the conference. Is it mostly

public schools represented? Is it a nice combination of public

and private. Where does the focus lie? As an independent

school tech leader,

it is primarily tech leaders in K 12 schools, and

then it can be at district level, school level, there's a

whole group of independent people. It's more public than

independent just because there are more public schools than

independent. Well, so it's kind of a reflection of America, you

know, kind of the layout of our system there. And then we have

superintendents and cabinet level people, and then people

from industry and nonprofits organizations like ATLIS and

organizations like CETA and other organizations that support

schools that we all kind of have our niche but we have to work

together to make everybody more effective and more helpful in

the space.

I do think it's a great partnership. No one

organization can do everything for all people, and I think that

there's just so much, especially in recent years, when it comes

to technology leadership, that there's plenty of work for all

of those organizations to be doing. So totally appreciate the

opportunities that we've had to work together and just the idea

that we can coexist and provide amplified resources to our

communities. It's really great.

I'm so proud to see ATLIS doing so well. When I was

on the ISTE board, Howard Levin, this was his idea, not mine, but

him and I were on the board together, two independent school

people on the board, which I think was interesting for ISTE.

I think that's a larger percentage than you would

normally have. And they had SIGs at the time, special interest

groups. And he goes, let's start an independent school SIG. And I

was like, Okay. And then we were like, Well, is it different

enough? Are there different enough needs than the ISTE, you

know, stuff that it makes sense to have a SIG? And he's like,

let's try it. And so we try it. And they definitely, we found

that there certainly is a needs there that are very unique to

that role in technology at independent schools. It's a

unique place to be, and I didn't realize how different and unique

it was. Obviously a lot of similarities. I mean, we're all

schools, and there's kids, right? But there's uniqueness.

Is there that you have to be met by that group of people only?

So Jill, you have that unique experience now, and

having worked at Albuquerque Academy and now working here at

Coast and of seeing both the public and the private sectors,

where do you see some of the commonalities that we are

struggling with in the ed tech space?

The commonalities are having to keep your network

secure threat actors, training your people. That's your weakest

link for those sorts of things, and that's a struggle because

it's hard to get people's attention with so much going on.

But if you don't do that, you can't serve your kids. But you

know, curriculum and wanting kids to do well, and wanting to

have the right tools, and wanting to train your teachers

and having your administration understand the importance of all

the pieces of technology that have to be in place and

supporting the people who have to do that and their knowledge

and their ability to do it. Well, if you don't have those

pieces, your school is going to fall apart. And I don't think it

matters whether it's public or private. You have to have all of

that.

So Jill, I want to take that and kind of flip it a

little bit in terms of thinking about, you know, from that

public, private perspective now, seeing it on both sides. Is

there one thing that you would say, Wow, an independent school

would really need to look to public schools to do this,

because they're doing it really, really well over here and vice

versa. Is there anything in your mind that sitting at really the

intersection where both of those can meet. Is there anything that

you would point to that one could really take from the other

and benefit from?

I don't know if I can think of one specific thing.

And sure, you guys run into this. You've got these champions

and all kinds of districts and schools and different things,

like we were just talking about sustainability. We've got a

committee on sustainability. And it's a thing that some schools

are doing some really great things. They don't think it's

like the greatest thing in the world, but it is. They don't

realize how much of a leader they are in certain spaces. And

I think we have that in both public and independent schools,

there's different struggles and different ways that people have

learned to solve problems and sharing those stories, those

individual stories, like real stories, not just I wrote a

paper at the university, and I say, you can do this, real

stories. I did this at my school, and this is how we made

it happen. This is who we had to get on board. This is the way we

became successful. You know, like creating networks with your

community and sharing the costs, things like that. And you see

that I think in both public and independent private, every

ecosystem is its own thing. I think independent schools are

very unique in their own right. Every single one is very unique.

And public schools try to be this. You know, across the

board, the same across the nation, and that is not the

case. There's still a reflection of their community and the area

that they live and the people that they can hire. And so I

can't think of any one big thing. I mean, independent

schools have to deal with admissions. You have to deal

with keeping parents happy in a very different way, and your

community. Education to parents is very different. The stakes

are much higher in an independent school. It's not

that public schools don't have to deal with that they do, but

they're not going to go out of business if they do things

wrong.

No, that's a really great point.

