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Beyond the Hype: Sabba Quidwai on AI, Change Management, and Human Agency
Episode 9725th November 2025 • Talking Technology with ATLIS • Association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools (ATLIS)
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Dr. Sabba Quidwai, CEO and Futurist of Designing Schools, joins the podcast to discuss the rapid acceleration of AI and its impact on the future of work. She explores how schools can manage this change, move beyond app-focused training, and redefine learning to foster human agency.

Transcripts

Peter Frank:

Matt, welcome to Talking technology with ATLIS,

Peter Frank:

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

Peter Frank:

technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens.

Peter Frank:

We'll hear stories from technology directors and other

Peter Frank:

special guests from the Independent School community,

Peter Frank:

and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics.

Ashley Cross:

Hello, everyone. My name is Ashley cross. I'm the

Ashley Cross:

Senior Director of Education and content here at Atlas, and today

Ashley Cross:

I am filling in for Christina Lewellen. And I am joined by

Bill Stites:

Bill Stites, the Director of Technology at

Bill Stites:

Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, New Jersey. And

Hiram Cuevas:

I'm Hiram Cuevas, the Director of Information

Hiram Cuevas:

Systems and Academic Technology at St Christopher school in

Hiram Cuevas:

Christopher school in Richmond,

Ashley Cross:

Virginia. Awesome. Well, welcome guys. I appreciate

Ashley Cross:

you letting me tag team with you today. Without Christina, she's

Ashley Cross:

on the road. She's got a very busy travel schedule. And you

Ashley Cross:

know, it's that time of year the weather is finally starting to

Ashley Cross:

cool down. What are you most excited about anything in

Ashley Cross:

particular this year that you get to do when it starts to

Ashley Cross:

become fall.

Bill Stites:

I love fall because it is at this time of year in

Bill Stites:

particular, because you have playoff baseball and you have

Bill Stites:

the football season going, which is two of my favorite things

Bill Stites:

about this time of year, two of my favorite sports. And I just

Bill Stites:

love the cool days. Love getting outside. I got a actually got a

Bill Stites:

smoker, so I'm, you know, throwing a bunch of stuff down

Bill Stites:

on that. I am practicing my culinary arts in the field of

Bill Stites:

smoking meats, because that's what you do. When you get over

Bill Stites:

50 years old, lose all your hair and have nothing but a gray

Bill Stites:

beard, that's what you end up doing with your life. But I'm

Bill Stites:

enjoying that and feeding a lot of people here at school,

Bill Stites:

because I make a lot and share with people

Hiram Cuevas:

as someone who just loves being outside and

Hiram Cuevas:

hiking and running outdoors, this is the time of year when I

Hiram Cuevas:

get to enjoy the fall colors and also sit outside and have a nice

Hiram Cuevas:

backyard fire going in the evenings. Nothing better than

Hiram Cuevas:

sitting outside with my bride and our big

Ashley Cross:

old black lab, very good. So I think my

Ashley Cross:

favorite fall pastime is finding some type of pumpkin patch or

Ashley Cross:

apple orchard. So I'm definitely gonna have to look those up.

Bill Stites:

Apple cider donuts. There you go.

Ashley Cross:

And we'll say, in the Deep South, I live in

Ashley Cross:

Alabama, and so it doesn't really feel like fall, except

Ashley Cross:

for at like 6am from like six to seven, we get a little bit of

Ashley Cross:

fall, and it goes back up to 90, you know, maybe at night it'll

Ashley Cross:

cool down, so we'll have to investigate that. Well, let's go

Ashley Cross:

ahead and introduce our guest today. We have Dr saba kidway,

Ashley Cross:

and she is the CEO and futurist of designing schools. I've been

Ashley Cross:

following her work for a while, but most recently, I got to see

Ashley Cross:

her keynote at ISTE. She's an author, a speaker, a podcast and

Ashley Cross:

just a big thought leader in the AI and educational space. So

Ashley Cross:

Saba, welcome. We're so excited to have you with us today. Oh

Sabba Quidwai:

my gosh. Me too. Me too. So to

Ashley Cross:

kick us off, tell us what is your favorite fall

Ashley Cross:

pastime. Do you have anything exciting that you guys are going

Ashley Cross:

to do now that it's starting to cool down a little

Sabba Quidwai:

bit? You know, one of my favorite times of year

Sabba Quidwai:

to visit Disneyland is Halloween, and this year we're

Sabba Quidwai:

taking my niece and nephew for the first time. So I feel like

Sabba Quidwai:

we've all been there like as adults. I always feel like you

Sabba Quidwai:

see the world and every experience in a totally new way

Sabba Quidwai:

when you do it through the eyes of kids who are doing something

Sabba Quidwai:

for the first time. So we're excited to take them like

Sabba Quidwai:

Halloween to Disneyland is beautiful,

Hiram Cuevas:

and what costume will you wear? Oh, that's a good

Hiram Cuevas:

question. I

Sabba Quidwai:

don't know. I'll probably have to, like,

Sabba Quidwai:

coordinate with them and kind of see what they're doing and do

Sabba Quidwai:

something like that.

Bill Stites:

So as a Disney adult, I've been to Disney World

Bill Stites:

during Halloween, and that is the absolute best they had a

Bill Stites:

nighttime event. It was an after hours event, and you would go

Bill Stites:

and they would have stuff out, and you went trick or treating

Bill Stites:

up and down Main Street. Was absolutely one of the best times

Bill Stites:

that I ever went. If anyone gets a chance to go, that's a great

Bill Stites:

time to visit.

Ashley Cross:

Oh, wow, nice. I agree. That's a lot of fun. And

Ashley Cross:

tell us where is home for you,

Sabba Quidwai:

Orange County, California. Okay, so you're

Sabba Quidwai:

pretty close by to there. Nice, yes, we're really close to

Sabba Quidwai:

Disneyland. Not Disney World, but Disneyland, right?

Ashley Cross:

Well, tell our audience a little bit about your

Ashley Cross:

origin story. And so for people that may not be familiar with

Ashley Cross:

you and your work, give us an overview of basically who you

Ashley Cross:

are and what you do, but like, how did you get to that space?

Ashley Cross:

Yeah,

Sabba Quidwai:

you know, it's so funny. I think about that a lot

Sabba Quidwai:

lately, because I asked myself the same question, how did you

Sabba Quidwai:

sort of get here, and what drove you to do some of the things?

Sabba Quidwai:

And I think it really speaks to, like, the power of curiosity.

Sabba Quidwai:

And that's kind of what I think is a thread that I see

Sabba Quidwai:

throughout, like, being self reflective on, like, what's

Sabba Quidwai:

happening in my life, what's happening in my world. Why are

Sabba Quidwai:

things happening and being intentional about that? And so I

Sabba Quidwai:

always say that I think the real reason I come here and I was

Sabba Quidwai:

able to be in this space is my own experience as a student. So

Sabba Quidwai:

I graduated in 2007 which, you know, if anybody remembers back

Sabba Quidwai:

then, it was, you know, also the year the iPhone came out, but

Sabba Quidwai:

just a couple months later, it was also the recession in 2000

Sabba Quidwai:

Eight, you know, also, ironically, the launch of the

Sabba Quidwai:

App Store. And so I always say, with my first job also came my

Sabba Quidwai:

first layoff notice. And yeah, it's kind of embarrassing to

Sabba Quidwai:

admit, but like, I'd never really heard the word layoff.

Sabba Quidwai:

I'd never heard the word pink slip or any of those kinds of

Sabba Quidwai:

things before, nor really seen anybody go through that, either.

Sabba Quidwai:

And so it was a real shock to the system, if you will, that,

Sabba Quidwai:

you know, I I did my bachelor's, like I went to UC Irvine, like I

Sabba Quidwai:

did my master's, I did my credential. I had an incredible

Sabba Quidwai:

first year, and at the end of it, it was just like, sorry,

Sabba Quidwai:

like class size increases and whatnot, and we're getting rid

Sabba Quidwai:

of all of our first and second year teachers. And that would

Sabba Quidwai:

kind of be the story of my career for the next four years

Sabba Quidwai:

or so. And I remember I was about to make a switch into

Sabba Quidwai:

marketing, and because of that, I came across a book by Seth

Sabba Quidwai:

Godin, called linchpin. And in that book, he really broke down

Sabba Quidwai:

like, hey, like that deal, you go to school, you get good

Sabba Quidwai:

grades, and all these things, like, you know, happily ever

Sabba Quidwai:

after that expired. And like no one told you, today's world of

Sabba Quidwai:

work wants, like, not just problem solvers, but like

Sabba Quidwai:

problem finders and people that, instead of complaining about

Sabba Quidwai:

things, instead of, you know, people who can see opportunity,

Sabba Quidwai:

and instead of waiting for somebody else are going to be

Sabba Quidwai:

the ones to take initiative, to come up with a plan, to propose

Sabba Quidwai:

something, and to just do work that energizes you. And I was

Sabba Quidwai:

like, okay, like, I can do that. And so it just so happened the

Sabba Quidwai:

next interview I had was with a private school, and that private

Sabba Quidwai:

school was looking to go one to one with devices. And this is

Sabba Quidwai:

about 2011 and also probably embarrassing to admit that at

Sabba Quidwai:

that time, I was about as opposite as I am from today. I

Sabba Quidwai:

was like, so anti technology. I thought it was gonna, like, ruin

Sabba Quidwai:

the world and like, socialization was just gonna go

Sabba Quidwai:

down the drain. But even though I was very project based, the

Sabba Quidwai:

one thing that sold me when they came to me and were like, hey,

Sabba Quidwai:

we want to go one to one, we need some people at test, I was

Sabba Quidwai:

like, okay, that's the initiative. That's the linchpin,

Sabba Quidwai:

like mindset that Seth Godin talked about, I'm going to be

Sabba Quidwai:

all in even though I've never touched an iPad, but it meant I

Sabba Quidwai:

didn't have to book the computer lab anymore. And I think for

Sabba Quidwai:

anyone who does anything project based, you know, like your

Sabba Quidwai:

schedule does not stay as your schedule. And so it was always

Sabba Quidwai:

problematic for me that it was a real inflection point for me in

Sabba Quidwai:

my own learning, because I'll never forget the first video

Sabba Quidwai:

project that I signed. I had a lot of English language

Sabba Quidwai:

learners, and one of the first projects I signed was a video

Sabba Quidwai:

project, and it was like analyzing these historical

Sabba Quidwai:

documents. And I will never, ever, ever forget the different

Sabba Quidwai:

personalities I saw emerge when the kids had an opportunity to

Sabba Quidwai:

create those videos. And I was like, mind blown. I was like,

Sabba Quidwai:

Are these like, the same people that, like, are sitting in my

Sabba Quidwai:

classroom all day long. It was just their personalities just

Sabba Quidwai:

came out in a different way. And my being able to like, see that

Sabba Quidwai:

engage with that really allowed me to get to know them on a

Sabba Quidwai:

deeper level. And so my whole perception of what I thought

Sabba Quidwai:

technology was versus how I was watching it play out in my own

Sabba Quidwai:

experience sent me down that rabbit hole and really sort of

Sabba Quidwai:

asking, Why did nobody show me the difference between personal

Sabba Quidwai:

and academic and professional use? Because in my personal

Sabba Quidwai:

life, like I had grown up with, like, camcorders, video cameras,

Sabba Quidwai:

personal computers, like our dad was so into that I just never

Sabba Quidwai:

really made the connection to my work, I guess, in that way. And

Sabba Quidwai:

so that was very eye opening, not just for the students, but I

Sabba Quidwai:

feel like it was through the iPad like and we can maybe talk

Sabba Quidwai:

about this later, but I talk about this a lot, how a lot of

Sabba Quidwai:

people think writing is the only medium through which you find

Sabba Quidwai:

your voice. I would say I didn't really find my true voice until

Sabba Quidwai:

I was in my 30s, when I started doing iPad and started doing

Sabba Quidwai:

video. And I think it's different for everybody, but I

Sabba Quidwai:

do think it's really worth us thinking about, hey, what does

Sabba Quidwai:

having a voice mean? What does finding your voice actually

Sabba Quidwai:

mean? And me finding my voice in my 30s really led me then to

Sabba Quidwai:

wonder, why did nobody put this on my radar? Because clearly

Sabba Quidwai:

Steve Jobs knew Mark Zuckerberg knew Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,

Sabba Quidwai:

all these applications were being built and developed, and

Sabba Quidwai:

that wasn't even part of my world that I was even being

Sabba Quidwai:

exposed to. And I started to really wonder why. And when I

Sabba Quidwai:

look down that path, you know, you begin to realize, wow. Like

Sabba Quidwai:

there were a lot of people talking about how this was what

Sabba Quidwai:

was going to happen, and this was the trajectory we were on.

Sabba Quidwai:

My professors had this knowledge available to them. They just

Sabba Quidwai:

didn't really integrate it into my experience. And so I started

Sabba Quidwai:

looking at, what would the next big inflection point be. We knew

Sabba Quidwai:

it was going to be AI. This is back in about 2014 when I

Sabba Quidwai:

started doing this. But nobody, not one single person, had on

Sabba Quidwai:

their radar that it would be like what we see now, if

Sabba Quidwai:

anything, people thought it would be the opposite, that this

Sabba Quidwai:

version of AI would be the last version that we would see. And

Sabba Quidwai:

so in 2017 I went back to school to do my doctorate, and could

Sabba Quidwai:

design thinking be the method we use to help people prepare for

Sabba Quidwai:

existing and also the emerging technologies, specifically AI

Sabba Quidwai:

and I graduated in 2020 was covid, but because I was so into

Sabba Quidwai:

video, I did a documentary, and that got slowed down a little

Sabba Quidwai:

bit. So came out September 2022 and then chat GPT came out in

Sabba Quidwai:

November, so you could call it luck, but I really attribute it

Sabba Quidwai:

to curiosity, pausing in those moments to ask questions about

Sabba Quidwai:

why things were happening the way they were happening, and

Sabba Quidwai:

just being curious enough to go seek out books, people,

Sabba Quidwai:

resources, because it's unbelievable the access to

Sabba Quidwai:

knowledge and people that we have in today's world.

Hiram Cuevas:

Absolutely So. Saba, I'm curious now that

Hiram Cuevas:

you're in fully immersed in AI, have you tried to create your

Hiram Cuevas:

document? Men are using AI,

Sabba Quidwai:

you know, I haven't, although I will tell

Sabba Quidwai:

you, Sora, too, came out yesterday, and it's been pretty

Sabba Quidwai:

unbelievable, if you've had a chance to see in the videos, but

Sabba Quidwai:

being pretty unbelievable to watch all the videos that people

Sabba Quidwai:

are creating. So you can basically, like, take a video of

Sabba Quidwai:

yourself, and you get to choose how much of your likeness you

Sabba Quidwai:

want to hand over and how much you would like to retain for

Sabba Quidwai:

yourself, because other people can take your video that you

Sabba Quidwai:

upload and they can remix and they can make it. So obviously,

Sabba Quidwai:

you know, Sam Altman uploaded his and so if you go online,

Sabba Quidwai:

it's almost like a new social media app they've created where

Sabba Quidwai:

people can just create these AI generated videos based on

Sabba Quidwai:

people, and obviously other things. But everybody's making a

Sabba Quidwai:

video of Sam Altman doing all these different kinds of things.

Sabba Quidwai:

And so I always say every single person has their area that they

Sabba Quidwai:

don't want AI to touch, and that varies, and I think it's so

Sabba Quidwai:

important to, like, lean into that. Because I think when you

Sabba Quidwai:

see an area and you're like, No, I don't want AI to touch this.

Sabba Quidwai:

Like, no, I want to do this, I think that probably speaks to

Sabba Quidwai:

something that you have that is unique to you, that is the

Sabba Quidwai:

strength of yours. Not saying you should ignore the role of AI

Sabba Quidwai:

in that place, but there's something about that that's

Sabba Quidwai:

special to you, and you should lean into that, because it means

Sabba Quidwai:

that you have maybe an advantage in that space that's going to

Sabba Quidwai:

make you unique. But I will say AI video and audio is freakishly

Sabba Quidwai:

better and better by the day.

Hiram Cuevas:

Hence, James elder Jones is licensing for his voice

Hiram Cuevas:

is out there in AI now.

Ashley Cross:

So I have had a really interesting morning, and

Ashley Cross:

it speaks to, I feel like kind of echoing what you described

Ashley Cross:

with your origin stories. I went and I had coffee with a relative

Ashley Cross:

this morning, and she actually was laid off last month after 47

Ashley Cross:

years of working as a medical transcriptionist because of AI.

Ashley Cross:

And literally, I'm having coffee with this woman, and my sister

Ashley Cross:

text me. My sister works at PAYCOM corporate, and she says,

Ashley Cross:

we're having a meeting. They're laying off 500 people. They just

Ashley Cross:

opened up the AI division. And so it was really fascinating,

Ashley Cross:

because again, personally, I haven't had any direct touch

Ashley Cross:

points of layoffs, and especially layoffs related to

Ashley Cross:

emerging tech like this. And then this morning, right before

Ashley Cross:

this call, like I had two right in a row, and so I was just

Ashley Cross:

looking at news. Was looking at other things happening in the

Ashley Cross:

world this week. Accenture, which is a massive company, they

Ashley Cross:

have hundreds of 1000s of employees, but they're laying

Ashley Cross:

off 11,000 people, and they said, employees without, quote,

Ashley Cross:

unquote, get this AI potential. But there's an article about it

Ashley Cross:

in The Times of India that was talking about all of this and

Ashley Cross:

the future of work, and it said specifically how it would reward

Ashley Cross:

those who are prepared to learn, unlearn and relearn at pace. And

Ashley Cross:

so as we think about kind of this moment that we're situated

Ashley Cross:

and where this is going in the short term. What are your

Ashley Cross:

thoughts on this, and how can schools best prepare our

Ashley Cross:

students to be adaptive for this type of future?

Sabba Quidwai:

Yeah, wow. You know, I always tell people like,

Sabba Quidwai:

There's nothing easy about this transition or this work. As you

Sabba Quidwai:

step into it, it's going to be hard. And I think I've also now

Sabba Quidwai:

started to say that, like, I think people should get ready

Sabba Quidwai:

for things that are going to be very painful to watch, friends,

Sabba Quidwai:

family, people that are going to go through things that a lot of

Sabba Quidwai:

people have told them wouldn't happen the last two, three

Sabba Quidwai:

years, ever since chat to me. No humans are never going to be

Sabba Quidwai:

replaced. No relationships, no this, know that. And I always

Sabba Quidwai:

say, like, I don't know how you live in the United States of

Sabba Quidwai:

America, which is based on, like, corporate like,

Sabba Quidwai:

everything, and have that mindset. It's just simply not

Sabba Quidwai:

true at all. So I think the one really good side to this is more

Sabba Quidwai:

people are going to have that reality check of, like, whoa.

Sabba Quidwai:

Like, this is something I need to take seriously. This is

Sabba Quidwai:

something that is going to impact, that could impact us in

Sabba Quidwai:

many ways. And I always say, like, if you're the person who

Sabba Quidwai:

because there are two kinds of people, right? There's the

Sabba Quidwai:

people were like, This is hype. This is not that great. They

Sabba Quidwai:

have, like, an interaction with AI, it doesn't do what they want

Sabba Quidwai:

it to do, and they just write it off right away. Then you have

Sabba Quidwai:

another group of people who are like, Okay, this is like, not

Sabba Quidwai:

perfect, but it's wild that it got to this, to this in the last

Sabba Quidwai:

six months. I need to be paying attention to this. And I always

Sabba Quidwai:

say, if you're this person, even if it never gets better, and

Sabba Quidwai:

even if this person ends up being right, the worst thing

Sabba Quidwai:

that happened to you is you double down on your own skill

Sabba Quidwai:

set and became better at what you do. But this person doesn't

Sabba Quidwai:

have a lot of hope to look forward to, because to catch up

Sabba Quidwai:

to where this person is going to be, I don't want to say, is

Sabba Quidwai:

going to be impossible, but it's going to put you so far behind

Sabba Quidwai:

that to catch up likely means you don't have those mindset and

Sabba Quidwai:

skills to begin with to even probably be able to get there.