You know, growing up with both parents who were in

public schools with water by family working in the public

school environment. I remember my father coming to the school

and spending the day here, who was a lifetime elementary school

teacher, and he looked at me and he was like, you'd be crazy ever

to leave that place. So thinking about statements like that in

terms of, why did he say that? What are the things that you see

that really shine in one place that might not be even known in

others, always looking for those commonalities. Because I think

whenever we get together with any type of it, Ed Tech

educators, the problems and the successes are common enough that

we can learn from one another. I just didn't know whether there

was anything that when you got into that position, you were

like, oh, in all my years at Albert, I never thought about

this. And why didn't we do this? Because I saw this one doing it.

And to some degree, it's good to hear that there isn't that,

because the playing field and what we're all dealing with is

leveled. And for an organization like yourself that's serving

both communities, knowing that there's more in common than

there is different allows you, I would assume, to program, to

develop, as I was thinking about your conference, like, what does

the conference look like? What are the

tracks look like? Actually, that did spur

something. I do think independent schools have more

license to be creative, to do their own thing. I think the

public schools are tied to, yes, you have to meet these

standards. You have to do graduation requirements in this

way, and independent schools do that, they usually exceed it.

They don't even have to look at it, because they're going way up

here compared to what the state says you have to have to

graduate your students. And so that does ring a bell. I do see

independent, private schools are able to be more creative and

say, we're going to try this. That is way out there that

public school wouldn't have the license or liberty to try.

So Jill, one of the things that I'd be curious to

see your response to is staffing, the differences

between the staffing at the public school level versus, I

mean really, I say public school, but it's really more of

a district level when you talk about it in many instances, and

tech versus the private schools. I recall when I was reviewing

grant proposals many years ago, and you had to have dedicated

resources to support the grants, and many times we had to deny

grants to many public schools because they just didn't have

the staffing. Is that still a pain point for many districts

around the country.

Staffing is a pain point for everybody right now.

It's one of our big issues. How do we help our schools increase

the pipeline? The IT pipeline. A lot of people don't see

themselves in a technology role that should even from you know,

like starting in college. It's like you're interested in

technology. Would you ever see yourself running a network at a

school? They don't think about it, but they would be amazing,

right? So getting that seed planted, that you can do this,

and you can learn this, and you can figure it out, and you can

be part of a community. I mean, we all know working at a school

is very enriching, and it's a very heartfelt place to work.

It's more than just a job. You're part of a community, and

I think a lot of jobs are like that, but definitely in

education, I mean, you are part of a community, you're not just

going to work every day. And so helping increase that pipeline

of people who don't see themselves in that role, seeing

that and I think that's things that ATLIS does, that coleson

does, and ISTE, you know, because a lot of academic

teachers go into the technology, they're like, Huh, I'm just a

history teacher. Well, you end up running the network, and you

can't do that without the support from ATLIS and and goes

in and the training that you can get to do that job. Well, and

then, of course, you have people that come from industry and kind

of want to be a part of that family, be part of a school and

an entity like that, and serving kids and feeling like you're

making a difference, and a lot of it is people that don't see

themselves in that role, having them see that, yes, this could

be you. And as far as hiring, it's hard to hire in your area

sometimes, and you get what you get if you've got a small

community, you need to build those people up. To take those

people who you could tell have a passion for it, but don't see

themselves in that role, build them up to get there. See that

role, because a lot of people stay in their communities. They

go to their communities. Stay there at independent school.

There's a lot more movement. There's definitely a lot more

hiring from other places and people moving and that sort of

thing. And in public school, there's less of that, but the

hiring is an issue everywhere.

So Jill, I'm going to be heading off to an ed

tech conference next week, and I try to pop into those regularly

to kind of keep abreast of what some of the trends are. What do

you think. I should expect to see if you were to guess where

some of the trends are right now, in terms of Ed Tech, what

is it that you're watching, or what kind of sessions would you

be going to

Well, obviously, we're going to say, AI, sure.

Of course, any particular aspects of AI

that you're sort of interested in,

and that's the good question, because people say,

Oh, AI, and it's like, okay, AI, what it's kind of like,

education, education? What you need to be a little bit more

specific. That's a very broad term. The things I'm seeing that

are most exciting are ways to help lessen the load for

teachers and administrators to do more of their work that

really benefits the kids and not spending their time with all

this paperwork and stuff that doesn't directly feed down into

the children and the classroom. And so any ways that we can use

and like security, how can we use AI to, I mean, the bad

actors are using it to get better and better at getting

into our systems. How do we use it to get better and better at

saying, hey, this shouldn't be happening, and we're keeping you

out of our system. And so I think the benefits of what it

can do to help people in their jobs spend time on the important

pieces rather than the stuff that just has to get done. I

mean, obviously it has to get done, but how can we make that

less painful and spend more time on the things that really

matter, I

think that that's where I spend a lot of my

time talking to schools right now too, because it seems like

an easier entry point, right? Like we don't have to solve all

of how education is going to be affected by AI all in one fell

swoop, but we could at least start by understanding and using

and learning to make our lives a little easier. So I'm with you

on that. I definitely think that that's an easier beast to

wrestle right now.