Sabba Quidwai:

So I always say everybody should operate with this mindset, that

Sabba Quidwai:

AI is going to be better than me, that AI could take my job,

Sabba Quidwai:

and if it did take my job, what are all the things that I never

Sabba Quidwai:

even get to do that I wish I could do that I can focus on

Sabba Quidwai:

doubling down on now, and I think that person is just going

Sabba Quidwai:

to be at an advantage, at least, compared to the other one. I'll

Sabba Quidwai:

say the other thing that we're starting to see a lot as well

Sabba Quidwai:

now are a lot more data reports being done. So if you kind of

Sabba Quidwai:

remember how previously, when new models used to come out, it

Sabba Quidwai:

was like this, like random coding exam, or like the touring

Sabba Quidwai:

test, or things that just are not related. Bull to me, and you

Sabba Quidwai:

right, because we don't really do those kinds of work. I think

Sabba Quidwai:

it was just this week, or maybe last week, they released

Sabba Quidwai:

something called GDP Val So GDP standing for gross domestic

Sabba Quidwai:

product, and like, the value that is produced from economic

Sabba Quidwai:

work in like labor from the economy. And they took, don't

Sabba Quidwai:

like quote me on any of this, but it's nine industries, and I

Sabba Quidwai:

think 44 occupations across those industries, and they took,

Sabba Quidwai:

they chose it by the highest contributing industries to GDP

Sabba Quidwai:

and to the economy. And basically what they did was a

Sabba Quidwai:

blind test. Okay? So they took real tasks that people do in

Sabba Quidwai:

their day to day. Now, these were more basic level tasks.

Sabba Quidwai:

They weren't super complex, but this is the starting point for

Sabba Quidwai:

being like, okay, you know what? We need a proper way to measure

Sabba Quidwai:

how AI is impacting work, and what is that quality that it is

Sabba Quidwai:

contributing compared to a person. So I want to say the

Sabba Quidwai:

people had 14 years of experience. So it's not like

Sabba Quidwai:

they took like a new grad and did it off with them. These were

Sabba Quidwai:

industry professionals that had 14 years of experience, and they

Sabba Quidwai:

basically gave the AI a task, they gave the person a task, and

Sabba Quidwai:

then they did a blind test when looking at the output, and I

Sabba Quidwai:

think it was like 46 it was a little under 50% of people rated

Sabba Quidwai:

the AI work as the good output, as the human work. And so it

Sabba Quidwai:

gives you a huge indicator that when we think about sort of we

Sabba Quidwai:

always tell people to put like 2030 as like the year we should

Sabba Quidwai:

be aiming for, because that's when people say we'll have like

Sabba Quidwai:

that artificial general intelligence, right? These

Sabba Quidwai:

computers can do tasks that humans can do. And so this GDP

Sabba Quidwai:

val is one really, really, really big data point for us

Sabba Quidwai:

that I imagine they'll keep iterating, you know, keep doing,

Sabba Quidwai:

like a testing on to be like, You should look at that and you

Sabba Quidwai:

should be like, Okay, it's time to take this seriously, but also

Sabba Quidwai:

not be intimidated. Because I think the one thing the report

Sabba Quidwai:

did share also was that when it came to things that were more

Sabba Quidwai:

ambiguous, again, going back to like Seth Godin, right, things

Sabba Quidwai:

that like, there was no clear cut answer for that is where

Sabba Quidwai:

humans still had a significant advantage. And I think when you

Sabba Quidwai:

think about work, when you think about the world, you think about

Sabba Quidwai:

any space, there's just no shortage of problems to be

Sabba Quidwai:

solved. And I think a lot of people spend their time doing

Sabba Quidwai:

work that one, they don't really even want to be doing to begin

Sabba Quidwai:

with. But number two is not what truly gives them that meaning

Sabba Quidwai:

and purpose. But if we're going to get to that kind of work, we

Sabba Quidwai:

do have to be like, it's not enough to just like, let me give

Sabba Quidwai:

you AI. It's okay. How are we going to redesign some of the

Sabba Quidwai:

things that we do to actually allow people to get to that

Sabba Quidwai:

level. So I would say, like, you know, I'm not a person who

Sabba Quidwai:

debates the kinds of stats, if anything, I think we're still

Sabba Quidwai:

not hearing enough about how people and companies are

Sabba Quidwai:

thinking. Because no company or person is going to come out and

Sabba Quidwai:

say, like, yeah, we're going to start laying everyone off

Sabba Quidwai:

because of AI, right? People dance around it, they slowly do

Sabba Quidwai:

it and things like that. Once one person does it, they're

Sabba Quidwai:

like, they did it. We'll just jump in that bandwagon with them

Sabba Quidwai:

too, and do it too. But I think there's a lot of information out

Sabba Quidwai:

there that tells us what we should be getting ready for.

Bill Stites:

You touched on a lot of things there that I want

Bill Stites:

to ask you. With all of that, how does that change the role of

Bill Stites:

the teacher? What does that look like in the classroom as we

Bill Stites:

project what you're saying forward? Where does the teacher

Bill Stites:

fit in? What do we need to be doing? One of the things

Bill Stites:

Christina talks about a lot of times is her daughter going

Bill Stites:

through teacher training right now, and the lack of focus on AI

Bill Stites:

right now. So how does that need to change? How do we need to

Bill Stites:

prepare our teachers that we have in the building right now?

Bill Stites:

What do we, Hiram and I need to be doing from a PD, ATLIS need

Bill Stites:

to be doing from a PD standpoint, and what do our

Bill Stites:

colleges and universities need to be doing to prepare teachers

Bill Stites:

to operate in this world that you're describing?

Sabba Quidwai:

Yeah, it's so funny. She said that because I

Sabba Quidwai:

had the same experience. I'm a supervisor at UC Irvine, the

Sabba Quidwai:

credential program, and it's shocking to me how, even though

Sabba Quidwai:

UC Irvine is such a progressive institution, with just an

Sabba Quidwai:

amazing AI rollout plan, and every tool available to every

Sabba Quidwai:

single person how it was a very minimal part of their

Sabba Quidwai:

experience. And so this goes back to anyone's experience over

Sabba Quidwai:

the last like, I'll just use two decades, because that's like my

Sabba Quidwai:

experience. But I'm sure people could go back further. Is that I

Sabba Quidwai:

think we too often focus on the technology first. Like, What

Sabba Quidwai:

apps do we need? Let's train you on these apps. Let's show you

Sabba Quidwai:

how it fits into what you're already doing. And I think that

Sabba Quidwai:

kind of mindset never really served us in the past, and I

Sabba Quidwai:

think it's going to do a disservice to us. I don't know

Sabba Quidwai:

that it hurt us tremendously in the past, but I think with AI,

Sabba Quidwai:

when you start with the tools and it's like, okay, well,

Sabba Quidwai:

here's how you can use it for what you're doing here, and

Sabba Quidwai:

here's how you can do it for you to how you can do it for you're

Sabba Quidwai:

doing here, which I think is needed, because people have to

Sabba Quidwai:

have some experience and exposure and context. But I

Sabba Quidwai:

think, I guess, I just wish more people spent time really

Sabba Quidwai:

discussing as a team, given all of this that's happening, like

Sabba Quidwai:

even if I was to take just what Ashley said, nothing else, and I

Sabba Quidwai:

only took that snippet of what she said. What does that mean

Sabba Quidwai:

for teaching and learning in our organization? And I think you

Sabba Quidwai:

have to make it granular like that, because everybody's in a

Sabba Quidwai:

very different place. There are some people who are just super,

Sabba Quidwai:

super, super traditional in their instruction. They still

Sabba Quidwai:

are using stoplight models. They still are fixated that essays

Sabba Quidwai:

are. The only ways that people can think and find their voice.

Sabba Quidwai:

You're not going to be able to do a 180 on that institution

Sabba Quidwai:

overnight and get them to, like, project based learning and some

Sabba Quidwai:

other new way, kind of doing something that's going to be a

Sabba Quidwai:

mindset shift. And so you're going to have people like, I was

Sabba Quidwai:

just talking to a district yesterday, like we do competency

Sabba Quidwai:

based learning. They like amazing things that are

Sabba Quidwai:

happening. Your foundation is totally different when thinking

Sabba Quidwai:

about the design of that learning journey. And so I guess

Sabba Quidwai:

what I wish is more people would talk about, what do we mean by

Sabba Quidwai:

thinking, Yeah, and if you've seen there was a really

Sabba Quidwai:

beautiful book written by Seymour Saracen a long time ago,

Sabba Quidwai:

and the title of the book was, What do you mean by learning?

Sabba Quidwai:

And I think we should also really zone in on what do you

Sabba Quidwai:

mean by thinking. I think people throw the word thinking around

Sabba Quidwai:

so loosely, but if you actually ask them, okay, well, show me

Sabba Quidwai:

what thinking looked like. What did that journey look like for a

Sabba Quidwai:

person? I think very few people can respond to that. And I think

Sabba Quidwai:

leaning into those questions and then being like, okay, being

Sabba Quidwai:

really honest about where you are, and this is where we need

Sabba Quidwai:

to go, and mapping what that journey is going to look like

Sabba Quidwai:

for people is probably one of the best things you can do for

Sabba Quidwai:

your community, to look at, how do we fast track this? And the

Sabba Quidwai:

one big difference and advantage we have is, prior to AI tools,

Sabba Quidwai:

you would have to have done that work alone, but now you can use

Sabba Quidwai:

your AI tools to fast track this like no other. And so that's

Sabba Quidwai:

what my life little wish would be. And when we work with

Sabba Quidwai:

people, this is what we're doing. So

Hiram Cuevas:

Saba, you kind of piqued my interest a little bit

Hiram Cuevas:

here, because, as a futurist, where do you think the teaching

Hiram Cuevas:

profession is going to end up? So I'm thinking of schools like

Hiram Cuevas:

alpha School, which is now utilizing AI for two hours a day

Hiram Cuevas:

and then engaging them with all these life experiences outside

Hiram Cuevas:

of that. Where are we headed? And where do you think that

Hiram Cuevas:

endpoint is going to reside, given that. And ATLIS works with

Hiram Cuevas:

independent schools, so we cherish the relationship between

Hiram Cuevas:

the teacher and the child. So where do you think this is going

Hiram Cuevas:

to go as a futurist?

Sabba Quidwai:

Yeah, I think even that definition, like

Sabba Quidwai:

relationship between teacher and child, like, what does that mean

Sabba Quidwai:

to you? What does that look like to you? I think even that is

Sabba Quidwai:

worthy of question, because I think there are some people who

Sabba Quidwai:

think that relationship means I'm standing in front of a room

Sabba Quidwai:

and I'm helping you become your best writer so that you can go

Sabba Quidwai:

on and be this great thinker. I don't think relationships for

Sabba Quidwai:

people always translate to things that we see at alpha,

Sabba Quidwai:

where I'm helping you discover your strengths and follow your

Sabba Quidwai:

interests and launch things and create things. So I again, go

Sabba Quidwai:

back to there's a lot of things I think people use loosely, that

Sabba Quidwai:

defining those gives you clarity around how to design what comes

Sabba Quidwai:

next. But what I like about what alpha has done is that they have

Sabba Quidwai:

given you a very visible model for what things can look like.