The other thing is doing that with the kids, and

that's that whole educational philosophy. You jump in and you

learn what the kids you know, teachers that want to know

everything before they teach a topic aren't very interested in

technology, because you just can't. You have to do it with

the kids. You have to it changes so fast. And with your faculty

and with your staff, you know, as you're integrating AI into

your work, you can't avoid it. And I think we've all figured

that out when it first came out. People like, stop it, stop it.

Just like internet, just like calculators, just like, you

know, we go back to all those things. No, we have to add

pencils or it's going to be bad and do it together.

Are any of the conversations that you're having

around AI, this was just a discussion I was literally

having yesterday with my head of school, focused around how

schools are using it from an operational standpoint, and what

are the pros, the cons, the things that you should be doing

that you shouldn't be doing is that coming up, because so much

of it that I've seen in and I'm even speaking specifically to

what we were doing here at MKA was focused on what's happening

in the classroom with it, that the idea, and really the

proliferation of it being used in the other areas of school,

outside of the classroom, really wasn't brought to the forefront,

and it's an area now, when I think of risk management and

risk mitigation, that is really up on the top end of the things

that I'm concerned about. I'm just curious about if it's

something that you've seen or you've been discussing there.

Yeah, definitely. Because if you don't create the

ecosystem that supports what's happening in the classroom or

what's going to happen potentially with AI, you could

be setting yourself up for some pretty scary situations. And

teachers want support right faculty want to know, how can I

harness this and use this with my kids? But what are the

guardrails? What do we need to be doing and not doing to use

this the right way? The Council of Great City Schools. And Kosen

worked on a maturity matrix for AI, and most of it, in fact, the

last piece, they were like, oh, we need to add the academic

piece. So that was the last piece. But all six domains

before that are all about, I mean, your finance, your

network, your security, and you know, you've got cameras now,

you've got all of your stuff is tied into the technology and the

safety, and so it's a rubric to say you need to be thinking

about all these things. It's not you need to do it this way,

because, as we've just said, All schools and areas and districts

are unique, but you need to be thinking about these things, and

you need to have an answer for this and this and this and this.

How does your school or your district handle those pieces

related to AI? And a lot of it ties back to, you know, you

don't need a new student handbook. You don't have an AI

Student Handbook. You look at your student handbook and you

say, okay, and this piece AI, could impact it here. So we need

to make sure that that's covered in our policy in the right way,

because it's different.

Jill, you spend a lot of time now

designing programming for adults, and I think one of the

things that I've heard a lot through the years is that tech

leaders are always trying to capture the attention of

faculty. To do the necessary training to get the information

across, and the faculty is tired and overwhelmed, and back to

school is always chaotic, and so it's just hard to capture the

attention. Do you have any thoughts or recommendations for

tech leaders who are trying to teach adults? I feel like that's

a conversation that comes up. It hasn't in a while, but we're

always looking for pissy emails or videos or little snippets of

information to get it across in little bite sized chunks.

Obviously, you do it in a more designed, specific way for

programming that's all tied up with a bow, but tech leaders

essentially have to do some very similar things in terms of

getting adults attention.

Yeah, one thing I really This made me think of is

in my career at Albuquerque Academy, when I started in ed

tech, it was like, You need to try this. Look at this. What is

this? You know, how is this? And then I felt like my job changed

and transformed to, okay, here's what you need to look at. Here's

what you need to focus on. Don't worry about this. Don't spend

time on this. Don't even look at this. It was trying to make sure

that the time that they're spending look getting anything

technology is very value added and taking the noise out of it.

So before I was kind of a cheerleader, do this. Look at

this. You know, let's try everything

that's really interesting. Like, it

changed to, like, a what not to do list exactly.

It came to, okay, don't spend your time on this.

I've tried this. It's not worth your time. You know, we've

looked at this, but your teacher down the hallway, look at what

she's doing with this. That is where your value is going to be.