Sabba Quidwai:

Because I think when things are hypothetical, you don't have a

Sabba Quidwai:

context or a schema for something. It's hard to see. You

Sabba Quidwai:

know, when I think about alpha, I think a lot about John Dewey

Sabba Quidwai:

and the things that he talked about back then, about what

Sabba Quidwai:

learning should look like. I think, first of all, a lot of

Sabba Quidwai:

misconceptions about what she's building and what she's doing.

Sabba Quidwai:

But I think when you follow her online and you listen to her

Sabba Quidwai:

students stories, this is a big thing we often look for, and I

Sabba Quidwai:

think anyone should look for is who's telling the story? Is it

Sabba Quidwai:

just the adults telling the story? Is it the students and

Sabba Quidwai:

the teachers telling the stories too? And there are two

Sabba Quidwai:

organizations that always come to mind for me when I think

Sabba Quidwai:

about this. One is alpha, which is like, your more traditional,

Sabba Quidwai:

you know, she's building like, kind of like a K 12 model. But

Sabba Quidwai:

the other one is the knowledge society. So the knowledge

Sabba Quidwai:

society is an extracurricular, I think it's for students 10 to

Sabba Quidwai:

16, where basically they bring you in for about 10 weeks, and

Sabba Quidwai:

some of the programs might be longer, but they expose you to

Sabba Quidwai:

all of these existing and emerging technologies, and they

Sabba Quidwai:

help you build a project. And it's unbelievable to see what

Sabba Quidwai:

their kids do. And they always talk about how their kids come

Sabba Quidwai:

in with a lot of times no knowledge at all about any of

Sabba Quidwai:

these, but they build their mindsets, their habits and their

Sabba Quidwai:

skills in that space, and it's unbelievable to see their

Sabba Quidwai:

progress. So I think students stories are a really beautiful

Sabba Quidwai:

way of being able to look at what things can look like. But I

Sabba Quidwai:

think at the end of the day, when we go back to you know what

Sabba Quidwai:

your question in the teaching profession, it's that being able

Sabba Quidwai:

to motivate, inspire, and coach and really be that guide with

Sabba Quidwai:

them along the way, to help them discover, I always say, the

Sabba Quidwai:

greatest gift any educator gives you is they help you see parts

Sabba Quidwai:

of yourself that you didn't know exist, and they help you nurture

Sabba Quidwai:

that. They see something in you that you're just too young or

Sabba Quidwai:

you know you don't have the experience to either see or

Sabba Quidwai:

believe in yourself. But they see it in you. They nurture it

Sabba Quidwai:

in you. And that's over time, how you grow and how you evolve.

Sabba Quidwai:

One of the

Bill Stites:

terms that I think we use often in schools is the

Bill Stites:

idea of a lifelong learner. And the Lifelong Learner implies

Bill Stites:

that you're constantly iterating. You're constantly

Bill Stites:

developing. When you think about where we are, where we're going,

Bill Stites:

one of the things that when I was reading some of the stuff

Bill Stites:

about you prior to us getting on today, was it talked about

Bill Stites:

change, and how you manage change. What is your process

Bill Stites:

for? Like working with schools, working with people to manage

Bill Stites:

that process. Because I think change management is one of

Bill Stites:

those big umbrella things that can be applied in a lot of

Bill Stites:

different areas, but in particular, when you start

Bill Stites:

thinking about what we're doing with tech. Technology, what

Bill Stites:

we're doing with AI, what we're doing with all the things that

Bill Stites:

we're talking about. The idea of change management is something

Bill Stites:

that you really need to work on and plan for. And I'm curious as

Bill Stites:

to how you go about that. Yeah, you

Sabba Quidwai:

know, every arrow is a little bit different, but

Sabba Quidwai:

one of the things I think is important right now is really

Sabba Quidwai:

grounding people and all the things that are working well, I

Sabba Quidwai:

think when things change too much around you. You need some

Sabba Quidwai:

foundation. Be like, okay, but I got this part down. We got this

Sabba Quidwai:

part out. And so we love doing it on two, one from an

Sabba Quidwai:

organizational perspective, we call it like an AGI learning

Sabba Quidwai:

walk. So we talk with the leadership team about what is

Sabba Quidwai:

AGI? Where are we headed in 2030 what will technology look like

Sabba Quidwai:

in 2030 and given this, let's go walk your campus and see where

Sabba Quidwai:

we're seeing these like pockets of excellence that we can scale

Sabba Quidwai:

to be able to meet that moment. So once you do it on an

Sabba Quidwai:

organizational level, people realize, like, Okay, wow. Like,

Sabba Quidwai:

our teacher collaboration efforts are unbelievable. We

Sabba Quidwai:

have this time and space carved out for people to learn. Our

Sabba Quidwai:

like entrepreneurship program over here, the kids are just

Sabba Quidwai:

thriving over here, like they're doing, x, y, z, and so a lot of

Sabba Quidwai:

people have a lot of positives going for them. And it's really,

Sabba Quidwai:

really, really important to acknowledge that a lot of people

Sabba Quidwai:

have even the basics of amazing vision, mission values on their

Sabba Quidwai:

website. We need to resurface all of these pieces, because

Sabba Quidwai:

we're going to leverage them in what we design next. Then after

Sabba Quidwai:

the organizational one is done, we do individuals. I think it's

Sabba Quidwai:

so important for people right now to have, like, a really

Sabba Quidwai:

strong identity and who they are, what they do and what

Sabba Quidwai:

energizes them. There's a couple ways to do this, but one of our

Sabba Quidwai:

favorites is the spark type, because it specifically talks

Sabba Quidwai:

about what energizes you at work, and it's free as well.

Sabba Quidwai:

There's other ones, like the Gallup cliftonstrengths and

Sabba Quidwai:

things like that. But I really love starting with the spark

Sabba Quidwai:

type, and it just again, gives people language to speak about

Sabba Quidwai:

themselves, about their organizations at a time when it

Sabba Quidwai:

feels like you're losing control, because that's where we

Sabba Quidwai:

don't want people to be, and one of the ways you remove that

Sabba Quidwai:

feeling is by giving them the things that they do have control

Sabba Quidwai:

over, and the things that are working really well, because we

Sabba Quidwai:

don't want to neglect those either. We want to build on

Sabba Quidwai:

those things. And once you have those pieces, then, like I said,

Sabba Quidwai:

you do a little of like an autopsy. Okay, where are we at?

Sabba Quidwai:

Where do we want to go? And what is that learning journey going

Sabba Quidwai:

to look like along the way for different people, and it looks

Sabba Quidwai:

different for different people, but I think that is a really

Sabba Quidwai:

strong place to start, versus Hi everyone. We bought, everybody.

Sabba Quidwai:

Magic School. Let's go and go update our lesson plans and go

Sabba Quidwai:

do x, y, z. This is, to me, I think one of the biggest reasons

Sabba Quidwai:

why people in education have a very flawed understanding of the

Sabba Quidwai:

technology in general. Because you think about the people you

Sabba Quidwai:

talked about this morning at Accenture, at these

Sabba Quidwai:

transcription companies and whatnot, these people are all

Sabba Quidwai:

using authentic, real models they're using, the chat, GPT,

Sabba Quidwai:

the Geminis, things like that. These models that most people

Sabba Quidwai:

are using in education are so basic and can barely do

Sabba Quidwai:

anything, and are so perpetuating the status quo that

Sabba Quidwai:

most people who have exposure to AI, especially because majority

Sabba Quidwai:

of people do not pay for AI tools themselves, so unless an

Sabba Quidwai:

organization is going to provide it to them, or unless you are

Sabba Quidwai:

making the effort to actually pay for the tool and then also

Sabba Quidwai:

use those tools, you really don't actually understand the

Sabba Quidwai:

power of the technology and how it's impacting your day to day.

Sabba Quidwai:

And so to me, this is a really big challenge in the education

Sabba Quidwai:

space, which is why I really appreciated Google giving people

Sabba Quidwai:

Gemini, because it's the only tool that people will actually

Sabba Quidwai:

get exposure to. To be like this is actually what technology

Sabba Quidwai:

does, not what you're seeing over here, here, here.

Bill Stites:

It's interesting that you mentioned the cost of a

Bill Stites:

tool, like paying for a tool and using a tool, because I think

Bill Stites:

that is where, at least on our side of it, as we're thinking

Bill Stites:

about rolling these things out, where we haven't had the chance

Bill Stites:

to really dive into those tools. You know, until you sign that

Bill Stites:

contract to get into it, there's this amped up anxiety around, oh

Bill Stites:

my god, we just spent X amount on this. Now we have to really

Bill Stites:

focus on using this tool. And you might find out halfway

Bill Stites:

through, this tool wasn't the tool. So to your point about

Bill Stites:

Google and Gemini. That's one of the things that I was really

Bill Stites:

excited about. You know, it changed our conversations that

Bill Stites:

we were having here at school almost overnight, or literally

Bill Stites:

overnight, because it was one of those things that was like,

Bill Stites:

which one are we going to use? What are the age requirements?

Bill Stites:

Is it covered underneath of the use in schools? You know, all of

Bill Stites:

those pieces. And then when that door opened up, it was like, Oh,

Bill Stites:

hold on a second. Now we can kind of really go all in here.

Bill Stites:

And one of our previous guests was with Google. She gave us

Bill Stites:

this great resource that Google's just put out on, like,

Bill Stites:

how do you use AI in a school? And it's really that level of

Bill Stites:

commitment, that level of openness from Google is really

Bill Stites:

going to make this exploration phase a lot easier, because

Bill Stites:

there's no longer that cost barrier to entry. There's no

Bill Stites:

longer that age barrier to entry. It's just, let's use it.

Bill Stites:

Let's talk about it. Let's figure out how we're going to

Bill Stites:

make this work in

Hiram Cuevas:

schools and Bill another piece to that is because

Hiram Cuevas:

it's a core. Service. It created that wall garden for us in the K

Hiram Cuevas:

12 space, 100% which is huge. And as you were talking about

Hiram Cuevas:

Saba, all these free GPT tools that are out there, you don't

Hiram Cuevas:

have that wall garden the same way that you do with Gemini. And

Hiram Cuevas:

that's a big plus for Google schools. Yeah,

Sabba Quidwai:

absolutely. I think it's this big plus for

Sabba Quidwai:

people's experience. I always tell people, like, even if you

Sabba Quidwai:

don't want to go, if you don't want to go down the route of

Sabba Quidwai:

Gemini, later on, you decide it's not for you, you will have

Sabba Quidwai:

definitely have gained the skills for working with this

Sabba Quidwai:

technology, and you just don't get those skills with some of

Sabba Quidwai:

these AI education apps. And this might go back to like, you

Sabba Quidwai:

know, we're in a position now where people have just made

Sabba Quidwai:

decisions and choices that you can't now undo, and so now your

Sabba Quidwai:

next best thing to do is be like, Okay, we did this. We gave

Sabba Quidwai:

people that, you know, exposure. We got them over their fear and

Sabba Quidwai:

whatnot. What are you going to do now to get them out of that

Sabba Quidwai:

and into something real, to really kind of meet the moment

Sabba Quidwai:

that's coming over

Bill Stites:

here. This reminds me a lot of the internet bubble

Bill Stites:

that we had 1520, years ago. You know where it was like, everyone

Bill Stites:

was figuring out what they're going to do on the internet, and

Bill Stites:

everyone had this great new thing that you could do on the

Bill Stites:

internet. And like, three, four years later, half those

Bill Stites:

companies were gone. And that's what I'm sensing right now. It's

Bill Stites:

like, everywhere you turn it's like, Hey, we've got AI in this,

Bill Stites:

or we're doing AI over here. And it's just like, find me. The big

Bill Stites:

players that aren't going to go anywhere, that are going to be

Bill Stites:

around, that are established, that are bought in, and are at

Bill Stites:

that foundational level where others are building upon them.

Bill Stites:

Let me engage there, because I know those are going to stick

Bill Stites:

around, you know, and then in a little while, we'll know how the

Bill Stites:

rest of them shuffle out.

Sabba Quidwai:

Absolutely, absolutely and, you know, it's

Sabba Quidwai:

sort of like, it goes back to, like, remember, like remember,

Sabba Quidwai:

like with iPads and things like that, the more blank canvas your

Sabba Quidwai:

tool was, the deeper you were able to go. And it's also

Sabba Quidwai:

harder, though, right? Because, again, it's a blank canvas. But

Sabba Quidwai:

I think alongside that, like really helping people, and I

Sabba Quidwai:

think the tools do a really good job of this. You know, we have

Sabba Quidwai:

that spark prompting framework, which is basically an empathy

Sabba Quidwai:

interview, really getting people to talk more about the

Sabba Quidwai:

challenges they have, but also their hopes and dreams. And I

Sabba Quidwai:

think really nurturing that muscle of being more ambitious

Sabba Quidwai:

and being able to name your challenges is one of the most

Sabba Quidwai:

important, like human skills to really be working on. Because,

Sabba Quidwai:

you know, we always say that, like, you know, AI tools are

Sabba Quidwai:

amazing and they can do so much, but like, they need, like your

Sabba Quidwai:

human Spark, like you have to go in and light the fire. You're

Sabba Quidwai:

the one that's got to go in with a big idea, or the challenge you

Sabba Quidwai:

think is unsolvable, and work with it to be able to do that.

Sabba Quidwai:

And then it can, kind of like, show you what it's made of and

Sabba Quidwai:

how good it is and what it can do, and also what it can't do in

Sabba Quidwai:

many ways as well. And so I think that experience is very

Sabba Quidwai:

empowering for people. Is what we find versus the I've actually

Sabba Quidwai:

found this that, like, I think a lot of people are very hesitant

Sabba Quidwai:

because of people's fears to go too deep into things or be too

Sabba Quidwai:

ambitious. But what I've personally found is the more

Sabba Quidwai:

ambitious you are, the more excited people are. People rise

Sabba Quidwai:

when there's a challenge, when there is something more purpose

Sabba Quidwai:

driven, more meaningful to them, even if it feels harder than

Sabba Quidwai:

like, oh, push this button and get this lesson plan. Because,

Sabba Quidwai:

you know, we know you're scared of AI. So let's just give you

Sabba Quidwai:

something small. I don't find people relate to that well, they

Sabba Quidwai:

question it, they challenge it. It's a threat to their

Sabba Quidwai:

expertise. But you start with them and what they need, and you

Sabba Quidwai:

say, Okay, here's a little tool to help you do that. I find

Sabba Quidwai:

people lean in more to that challenge.

Hiram Cuevas:

So you have the tool. You've got them leaning in

Hiram Cuevas:

a little bit more. How do you restructure teaching and

Hiram Cuevas:

learning and assessment?

Sabba Quidwai:

Oh, that's so big. Let's just like wave our

Sabba Quidwai:

magic wand.

Sabba Quidwai:

You know, I think for so many things, like I said, it's a

Sabba Quidwai:

journey. I think you have to map where you are and where you

Sabba Quidwai:

would like to go. One of the things that I also think is

Sabba Quidwai:

important to think about, you know, I did my research. You

Sabba Quidwai:

know, I did my research at design 39 and one of the things

Sabba Quidwai:

that really drew me to design 39 was how their teachers worked in

Sabba Quidwai:

teams, and they worked in teams to redesign all of those things

Sabba Quidwai:

you just mentioned. And I think I saw them for the first time in

Sabba Quidwai:

maybe 2014 is when I saw them first. And I knew then I was

Sabba Quidwai:

like, I want to tell this story. Because while to me, I was like,

Sabba Quidwai:

How is me as a public school teacher having to work by

Sabba Quidwai:

myself? Here's another public school over here where nine

Sabba Quidwai:

people all get to work together. Like, why is there this

Sabba Quidwai:

difference? And why is that the exception and not the norm? And

Sabba Quidwai:

so in 2017 when I went back to school, I was like, I'm going to

Sabba Quidwai:

study those people. Because they never stopped. They kept going

Sabba Quidwai:

and building and building and building. And it was really

Sabba Quidwai:

fascinating to me to do like a research dissertation on what

Sabba Quidwai:

skills do we need, or what does the future of teaching and

Sabba Quidwai:

learning look like for AI, but have technology be such a small

Sabba Quidwai:

part of it. So I think the one thing I would say is, as we

Sabba Quidwai:

think about redesigning those assessments, and as we think

Sabba Quidwai:

about doing those things, I'll tell you what it doesn't mean.

Sabba Quidwai:

It doesn't mean that we go put a chat bot in the hand of every

Sabba Quidwai:

single kid and say, Okay, now you're going to sit here, and

Sabba Quidwai:

now you're going to do x, y, z. And I think that's the

Sabba Quidwai:

misconception people have with alpha. Like, at alpha, like,

Sabba Quidwai:

they know there are still metrics we need to hit, there

Sabba Quidwai:

are still test scores our kids need to be proficient in. There

Sabba Quidwai:

are still things they need to do. We need to check those

Sabba Quidwai:

boxes. But like, let's just create some time to check those

Sabba Quidwai:

boxes here, and then let's spend the rest of your time. Time with

Sabba Quidwai:

people, building things, creating things, learning

Sabba Quidwai:

things. And I think that is where assessment needs to go. Is

Sabba Quidwai:

more on the building and the creating of things for real

Sabba Quidwai:

world, you know. And doesn't always have to be that your

Sabba Quidwai:

product has to be made public or things have to be made public,

Sabba Quidwai:

but I think that portfolio based approach is so incredibly

Sabba Quidwai:

powerful. Like learning about yourself and how you're growing

Sabba Quidwai:

and what your strengths are, and being reflective, like, even as

Sabba Quidwai:

I told you, right, like my own journey, like constantly being

Sabba Quidwai:

reflective on, like, Okay, wait a minute. Why did this happen? I

Sabba Quidwai:

learned this. I did this. This led to this. It helps you

Sabba Quidwai:

collect a bunch of dots. You know, it's like Steve Jobs says

Sabba Quidwai:

you can only make sense of those dots looking back, not forwards.

Sabba Quidwai:

But we need to help people collect as many different dots

Sabba Quidwai:

as possible through their lives that they can look back on and

Sabba Quidwai:

make sense of, and to go and be like, This is who I want to be.

Sabba Quidwai:

This is how I want to contribute in the world. And so I think

Sabba Quidwai:

there are a lot of small places you can start like, to me,

Sabba Quidwai:

design thinking is like the best way to do this, because you lean

Sabba Quidwai:

into people's strengths, interests, needs, all those

Sabba Quidwai:

types of things, and AI tools are amazing at design thinking.

Sabba Quidwai:

AI tools, that's one area where I can say, AI tools are better

Sabba Quidwai:

than people when it comes to integrating design thinking.

Sabba Quidwai:

I've been doing these workshops for years and years and years.

Sabba Quidwai:

Their people struggle with the ideation. People can do the

Sabba Quidwai:

empathy interviews. They can define the problem. They can do

Sabba Quidwai:

that. But you take it further than that, and then you have to

Sabba Quidwai:

go implement and execute. They have a really hard time putting

Sabba Quidwai:

those pieces together quickly. AI tools do not, they don't have

Sabba Quidwai:

that constraint, limitation, whereas we do. And so it's a

Sabba Quidwai:

partner for you, if you're somebody who can only see

Sabba Quidwai:

constraints. And yeah, but this, but okay, we're going to wait

Sabba Quidwai:

six months. We're going to do this. That's a hard thing to

Sabba Quidwai:

work with. Your AI tool doesn't have that limitation, so work

Sabba Quidwai:

together with it to design and build what it is that you want.

Ashley Cross:

So you had mentioned working with several

Ashley Cross:

schools, and I know your company, you guys do consulting,

Ashley Cross:

you work with schools all over are there any other stories that

Ashley Cross:

you can share with us of and it doesn't have to be specifically

Ashley Cross:

about AI, but just schools doing great things that we could learn

Ashley Cross:

from in our community.