And, you know, everybody's struggling with, What can

teachers use? What can't they use, and what's our process for

keeping the data safe? And so those systems have to be in

place to support teachers and your administrators. I think if

there's any ways you can show them that this is going to save

you time, this is going to make your life easier, that's when

they get on board. And it's very individual. You could do

programs, and I did programs at the school, and you always have

your early adopters that are right there trying to figure it

out with you. And then you've got your Luddites. You're going,

I'm never going to do this, and I'm going to retire before I

have to try any of this. But then you've got 6070, 80% in the

middle who are show me something successful, and I'm there, and

especially if it benefits my kids. And so you have to show

those those things, and a lot of it is just taking your

champions, letting them shine, letting them share with their

colleagues what they're doing. And yeah, they're busy. It's

hard to get attention, because they're busy doing really good

things, working with kids in the classroom and stuff. But if you

can figure out a way to save them time, benefit their kids,

and they can see that little spark of a story, and then they

try that one little thing, and then they take off another one

of your early adopters.

It's really interesting, Bill and Hiram, I

wonder if you guys had a list of stuff not to do, or a don't

bother list. And I was just reading this book that is a pre

release from a woman in our space, in the association

community that focuses on membership and innovation. And

one of the things that she does this is Sherry Jacobs. She talks

about how, when she was starting her business during a recession,

her consultancy, she had a list of 10 terrible ideas, and she

would try to write down 10 really awful, terrible ideas

every day. And then, of course, the next step is to flip it. Her

example is, often, let's give away all of our research for

free. Well, we can't do that. We won't be in business. But what

we could do is give this piece away, or whatever. I wonder if

there's a way that you could almost create a don't do this

list, or a don't bother wasting your time list. But then there's

got to be like, the little box at the bottom that says, By the

way, here is one that is worth your time, right?

Absolutely, I think the one that comes to

mind, and it touches so many areas of what I would call the

ed tech space, is free. Is not free. That's perhaps the number

one thing that I have been hitting on a regular basis with

our faculty and staff, some other IT directors have been

having conversations about extensions, and how do you deal

with extensions in Chrome, and how do you deal with new

software applications? It's fair to say that the amount of

requests, I think, have gone down, and it's because we've put

more of the onus on the faculty to start thinking about these

questions. When you start looking at these free products,

they now know that they are essentially the monetary

exchange their data.

Yeah, free, like a puppy. It's like, are you ready

for a puppy? We're going to have to manage that puppy if you

bring them into your classroom.

That's hilarious. Free like a puppy.

That's a great example.

I love that. I'm going to use that at my next PD,

forget the list of things not to do. Here's

the free like a puppy list. I love it. Well, Jill, before we

run out of time with you, I do want to shift for. Just a

moment, because I've come to learn that there are so many

musical people in the tech leader space, and even to the

point where my early days of coming to Atlas conferences,

where there was like karaoke and bands and all sorts of stuff

going on. So tell everyone a little bit about you're a little

music obsessed, not a bit help us understand that, please.

Okay, it's very faceted. I did music in high

school. I'm a vocalist in a local band here in Albuquerque.

We recorded in Nashville, which was amazing from the technology

standpoint. You walk into the studio and in a day and a half,

we had a CD, and those musicians were fabulous, and the

technology that pulled that all together, you know, I was like,

Oh my gosh, this is just incredible. I remember my

graduate studies. We read this book out of your minds. And all

of the gentlemen, I'm sure there were women, but they weren't

represented. To the book helped develop the personal computer

had an extensive music background. I think there's a

part of the brain that gets interested in technology, and

that kind of area that is also very interested in music. It's

very pattern. It's like, there's the art of it, which is

beautiful, there's also the science behind it and the data

behind it. And I just see a lot of in your right, a lot of the

technology people I deal with have some sort of passion,

extensive work and things that they have done and do in music.

Our big thing now is we support independent musicians. It's hard

to make a living because now you people want your music for free.

It's not free to create. If you have that creative mind, and you

write music like crazy. That's amazing, but to get it down on

the CD, get it published digitally, that's expensive, and

people don't want to pay for it, and to me, that's horrible. We

want the music every day. We want to listen to it every day.

We're like, I like this music. I like that music, okay, but what

do you do to support it? How do you make sure that those people

can eat. One of our big charities is the trap Rock Music

Association, artists Relief Fund. What artists do when they

need carpal tunnel surgery and they don't have insurance, they

don't have money. And so we support live musicians in our

backyard. They play, they drive around the country, and they

make more money playing in our yard than they do in a bar, and

they make more money selling a t shirt than they do selling their

music, which is just really sad, and it's the way the economy is

right now, with things being digital. And so anything we can

do to support that creative piece and them continuing to

make that music for us so that they can make a living doing

that and not have to go do something else when they've got

this brilliant music mind, that's what we try to do as much

as we can.