Sabba Quidwai:

Yeah, I'll tell you one. This one is just very

Sabba Quidwai:

personal to me, and that is the safety of children. I've noticed

Sabba Quidwai:

when it comes to schools, we categorize safety as inside of

Sabba Quidwai:

school and outside of school, not explicitly, but that's

Sabba Quidwai:

basically what we mean when we say, No, I need to do this

Sabba Quidwai:

because I have to monitor them here, here, here, but that

Sabba Quidwai:

doesn't translate to helping somebody be safe when they're on

Sabba Quidwai:

their own. And so one of the things that I really encourage

Sabba Quidwai:

people to do right now is like, yes, and like, most of the

Sabba Quidwai:

things that will go wrong for kids with AI won't happen

Sabba Quidwai:

between eight to three. They will happen after school, at

Sabba Quidwai:

home, when a company is marketing a tool to them, when a

Sabba Quidwai:

company is giving them a tool, when they're on their social

Sabba Quidwai:

media ads, where AI is integrated everywhere. When

Sabba Quidwai:

they're upset with a friend and they want somebody to talk to

Sabba Quidwai:

you, but there's nobody there. Most of the things that make

Sabba Quidwai:

kids vulnerable happen to them outside of school, not inside of

Sabba Quidwai:

school. And so one of the things that I have really enjoyed doing

Sabba Quidwai:

with people, and I think that the one that really was the

Sabba Quidwai:

first to do this, that's why I'm sharing them, even though

Sabba Quidwai:

there's others, is desert sands unified. And if you go to desert

Sabba Quidwai:

sands unified, you just type desert sands AI guidance. One of

Sabba Quidwai:

the things desert sands did that is very unique. They created a

Sabba Quidwai:

decision making framework for not just their students, but for

Sabba Quidwai:

all stakeholders when it comes to communicating how they're

Sabba Quidwai:

using AI. And not from like a punishment standpoint, or like a

Sabba Quidwai:

we need to like question you type standpoint, but from a

Sabba Quidwai:

Okay, how did you come to this conclusion? Almost like showing

Sabba Quidwai:

your work on a math problem, like tell us about the choices

Sabba Quidwai:

you made. How did you make that decision? But also giving them

Sabba Quidwai:

questions and guidance on how to make decisions when using tools

Sabba Quidwai:

that there's not really an answer for how you should or

Sabba Quidwai:

shouldn't. And that's why, when we each share our own thinking

Sabba Quidwai:

process for how we got there, we all help each other get better

Sabba Quidwai:

and stronger. Because maybe you thought of something. Let's say,

Sabba Quidwai:

you know, all of us here sat and we prepared for this podcast

Sabba Quidwai:

using AI, and we, you know, maybe did some research, maybe

Sabba Quidwai:

we generated questions, maybe we took some time to like, learn

Sabba Quidwai:

about each other or connect dots between our experiences. And

Sabba Quidwai:

instead of just coming and just having the conversation, we each

Sabba Quidwai:

spend time saying, like, oh yeah, this is how I did it. This

Sabba Quidwai:

is why I did it, this is what I did. And we each share. We would

Sabba Quidwai:

each learn so much from each other about our process, but we

Sabba Quidwai:

might also question things like, oh, like, I don't know if that

Sabba Quidwai:

was the best idea or, like, you did this, but did this happen

Sabba Quidwai:

and like this and that? So it creates this culture where we

Sabba Quidwai:

are constantly sharing ideas, examples and things like that

Sabba Quidwai:

that just help us become better at how we make decisions. And,

Sabba Quidwai:

you know, earlier this year, in January, I think, was the COO of

Sabba Quidwai:

LinkedIn. He was like, the number one interview question

Sabba Quidwai:

people should be able to answer is, tell me a story about a time

Sabba Quidwai:

used AI at work or at home, and for kids, we change work to

Sabba Quidwai:

school. So tell me story about school or home. And when I hear

Sabba Quidwai:

somebody say, I want a story, they're not asking me for my

Sabba Quidwai:

technological proficiency. They're asking me for a

Sabba Quidwai:

beginning, a middle and an end. They want to know what made you

Sabba Quidwai:

do that to begin with, what was that spark? For you. What

Sabba Quidwai:

happened along the way? How did you make choices? How did you

Sabba Quidwai:

make decisions? What was good, what worked, and what did you do

Sabba Quidwai:

when something worked, and vice versa? And then what was the

Sabba Quidwai:

end? What was the impact? What did you learn from that? And I

Sabba Quidwai:

think the reason people are going to become increasingly

Sabba Quidwai:

curious about that answer to that question is they know they

Sabba Quidwai:

cannot monitor you. 24/7, it's impossible. There was an article

Sabba Quidwai:

the Harvard Business Review just did something about how, like,

Sabba Quidwai:

you've been AI work slopped or something like that. Like, it's

Sabba Quidwai:

basically this concept that now people know these tools exist,

Sabba Quidwai:

but they don't really know how to work well with them, so

Sabba Quidwai:

they're turning in, like, garbage work, and it's creating

Sabba Quidwai:

more work for people. But it's also very obvious. Like, either

Sabba Quidwai:

things don't make sense, they haven't fact checked it, or it's

Sabba Quidwai:

just like bad quality, and it's becoming a real problem for

Sabba Quidwai:

people. So that decision making and me being able to rely on

Sabba Quidwai:

your ability to use things in a way that aligns with whoever

Sabba Quidwai:

vision values you're working for, I think, is going to become

Sabba Quidwai:

really important. And I say that because I understand that we

Sabba Quidwai:

have to monitor like. It's not an either or like, yes, we need

Sabba Quidwai:

to monitor. We need to do these things, but we can't do it at

Sabba Quidwai:

the expense of leaving kids vulnerable in other spaces,

Sabba Quidwai:

whether that's because of an AI companion social media, or

Sabba Quidwai:

because in an interview, you're not going to have a good answer

Sabba Quidwai:

or experiences to be able to share. So I think it's okay to

Sabba Quidwai:

go slow in this moment. I think it's a lot of pressure to go

Sabba Quidwai:

quickly because of just how much AI is in the news, but I wish

Sabba Quidwai:

more people would slow down. And I often tell people, you know,

Sabba Quidwai:

like Steve Jobs didn't grow up with an iPhone. Elon Musk didn't

Sabba Quidwai:

drive a Tesla growing up, there was no such thing as Amazon for

Sabba Quidwai:

Jeff Bezos when he was growing up. But each of these people

Sabba Quidwai:

have one thing in common, and that is curiosity. They know how

Sabba Quidwai:

to ask questions. They know how to observe the world around

Sabba Quidwai:

them. They know how to make sense of people experiences.

Sabba Quidwai:

They know how to connect dots. And yes, AI can help you with

Sabba Quidwai:

that, but I don't think it can help you if you don't have

Sabba Quidwai:

domain knowledge and expertise

Ashley Cross:

very well said so in conversations that I've been

Ashley Cross:

having with some of our members recently, I've had a thread that

Ashley Cross:

has come up a lot, and that is the evolution of educational

Ashley Cross:

technologist in the school setting. And so we saw these

Ashley Cross:

people, you know, they were first just helping teachers

Ashley Cross:

understand the basics of technology, supporting them

Ashley Cross:

through that, but we're really starting to see these roles

Ashley Cross:

evolving and people rethinking. What that might look like in

Ashley Cross:

schools. From all of your travels, is this something that

Ashley Cross:

you've had any exposure to, or have you thought about again,

Ashley Cross:

the people that are doing the Technology Support and whatever

Ashley Cross:

it may call innovation specialist or technologists?

Ashley Cross:

What does that look like as we move forward for the next short

Ashley Cross:

term.

Sabba Quidwai:

Oh my god, I'm deciding how honest I want to

Sabba Quidwai:

be. I will say this. You know how they say, like, I'll hold

Sabba Quidwai:

your hand and say this, because it really, truly is in the best

Sabba Quidwai:

interest of everybody. One of the challenges sometimes, and

Sabba Quidwai:

this is not a blanket statement, because there's amazing things

Sabba Quidwai:

happening everywhere. And let me preface this with we're all

Sabba Quidwai:

doing amazing things, but we are in this crazy moment right now

Sabba Quidwai:

where we all need to take a step back and reevaluate what we're

Sabba Quidwai:

doing. And I think if you haven't taken that step back to

Sabba Quidwai:

reevaluate what you're doing, you're likely a little

Sabba Quidwai:

misaligned with the moment compared to what it might have

Sabba Quidwai:

been before for you. So one of the challenges that I think

Sabba Quidwai:

happens when we choose these roles is they're usually the

Sabba Quidwai:

person who is amazing at doing it in their space, right? Even I

Sabba Quidwai:

use my own self as this example, I was amazing at using it in my

Sabba Quidwai:

classroom. My school selected me to be the ed tech director, and

Sabba Quidwai:

I went in with, oh my god, this app and this and this and this

Sabba Quidwai:

and this, and everyone should be just as excited as I am, right?

Sabba Quidwai:

And those of you who aren't excited, you're the laggards,

Sabba Quidwai:

like, you're the ones that just like, don't get it yet. You're

Sabba Quidwai:

not innovative and whatnot. That's very much the mindset in

Sabba Quidwai:

that space for that thing. And I always talk about wasn't until I

Sabba Quidwai:

got put at USC, which is the med school where I was director of

Sabba Quidwai:

innovative learning, but I was a social science teacher in I

Sabba Quidwai:

hated science. I knew nothing about biology, and I had no

Sabba Quidwai:

choice but to sit and listen, and that's where this mantra

Sabba Quidwai:

came for me, that innovation doesn't begin with technology.

Sabba Quidwai:

Begins with empathy. You've got to, like, understand your

Sabba Quidwai:

people, and that is a skill set that most people in those roles

Sabba Quidwai:

are not really trained on. I mean, even most of us, right,

Sabba Quidwai:

you don't go to school to, like, learn that kind of stuff in a

Sabba Quidwai:

teaching credential program, even a master's program, even my

Sabba Quidwai:

doctoral program didn't even go down that path. So these aren't

Sabba Quidwai:

things that we are taught, per se. They're things we have to,

Sabba Quidwai:

unfortunately, like, usually learn on our own. And so I think

Sabba Quidwai:

one of the challenges with those roles is there's not the time

Sabba Quidwai:

and space to go and do that learning. Sometimes you don't

Sabba Quidwai:

even realize there are those gaps. But you see everybody else

Sabba Quidwai:

use this one tool. You see everybody else do this one

Sabba Quidwai:

thing, and that's what you bring back to your org. And I think

Sabba Quidwai:

that's how things get spread. This is why these companies want

Sabba Quidwai:

these ambassadors as teachers, because they know that you're

Sabba Quidwai:

the one that's going to go into your school. You're the ones

Sabba Quidwai:

going to go tell everybody, because you're the coach that's

Sabba Quidwai:

responsible. And now we're going to give you this t shirt and

Sabba Quidwai:

this like badge, or this whatever, and now you're going

Sabba Quidwai:

to go spread that to everybody, because your training just

Sabba Quidwai:

became 10 times easier to do. So. A lot of pressure that's put

Sabba Quidwai:

on these people to deliver the trainings, to create the

Sabba Quidwai:

programs, to do all these different things. And so again,

Sabba Quidwai:

everything for me in this moment is step back, get together, talk

Sabba Quidwai:

about what you want things to look like, and only then you

Sabba Quidwai:

will have a criteria to now go to different tools and things to

Sabba Quidwai:

be like. Does this meet my criteria? Yes, yes. Yes or No,

Sabba Quidwai:

it doesn't great you're out, and that gives me an informed way of

Sabba Quidwai:

making decisions about what we want to do in this moment. And I

Sabba Quidwai:

think a lot of people will find that their decisions don't mean

Sabba Quidwai:

more technology. They need more hey, we need to create more

Sabba Quidwai:

experiences for people and for kids to work together, to do

Sabba Quidwai:

things together, and then technology will play a role in

Sabba Quidwai:

amplifying that where appropriate. I love

Ashley Cross:

that. Here at ATLIS, we actually have a

Ashley Cross:

strategy that we've done at our staff retreat before, which is

Ashley Cross:

basically laying out like, what are the big projects that we

Ashley Cross:

need to accomplish in the upcoming year? And then it

Ashley Cross:

doesn't matter what your title is, what your role said, but

Ashley Cross:

basically going through and marking like, Okay, who would be

Ashley Cross:

a really good fit with their skill set? And, you know, what

Ashley Cross:

are they passionate about? And, like, what do they bring to the

Ashley Cross:

table? Where does the organization really need you?

Ashley Cross:

And then we kind of go, and we mark a primary and a secondary

Ashley Cross:

on each and then we sit back and look at it and say, Okay, let's

Ashley Cross:

cluster these things. Does this make sense? Is this person too

Ashley Cross:

overworked? And, you know, it's not something that you can do at

Ashley Cross:

a massive scale, and at some point it becomes quite

Ashley Cross:

difficult. But as we think about our tech directors with their

Ashley Cross:

teams, you know, I think that there are some aspects of this

Ashley Cross:

that they can take back and think creatively as they're

Ashley Cross:

moving forward to help support their schools.

Sabba Quidwai:

Yeah, totally. And I love that you have such a

Sabba Quidwai:

tangible example of that, because that's one of the

Sabba Quidwai:

examples that we show with notebook LM for leaders. Like,

Sabba Quidwai:

if you run these assessment types, you're right. It is hard

Sabba Quidwai:

to do it at scale, but not for notebook. Lm, you can throw it

Sabba Quidwai:

all in there, and it will gladly do that work for you all day

Sabba Quidwai:

long, you know. So I think that's a really great one. You

Sabba Quidwai:

said something else that was really interesting. Oh, yeah,

Sabba Quidwai:

the primary and secondary. Like, that's the spark type. Like,

Sabba Quidwai:

they do your primary strength, your secondary strength. So,

Sabba Quidwai:

yeah, I think those are amazing places to start. And I don't

Sabba Quidwai:

know if you saw the latest update with chat GPT, which is

Sabba Quidwai:

pulse. They only rolled it out to the pro the $200 subscription

Sabba Quidwai:

model they have. But like, say, for example, you were using chat

Sabba Quidwai:

GPT to do those projects and manage those projects. Every

Sabba Quidwai:

morning, it gets up and it tells you what should be on the

Sabba Quidwai:

agenda. Like, Oh, hey, this is a priority of yours. Have you

Sabba Quidwai:

considered this or here's a goal to make sure you're checking in

Sabba Quidwai:

with and so we talk a lot with, you know, you said you listen to

Sabba Quidwai:

the dance with Patrick, we talk a lot about, I think we worry

Sabba Quidwai:

too much about thinking and not enough about human agency. And

Sabba Quidwai:

one of the things that is a priority for the AI companies

Sabba Quidwai:

with their tools is agency. And I think chat GPT pulse, this

Sabba Quidwai:

gave everyone a really tangible look at what it looks like when

Sabba Quidwai:

your AI tool has agency. Because how many co workers are coming

Sabba Quidwai:

in every day and saying, Yeah, where are we today on this

Sabba Quidwai:

project? Like, have we moved forward today on this goal? You

Sabba Quidwai:

know, they always say, right? Like, atomic habits, break it

Sabba Quidwai:

down, very hard for us to do. But here's your AI tool every

Sabba Quidwai:

single day, showing up with those check ins taking that

Sabba Quidwai:

initiative, and that's agency, and I think we really want to

Sabba Quidwai:

make sure that people at least are on par when it comes to

Sabba Quidwai:

agency with these AI tools, but definitely not lower than them

Sabba Quidwai:

in that space.

Ashley Cross:

Well, let's double down on that. So Dan Patrick

Ashley Cross:

actually just wrote an article about you in Forbes, and it was

Ashley Cross:

talking about the keynote that you did for the back to school.

Ashley Cross:

Ai Hiram was able to attend that one. But you were talking about

Ashley Cross:

agency as the new literacy in this article. And I feel like

Ashley Cross:

independent schools in particular have a huge

Ashley Cross:

opportunity here, because independent schools are nimble,

Ashley Cross:

right? This is what they're all about. So do you have any advice

Ashley Cross:

for how these schools can provide agency in a meaningful

Ashley Cross:

way.

Sabba Quidwai:

Yeah, it looks so different, right, in so many

Sabba Quidwai:

different things, but I think agency a really part of it is

Sabba Quidwai:

confidence. And I think confidence comes from knowing

Sabba Quidwai:

who you are, what you believe and what you value. And I think

Sabba Quidwai:

the integration of those conversations can happen on

Sabba Quidwai:

many, many, many different levels, but I think one of the

Sabba Quidwai:

most exciting things to nurture is that entrepreneurial mindset.

Sabba Quidwai:

It was one of my favorite examples from design 39 like,

Sabba Quidwai:

when you say, like, you know, as an independent school, you're

Sabba Quidwai:

nimble. You know, one of the things that I don't know why

Sabba Quidwai:

more people don't do is, like, why are you not merging

Sabba Quidwai:

curriculum? Like, why are we still so siloed, even if you

Sabba Quidwai:

can't merge your people, these AI tools are so good. Like, you

Sabba Quidwai:

don't even have to merge people anymore. We can now even co

Sabba Quidwai:

create these, like gems, GPT, whatever that can start to be

Sabba Quidwai:

the beginnings of bridging silos until we kind of figure out what

Sabba Quidwai:

that looks like. But I think more interdisciplinary, more

Sabba Quidwai:

entrepreneurial mindset being able to have kids create things

Sabba Quidwai:

like they're already doing this. Kids are doing unbelievable

Sabba Quidwai:

projects outside of school. Many, many, many of them, and

Sabba Quidwai:

they don't always make the connection to learning. When

Sabba Quidwai:

doing those projects, we do a lot of work with kids on

Sabba Quidwai:

portfolios. A lot of times we'll ask them, like, Okay, tell me

Sabba Quidwai:

some of the things you're working on. And they'll be like,

Sabba Quidwai:

Well, I don't really have any projects. And they'll be like,

Sabba Quidwai:

Okay, it's not until we start saying, Well, tell me what else

Sabba Quidwai:

you're doing outside of school. Then they start mentioning all

Sabba Quidwai:

these things. And we're like, you realize, like, those are

Sabba Quidwai:

projects? Like you're showing these skills and all these

Sabba Quidwai:

things over here. So I think kids are doing a lot of things.

Sabba Quidwai:

They're seeing a lot of things. But I think what that

Sabba Quidwai:

entrepreneurial mindset does is it trains your brain to not just

Sabba Quidwai:

connect dots, but look for dots. Be the person who can identify

Sabba Quidwai:

the white spaces, tons of them, tons of them everywhere. But

Sabba Quidwai:

train your mind to see those things and not just be the

Sabba Quidwai:

person who sees them, the person who sees them, and is like, I

Sabba Quidwai:

can do something. I can get these people together. We can

Sabba Quidwai:

use people in AI. Or maybe I'm just using AI to be able to go

Sabba Quidwai:

after the connection of these dots that I see for something

Sabba Quidwai:

I'm passionate about solving. Like just the other day, my

Sabba Quidwai:

nephew, who's five, he kept losing something, and he was

Sabba Quidwai:

like, You know what? I'm going to make an app that when I wake

Sabba Quidwai:

up, it's going to just find the thing that I want to take a

Sabba Quidwai:

picture, and it's going to find the thing that I lost. And I was

Sabba Quidwai:

like, You know what's so cool is we can actually take him into

Sabba Quidwai:

Canva today, right? For free. Anybody can do this, right?

Sabba Quidwai:

Anybody to take their kid into Canva for you. Let's hit that

Sabba Quidwai:

out. Tell me what you want that app to do. Tell me a little bit

Sabba Quidwai:

more about this. That was more technical things involved, but

Sabba Quidwai:

just that moment of he had an idea, I can open up Canva and

Sabba Quidwai:

show him a prototype of what that could look like in five

Sabba Quidwai:

minutes. Is something that we've never had before. Right before

Sabba Quidwai:

would be like, well, you need to learn how to code, like, put you

Sabba Quidwai:

in a coding camp, or maybe this, or, yeah, maybe later and

Sabba Quidwai:

whatnot, or draw a picture what you want to look like, but the

Sabba Quidwai:

fact that I can make it real is truly, truly, truly remarkable.

Sabba Quidwai:

I'm just using cans like they could lovable. We could GPT. We

Sabba Quidwai:

can do so many things. And I think, to me, that's the

Sabba Quidwai:

opportunity. And when you see those dots connected in that

Sabba Quidwai:

way, it reinforces that confidence and empowerment. I

Sabba Quidwai:

have an idea I can do something about it. So I think that

Sabba Quidwai:

mindset is really important for young people. When it comes to

Sabba Quidwai:

agents, that's the agency. I see something, and I believe I can

Sabba Quidwai:

do something about it. I have my voice, I have the skills. I have

Sabba Quidwai:

people, whatever those things are, and I can do something. I

Sabba Quidwai:

can act on it, not just think about it and let it whittle away

Ashley Cross:

absolutely so you are so tapped into all of these

Ashley Cross:

different research studies that come out, all the latest

Ashley Cross:

articles, all the things your podcast is absolutely

Ashley Cross:

incredible. We're going to put a link to that in the show notes,

Ashley Cross:

by the way. How do you stay up to date with everything? Do you

Ashley Cross:

have some advice for our listeners on where to go to help

Ashley Cross:

sort through some of this amazing content that's being put

Ashley Cross:

out into the world,

Sabba Quidwai:

I would say two things, and they're just the

Sabba Quidwai:

exact same thing, two things that I do. So, number one, we

Sabba Quidwai:

have this thing called Build a power circle, and you should

Sabba Quidwai:

have like, a core group of people that you're learning

Sabba Quidwai:

with. These are people where they're randomly sending you

Sabba Quidwai:

articles. They're randomly talking to you about a podcast.