So you have a concert hall in your backyard,

yeah, we have a stage, what used to be like a

tent, you know, that you put in your backyard and try to cover

up the musicians so they're not sitting in the sun. And then we

did some renovations in the backyard, and we put in a stage

amazing, and it's wonderful for us. We love it when we host our

house concerts. And there's a whole network of people across

the country that do this. It's not just us, of course, we're

this little island in New Mexico, so if they come through

Albuquerque, that's kind of like you're the place, yeah? And so

we try to connect them with other people and in our genre,

right? And then drop rock genre. We charge a cover at the door,

which is like $25 suggested. You don't have to pay that goes

straight to the artist, amazing. We don't keeping in. We do this

to support the artists. We have them stay here. We feed them. We

do everything we can to make their trip as inexpensive as

possible so that they can put it towards their expenses that they

have to cover, just like everybody else.

That's really incredible. Like, do you

guys have, like, a site or some pictures that we can drop in the

show notes? Like, if people are in the area, how do they find

out? Like, it's a show night,

we're on Facebook. That's our primary and I know a

lot of people aren't on Facebook, but if you are on

Facebook, we have a page there where we put all of our events

that we have scheduled, we post on Instagram like this is

happening now, you know, because that's a very immediate place

that people live, and then of the artists promote it

themselves, however they have their networks and promote their

concerts through there.

I would imagine you meet the coolest

people. Do you have a cool story to tell about something that's

happened in the time that you've basically opened your home to

this experience.

The thing is, because they stay here, we get

to know the artist as people, and they're our friends. We're

connected. We go to a lot of music festivals where all those

people play, and then that's where we find new people that

kind of like, come play at our house. Can play at our house,

our audience will love you. It's a very close network, and they

are our friends. I mean, even though you know, we have our

friends in Albuquerque, obviously, but these are our

friends across the country that are musicians. For example,

Jesse Rice, who is one of the writers for cruise, which is the

number one. Music. I think it's the longest running number one

country song. I'm not sure if there's ones that have beat it,

but him and my husband kind of bonded. They're very similar in

personality, and he's one of our very closest friends. So we got

to visit with him in Nashville, and we're sitting in his room

with all of his gold records. He didn't even have room for him on

the wall. They're sitting on the floor because he had run out of

space, and so those kind of things, I'm like, Well, that was

kind of cool. And he's just an amazing person.

I love that that is so interesting. And I do

think that having a hobby or having something that you do

outside of work is also just a nice palette cleanser when we're

dealing with difficult jobs. So, you know, the guys like to hunt

zombies. And I also like music, you know. So, it works. It

works. But that's really cool. I mean, you guys, like, they have

a stage at Jill's house. Like, maybe we should go record a pod

there.

I think that's where we should do. US actually

singing, you know, bringing Hiram and I, we've got the

jackets. Oh, Lord,

gotta get the red shoes 100%

No, as long as Jill has like, the switch so

she can just turn it off. Yeah, that'd be really great.

You have so little faith in our talents.

I have no faith in my talent. I'm just putting that

out there. No one needs to hear me sing ever.

We got a nice baritone voice there, Mr.

Stites, it's not gonna work.

We're gonna leave that to Jill. It sounds

like she's got the whole music thing under control. That's

really cool, though. I'm so glad that you shared that story,

because I think some people know that about you, but that's just

like a whole subculture, different life outside of work

that you do that's really, really neat. So thanks for that.

I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks. As we wrap everything up, I want

to thank you for your time. I know that we're a little short

on time, so I'll just say that I wish you the absolute best. What

is coming up for koson? What do we need to be on the lookout

for?

So well, we're getting ready for our

conference. Yes, exciting. And then I know for you guys, yeah,

small staff, right? All in, everybody is getting ready for

conference. We've got some national AI trainings going on

right now, and it is exactly like Bill was saying. It's

bringing the leadership in, and it takes everybody. You know,

you can't just have the tech director doesn't own AI, just

like the tech director doesn't own cyber security or data

privacy. It has to be the whole ecosystem and the leaders

understanding and so this is a way for schools to build road

maps. How are we handling all this stuff with AI as it comes

to us, and just making friends, joining committees, volunteering

and ATLIS does the same thing. We help people enter the career,

get into the career, see themselves in that career. How

can we support you to get there? When you get there, and you know

what you're doing and you're doing a great job, you want to

share. You want to come back, you want to mentor and providing

space for that as well. Dr Jill

Brown, thank you so much for being with us

today. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. This was amazing.

This has been talking technology with Atlas

produced by the Association of technology leaders in

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