Sabba Quidwai:

It's a bite sized micro learning happening through a text

Sabba Quidwai:

message, just through a conversation with them. But you

Sabba Quidwai:

should have a power circle, people who not always, are doing

Sabba Quidwai:

what you're doing. But for example, in your power circle,

Sabba Quidwai:

clearly you have these friends that are in these different

Sabba Quidwai:

industries, that you're having coffee, whatever. They should

Sabba Quidwai:

not all be from the same place. Otherwise, you're in an echo

Sabba Quidwai:

chamber. And those people should be the people should be the

Sabba Quidwai:

people that you're learning from, you're sharing with

Sabba Quidwai:

whatever. Then my other recommendation is have an outlet

Sabba Quidwai:

for where you are reflecting. So one of the reasons we do the

Sabba Quidwai:

podcast, we do two types of podcasts. We do one that's way

Sabba Quidwai:

more formally edited, and we do another one where me and Stefan

Sabba Quidwai:

just get him a call, because since day one, he was one of the

Sabba Quidwai:

people that was like in my power circle. And we were always share

Sabba Quidwai:

having these conversations. And one day we were just like, why

Sabba Quidwai:

do we not share these conversations with people? Like,

Sabba Quidwai:

we have such amazing conversations, let's just share

Sabba Quidwai:

them, and let's just get on once a week and record. It's not

Sabba Quidwai:

polished, it's not edited, it's not anything at all. It's just

Sabba Quidwai:

us getting on and talking about news we read that week. And so

Sabba Quidwai:

for you, it doesn't have to be a podcast, and it doesn't even

Sabba Quidwai:

have to be something that maybe you share externally, can even

Sabba Quidwai:

be something you share internally. But I do think one

Sabba Quidwai:

knowing how do you learn is really important. It's not

Sabba Quidwai:

always through writing, and maybe that is for you. So maybe

Sabba Quidwai:

you do a weekly reflection blog post of what you learned this

Sabba Quidwai:

week, and one new thing you tried, maybe for you, it's video

Sabba Quidwai:

and recording or audio. Do that thing. It doesn't even have to

Sabba Quidwai:

be shared publicly. Do it for yourself. I find that speaking

Sabba Quidwai:

helps me think out loud, but that's how I learn, and that's

Sabba Quidwai:

what works for me. For somebody else, it might be something

Sabba Quidwai:

else. And so those are the two things that I would recommend.

Sabba Quidwai:

Number one, have a power circle. Number two, have an outlet for

Sabba Quidwai:

where you are reflecting and documenting that learning.

Sabba Quidwai:

Because those are the two pieces. What I don't recommend

Sabba Quidwai:

is having a bunch of newsletters that you just get up and read

Sabba Quidwai:

every morning and then go about your day. It gives you an

Sabba Quidwai:

illusion of learning, where you have a lot of knowledge but no

Sabba Quidwai:

agency then to act on that knowledge and learning so bite

Sabba Quidwai:

size, whatever that is for you, even if it's a journal, whatever

Sabba Quidwai:

that outlet is a group of people that you learn from a place

Sabba Quidwai:

where you output that learning, and I think that is really

Sabba Quidwai:

helpful.

Hiram Cuevas:

You made me think back a few years to Google

Hiram Cuevas:

Reader. That was a wonderful little app where you could

Hiram Cuevas:

collect all of your headlines and kind of scoop things up in

Hiram Cuevas:

today's version of Google Reader, where you have the

Hiram Cuevas:

capacity now to aggregate so much content, use something

Hiram Cuevas:

like. Notebook. Lm, have you engaged in a conversation with

Hiram Cuevas:

AI as part of your own reflections?

Sabba Quidwai:

Oh, yeah, absolutely. One of the things

Sabba Quidwai:

I'll often do is I'll put articles both through chat GPT

Sabba Quidwai:

and Gemini. And I find that repeatedly chat GPT gets PDFs

Sabba Quidwai:

super mixed up, like I find it so unreliable for not data

Sabba Quidwai:

analysis off of like an Excel or a CSV sheet. But I find that

Sabba Quidwai:

when you put a PDF article in, I think it's sometimes how the

Sabba Quidwai:

article is transcribed or written, but sometimes what's

Sabba Quidwai:

even more weird is, like, if you tell it like, hey, that is not

Sabba Quidwai:

what I shared, it will like, apologize and then get it right.

Sabba Quidwai:

I actually learned about that the first time, because I got in

Sabba Quidwai:

an accident with my Tesla, and I was like, freaking out, somebody

Sabba Quidwai:

hit me from behind. I had no idea how much data Tesla

Sabba Quidwai:

collects, like, on your driving, and so they give you a full

Sabba Quidwai:

report, like, it's a full assessment on your driving. If

Sabba Quidwai:

somebody was greeting you when you're driving, like every

Sabba Quidwai:

single second, that's what it has, pages and pages and pages

Sabba Quidwai:

of graphs and all these things. And it will even tell you, like,

Sabba Quidwai:

when you break, this is the time between your breaking. This is

Sabba Quidwai:

how long it took you to get from this to this. And so, like, if

Sabba Quidwai:

you're not the one at fault, you're amazing, you're covered,

Sabba Quidwai:

you've got the data you need, God forbid, you're the one at

Sabba Quidwai:

fault. And like, there was no getting around what it is that

Sabba Quidwai:

you did. Anyways, I put that into chat GPT, and even though

Sabba Quidwai:

it wasn't my fault, it just freaked me out, because these

Sabba Quidwai:

days, people call lawyers before their insurance companies. I

Sabba Quidwai:

hadn't had an accident 15 years and I was just like, mind

Sabba Quidwai:

blowing. But I was like, That did not happen 15 years ago. And

Sabba Quidwai:

so I was just like, these people had the lawyers and this I was

Sabba Quidwai:

like, going to chat GPT. I was like, Should I be worried about

Sabba Quidwai:

something like, what's going on? Anyways, chat GPT could not read

Sabba Quidwai:

that report at all Gemini could, and so it was the first time I

Sabba Quidwai:

got a real glimpse into like, oh, whoa. Like, be really

Sabba Quidwai:

careful, like, with things and along those lines. So I think

Sabba Quidwai:

that's one tool. I think when you do these things, you also

Sabba Quidwai:

learn things that might not have been on your radar, what works

Sabba Quidwai:

best for what and things like that. I find if I want to script

Sabba Quidwai:

something or do something or work through information, chat,

Sabba Quidwai:

GPT does a much better job. Gemini is like to talk about too

Sabba Quidwai:

much wordiness and whatnot, but yeah, absolutely like engaging

Sabba Quidwai:

with these tools, asking questions, being able to put in

Sabba Quidwai:

multiple things and be like, connect these dots for me,

Sabba Quidwai:

between all of these different topics and things like that.

Sabba Quidwai:

That's, I think, really fun to do.

Ashley Cross:

Thank you. And our final question of the day, we

Ashley Cross:

like to ask our guest about their favorite podcast. So not

Ashley Cross:

necessarily one that you're using for professional use,

Ashley Cross:

though you can share that if you really want, but a personal

Ashley Cross:

like, what's your favorite podcast to

Sabba Quidwai:

listen to? I'll give you two, because they both

Sabba Quidwai:

balance each other out. Okay, so the first one is like knowledge,

Sabba Quidwai:

the other one's like mindset. So actually, no, I'm gonna do

Sabba Quidwai:

three, because I think these three are just like, sorry, I

Sabba Quidwai:

can't choose one, so my first one would be Diary of a CEO. I

Sabba Quidwai:

think the way he interviews people, I think it's, like,

Sabba Quidwai:

unreal today that we can, like, sit in on a two hour, one hour

Sabba Quidwai:

conversation between people like this that you would otherwise

Sabba Quidwai:

never, maybe have access to, or ever even meet. So the fact that

Sabba Quidwai:

you get into their thoughts, into their mind, and like, he's

Sabba Quidwai:

always bringing on super, like, interesting people that cover a

Sabba Quidwai:

variety of topics. So I think that is number one. Number two

Sabba Quidwai:

is, I really like the artificial intelligence show by Paul

Sabba Quidwai:

routzer and Mike Kip put I think every single week they do a

Sabba Quidwai:

really good job of summarizing the news. It's very broad. Like

Sabba Quidwai:

our podcast is very much focused on education leaders. Theirs is

Sabba Quidwai:

just like, very, very, very broad. But again, if you're

Sabba Quidwai:

somebody who's like, I really struggle to keep up. I, you

Sabba Quidwai:

know, don't know where to look, what to do, you could just

Sabba Quidwai:

listen to these three things and nothing else, and you'd be ahead

Sabba Quidwai:

of 90% of people. Like, you'd be in the top 5% so dire the CEO

Sabba Quidwai:

the artificial intelligence show. And the last one is

Sabba Quidwai:

mindset. And that's Mel Robbins. I think these first two are

Sabba Quidwai:

knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, but if you don't have the

Sabba Quidwai:

confidence or agency to act on that knowledge, it's very hard.

Sabba Quidwai:

And I think Mel Robbins, week after week, gives really

Sabba Quidwai:

tangible strategies for building your own self awareness and your

Sabba Quidwai:

confidence that strategies as a change management leader to be

Sabba Quidwai:

able to do for other people as well. So to me, it's the

Sabba Quidwai:

intersection of these three that will put you in the top 5%

Ashley Cross:

Dr, sadma, Kip, Bye, everybody. Thank you so

Ashley Cross:

much. It's been wonderful having you. You were great. Oh,

Sabba Quidwai:

thank you so much. It's nice to chat with you

Sabba Quidwai:

guys.

Peter Frank:

This has been talking technology with ATLIS,

Peter Frank:

produced by the Association of technology leaders in

Peter Frank:

independent schools. For more information about Atlas and

Peter Frank:

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

Peter Frank:

this discussion, please subscribe, leave a review and

Peter Frank:

share this podcast with your colleagues in the independent

Peter Frank:

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